Codependent Doctor
Podcast focusing on codependency. Learning how to create healthier relationships, healthier self and healthier lives.
Codependent Doctor
63: Breaking Free from People-Pleasing: Jason Johnson on Overcoming Detrimental Kindness
In this episode of The Codependent Doctor, I’m sitting down with Emotional Freedom & Transformation Coach Jason Johnson to talk about what he calls detrimental kindness, that sneaky pattern of being “too nice” at your own expense. We explore how overgiving, people-pleasing, and chronic guilt quietly erode your health, identity, and relationships, and how to begin practicing kindness in a way that actually includes you. Jason walks us through his RELEASE Framework™, a simple roadmap to recognize your patterns, let go of guilt, reclaim your voice, and start setting boundaries without feeling like a terrible person. He also shares honestly about his own journey with addiction, self-sabotage, and overgiving, and the turning point that helped him stop abandoning himself in the name of being “the good friend.” If you’ve ever felt resentful after saying yes, or afraid that saying no makes you selfish, this conversation will help you see that you’re not broken—you’re programmed, and you can be re-programmed.
Connect with Jason:
Instagram: @coachjasonjohnson
Facebook: @jasonjohnson
Jason’s book: Detrimental Kindness: How Not to Lose Yourself While Helping Others. (As an Amazon affiliate, I may earn a small commission if you purchase through this link, at no extra cost to you.)
This episode includes a paid partnership with BetterHelp. Click this link, betterhelp.com/drdowney, to get 10% off your first month.
📗 My Books: Enough as I Am (codependency recovery) Enough as I Grow (365 day guide journal). Affiliate disclosure: I am an affiliate parner with Amazon and therefore receive a commission at no cost to you.
📙My Favorite books:
Daring Greatly by Brenee Brown, It Begins With You by Jillian Turecki, Becoming Bulletproof by Evy Poumpouras, The Let Them Theory by Mel Robbins, Real Self-Care by Pooja Lakshmin.
Affiliate disclosure: I am an affiliate parner with Amazon and therefore receive a commission at no cost to you.
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🎵 Music: Touching The Air by Graceful Movement
Today's episode is all about breaking free from that exhausting cycle of being too nice. You know when that kindness turns into self-abandonment, overgiving, and guilt. My guest, Jason Johnson, is here to share how detrimental kindness shows up in our lives and what we can do instead. We're gonna dive into his release framework, which is a simple, practical way to let go of guilt, reclaim your boundaries, and start living more authentically. And you'll also hear Jason's own personal story of transformation, which I think is gonna inspire you to believe that change is possible for you too. Welcome to the Codependent Doctor, a podcast where we unpack the messy, beautiful journey of healing from codependency. If you're burned out from people pleasing, stuck in unhealthy patterns, or just tired of putting yourself last, you're in the right place. I'm Dr. Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow codependent, and I'm here to help you reconnect to your authentic self, one honest conversation at a time. Here we go. Hello to all my wonderful podcast listeners, and welcome to the Codependent Doctor. I'm your host, Dr. Angela Downey, a family doctor and fellow codependent, here to help us untangle our patterns, heal our hearts, and reclaim our peace. For today's episode, we have a guest with us. Jason Johnson is an emotional freedom and transformation coach, author and creator of Detrimental Kindness and the Release Framework. With over a decade of coaching experience, Jason helps people break free from people-pleasing, overgiving, and self-abandonment so that they can reclaim their power and live authentically. He is also the author of multiple coloring books and combines personal experience, psychological insights, and coaching to inspire sustainable change to those that he works with. I'm really excited to have Jason here today because he brings such a unique perspective on something so many of us are struggling with: people pleasing and giving until we are completely depleted. What I love about this approach is that it's not just theory, it's a created framework that's really easy to remember and actually put into practice in everyday life. So, my friends, help me in welcoming Jason Johnson to the show. So, welcome, Jason. I'm so glad that you're able to join us today. How are you?
SPEAKER_01:I'm doing well. Thank you so much for asking. And it's uh it's a pleasure to be here. It's a pet pleasure uh to be in a space uh with um individuals like yourself who uh just have a space where we can come and have like an open conversation uh about different things and especially about like our well-being. So thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. I'm so glad that you're able to make it. And I really appreciate when people are able to come on the show and share some of their stories and are willing to be vulnerable uh with my audience. They they're able to learn a lot when we when we open up a little bit. Jason, one of the traditions on my show is that we discuss what we're grateful for because when we stop and think about what we're grateful for, it helps our brains focus on the things that are working in our lives instead of what's missing or what's broken. So I'd like to ask you, is there anything that you're especially grateful for today?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, what what came to mind this morning uh was present. I'm grateful for presence. Uh I noticed that uh my mind at times uh can get a little jumpy. It jumps from one idea uh to the next, um, which I know sometimes that's gonna happen, right? Have things to do, to-do list or whatnot. Uh but just to just be in the moment, uh, allowing my mind to maybe jump from something that happened or jump to something that may happen uh is okay, but I get to just be present and watch what's going on. I don't have to get caught into it. Uh I just get to just be. Um, so that's what I'm grateful for, is presence.
