The Benefit of the Doubt Trap: When Being Understanding Hurts You

Have you ever found yourself spending more energy explaining someone else’s behavior than listening to your own feelings?

In this episode, Martina explores the difference between compassion and self-abandonment, and why giving someone the benefit of the doubt can sometimes keep us disconnected from our own experience.

We’ll talk about how to stay open and curious without ignoring patterns, rushing to conclusions, or abandoning our own needs.

In this episode, Martina will explore:

• Why we rush to create stories when we feel uncertain
• When understanding others becomes self-abandonment
• The difference between intent and impact
• How to trust patterns and strengthen your self-trust

Follow Martina on Instagram @femmagical for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and more!

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Disclaimer: This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered professional advice.

Transcript

When Doubt Overrides Your Experience

Martina 0:00

Have you ever been so busy giving someone the benefit of the doubt that you forget or forgot to give yourself the benefit of believing what you actually experienced? Today on I Do Mibu, we are unpacking why we rush to explain people's behavior, why uncertainty feels so uncomfortable, and how being understanding can oftentimes become a way of abandoning yourself. And there is another way of holding your ford without going into storytelling, explaining, or giving someone the benefit of the doubt. So let's talk about the differences between compassion and self-betrayal because I do believe we are still navigating and ping-ponging between those two. So without further ado, let's dive into today's episode.

Motivation Versus Discipline Check In

Martina 0:52

Happy Thursday, everyone! I have to admit, I did not post or record a podcast episode last week, and to be very honest with you, I kind of didn't feel the motivation to do that. And I know that's bad because I always say, you know, motivation is something that sometimes is not there, but all it needs is discipline. Yet somehow I was thinking maybe I do a small hiatus where I just take a break for a week, two or three, maybe a month, and then come back to recording because I'm a firm believer that discipline will always trump motivation or whatever else we have. And motivation is something that it isn't always there. It's not always there for me. Yet I don't want to rely on motivation. There is discipline that really drives you forward, even if you don't feel like it. And with the podcast, I want to apply a very similar way of looking at how I'm staying consistent. Yet I also feel that if there is something inside of me that just does not want to record, that does not want to show up for the podcast, that feels like I wouldn't give it my all, I also let it go. So it's kind of an experiment to see, you know, if that happens once in a while, I'm okay with it, but it should not be a recurring pattern. So having that said, I'm also going on a two-week vacation. So we are flying out on Saturday to Europe. We will take a quick pit skirt stop in Washington DC. It's a night layover, it's basically for our dogs. We don't wait, don't want to do a big long journey with them in one go. And we love Washington. And you know, it's it's nice, it's sunny, it's summer there up there, obviously. So, you know, we have our restaurants there and our hotel there. So we are kind of we we love Washington. And Washington has really great connections to to Europe to to to we live tanza basically because we are you know usually sticking to one or two airlines when we fly out. So big things is big change is coming because obviously, you know, flying, changing location, even though it's family visiting and it's not like going to a foreign country, it's still for my nervous system a lot because you know, the packing, knowing that we will, you know, be out of our routine and you know, having a few days of jet lag, all those things are like, oh, you know, kind of in the back of my head, are occupying my thoughts and a few things.

