SE9 Put Yourself on the List: Self-Compassion, People-Pleasing, and Boundaries

Self-compassion gets confused with self-care, self-pity, and self-indulgence,  and it's none of those. In this co-host episode, Sherry and Jodi pick up where their conversation with Lori Karsch left off and get into what self-compassion actually is: learning to treat yourself the way you'd treat a good friend, especially when things go wrong. 

They talk about people-pleasing and why constantly going along with everyone else quietly teaches your brain that what you want isn't right. They get into setting boundaries without turning them into punishment, the difference between protecting your capacity and building a fortress around your heart, and why punishing yourself doesn't get you where you're trying to go.

This is the thread running underneath everything Season 2 has covered so far: self-awareness, agency, emotional regulation, and growth mindset. 

None of it works if you're at war with yourself the whole time you're doing it!

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why people-pleasing leaves you off your own list, and what putting yourself back on it actually looks like
• The difference between taking care of yourself so you can show up, and calling it self-care when you're really just checking out
• Boundaries that protect your capacity vs. boundaries that are really punishment
• Why you can't punish yourself into becoming a better person (a lesson from 20+ years in the classroom)
• The two measuring sticks: endless patience for everyone else, but a wrecking ball for yourself
• What decluttering someone's home taught Sherry about decluttering her own heart
• How to show up for someone in pain without taking the moment away from them
• Why self-compassion is what makes real compassion possible

LINES WE KEEP COMING BACK TO

"Everyone in your life, they get some of your years. But you get all of them. You get every single minute." (From Lori Karsch)

"People-pleasing leaves you off of your own list. Putting up a boundary doesn't mean you're caring less about anyone. It's you finally being on the list of people that you care about."

"It's not that it made it hurt any less. It's that it left something of me standing for the people who were still here."

"Nobody changes because somebody made them feel small. People change when they feel like somebody's with them, including when that somebody is you."

"Just don't leave. Just be with them in it."

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

S2E8 with Lori Karsch: If you haven't heard it, start there. This episode picks up right where that conversation left off.

• Book: Torn Wide Open: What Ripped Me Apart Also Made Me Whole → https://amzn.to/3T5hdwa
• Website (free prologue download): lorikarsch.com
• Instagram (she posts daily): @loribkarsch
• Lori can also be found on LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

Earlier Season 2 episodes on self-awareness, agency, emotional regulation, and growth mindset: the four themes this one runs underneath.

FROM THRIVING YINZERS

• Browse our favorites in our TY Toolkit Amazon storefront → https://amzn.to/4hefBKz
• Next episode: Connection, with Richard Jones of Youturn Health and BuildWell Health. Because getting in your own corner is where it starts — not where it stops.

As an Amazon Influencer, we earn from qualifying purchases. Links above may earn us a small commission at no extra cost to you.

A NOTE

This episode touches on childhood abuse, caretaking, and being hard on yourself in ways that can get heavy. If something in here brings up more than you expected, that's worth talking to someone about; a counselor, a doctor, or someone you trust. 

The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text.

CONNECT WITH US

If this episode found you at the right moment, pass it on! That's how we grow.

Transcript

The Question We Avoid

Sherry 0:00

We have spent this whole season choosing to try something new and deciding to grow when staying the same might have felt safer. So I wanna ask one question. Through all of it, have you been kind to yourself?

Sherry (2) 0:23

With all of the things that we've been focusing on this season, it can get to be an uncomfortable place. And everything that we're building doesn't really work the way it's supposed to if we are at war with ourselves while trying to do these things. So, I keep looping back to our last conversation with Lori Karsch on our previous episode and the story that she shared. There's a moment in that conversation that I keep on coming back to, and that is when we asked Lori about how you can sometimes be surrounded by people and still feel completely alone in that moment. And her answer is the thing that stuck with me, which was, If you have yourself, you're never completely alone. You don't feel alone because you're the one that you go through life with the whole time." I never really thought about it

People Pleasing Creates Loneliness

Sherry (2) 1:25

that way.

Jodi 1:25

Really something powerful that I got out of it, and I've really been thinking about it a lot since talking to Lori, is the people pleasing piece, I think, is a part of this, right? So, when you are such a people pleaser and it becomes what you do by default, every single time you do something that maybe doesn't resonate with you, or you just go with the flow, or you do something because it's what everybody else wants and you're not speaking up, you're telling yourself that you're not okay, right? So you stop being your own friend. And I think that leads into that feeling a little bit of feeling alone. Like I just wrote something and we talked about it, where, I love the life that I built, but somewhere along the line I stopped liking myself. And then I get mad at myself because I learned that people-pleasing all the time wasn't the thing to do, and I thought I wasn't doing it, but I think we do it without realizing it. So even not speaking up. The person who's always "Yeah, whatever. I just go with the flow. Whatever everybody else wants to do, I'll just go along." I don't speak up and I do what everyone else around me wants to do, and I try to tell myself that's just me being a super agreeable person. But I think what I'm telling my brain is that what I want, what I like isn't right, so I'm not right. When you're constantly doing that, I think it brings that sense of loneliness.