SPEAKER_00:That's amazing. I tend to have two modes. I have scattered brain where I my mind's all over the place, or where I become hyper-focused and obsessed about one particular thing. Not sure what that's all about, but I do like taking that time to just sit and focus on being present, but it's not something that naturally comes to me at all. But absolutely super important to be grounded in the present. For me, I I love nature. I like, I love wildlife, and I'm so grateful for my neighborhood. It is just taming with deer. And this year we've had several babies come out. And this morning I was watching them just being super goofy in the field out across my house. It's fantastic. I love these uh goofy little guys. They're pr they're funny. Yeah, nice to watch. So maybe we can start by having you introduce yourself and tell us about your journey to becoming a coach and an author.
SPEAKER_01:Sure. Yeah. I'm Jason Johnson, and I am the author of several coloring books. Uh, they are uh transformational coloring books, I call them, because they take you on a journey of expressing yourself but through art. Um, I'm also the author of a book or my book that was just published back at the end of June. Uh it is called Detrimental Kindness, um, how not to lose yourself while helping others. Um, it has been quite the experience, not only writing the book, but connecting with people about this uh very, very important topic. So, as far as like my coaching experience, I started off as a fitness coach, uh, helping people hit their health goals, whether it was uh losing weight or you know, working on improving like their uh health conditions, like maybe high blood sugar or high blood pressure, that type of thing. Um, and then I started to notice like more patterns beyond just the physical. Uh, we are more than just the physical. So I noticed that things kept popping up. So I uh began to kind of expand and work with individuals who maybe did not have a physical goal uh that they wanted to accomplish. Maybe it was something else, like having boundaries uh in their relationships or just having peace of mind. Uh so that's how I kind of uh I guess you'd say, I don't know, maybe morphed uh into becoming like a life coach or I say transformational coach, really helping individuals take their life into their own hands uh and and get to a place where they are just simply okay uh with who they are and what they're up to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, there is a connection between how we eat and and how we take care of ourselves on a daily basis and how our mental health is doing. So sometimes if if things aren't going well in our minds, we are codependent, we're not able to set boundaries, then we end up eating to kind of cope with some of those feelings that we just don't know how to fix. So it really is all interrelated.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it definitely is. And I always tell clients if if I leave them with no other piece of advice is that we're not going to be perfect at it either. I still have moments where I notice where I'm like stressed or having to run, and there is still that tendency or default to want to grab something or do some other type of process. Um, but I'm able to catch it now, and that's why I said I'm grateful for presence because it reminds me when that panic mode kicks in that okay, I just need to take a quick moment. Sometimes it's like just a minute. Um, one of my favorite things to do is to practice box breathing, which is breathing in for four minutes. Yep, you hold it for four seconds, you uh breathe out for four seconds, and then you actually hold it out for four seconds as well. And my mind still is kind of a little bit jumpy there as well, but it brings me back to like, okay, I am here uh and I am present. Um, so yeah, it's totally connected. We're not going to be perfect at it, uh, but it's about making progress.
SPEAKER_00:So your book is called Detrimental Kindness, and this is kind of a phrase that you've coined for yourself. So can you break that down? What does that look like in everyday life and why this is particularly important for codependence?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I love that question. Thanks for asking. Um, so detrimental kindness, and it sounds like uh, I don't know, maybe an oxymoron. Like people kind of raise their eyebrows, like, wait, what? How can kindness be bad or be detrimental? And it came from personal experience of just naturally being the type of individual that likes to give, that loves helping others. But I had realized over a period of time that my kindness became detrimental, meaning that I was actually damaging myself in different ways. The number one sign that I saw was that I was that I was resentful. And so it didn't mean that I wasn't giving out of the kindness of my heart, but in that giving, I was leaving myself out, or I was leaving myself in a position to be resentful, to be frustrated, or to even hide uh as well. That is why I say that it's detrimental because the other person is on the receiving end, but the giver uh is actually being uh left out, or the giver is being uh not necessarily hurt, but shortchanged uh in some type of way. Uh so that's where the phrase detrimental kindness came from. And it's important, I would say, for codependents, because there is a tendency with codependents to feel that their worth or their value is tied to what you can do for others or for being needed. Um and I noticed that pattern in myself. Like I would go into different situations or events, and before like even engaging with anyone, my thought was okay, what can I do? Uh I have to be doing something to show that I like am wanted here. And it's not to judge anyone or say that we're wrong or bad for that. I know that it's programming, it's how we were trained, uh, some of us as individuals, to be that way, or maybe something happened, and we adopted that belief that I have to be doing something in order to be valuable to someone, and that doing can go too far. And I've done it in many different types of ways, financially, mentally, emotionally, even professionally at work, it has happened uh as well. Um, so that's why it's important because there are a lot of people out there who are silently giving, but the resentment is brewing inside, and it's to the very people that they really love and adore and cherish. And that's not fair to either party because we're not being authentic with our kindness. We're actually being fake. So that's really what the bottom line of detrimental kindness is, is it's not authentic.