The Text Message Spiral

Martina 3:31

So anyway, I now being two and a half minutes in here, and I just want to now gently come back to a topic that I feel like, from my own experience, has been very important to me. And I thought I could bring it to the podcast too. And I want to start with a question before we dive into the meat of today's episode. I'm asking you, have you ever sent a text message? And then you watch someone read it? So on WhatsApp you can clearly see if someone read your message, depending on obviously on the setting, but most of the time people allow you to see if they read the text message. So you sent the message, you saw that they read it, and then they did not respond. And maybe they didn't respond for hours, maybe for days. And what's happening then for you? Maybe it's something where you really want an opinion, you want to get their thoughts, maybe you had a disagreement, whatever it is. You know, there's just no response. And I can tell you exactly how it works for me. While I'm waiting for the response, and it feels very discomforting. I start to fill in the blanks. I come up with a story that says, like, oh they might be upset with me. Maybe I said something wrong, maybe I had the wrong tonality here, or hey, they are ignoring me. They don't care about me, I'm not important. And then it goes on and on and on and on. Until then, of course, another voice jumps in and that says, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Give them the benefit of the doubt. They are busy, they are overwhelmed, maybe something came up for them, and then you kind of see yourself between two stories. One story says, hey, they don't care about you, they reject you, you're not important enough. And the other story says, well, they are completely innocent, you know, life gets busy. And meanwhile, you're checking your phone every now and then and trying to figure out which story is true. Not sure if that sounds familiar and relatable to you, but that is how I usually, when I'm sending messages to someone, operate. And I think that's where most of us get stuck. It's not just me. I know that from my clients too, when I see that they are building up a story in their head, and it is two sides of this story. One is the rejection one, and one is the like, oh, they're just busy. Well, we explain things away. And that's where we get stuck, not just with text messages, but obviously with all kinds of friendships, relationships, family, work relationships. We are bouncing between assuming the worst or and explaining everything away. And what if neither of those things is actually helping us? That is where I came, like I came to that conclusion of one day where I sent a message to a friend, he replied, and according to the way how he responded, it was it was a text message, not a voice note. I could hear an undertone, and the undertone wasn't nice, it was belittling. So I was between the story of well, he's belittling me. He's kind of putting me down a little bit. And another story was, well, you don't know that, you don't you don't hear the tone. Maybe he has said that in a complete, in a very empathetic, compassionate tone. So let's give them the benefit of the doubt. And that was the reason I was like two or three weeks ago, that I was like, you know what? I don't want to ping pong between those two stories. I don't want to give him the benefit of the doubt. But I also just don't want to jump to conclusions and making me internally despise him. Because, you know, I have a part in me that feels like, okay, he's belittling you. He's like putting himself on top of you. And then, of course, other parts in my system start to hate him. Like, okay, he's an asshole, he's not a friend, and so on and so forth. And then there is the other story that obviously makes it like, oh, come on, don't be like this. Be the bigger person, assume the best, assume, you know, give him the benefit of the doubt. And I was like, no, I don't want to do that either. And I don't want to ping pong between those stories. So that's why I thought, like, let's bring it up to the to the podcast. I want to discuss this with you and see how you think about that, what I am bringing here on board. Because I do believe that those two stories, the oh, he's rejecting me, the other one, uh, give him the benefit of the doubt. He's not malicious, he doesn't mean bad. I don't think that those two things are necessarily true, and I'm very convinced that those two stories are actually hurting you and not helping you navigating the complexity of life, complexity between relationships of two human beings. I truly believe that that's just not helpful at all. And I found another way how I am navigating this now, and I thought you might be interested in it, and it could help you refine this on your end, and then navigating complexity in the best way possible, in the way I am bringing to you in a moment.

Why “Benefit Of The Doubt” Backfires

Martina 9:39

So I wanna talk to you about the most socially accepted phrase that seriously messes with everyone, and that is just give them the benefit of the doubt. Because in theory, that phrase sounds kind, it sounds emotionally super mature, and it sounds super evolved. So I um I like that phrase for a long time because I thought, like, hmm, that sounds exactly how I want to be in the world. I want to be kind, I want to be emotionally intelligent, and I wanna be grown, I wanna evolve from all the past mistakes I made or the hurt I encountered by interacting with people. But I want to ask something a little bit more uncomfortable. What if that phrase is sometimes just a socially accepting way of putting it bluntly, ignoring yourself? Because depending on how you use it, it can turn into ignoring what you felt, your intuition, overriding what you noticed, explaining away patterns that keep repeating in a relationship, or staying in dynamics that are clearly showing you something that you need to be more aware of. So to me, then this benefit of the doubt is no longer something framed as being compassionate. To me, that also can become self-abandonment kind of covered under kindness. And that brings me to the part why we get addicted to explanations. Because I noticed within myself that I love coming up with explanations. My brain loves to jump into conclusions and giving me an explanation, whether it's beneficial to me, to the other person, or not, doesn't really matter. I do think that from my own experience and when I talk to my clients, I've been coaching women for over six years now, I noticed that our brain obviously hates uncertainty. That's a fact that comes from research. And I noticed that we prefer a story that's neither beneficial nor is it helpful. Maybe it's even hurting us, but we would prefer a story than having none. Because we are, and I know you have heard that over and over again, I heard that first from Tony Robbins 10 years ago, that humans are meaning-making machines. And we do that fast, A-SAP. And we come up with stories like, oh, they are jealous, they don't care, they are selfish, they mean to hurt me. And those stories, yes, can feel even true. And most of the time, though, you don't actually know. And it's a fact that a human, you and I, are not responding to reality. You know what you're responding to? Me included, of course. We're responding to the internal discomfort that's arising when somebody suddenly goes IA. And for the ones who don't know who do not know what MIA means, it's missing in action. And I'm telling you this because for a long time I didn't know what MIA stands for. And yeah, so responding to discomfort, because I don't know feels 10 million times worse than a story that you made up, even if it's a painful one. So you are choosing certainty, being certain that yeah, that's the story, then over over truth. So you choosing making up something over actually the reality, what's really going on. And there is this other extreme, this over-explaining people into innocence.