Sherry (2) 3:05

I think it's about putting yourself on the list.

Sherry 3:10

I think when you realize that you've been people pleasing, sometimes people take it to the other extreme, and we have to be careful because it can't be like, "Okay, I'm, I'm done people pleasing, so fuck you and you and you and you." I'd rather land somewhere in between. And that can be especially true when it comes to the growth mindset stuff we talked about too.

Jodi 3:33

If you're in a certain space like me, it starts to become another thing that I'm being tough on myself about, so I'm not being my own friend 'cause I'm like, "You're not growing fast enough."

Sherry (2) 3:50

But there's no timeline.

Jodi 3:52

And I know that.

Sherry 3:53

The thing that I'm learning through all of it is that the relationship that we ultimately have with ourselves is the one that runs underneath all the other relationships and interactions that you have with other people in your inner circle and branching out into the bigger world. You're carrying that into every room that you walk into. So if we're carrying this sort of like self-loathing that's what ends up spilling out, and that's why taking care of ourselves is important so that we can show up in a better way, for the people that you love the most.

Jodi 4:37

Sure.

Sherry 4:37

Here's how I check myself. The guardrail is basically the question of, is this filling me back up so that I've got something left to give, or is it just shutting everybody out? Because there's taking care of yourself so that you can show up, and then there's calling it, "Oh, I'm taking care of myself," when really you're just checking out, and I don't think those are the same thing. I don't think it's a this or that type of idea. So I guess self-compassion, when it all comes out, is it is about creating your best version of yourself. In the Lori Karsch episode, she said you're the one that you walk through life with, right? And everyone in your life, they get some of your years, right? But you get all of them. Some people get a lot of your years, but you get all of them. You get every single minute. So as I was saying earlier, if we're, like, at war with ourselves, then It's not just having a bad day, it's stringing a whole lot of bad days together, and that's what we're carrying into our relationships. That's what we're carrying it into every room that we walk into, whether it's home, work, at the grocery store, on the highway, like all of it. And I think that's where a lot of things that we see happening comes from. There's a lot of internal conflict going on amongst a lot of us all different reasons. We're just wound up really tight, and so part of that is learning to be a little more gentle with ourselves while we sort all that out.

Jodi 6:21

Everybody's got their own shit. Everybody's got a backstory that no one knows about.

Sherry 6:26

Yeah. But I think the thing that most of us have in common that we're not realizing is that we are not so kind to ourselves.

Jodi 6:34

Oh, for sure.

Sherry (2) 6:36

If we were, we might be able to show up to life a little lighter, and therefore be able to deal with other conflicts that come up when we're not constantly fighting with our own self. I think really that is the thing that runs underneath everything, and it's something we don't give ourselves the time, the space to think about. We just, we stay busy and we do all the things, trying to like, I'm always saying, shove it under the rug or, hide it away. So that's what today is all about. And then she said something else that you already alluded to.

Survival Tactics Aren’t Your Identity

Sherry (2) 7:08

She was talking about those kinds of things that she did for years, the people-pleasing, and she was doing like many of us do numbing out, always waiting for the other shoe to drop, always waiting for something to go wrong. And she realized that for a good portion of her life, she confused that with her personality. "Oh, this is just how I am." But as her story unfolded she realized that it wasn't "Oh, that's just who I am." They were her survival tactics, to get through the hard things that she experienced. And those are the things that do keep us alive, keep us upright when those hard things are happening. Sometimes when you go through that hard stuff, those thought patterns don't go away. And that's where, in my experience, it all starts with self-awareness thing came from because we've said this a lot of times too, you don't often see it when you're in it. It's like zooming back out oh, okay, I went through all this hard stuff, and the things that got me through those hard days were what I needed in that time, but we can't keep going through life just constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, and we've gotta be kinder to ourselves. The things that she said there reminded me, that's not my identity. They were just, necessary in a temporary situation. This was the key thing that she said. She said, "Those things are there and they served a purpose, but they're not our identity. You're in there somewhere, And it's our best job find out where." I guess this is speaking to when someone says, "Oh, I lost myself along the way."