SPEAKER_00:We get used to saying like yes all the time and doing things, and even though we become resentful of people, trying to shift that is really hard, and we feel guilty, even for saying no to someone. So, what are some of the signs that kindness has crossed over into self-abandonment?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, uh, one of those I would say is resentment. Uh, I am also an addiction recovery, and one thing they taught us in that world is that resentment is the number one offender. I had no idea back then when I first learned it that it would actually come around again and apply to this topic. So I'd say that resentment is the number one sign if you feel um, you know, that someone else is doing something wrong or or bad just by them asking you, or after the fact, you're like, why did I say that? And they're really just taking advantage of me. I would say that that is going to be one of the number one signs that the kindness has gone uh too far. It can show up physically uh as well. Anything from a headache to um, you know, you looking at your bank account, not having as much as you had hoped because you had spent it somewhere where you knew that you were overgiving. Uh, it can also show up uh in, I would say, more of a quiet way. Uh, and that's where you start to cancel out your hopes and your dreams. You do not take on the career, or not you, but in general, we don't take on maybe the career that we were hoping to go to because we were maybe trying to please someone else, or we thought that we would be judged or shame uh for doing that. So I would say that's the number two sign is canceling out what you actually want and what's important for us. Um, that is the number two sign. And then the number three sign that I would say when it comes to detrimental kindness is keeping the peace, avoiding conflict. I would say that that's could be a bigger sign also uh of knowing that the kindness is going too far because you uh know what your limits are, right? But we don't voice them, uh, we don't share what those are with other people. Uh we allow them to cross them and then we say that, you know, we're a victim, but as difficult as this was for me to learn, I had actually trained other people on how to take advantage of me. And even uh Angela, it's crazy. They even some of them even told me, like, hey, I'm just gonna take advantage of you, like literally would say that. And that's how I knew that wow, this is somehow interesting when someone actually is so comfortable with taking advantage of you that they basically tell you that they're going to do it and maybe justify it, like, hey, remember how you said that you're okay with XYZ? And you're thinking, actually, no, I'm not. So that's a sign that it's gone too far. Is there's that one thing on the outside, but the inner experience is something completely different.
SPEAKER_00:I definitely rem remember being resentful of people. And they kept asking me, and I kept saying yes. And it was hard for me to recognize that I was allowing this to happen. And no nobody can walk all over me unless I let them. So it was hard for me to to recognize the role that I was playing in in all of this. And um so it's tough to start saying no uh to these people and you feel horrible and you don't know where you stand anymore because you're that person who does everything for people. So what happens when you start saying no and you're not that person anymore? So how do you how do you deal with that that guilt and that shift?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that guilt, yeah, that that is a shift. And I notice it with myself and also with people that I've worked with that the moment you say or start saying no, uh, or even giving yourself time, even before you say no, see, one of my tools is to give myself a little bit of time when someone asks me for something, uh, I'll say, hey, uh, let me think on that and then I'll get back to you. And at first, like literally my hands were shaking, like, okay, this is not gonna go too well. Uh, but getting that gap or even saying no, it is to, I would say, a natural response because we're breaking the pattern. Uh, what I learned uh in in school, I studied psychology, is there are pathways in the brain that have been built over time from this habit, the habitual uh saying yes. So once we break it, to the brain is like, uh, what's going on here? How come we're saying no all of a sudden? It doesn't think that or know that, but the the the response to the internal nervous system.
SPEAKER_00:And it can be really scary. It can be scary to say no.
SPEAKER_01:So I would say number one, to have patience uh with ourselves. It's not going to be an overnight matter. Those uh what is the phrase? Neuroplasticity, there it is. It takes time to form those new pathways. The brain needs more repetition uh in order to get used to the no. Uh so breath work can help. It's one of my bigger go-to's, and I like box breathing because you can kind of do it, and no one else actually really even notices that you're doing it. Even while I'm working out, sometimes I'll do it. So it kind of brings me back to be in my body instead of running from the panic, I'm actually just sitting with it. Um, and then another thing to get used to the no is we have to start changing our beliefs uh about what no means. I think for a lot of people, the no means that you're a bad person, you are an evil person.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes I feel like I'm punishing the other person by saying no. It's it's interesting that you say that you um you don't say yes right away. You give yourself a little bit of time and and just taking that like three seconds even just to check in with yourself. Are you feeling excited about this opportunity? Are you dreading it a little bit and and paying attention to those cues that your body is giving you so that you you can respond with how you actually feel. And sometimes that just means telling someone, thank you for thinking of me, give me uh give me some time to think about that, or letting a phone call go to voicemail, not answering those text messages right away. And just to kind of create some space between when you have to say yes or no to really check in with yourself and see if this is something you want to do.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. Because when that yes or that answer, whatever it is, comes too soon for some people, they immediately regret it. Uh, and that is no way to listen, really, because it's just it's not fair to ourselves. It's I know we we you know are thinking about ourselves, but it's not fair to the other person either, because when you're in a relationship with someone, and I'm just not talking about like dating or being married, I'm talking about like your boss, your mom, your dad, your siblings, your cousin, whoever it is, they really need to know where you are with things, what your your thinking is. And no, we don't have to reveal every intimate detail to them, but we also cannot be giving out false impressions uh because this can lead it to a lot of other things that may not be good for us uh down the road. Um, so one other thing that I tell clients uh about saying no is to change the beliefs, start to challenge their beliefs, question like, am I really a cruel person? Am I really being mean or or hateful to someone else by saying no? I argue against that. I say that you're actually being kind and not that we need to just start saying no to every single thing. Obviously, yes, we can help people and say yes. Um, but the thing is, is when we um how can I best put this here? It's almost like I I like to go back to the idea of like children and the idea of sharing. Um they're taught, right? A lot of times they're taught you have to share with others, right? But if we think about it, when they're taught to share, no one's actually teaching them what's left behind for them. You can even take the example of like cookies. If you have five cookies and you give away all five, there are no cookies left over for yourself. So the reason we have to pause and think about it is because we really do have to uh create a boundary, which does not mean that we're shutting other people out. We're actually protecting what's on the inside there. Uh we're protecting our dignity, our worth, our value.