Overexplaining Can Keep You Stuck

Martina 13:48

And I have been guilty as F. It's one of the reasons I've been in an abusive relationship for three and a half years prior to meeting my now husband. I have been over-explaining to myself why an abuse is happening. I made it rational, I made a meaning of it, and it was always the meaning of if I do better, if I do more, if I'm more loving, more giving, emotionally giving, financially giving, he will change. That's kept me three and a half years in a relationship that was the most draining thing I've ever had in my life. And it taught me everything about a human being, also about myself, because I'm not the victim here. I have been engaging in this relationship, but because I was over-explaining my ex as the most innocent, and always took on a default when there was something not right, because I didn't want to see that he's abusive. And now coming to this other extreme: explaining people into innocence. This is the more emotionally evolved version, and I put emotionally evolved on a quotation mark because that is dangerous, because not really emotionally evolved, but it's the one that sounds compassionate, this and this can also quietly become avoidance when you say something like, Oh, they're just doing the best, or they are just wounded, or you know what, they had a hard childhood. Oh, it's the trauma response. And we sometimes hear that from people that explain away why someone did something bad. And none of that is inherently wrong. But people are complex, and people, yes, they are shaped by history, by their upbringing, by their circumstances. Yet here's this trap you can explain someone so thoroughly that you erase your own experience, your own feelings, your own judgment of the situation. You become super fluent in someone's psychology and then so disconnected from your own impact, from your own agency. So you stop asking yourself, did this hurt me repeatedly? Is this a recurring pattern? And you refer to that's how what I did, that's how I explained away my abusive acts. Was like, I asked myself this question, how can I stand this better? So I don't have to feel if to fully feel this. So I wanted to understand his psychology, the reasoning behind him hurting me so bad that I restored into, yeah, of course, I can do better. I could do more for him, I can be the better whatever. And by doing this, I kind of disconnected myself from what I actually felt, from this extreme pain. And I have been going through hell, I promise. And one day I will speak about it, but not now. But it has been hell forth and back. And that's not compassion, I can tell you. That's emotionally outsourcing, it's emotionally neglect towards yourself.

Intent Versus Impact In Real Life

Martina 17:25

And that's what there's a difference between the intent versus the impact and kind of the line people avoid. Because that's where things get real. Two things can be true. Someone can have good intentions and still hurt you consistently. Someone can love you, and it still can be extremely unre unreliable to you and to the relationship you have. And someone can mean super well and still not have the capacity to show up differently for you. Intent explains behavior, okay? But impact reveals the true reality. I can say, well. So the intent explains the behavior. Why did they do it? Again, you come to they are stressed, they forgot, they are overwhelmed, so on and so forth. Understanding intent can obviously help you have compassion without jumping to any conclusions. But the impact that's what's actually happening, the effects, answer a different question. So they ask the question of what was the effect of their behavior? How did that actually land? For example, your friend cancels plans for their second, third time. Their intent may be she's overwhelmed and never meant to hurt me. But the impact might be, I feel disappointed, unimportant, I no longer trust her to follow through. Both can be true. And many women, especially those recovering, maybe you are one of them, I am one of them, who are recovering from people pleasing get stuck in the intent. They spend all their energy asking, why did he do that? What happened in the childhood? What trauma does he have? What pressure is she under? Meanwhile, you never ask yourself, what is their behavior creating in my life? What mess do they create in my emotional, physical life? Because impact is often where the useful information is. And another example. Imagine you have a boss who repeatedly promises promotions and does not follow through. And the intent might be that he really wants to help you get a career started. But the impact is that you've been spending two years waiting for opportunities that have never really or at all materialized. So whether he means well or not, the reality you are living is the impact, meaning you don't have the promotion. You might not have the pay raise yet. So it doesn't matter the intent. It doesn't matter while you explain it away by saying, oh, he's really on it. It's really difficult in the company to get to push that through. You can also go to the story of like, oh, he doesn't care about me. I'm not important enough. It does not matter. Either side of the story doesn't matter. The impact is you're not having a promotion, you're not getting a pay raise. So intent explains behavior, but impact reveals the reality and where the re- the reality is where we actually have a veil in front of our eyes. We don't want to see it or we cannot see it because we don't know better. Intent tells you where someone is coming from, but the impact tells you what you're actually living with. And intent deserves, yeah, understanding, but the impact, the result, deserves all your attention. I hope that kind of makes sense to you. To me, this is so key. This is so, so, so key because we all focus on the intent versus what's actually the impact here. What's the result? What's the hurt? What's the chaos they create? What's the trust issues that I'm confronted with? And there's a question that changed everything for me.