Jodi 9:04

Yeah. And I think that sometimes you lose yourself over and over again, right? It's always evolving. Different seasons of your life, there's different seasons and there's different things that happen. But I think it's really important too that when we're f- saying be kind to, to ourselves and reconnect with ourselves, that doesn't mean become selfish. And I think that, gets confused a little bit, and I've seen it with people where they're like, "I'm in my me era,"

Sherry (2) 9:38

Yep.

Jodi 9:38

and I'm like, "That's great." But sometimes that can be taken... And I just had something interesting with my kids, because I never wanted to be that adult parent that put a lot of pressure on them. I wanted them to have their own traditions, explore their own things, so I didn't put any sort of I expect everybody home for Christmas or Thanksgiving or whatever. I just never did that. I would kinda go along and say, who's available and who's coming when or, trying to plan family time and I'd kinda throw out some feelers. But, I wanted to be agreeable and make it easy on them, and it started to hurt me because I wasn't seeing them all together and we weren't getting together as a family, and it's something that I need. It's important to me. And I finally said, I've done a disservice to myself and our family by me not speaking up." And when I said it, my son said "I think it's awesome that you've done that, but remember, you're still the boss, and no matter how old we are, when you say this is what has to happen, it's gonna happen." Then we negotiated and came up with that we'll pick two specific times out of the year. We'll set it so it's not too hard for everybody, but enough that it's a set thing to say, "Figure it out. Be home then." Because like last year we, I did do it last year and everybody came between Thanksgiving and Christmas instead of picking a holiday and, making it difficult for their significant others and everything else. So there still has to be some level of give and take when you're reclaiming yourself. You still have to be considerate of the people around you, I think. And there's ways that you might tell yourself you're being nice to yourself that may be not either really truly.

Sherry (2) 11:34

The whole you don't owe anybody anything statement, I don't necessarily agree with that for the reasons that you're saying.

Jodi 11:44

Yeah

Sherry 11:45

You do owe people something. You owe them your honesty in how you're feeling, which is what you're saying and also your presence. But on the flip side of that, you don't owe anyone your capacity. So if it were playing out in a way that's took that from you, then that's where the self-compassion comes in. It's I'm not okay with this part.

Declutter Your Mind And Heart

Sherry (2) 12:06

The one that really stuck was when she said you have to declutter your mind and your heart to find yourself again. That one really struck me because that's what my path led me to. I do walk into somebody's house now as a home organizer and declutterer, and it might be chaos, and I don't judge it because the mess accumulated for reasons. Somebody was surviving. Things got shoved because there wasn't the time or the capacity to deal with them. And, Now my whole job is like helping people face the thing that they've been avoiding by deciding what stays what goes, and stop carrying stuff that isn't theirs anymore. The alignment between that and the whole self-compassion thing stayed with me. I had to learn to do that for myself. It was the same work, facing what we've been avoiding. But self-compassion teaches you how to love yourself enough to hold that line when it really matters. And that's what it took for me. I had to actually believe that I was worth- the space that it was taking from me when it came to really hard things. And I did all of that so that I could show up better, And that's the part that people get Backwards, I think. Sometimes it looks like pushing someone away, and holding a boundary that wasn't about clearing space to push anyone away. For me, it was about clearing space so that there was something left for me to give. That's the lens of self-compassion I'm trying to portray today. even though it leads with self it's really about really affects how we can show up for our people. And in my particular situation, my battery was drained. I needed to have something left of me for the people that I love. So,

Jodi 14:09

and as you put it, being at war with yourself constantly is exhausting.

Sherry (2) 14:17

It is. But Keeping the lens off of self and onto your loved ones is what keeps self-compassion from going into narcissistic stuff which I don't... not gonna talk about 'cause I don't have credentials to decide who's a narcissist and who isn't but I do know that when we get into self-care, self-compassion territory, that it can easily slide into that realm. So I just wanna be really careful about that.

Jodi 14:44

Yeah. That's where I was struggling recently, and I couldn't figure out why I was feeling so off and so disconnected and so just not quite right. And I thought, "What if I was my friend?" What if I thought of myself or told myself what I would say to my friend? I'm gonna have friends over for dinner or for a weekend, I take great care into preparing, because I like to do nice things for people. And I thought, "When was the last time I thought of myself like my own friend?" Yeah

Sherry (2) 15:23

So in fact, that's where we're going today, lori's story really was about turning inward, and she even says coming back to herself because she had to learn to trust herself after a lifetime of asking everybody else what she should think. And that's the beginning of the self-compassion journey, but it's not the end of it. Because when you finally get in your own corner, that's not where it stops, like you were saying. that's when you become somebody that other people can actually lean on because you now have the capacity for it, and that's what I wanna get into. It's not just this theory of being kind to yourself, but really practicing it and practicing it especially when things are hard. Because a lot more is possible you do that.