SPEAKER_00:So you're talking about practicing kindness in a way that includes you, right? So you need to make sure that there's still one cookie left at a minimum for you at the end.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Or if there are no cookies left, that you're actually okay with that. Because I do realize that being in a relationship or being in whatever it is kind of situation, sometimes, yeah, there might not be anything left. But I think the problem comes a lot of times when we keep doing this over and over and over, and we're also not okay with it. So when we automatically say yes, we don't even have time to think if I'm actually like leaving something for me or if I'm seriously okay with uh what's left or what's not left for me.
SPEAKER_00:How do you address feeling selfish for when you try to back out of these people pleasing tendencies and starting to say no? Growing up, I was it was kind of taught and ingrained in me that I, you know, would be selfless and I would give myself to like help other people and and be there for other people. So sometimes it feels really selfish if I'm not saying yes to them.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. This is actually what I wanted to say earlier. I lost my train of thought. But yes, it takes uh reframing these beliefs that we have and challenging these beliefs, questioning ourselves, like, am I actually really being selfish uh by doing this action? And a lot of times the answer is probably no. And there's ways to know if you're being selfish or not. Um so it really comes down to, as I was saying earlier, what we're actually okay with. Um if we're okay with being left, um, you know, kind of in the red, we say, then that is actually okay. If we know how to recuperate, if we know how to move on or transition from that, then that's totally fine. Uh, but it really takes challenging these beliefs. Um, there is a practice that I like to do. Uh, it is called the yes check. Um, and that is when someone asks you for something, um, you ask yourself, am I actually doing this because I really want to, or am I doing this because I'm actually afraid of what's going to happen, or if I say no. Uh, so a lot of us have no and selfish tied together. And that is just a belief that that gets to be broken. And it comes with practice, we get more confident, the more we answer authentically or make agreements more authentically, the less power that guilt and that feeling of being selfish is going to have over us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:For sure. What is one myth about people pleasing or boundaries that you would love to bust?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, there are a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, let's let's list them.
SPEAKER_01:I'd love to hear these. One of them you just mentioned that I'm selfish if I say no. Uh, other people also I've noticed uh think that, you know, if you um if you set boundaries with other people, um then you're being like uh selfish, like you said, or that you're being uh a bad person by having boundaries. Because I have literally seen, I saw something online the other day where someone said uh in some sort of relationship or situation, well, there should be no boundaries between this person and the other person. Uh and I beg to differ there. Uh it does to me, it doesn't matter what situation it is, whether it's work uh or even like in a marriage or a relationship, there still have to be boundaries because sometimes it's not that we're with unhealthy individuals, but there might be something unhealthy, like an unhealthy element about the situation. And if that person does not know how to like manage their anger or manage whatever it is, their sadness, then we have to know our own limits of how we're willing to interact with those other people. Because if you just take on everybody's problems, there's going to be burnout. So that is, I think, one of the bigger myths that we have to bust is that there should be like no limits, no boundaries. Uh and so I think the myth there is that by having a boundary, I'm like creating this big wall with other people. I'm shutting them out. When actually I'm not, I'm actually welcoming them in, but I'm welcoming them in with some structure. Yeah, it's like I like to say that it's love with structure. So that would be the myth, I guess, is that no boundaries. But I would say the reality is you're actually creating uh more room and more space in the relationship because everybody, everything is all out on the table about what you're willing to do and what you're not willing to do. And that to me is freedom. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's it's tough when you start setting boundaries. It uh it's it's it's tough, and it does require that mindset shift to to be able to do it and and realize that you're not being mean to the other person, you're not shutting them out, you're really just protecting your space and and your peace.