Capacity Shows Up As Patterns

Martina 21:29

Because we usually go and ask, why did they do that? And then we get stuck there. We analyze, we replay, we reconstruct, we're trying to find the right explanation that makes air that makes sense for everything. But there's a more useful question. What does their behavior tell me about their current capacity? Not the potential, not the intentions, not their best version. It's the actual repeated capacity. Because capacity shows up in patterns. It shows up in your patterns, in my patterns. A friend who constantly cancels isn't just busy. The f the boss who overpromises isn't just under pressure. And a partner who avoids hard conversations isn't just processing differently. The pattern is the basic message. It's not the apology, not the explanation. It's the pattern. It's so important to look at the pattern. And I connected that then to where I was like, okay, what's actually missing in my life so that I'm not going into storytelling, that I'm not stuck in the intent, in the over-explanation, in in a story that's beneficial, not beneficial, but I did something else.

Practicing The Skill Of Uncertainty

Martina 22:53

And that was what if I stay with uncertainty? What if if I teach myself slowly to sit with uncertainty? And I know that uncertainty for us all humans is something we just have not learned to sit with. And I think this is the most important piece. People skip. We didn't learn that. We have not been able to have that modeled from our caregivers. Because we are so obsessed with figuring people out. We want immediate clarity, we want emotional closure right away. So, you know, some you have a disagreement with someone, someone is upset with you, or you are upset with them, and what we want is okay, I just want to get over this, let's just straighten it all out. And then often one party is not ready yet to have that conversation, or they are emotionally not yet mature or ready to see your side of the story. But what if emotional maturity is not about getting the clarity? At least not immediately. What if you know about staying in uncertainty longer? Longer, longer, longer, or long enough to actually see what's the impact, what is real here. Because uncertainty, obviously, as we all know from our own experiences, is uncomfortable. But it is also the most honest, it's the most authentic. It's this I don't know. I just don't know what's going on with them. I don't know if they mean well, if they don't mean well, if they're overwhelmed, if they are this or if they are that. I just don't know. And I think that phrase, I don't know yet, is not avoidance, it is discipline. Because that space, that uncomfortable middle that I don't know is often whether truth reveals itself the best. It's definitely not in your first interpretation, it's not in an emotional reaction, obviously, but in your ability to stay present long enough to see a pattern form. And that is a skill. And that's I think what we are all not being taught. But I think it's so important for us to stay there, to stay there longer, to stay with the uncertainty of not knowing, not jumping to conclusions, not explaining things away. But staying with it and then seeing in this discomfort while you are just waiting and surrender to uncertainty what actually comes out here. Often a friend might come back and then they might tell you something that you could not have guessed. I had that very often where I assumed all sorts of stories, and then a friend came back to me and told me something that I'm like, oh my god, I didn't know. Of course I didn't know, but I assumed and jumped to conclusions. And sometimes in this discomfort, I can see, wow, that's actually a pattern. And that's the middle ground a lot of people miss, because the answer is not obviously assume the worst about everyone. I don't think that is super healthy, even though that has been my default for many, many years. It took me time to go back and trust people more after the relationship that I endured with my ex. And it's not, you know, assume the best no matter what, either. That is also the other side of the coin, the other side of the spectrum that's unhealthy. It's often also not even in like, oh, just focus on the patterns. Also, not that. It's way deeper than that. It's like staying curious, staying observant, staying in the uncertainty without having to resolve everything right away. And yeah, I always say to myself that I don't have to define someone. You cannot. People are too complex. You never know what's really going on in someone's inside world. And the only thing that I can do and be is to stay as honest as possible about what I either consistently experience or staying in this uncertainty of I just don't know. But I know that truth will reveal itself without me or any of my doings. So here's how I think about it.