Treat Yourself Like A Friend

Sherry (2) 16:24

As we said earlier, Self-compassion really runs through the four things that we talked about already this season, which was self-awareness and agency, emotional regulation, and growth mindset. None of that stuff works you're beating yourself up the whole time doing it. And

Jodi 16:44

Sure doesn't.

Sherry (2) 16:44

When you put a lense on those things, sometimes it naturally comes up like, I've been a real piece of shit," "I've been... What a jagoff I've been," or, so I just want to say it plainly the way that you said it, is self-compassion is learning to treat yourself the way that you would treat a good friend. You know,

Jodi 17:07

Yes

Sherry (2) 17:08

and there are a lot of layers to that too, but I think that most people, we're pretty decent to ourselves whenever things are going okay, but, when the shit hits the fan or you fall short or you mess something up, that's when that internal voice gets really loud and sometimes really ugly, and it can be brutal, so that's why

Jodi 17:37

Yeah

Sherry (2) 17:37

take the time to talk about this today because, like I said, the topics in and of themselves that we've already spoken of aren't super deep, but they can trigger some things.

Jodi 17:48

I started to notice certain things, that I didn't think about before.

Sherry (2) 17:56

Yeah, and it's, it almost feels like telling the truth about ourselves is a trap.

Jodi 18:02

Yeah.

Sherry (2) 18:03

of

Jodi 18:03

Yeah. And I think it's hard and any of our listeners who've listened long enough know that mindfulness and meditation is a big part of my life. When I do the apps or I look for a different one, when I see maybe a, like the self-love ones, I like physically revolt. I'm like, "Eh, I don't even wanna..." I cannot even grasp the concept of listening to a meditation about self-love. That's just how strongly messed up my internal compass is toward myself. Like I cannot even listen to a meditation about loving myself without feeling some sort of way and it's kinda messed up, man. And I don't like admitting it, I don't and I... It took me a lot of work to figure out where the hell it came from and why. And, like I said in the beginning, for me it was that I thought I gave myself grace, and I did at times, but by becoming ultra agreeable and continuously not honoring the little things in myself. It's like I slowly eroded my own sense of self away, if that makes sense.

Sherry (2) 19:28

What doesn't make sense is Why we don't treat our friends this way, so why we do it to ourselves?

Jodi 19:34

Because we don't get still.

Sherry (2) 19:36

Right

Jodi 19:36

You have to get still.

Sherry (2) 19:38

Yeah. You're right, 'cause you're constantly burning energy, just constantly on the go, not dealing with anything. But when you're so hard on yourself, you're burning extra energy on the inside while you're trying to do the hard things, all over the place, and nobody has that much to spare. It's, you're

Jodi 20:01

Oh

Sherry (2) 20:02

You're not supposed to be white-knuckling it through your whole life.

Jodi 20:05

No. Life is precious and it's short.

Sherry (2) 20:07

Yeah, there's no big reward. There's no finish line, it's ever-evolving. But I think that self-compassion is the thing that makes getting through hard times what makes it possible.

Jodi 20:23

You have to kinda learn what it really means to be kind to yourself and show yourself compassion and treat yourself like you would a friend, Yeah. There's a lot of ways that we get it twisted. Let's not sugarcoat that. We will find all the ways to twist the narrative to, what we feel is self-serving in those moments, and that's not it either. But I do think that self-compassion, I learned to show myself a little bit of compassion, and that's where things changed for me because I was white-knuckling it through, yeah

Sherry (2) 21:00

Doing the, non-healthy ways of my reward for, making it through the week without self-combusting or but I had to learn that some boundaries are healthy and not selfish and they became what was necessary and it actually taught me more about what real compassion looks like outwardly. Because there is a fine line between being a compassionate person and being stuck in the cycle of people pleasing. And the narrative that I had running in my head for so long that, I that I was always leading with compassion, but in many ways it was more about people pleasing. And it took a big chunk of my life until I had to zoom out and really see it for what it was. People pleasing leaves you off of your own list. That's it. That's what I need to say about people pleasing. When you have to put yourself on the list Putting up a boundary doesn't mean that you're caring less about anyone. It's not that you're caring less about people. It's you finally being on the list of people that you care about, and that's the point of this whole episode.

Jodi 22:32

Make enough room in the room for yourself.

Sherry (2) 22:37

Yeah.

Jodi 22:37

I went through it. There were people in my life that were depending on me when they shouldn't have, and I let it happen because I felt like that was my role as the caretaker person because that's always who I've been and that I needed to keep rescuing and caretaking. But there is a way, and it's hard. It's really hard, but there's a way to do it lovingly. There's a way to do it so that you're honoring yourself as a kind person. For me, when I have to say no, I always lead with, "I love you. I care about you.