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. Yeah, because if we look around at different things in society, uh one thing that's coming to mind is uh like responsibility and accountability. And I think that setting boundaries is directly in line with being accountable and being responsible, because if we allow people to do things that are violating us or maybe even themselves, then we are actually taking part. I laugh out loud because I recognize the truth in it. We're actually taking in part in something, here's that word again, detrimental. Uh and for me, it just you know, when you're in it, you're in it, right? But now that I'm uh I guess I'll say on the other side or have found a solution to it, uh, now I'm paying attention, like I cannot participate in certain things because of my morals, because of my values. Um so it's really about having a gut check with yourself too. About it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. My gut talks loud and clear. Every time something feels off, my gut lets me know right away. And for years I ignored it, but now I'm I'm getting better at paying attention to it. Yeah. So you've created the release framework. Can you walk us through what that is?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely, yeah. Um, and to put it like in a nutshell to make it short, it is the way, as we've kind of been talking about, um, to go from being that overgiver from being in detrimental kindness to getting to the point where you are actually being filled up by your kindness, by your giving. The giving is coming from a place of overflow. Uh, so it's pretty simple. Uh, it is number one to recognize the patterns. Uh, and that's what we the book breaks down is how to recognize these patterns. Uh, I'll give you a quick uh little snapshot of the three faces of detrimental kindness, and they're mentioned in the book. One of the faces of detrimental kindness, the pattern is the accommodator. Uh, the accommodator likes to make sure that everybody is okay and that everybody is good all the time. They may not even worry about themselves uh before they make sure that everybody else is accommodated and taken care of. They're a little bit more focal, I would say, than the other patterns that we've seen uh with detrimental kindness because they will let you know that they want to make sure that you're okay. Um other one is the rescuer. They will take on your problems without even second guessing it. If you are short on money, they're coming to the rescue. If you are short on time, you didn't plan out your time, they're gonna come and see how they can help you, or even make excuses for you as well. So they come to the rescue. It is hard for a rescuer to just simply sit and watch other people experience the consequences of their actions. Um, it can show up in different ways. At work, we have bosses. Um I had a boss, this was years ago, who actually called out to work for me because I had done something that wouldn't allow me to come to work. Um, so my boss had actually called the rest of the team and told them that I wasn't coming. So I I think about that now, how that was detrimental kindness as well, because he the boss did not allow me to experience whatever consequence was coming for calling out to work when I knew that it really wasn't a legitimate reason to have called out. So there's the rescuer. The last one I think gets overlooked a lot, uh, and that is the peacekeeper. They are usually very, very, very quiet. They do not say a lot uh when it comes to like conflict. They'll just be like, oh yeah, whatever. Uh even like going out to eat. They don't want any conflict about even where we're going to eat, whether it's Mexican or Japanese. Oh, whatever you say is what they'll do, just so that there's no argument about it. So it's so quiet that you wouldn't even notice. It's kind of in a way, passive is the closest word I can come to to think of it, but there's definitely is um like a default to allowing someone else to make the decision for you. And it's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we're tired and from work or whatever, and we don't want to think, and it feels good to let someone else say, hey, you know what? Let's go out to Japanese tonight, uh, and maybe we'll pick a different place the next time. Uh so those are the three faces of detrimental kindness, it's recognizing that pattern. Um, usually most people fit into one or all, I've seen that, uh, of those three faces. All right, so the next phase um is to release the guilt. We've talked about that a little bit, but there's a process that we go through of reframing the beliefs that we have about, oh, what did I just do? Why did I just say no when I'm so used to saying yes? So it's about releasing the guilt. And then number three, it's about reclaiming our voice. Uh, and that just simply means that we are now able to speak up uh and also use our voice. I always say um that you can speak up, but still not use your voice. So sometimes we get loud or raise our voice, but we're still actually not sharing. The truth of our experience. I have been there many, many times where I'm just shouting, which I don't do anymore. I, oh goodness, I've come a long way. I don't believe in raising voices or anything like that anymore. I think that we should be civil and let's have a conversation. But I have been there where I have kind of raised my voice or tried to get someone else to see my voice by using these different strategies or techniques. So there's sometimes silence. I want people to understand that sometimes being silent and not being the one to like argue with someone else that may actually speak a little bit louder than you're yelling and your shouting and these long text messages, you know, to other people to try and make them or emails to get them to understand. Sometimes it's just a quiet stillness, and that stillness will uh allow space um for people to recognize that you're not coming from uh a place of wanting to fight, you're not wanting to defend yourself, you're just simply allowing time so that you can really work through the situation. Um, so that's what yeah, Reclaim the Voice is all about.