A Neutral Middle Ground Approach

Martina 27:42

And I wanted to share that with you and to sum up our today's session. I don't assume bad intentions. And when I say I don't assume, of course, sometimes I catch myself, but creating the awareness and then coming back to no, we don't do that, we don't assume bad intentions helps me to go back to this neutral ground, to this uncertainty. It's also not obviously assuming good intentions either. I want to leave room for uncertainty. So I will step back, say, okay, there is no loop that I can close ASAP. I cannot and don't want to text my friend, why don't you respond? Or how was that meant? You know, I just like let's stay with this uncertainty and you know be calm. And of course, not to say don't clarify if you have clarifying questions, of course, and that I do that sometimes too, but not for everything and everyone. And then I watch what what what happens, what repeats itself. Because also be certain that repetition tells you the truth, the truth stories. And repetition of someone's behavior tells you the truth that other stories of yours try just to hide or smooth over. So I'm not sure if if that was something that you could relate to, but you know, judging by my clients, it's definitely something that I help them navigate because our nervous systems, you know, they are unsettled when there is uncertainty. That's something that as a human it's it's very difficult to sit. It's also something where I would say the energy kind of, you know, it takes a lot of energy, let's put it this way, to sit in discomfort. But sometimes the most emotionally mature thing you can do isn't giving someone the benefit of the doubt. It's also it's it's it's giving yourself the benefit of not rushing into a story. I think that's that sums it up beautifully. So it's really about giving yourself the benefit of not rushing into any story, good or bad. And the benefit of trusting what unfolds when you stay in uncertainty long enough, that actually will help you to see clearly. And clarity doesn't come from explaining people or explaining away people's behaviors, it doesn't over-explain anything, it really comes from finally staying more present, how you feel, and navigating this. And it really comes from staying long enough to stop confusing hope, fear with truth. And I think that changes everything. So yeah, I hope that was useful to you, and you could reflect on how you navigated it, and if you know, now staying in uncertainty and not going into, you know, the benefit of rushing into a story, but just staying in an uncertainty, and just allowing truth sometimes to reveal itself is helping.

Let People Reveal Themselves Over Time

Martina 30:57

It helps me a lot. And again, not to say, don't ask for clarified questions or for a conversation, right? Of course. But en gros, that's what I'm navigating now. So whenever I have some weird situations, I am not rushing into actions or conclusions. I'm just like, I don't know how that is meant. I don't know what that means. But I'm holding myself first in my initial reactions and feelings because obviously something gets triggered in me. That's it, that's on me to solve. That's in me to dig out the gold. And once I have solved that within myself, I am soothed, I soothed myself. I might have found out why maybe I got jealous or angry or disappointed. That's that's so much valuable to have that in me first. And then whatever happens, you know, every person revealed itself at the end of the day by their behavior, by their patterns. And whether that's something that you feel like, yeah, I want that in my life, that's beneficial for me. We are aligned on a lot of things, or it's the opposite. You can do something about it. I had people coming and going in my life, and I feel like the older I get, the more people are actually coming and going than staying. And that's fine. In the beginning, it was discomforting. It's like, oh, what's going on here? And you know what? I also had a friend that I kind of like where the friendship fizzled out. It wasn't a big drama, but we just we couldn't see eye to eye anymore. We had different values. I wasn't I wasn't okay with a lot of things that she did and said, not to me, but in general. And that person came back into my life organically. And it's not that we have the same closeness, but it's going into that direction. And I love it. And I think like, well, we'll see why it takes us. Time and truth will reveal itself, but not by me pushing for it or by me want to do better or differently. It's just like I live as authentic as I can and then see how it's reflected back in the other person or how they actually reveal themselves by time.

Closing Thoughts And Share Request

Martina 33:16

So good, my loves. We are over half an hour. I'm closing my podcast. We'll publish it today. I wish you a wonderful rest of your week. As again, thank you so much for tuning in. If you feel like the podcast, the episodes that you listen to, or this is your first episode you listen to, thank you for coming thus far. If you want to share it with other people and have a bigger impact because you felt like that is a really great, important message to share, I'd appreciate it. Because we are all in this together, and I'm always bringing things that sparked something in me, and I feel like I need to bring this to you too. So thanks for being here. I love you a lot, and I wish you all the best. And let's make this world a better place by just becoming better ourselves. So, without further ado, love you guys. Bye!