Boundaries That Protect Capacity

Jodi 23:21

I also care about me,

Sherry (2) 23:23

Yeah.

Jodi 23:24

I can't do this.

Sherry (2) 23:25

And you didn't say but, it's and. I

Jodi 23:29

Yes.

Sherry (2) 23:30

love you and,

Jodi 23:31

yep

Sherry (2) 23:33

A boundary is supposed to protect your capacity, and that's all we're doing with statements like that.

Jodi 23:41

Yeah.

Sherry (2) 23:42

Y- that you can continue to show up the people that you love.

Jodi 23:47

Because eventually you won't. It doesn't matter. And I know that there's people out there right now probably rolling their eyes and thinking, "You don't get it." But it takes stuff from you, and if you don't deal with your shit will eventually deal with you,

Sherry (2) 24:01

Exactly.

Jodi 24:03

That's just a hard fact.

Sherry (2) 24:06

Another thing that's kinda thrown around there when it comes to boundaries is that, like we said, it's supposed to protect our capacity and it's not supposed to be a punishment. And That's where things go wrong under the word self-compassion, but that's not really what it is because a lot of what people are calling a boundary is really just cutting someone off.

Jodi 24:28

Yeah.

Sherry (2) 24:28

because

Jodi 24:29

sure The reality is the boundary is whatever you decide you can live with. Whatever you can do and still hold space for yourself. Whatever you can do that you can live with

Sherry (2) 24:41

Yeah

Jodi 24:42

and still have enough room for yourself.

Sherry (2) 24:44

But cutting someone off just because they're pissed that's a different thing than what we're

Jodi 24:48

That's a whole thing

Sherry (2) 24:49

So, I wanna make sure that we're really clear about that, because a real boundary doesn't actually close the door or shut someone out. It's clearly defining what's allowed to come through that door. Like you said what can you live with? What can't you? But the second it starts being about making somebody pay for XYZ, it stopped being a boundary and it started being a punishment. And here's the thing that I can say from a lot of years in the classroom, punishment doesn't work. It's

Jodi 25:27

No, it hurts you. It's that Buddha saying, it's like taking poison... W- how does that go? It's like taking poison and expecting the other person to die.

Sherry (2) 25:38

To die, yeah. Yeah. And, you can punish someone all day long and you're never, you're not gonna change a thing about them through that because I know when it comes to kids that In a classroom that it's about rapport. It's the relationship, not the consequence. So even if somebody thinks that it feels good to make somebody pay, you're not gonna actually get what you wanted out of it, you're just staying in the fight just to stay in the fight. And I also want to say that, the plates aren't handed out evenly, and some people are starting out already ahead,

Jodi 26:24

yeah

Sherry (2) 26:25

and That's a really real thing, and it's not fair. So I don't want to pretend that a perfect boundary will fix of these problems.

Jodi 26:40

I do believe accepting it and naming it is the start of self-compassion. I think acknowledging, you know what? I was born into this cycle. This horrible thing happened to me. And when you acknowledge... Because I think that a lot of times when you've gone through the worst of the worst, your brain has a way to not let you think of it in the way that you need. And I think you look at it and you say I just, I talked to somebody who was very mentally abused by a parent for a very long time, and that we were talking about it, and I said what would you say to somebody else if they told you your story, but it was them?" What would your reaction be if somebody said to you, 'Let's just pick a story from your childhood,' and imagine somebody telling it to you and saying, 'This was said to me.'" What would you think about that? And, it did it hit that person and they said, that's actually a really good way to think about it because I would say that wasn't your fault. It sucks that happened. That really sucks, and that's a terrible thing to hear as a child. You didn't do it

Sherry (2) 28:01

And the carrying the weight of something like that is very real.

Jodi 28:07

Heavy.

Sherry (2) 28:08

I would say the thing to remember though is that we do s- get to decide what our next step will be on the ground that we're actually standing on.

Jodi 28:24

Yes, and hopefully it becomes that I am, I'm a strong person In spite of what happened in my life.

Sherry (2) 28:34

Yeah. I don't wanna say that you could just decide your way out of it, 'cause again, I can only speak to

Jodi 28:40

No, you c-

Sherry (2) 28:42

But the general gist of it is that, like can happen that sucks.

Jodi 28:49

Yeah

Sherry (2) 28:51

I can let it swallow you up or- Do the next one small thing.

Jodi 28:58

We're more than the worst things that have happened to us.