SPEAKER_00:So you talked about shouting and and and yelling, but not actually communicating anything. Can you talk about that a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01:Yes, 100%. Um, it's one thing to like make a commentary about something, but there is another thing about communication. That's what it's really, really, really all about here. And when we raise our voice, naturally the other person may be on the defense a little bit or they may run. Some people are are not going to engage in the yelling uh and the screaming, they are going to exit the situation, they are going to avoid it. I I think it was uh what's his name? John Bowby, I think was his name, who came up with the four attachment styles. So basically, what someone has learned is during conflict or whatever situation it is, to either run towards the situation or maybe run from the situation or stay in the situation, but be able to articulate what your limits uh and values are in the situation. So the difference, for example, I could uh maybe uh let's say you know there's a situation in a marriage where a lot of times it's the husband leaving like clothes out on the floor. I've been guilty of that before. That's why I can say that example because I just come in and like, okay, I gotta change, I gotta run to go play games or whatever, yeah, whatever it is. Um, and so if I'm getting yelled at, right, I'm automatically on the defense. My nervous system, the way I've been trained, is to I'm gonna, you know, kind of buck up here, like, hey, hold on, you're you're this is my space too, right? So we're we get in defensive mode. Rather than, hey, you know what? It's just a little bit uncomfortable for me when there are things around the place. Uh, is there a way that we can work on maybe having things organized or maybe just not having them like here where you know it's the common area? So there is a difference, right? We're actually communicating what our experience is, and people actually listen to us more and respect us more when we actually say, like, hey, this is my experience, because what no one can ever do really, they can try to, but they cannot invalidate your experience. We know what's going on within ourselves, other people don't. They may try to guess, and we may say that someone's our soulmate and our life partner, but even they don't always know what's going on with us. And when we make these assumptions, and then when we try to say, well, how come you didn't know XYZ? How could you not know that? It hadn't been shared, but it hadn't been communicated with them. And again, it's not fair to them either if we don't share that with them, because they're left in a place of not just not knowing. And so they may try something like a strategy or whatever or a solution that's actually not fitting for the situation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. We uh we moved about a year ago, and so we had all these boxes piled up. And for me, I was like, oh, I don't really want to deal with this just now. I've got all these things on the go. I'm just gonna leave these boxes here. And it wasn't until my partner said, this is stressful for me to see all these boxes, and it's causing me to feel not very good. And and at that point I thought, okay, now we need to deal with these boxes because I I don't want anybody feeling bad. But we we're all different. And it wasn't until it was explained to me how it made the other person feel that I truly understood that, you know, although I might be able to leave the mess behind, I I can help in in making life better for someone else.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, that's what it's all about. And and sometimes it's about making it better for ourselves too. I've realized um sometimes I did not know that, oh wow, that actually does feel pretty good. Yeah. That experience, you may realize that, oh yeah, actually you're right uh uh about whatever the situation may be. So that's why I'd say it's important, but it also just makes the relationship even more, I'd say, connected. Uh, because you're not just there, you're actually being there with the other person. Like they are in your world, you're in theirs, and everyone can really, really not just get along, but co-create things together, co-create a home that feels good for everybody.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, for sure. Um my partner makes the bed all the time, and and I've never been a bed maker. And uh, so you know, begrudgingly now I'm like, oh, I gotta make the bed every day. And um I wasn't happy about it. But now I'm like, you know what, it actually kind of makes me feel good, right? You walk into the room, everything looks lovely and presentable, and it makes me feel good. And I didn't, I don't think I knew that I would feel that way. Um, but in the beginning, and it was it was tough for me to get into that habit. And um, yeah, just the other day I was like, don't don't hold this against me, and you know, but I actually like the bed made and I've changed my mind. But um yeah. That's interesting. So let's get back to um like guilt and overgiving. Um, those things often show up hand in hand. So how do you coach people to move through guilt without getting stuck in shame or defensiveness?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, well, the first thing uh to do when it comes to the guilt, right, is recognize when it's coming up. I like doing inventories, right? Uh one of the biggest things that happened to me happen uh when we're recognizing my detrimental kindness. It happened to me on a Sunday night at 2 a.m. I was just exhausted. Now I normally reflect, Sundays is are my reflection days. I think about you know what happened, what I did good the last week, maybe what didn't go in so well, and how I can maybe even do better or improve or what I need to take care of for the coming week ahead. And in that reflection, in that inventory, I realized those moments where I actually did not save enough time for taking care of projects that I wanted to take care of because every time we say yes, we're gonna say no to something for ourselves in some sort of way. Yeah. Yeah. So there's almost like no way to really avoid that, but paying attention to the pattern of it is the first thing that we do. So we we do an inventory, right? For the coaching, uh, to see where we're actually having that guilt come up, where is the overgiving showing up? Sometimes we can actually look and see what was happening right before that event as well, because sometimes we're caught off guard, especially like 2 a.m. You're tired, you just are not thinking too well when you're tired. So it's natural, right? Some people that's when they get really, really caught in the detriment of kindness, you're just exhausted, and to just the easiest thing to do is say yes, leave me alone, go away. And then later you're like, now why did I do that? So it's it's important to just recognize that pattern first. And it's just about creating awareness. I tell clients, you're not wrong, you're not bad. We're not placing any type of judgment at all for any decision that you make, whether it is yes or no. This is your life, right? But we're making sure that the life that you say you want to have is the life that you're actually having. So if it's not, then what we need to do is start looking at these patterns and start making a new choice about those patterns. It really, really comes down to our identity. And I would say that it's not that we need to change who we are, we need to change what we believe about who we are, is what the real comes from. You see clients to start, or I've seen clients like peel back the layers. Uh they some of them look physically different once they start making these changes. It's it's just incredible. That's why I say transformational coaching because it's the same individual, but they've peeled back some of the layers, these masks and these faces of detrimental kindness that they're wearing. And then like this glow comes back. Even and uh to brag about me a little bit. I I'll show you uh maybe later in one of my before and after pictures. Um it's just a night and day difference of how I looked with detrimental. Uh you probably saw that commercial growing up. Like, this is your brain.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think I saw it. It's on Instagram, right? Your before and after.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm gonna make that a caption like this is your this is me. I should not say other people. This is me on detrimental kindness, and then that's like the after shot. Well, so you see the layers start to peel back, and and that's where you really see that transformation is when people start to bring out the kindness, the authentic kindness that has been hidden. I always tell clients, it is our nature to be kindness, but just like we have things like um uh the Ten Commandments or whatever they are, it shows up in different even more places have like a list of like code of conduct or whatever. To me, it's just natural to have those things because the natural tendency uh is there, right? But it's giving us a guideline on what to do with that natural tendency. So when it comes to kindness, right, these boundaries are telling us what to do with that tendency. It's not actually telling us who not to be, it's telling us who to be.