Sherry (2) 29:01

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. Yep. I

When The Right Boundary Hurts

Sherry (2) 29:07

do wanna go back to boundaries for a minute because while we're talking about hard things, I don't wanna sit here and make setting boundaries sound like a clean and easy thing to do either. Because the hardest place that I have ever had to learn it was with somebody that I love very much. A lot of the podcast birth was because of my sister, and I had to hold a hard line there. And I don't get to tell that story wrapped up with a bow because it doesn't have one. And I have to live with what holding that line did and didn't do. I guess the point of it is that you can do the right thing for yourself, but you still will be the one holding the weight of it afterward. So just because it may be the right thing to do doesn't mean that it's going to be easy or you're going to feel great about it.

Jodi 30:14

That's when it becomes even more important to practice self-compassion.

Sherry (2) 30:21

So that's why I was sharing it, because when I tell you that a boundary can be necessary, I am not saying it from a comfortable place. I'm saying it as someone who had to build one. And I still turn it over every day, every day. I probably always will. But sometimes you have to do the thing that you have the capacity for, still the hardest thing that you ever carry and I tell you that I couldn't have held that line, and I couldn't have lived with it after if I had been beating myself up the whole time too. It got to a point, though, that there wasn't room for both. There wasn't room for both anymore, and that's what being kind to myself actually got me. It's not that it made it hurt any less. It's that it left It left something of me standing for the people who were still here. And when I start to get to those ugly self-questioning places, that's the thing that I come back to, to remember the why behind What it really meant to put up a boundary in order to protect the capacity that I have for others.

Jodi 31:49

And you're teaching those others a really important lesson too. You're giving your children and your family so much by the example that you set.

Sherry (2) 32:03

I think that's really what this all been building to,

Jodi 32:07

yeah

Sherry (2) 32:07

to be straight. 'Cause I don't think that you can sit in someone else's pain if you can't tolerate your own discomfort while they're in it. So the person who's learned to be with their own hard stuff without flinching, that's the person who can finally be there for somebody else. I think self-compassion is what makes real compassion possible, and that's really the whole point.

Jodi 32:37

Yeah. I like that.

Sherry (2) 32:41

And I wanna really say it that way because if we twist the lens and change the perspective, I think that changes a lot of things in the way that we think about self-care and self-compassion.

Jodi 32:52

Yes

The Trap Of “Fuck It Mode”

Sherry (2) 32:53

So sometimes we reach the point that I call fuck it mode. And That's a place where this whole thing can get twisted because when it doesn't look like people pleasing, there's the other spectrum of it, and it's it looks like giving up.

Jodi 33:09

Yeah

Sherry (2) 33:09

and it's kinda like When you have compassion and You're giving giving, and it turns into people pleasing. But it can also go the other way where it turns into self-pity And a healthy spot is somewhere in the middle.

Jodi 33:32

All the magic's always in the middle.

Sherry (2) 33:34

Yeah. That's interesting. But that self-pity that's the place that it takes you to. It's fuck it mode.

Jodi 33:44

Yeah. I just lived it. Finally everything's quieted down. I don't have any giant fires to put out in my life, and my kids are doing well, and life has really slowed down. And I felt like my nervous system needed me to just stop. And, it went too far. I really over-corrected, and then I had to come back to that middle ground.

Sherry (2) 34:06

I do feel when you get stuck in that f- fuck it mode is that is the exact opposite growth if you go there and stay there.

Jodi 34:14

Yep

Sherry (2) 34:15

So yay you for figuring it out. It's not gonna hold if someone is shoving your nose in it. You gotta discover it yourself.

Jodi 34:25

You do. I was lucky because I have an awesome husband who at one point when I started to realize just how terrible I was being to myself, we were getting ready to go out, and I was like bitching about my hair and my outfit, and I was like, "I look terrible. My hair's not laying right. This outfit looks like shit on me," and I just kept going. And he finally looked at me and said, "Stop talking about my wife like that."

Sherry (2) 34:49

Yeah, go husband.

Jodi 34:51

And I was like, "Oh my God."

Sherry (2) 34:56

And that, that those are the stories that we tell ourselves.

Jodi 34:59

Yep.

Sherry (2) 34:59

And it flips the lens back on what you said before. You wouldn't say that to me or any of your other friends, so

Jodi 35:08

Nope

Sherry (2) 35:08

yeah, don't... Why do we do it to ourselves? When you get comfortable with your own self-pity and get in that it mood you're kinda deciding that this, your story's already written, so about whatever hard thing, and it's so why bother? And that's when the boundaries get dropped. You start carrying more plates again, You're back dealing with the thing that you keep on kicking it under the rug. You know what I mean? And sometimes, though, that's where, like in the self-care realm, see it under a claim of rest. Like a little bit of stepping back recalibrate is rest. Staying there is a different thing.

Jodi 35:57

Right

Sherry (2) 35:58

We need to give ourselves grace enough to take a time out if needed. you're talking about it staying for too long.

Jodi 36:06

Yeah,

Sherry (2) 36:07

and that's the difference.

Jodi 36:08

I'm sure you grew up hearing the phrase that the person has built a fortress around themselves. Their walls, they've got this concrete barrier around their heart. There is a difference between having boundaries and having built a fortress around yourself too. That's where my brain goes when you're describing what you're describing. People that become so closed off and so hard that without even realizing it, they're harming themselves more.

Sherry (2) 36:36

Yeah. Really a lot of people are in

Jodi 36:39

Yeah.

Sherry (2) 36:40

So I think self-compassion is the opposite of giving up on yourself. It's like the bad things that happen, they happened or they're still going to happen. But self-pity or fuck it mode is giving up on yourself and letting something or someone else drive. And this takes me back to what you were saying in one of our earlier episodes about who's driving the bus, because the circumstances or whatever you're up against, the bad story, the car's not gonna stop driving just because you quit. All those things are still happening. Someone's always driving. And, what we're trying to do with the This Is It podcast is remind ourselves and our listeners that this is about you deciding that it's you a bus, 'cause, or the car, whatever the hell you're cruising life in. I think it hit me as I was, like, preparing for this one. "This is really what it's all about." Every topic that we've talked about so far.

Jodi 37:55

We can be our own worst enemy. I had a teacher say that to me before, and I was young. I was probably in seventh grade, and she was like, "Oh, you are your own worst enemy, child." And it took me to get to my 50s to realize what the hell she meant.

Sherry (2) 38:13

And you're like, And you wanna call her up and be like, "Oh, I get it

Jodi 38:16

Yeah, I get it

Sherry (2) 38:16

now, Renee." Oh, it's late. You get a deduction for late work. but yeah, I think that when you become self-aware and you start to be more self-compassionate, that it... You realize that it's really about, yeah, you don't wait till you feel better. It's one little layer at a time. It's letting yourself rest, but not letting yourself stay down. Take care of yourself and you can show up better. And the world becomes better as we can handle things better.

Jodi 38:52

Yes.

Stop Using Two Measuring Sticks

Jodi 38:53

Makes me think of the difference between being nice and being kind. There's a huge difference between the two things,

Sherry (2) 39:00

Yeah, say more

Jodi 39:01

I feel kind is something you live, right? Nice is something you do. I'm gonna do something nice, but I'm gonna live my life in a way that doesn't carry... Kindness is more something that you just always are, right?

Sherry (2) 39:17

Yep

Jodi 39:18

And I think nice acts can be very empty, and same thing with self-care, self-compassion. If they're done in a certain way, it's actually more avoiding. It's more compounding things that aren't that and making it worse.

Sherry (2) 39:41

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I do wanna say one other kind of idea that when it comes to this type of thing, we as people, I think use like two different measuring sticks, one for ourselves and one for other people. And that's just another lens that I wanna look through because I think we're really good. Now there's two sides to this, and you may fall into one camp or the other. some people are really good at making excuses for ourselves. I was tired, I was busy, I didn't mean it, I had a lot going on. And then we turn around and hold everybody else's feet to the fire, and for the exact same damn thing. And then, some people run it the other way, and you gotta be careful because there might be more of I don't know. I can't say who exactly our listeners are, but there might be more of those people in our audience listening, and that is who have endless patience for everybody else,

Jodi 40:46

for themselves

Sherry (2) 40:47

a wrecking ball for themselves. Like you said, you'll forgive your friend for the same thing that you would never let yourself off the hook for, that you would keep bashing yourself and ruminating over for 100 years. So whichever the direction is on those two things, that that's where it's broken. There's not a level measuring stick, and just to keep that mind.

Jodi 41:11

Learn how to be your own friend.

Sherry (2) 41:14

Yeah. And like you said, this is self-compassion. It's right in the middle of how we treat other people. Because

Jodi 41:23

Yeah

Sherry (2) 41:23

way your scale tips, and most people's scale does tip one way or the other but the fix is the same, and that is by leveling it, You give yourself grace. You give yourself the same grace that you hand out to everyone else. Or you hold yourself to the same honesty that you expect from everyone else. You gotta have the same standard in both directions. And I think that the person who forgives everyone else but themselves is... That's not being humble, but I think- We're just being unfair to ourselves when we do things like that, and I wanna come

Jodi 42:05

And,

Sherry (2) 42:06

one thing that I said earlier that relates to that, is like we punish ourselves. And I said it about kids in a classroom. You can't punish the person into changing. You can't punish yourself into changing. What changes is when he or she believes that you're on their side. So you gotta be on your own team. It's about rapport. It's about relationships, it's true of you, too, the one that we have with ourselves. You can't punish yourself into Being a better person doesn't work either for the same reason that it doesn't work on a kid in a classroom. Nobody changes because somebody made them feel small. People change when they feel like somebody's with them, and that's really the key, and that is including when that somebody is you and yourself. I think we need to try to look out and catch ourselves when our internal voice starts being cruel. It's not something that you could just jump in and fix right away, but at least noticing it, it's that, "Oh, there you are," thing that you talked about on some other episodes. And then also, as you mentioned, responding like a friend. How would you respond to a friend talking to you the way that you talk to yourself? Or if you're lucky to have a husband would call you out on that, same thing.