SPEAKER_00:Is your framework able to help with perfectionism?
SPEAKER_01:100%, because perfectionism, if you ask me, is really about control. Uh, but I have one of my uh famous lines, I probably say it a little bit too much, is that your need to be perfect and your need to be in control is actually controlling you rather than you being in control. And that was said to me actually first, so that's where I get that from. So, yes, uh, because it's that detrimental kindness is not necessarily about how you're gonna look to other people, it is about how you look to yourself as well, right? How we view ourselves. So sometimes that detrimental kindness has nothing to do with like our mom or dad, sisters, brothers, or boss. It has to do with me, even if you look at, like I said, those before and after photos, it was me not saying no to myself when I know that I've eaten like the fifth pint of ice cream after I said that I wasn't, I keep caving in, right? Even after I tell myself, this is it, yada yada. And that's just one of my classic examples. There are many different examples of perfectionism where it's actually the same thing. It is that at the end of the day, instead of authentically being present, right, with ourselves or with other people, we are trying to perform and create like this narrative or this image or this appearance that things have to be a certain way in order for them to be acceptable. We are perfect just as we are. There is really no need to there is to me, if you ask me, uh it's kind of two different things. There's really no such thing as perfect, uh, but then there is perfect imperfection. If that makes sense to our audience, right? So it's beautiful just as it is. We all have maybe things that we are are great at and things that we are not so great at, but that's actually makes us like who we are, and it's perfectly okay.
SPEAKER_00:So with perfectionism, you're saying that it's it's about control. So can you explain how that how that works?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, 100%. When it comes to being in control, uh a lot of us uh from conditioning, like from our childhood, like if you ever had someone else come into your space, no one else was allowed to enter that space unless the home or the person appeared a certain way. Other people were not allowed to come in and just experience you as you are in your fullness and your wholeness and your good, your bad, and your ugly. Okay, you need to, I'm just making silly examples, tuck your shirt in or brush your teeth, whatever. And yes, we need to be presentable, obviously, but it goes too far, right, when the only thing that matters is what other people think about us, right, or about what other people think. We're trying to control that, right? We're worried, oh, they're gonna think that we're a messy family, or they're they're going to think that I'm, you know, uh uh an alcoholic, or they're going to think that I'm a food addict. And that is actually the order of the day, instead of just authentically connecting with other people. So that's where the perfectionism comes. Uh, is you're trying to control how other people perceive you, and that's actually manipulation. I really hope the officer got that. That it is actually manipulation. You're trying to really focus and control how someone else perceives you. It's their mind, it is their perception. You can preach to them all day long about how valuable you are and how wonderful you are, and how for me it used I'm a really good catch.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. But they're gonna make up their own minds.
SPEAKER_01:They're gonna make up their own mind anyway.
SPEAKER_00:For sure, for sure. So you shared that you've personally struggled with overgiving. I heard addiction in there at some point and self-sabotage. So, what was your turning point and what's one thing that you wish you had known earlier in your healing journey, if if you feel comfortable talking about that?
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely. And I talked about it in the book, actually, is I uh had been asked by a really good friend of mine to help move their apartment. Um, before the friend could finish asking, I said yes. There was that automatic yes, sure, yes, no problem. Uh, absolutely, I can. I canceled my plans for the weekend. You know, this was supposed to happen over weekend, so I canceled all my plans. I had a couple of reservations that cost money, and so I canceled the reservations, knowing that I was not getting the money back for the reservations because there's that control again. I wanted to, I didn't maybe didn't know it at the time, but looking back, what it was is I wanted to be that good friend, that friend that did not say no, like, oh well, maybe no one else is going to help them, so I have to be the one to help. Um, so I carried boxes, I drove a U-Haul truck. Uh, we went up and down flights of stairs. I was exhausted by the time we finished moving. But the thing is, is I smiled and I say grand the whole time, but I was burning up inside at myself, really like, why did I do this? Why did I say yes? And go ahead and cancel all my plans and lose money just to appear to be a good friend. So when I got home that weekend, I realized that I hadn't done anything, gotten done not one single thing that I had wanted to do, absolutely nothing. And here I am, resentful. And I said, okay, this is actually it. This has gone way too far to where I am now being that good person, uh, and but leaving myself out and and abandoning myself. So that was really because I had to work that next morning at 7 a.m. Not like be ready at get to work by 7. Be at the desk and ready. So now it's two o'clock, like, okay, now I'm not gonna get good rest. So I have yet again, because a couple things that happened before, it's like, okay, yet again, I've done this thing here. Uh, so I have to put an end to it. Um, so that is what was like the turning, uh, that was the turning point for me, uh, really, even beyond the addiction, because like the addiction to the substances and the processes, like I had kind of overcame that, but I didn't look deeper actually at this particular thing, my need to make others happy, or my own need to kind of put myself as this person or this guy uh who was always nice and who never disappointed uh other people. So that was a tipping point for me. I just knew after that, like, okay, this is just it's too in my face.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, to not deal with it.