Jodi 43:27

Or even a friend,

Sherry (2) 43:28

yeah. Remember that it's shared. Whatever you're carrying, the struggling, the mess, the falling short, it feels like it in the moment, but you're not the only person that ever felt that way. And just keeping that perspective and that reminder, that's a reminder that it doesn't mean that everything's broken. It's part of being

How To Hold Someone’s Pain

Sherry (2) 43:52

human.

Sherry 43:52

And there's, there is one other side of this because self-compassion changes how you show up for everybody else. And there's something that we all do, with the best intentions. And it happens a lot. Somebody opens up to us about something that really hurts, and without meaning to, we take the moment away from them, and there's a few ways that I think it happens. Somebody tells you their hard thing, and you go, "Oh my gosh, that happened to me too." And now real quick, it's your story. You meant to connect, but they came to be heard, and somehow they ended up listening to you. Or you try to lift them with, again, the purest of intentions, "At least it wasn't X, Y, Z," that's meaning to help someone feel better, but what a person might hear is your pain is smaller than you think it is, and it's doing more like correcting how they're feeling when really they probably needed you to just be there with them. Or you jump straight to the fix. Find the solution, the bright side, the lesson before they're even finished kinda processing the thing that they're in, and you meant to help, but it really sometimes lands as, "Okay, hurry up and be okay because this is really making me uncomfortable." And we need to be really careful with all of the diagnosing that goes on because there's a version of that that, can do actual harm, and that's when somebody shares a health thing, something they're scared about, you're not their doctor. and we, with all well-meaning intentions, "Have you tried XYZ? It sounds like it might... you might have blah, blah, blah. My cousin had da, da, da, and it turned out to be da, da, da, da. And I mean this in the kindest way. I know we mean it as love, but it really doesn't land well to somebody else telling you what's wrong with your own body, and that can be dangerous. So here's the healthier version. When it comes to medical things, I think the best way to go is to say almost nothing about the medical part because that's really not yours to speak to and It's more about going to what it's actually like to be in that person's shoes right now. That sounds scary. That's a lot. That's really hard." You have to be responding to the person, not their physical condition, because that's the only thing we're actually qualified for. And then Give them back their own power with a question. Do you wanna talk it through, or do you just want me to listen? I don't know anything about what you're facing, and I'm not gonna pretend to, but also know I know you and I'm not going anywhere." Things that are meant to comfort really become quietly minimizing someone's pain, and it feels like, "Please don't make me sit in the scary shit with you." So I'm here. Whatever it is I think holds better than, "Oh, it's nothing." And I feel the way that I know if I got it right or not is does the person feel more alone after you speak or less? Because unsolicited advice tends to leave them more alone. But just presence feels better. Sometimes the most caring thing that you can do is nothing but just stay. You don't have to match it. You don't have to shrink it. You don't have to one-up it. You don't have to fix it. Just don't leave. Just be with them in it. That's it. What I've learned, and it took a while, is that being in your own corner means deciding that you're worth the same grace that you would give someone else. If you haven't heard the Lori Karsch episode yet, it was the one before this. Caring for yourself and caring for other people aren't a competition. Being kind to yourself is what makes real compassion possible.

Closing, Support, And Resources

Sherry 48:04

This is it. If this episode found you at the right moment, please pass it on. That's how we grow. Follow the show, leave us a review. and, we have a new way to help us out. We recently opened our Amazon storefront, and If you already shop on Amazon and you access Amazon through our link, it costs you nothing extra, and it really helps us keep going. You'll find our link in the show notes, on our website, and on our socials, and if you are looking for something specific that we talked about on the show or you're curious about filling your life toolkit and tackle box, you can check the TY Toolkit for tools we actually recommend, which is also in the show notes and on our website at thrivingyinzers.com. Until next time, this is it! This podcast is meant to be informational and inspirational, but it is not a substitute for professional advice. We are not licensed therapists or medical professionals, and what we share here comes from personal experience only. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to someone trained to help. And if you're in crisis, you can call or text 988 The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It is available 24-7.