SPEAKER_00:And at that point, you knew you needed to make a change.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, 100%. Because this was a really dear friend of mine, and we're still dear friends, just for the record. Uh, I knew after that, though, like, okay, people that I love, there there's has to be a com there's a common denominator here when I'm like angry and resentful at people who I care about the most. There's something not right about this equation here. If I'm like getting not, but not expressing it either, uh, or not like saying, like, hey, yeah, I can help you out for a couple hours, uh, but I gotta run by two o'clock. Well, I could have just simply done that, but I was so far into the detrimental kindness that that wouldn't have worked at that time. That's like setting a boundary, and it's still like, oh yeah, you're still being selfish because you didn't give your all. Um, so yeah, that's that's how I knew and and this isn't your friend's fault, right?
SPEAKER_00:Like you're you're resentful, you're super angry at the situation all day, but it's it's not it's not your friend's fault. And um he probably doesn't even know that all this is going on in your mind at the time.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Yeah. It was all smiles. Oh, hey man, this is awesome. Um people ask, hey, are you is everything okay? Oh, yes, absolutely, which is uh a form of lying.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:That also, and I just got tired of that. Like it is, I was thinking about this, uh I think it was either last night or the night before, about how exhausting detrimental kindness and people pleasing can be, because it takes a lot of energy, it takes a lot of effort and resources as well to hide your true feelings. It can really, really drain you to the point where you don't even know. You look in the mirror and like I looked in the mirror and I was like, who is this guy? I'm actually becoming the monster now. Uh, because it's not other people that are the monsters really taking advantage, it's me being the monster by acting like I'm just so you know happy and joyful, but really um ready inside, angry. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So for someone who's listening right now who feels trapped in people pleasing and can't imagine any other way of living, what would you say is the first step to encourage them?
SPEAKER_01:Well, I will say uh my book is an awesome place to start detrimental kindness, just reading through that book. Not only my story, because I love relating with people, but it's literally like I say like a playbook or a framework uh for overcoming detrimental kindness and people pleasing. Um, and to give themselves uh we say grace, I guess there's many different words for it, is to number one let go of the belief that it's their fault. We just in society, we are just taught in so many different ways by good people to put ourselves last and to make all these sacrifices. Uh and it's just programming, but to realize that we can unprogram, we can unlearn these things. I would say that is the first place to start, right? Because a lot of us come in. I came in, right, to this thing, beating myself up, like, oh, I'm such a I'm not gonna say any names, but you can imagine what names I would have said to myself uh about my people pleasing. So it's about letting go of that and actually realizing that a lot of times there is probably a little boy or a little girl inside that was trained to be that way, but we can untrain as well just as easily as we trained.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I love that reminder of not beating ourselves up for some of our things that we've said um or or done or being stuck in people pleasing. It's easy to beat ourselves up for that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it is. I I tell clients all the time. Um, not that there's a literal baseball bat, but I ask them, like, are you picking the baseball bat up again and beating yourself up with it again? And they're like, Yeah. I was like, all right, well, you got a choice. You can keep batting, or you can just put the baseball bat down. Uh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and figure out how to move past this. Exactly. Jason, where can people find you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so uh the best place to find me is on Instagram. Uh my uh handle, which will I'm sure we'll share in the notes there, but it's Coach Jason Johnson. There right now, no other coach Jason Johnson's on Instagram. I am the only one, so my my face should appear there. Uh but that's where I connect people. There's links to like a free training that I give about detrimental kindness. There is the link also there to buy the book. My uh, I guess mission is to post as much uh things as I can as well. So there are lots of different educational posts. I attend some of them where people can read or watch like the reel or the video and learn a little bit more about detrimental kindness or about what I do. Uh, there's some testimonials sprinkled out there uh online on my page as well, so you can maybe read through those just staying, uh, or barring other people's beliefs uh about overcoming detrimental kindness. So that's where they can find me on Instagram, uh, and there's tons of like resources there that people can grab um to to yeah to make the needle move with overcoming detrimental kindness.
SPEAKER_00:Show notes.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Jason, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your story with us today. And I know a lot of my listeners are gonna walk away with lots of practical tools and with a lot of hope that change is possible. So I'm grateful that you took the time to be here. It was great to see you. Yeah. And thanks for spending time with us today. If this episode resonated with you, feel free to share it with a friend or anyone who could use a little encouragement. The more these conversations spread, the more people that we can reach together. And if you'd like to stay connected, make sure that you follow me. I'm most active on Facebook at the Codependent Doctor and on Instagram at DRAngela Downey. I'd love to hear your thoughts, so don't be shy about leaving a comment or reaching out. I wish you all a great week as you learn to foster a better relationship with the most important person in your life. Yourself. I'm gonna see you here again in another two weeks with another episode of the Codependent Doctor. Take care for now. You've got this. Thanks for spending time with me today. I hope something in this episode resonated with you. If it did, hit follow, subscribe, or share it with someone who needs to hear it today. The codependent doctor is not medical advice and doesn't replace speaking to your healthcare provider. If you're in a crisis, please go to the nearest ER or call 911 or reach out to your local mental health helpline. I'll be back here next week with more support, stories, and strategies because we're healing together.