Stop Letting People Control You - Take Your Power Back!

Do you ever feel like someone’s pulling your strings — using guilt, pressure, or emotional manipulation to get what they want?
You say yes when you mean no. You walk on eggshells to keep the peace. You twist yourself into knots trying not to disappoint anyone.
And even though you know it’s draining you… it feels impossible to stop.

In this talk, we go deep into what it takes to rise from that place of powerlessness — and remember the strength you’ve always had. The first step is knowing it’s absolutely possible. This isn’t about “toughing it out”… it’s about learning how to power up instead of continually powering down.

You deserve to feel free, steady, and in control again. Enjoy!

For FREE Resources, Book Link, 1:1 Mentoring, KB’s Self-Love Merch Shop and more: https://www.linktr.ee/kristenbrownauthor

📘 Chapters:
00:00:00 Inspiration for this topic 
00:03:40 Why people control 
00:09:45 Becoming aware of the pattern
00:10:24 Guest One - Sharon
00:16:45 Are you easily persuaded or guilted by others?
00:22:50 Why making yourself a priority feels awkward at first
00:26:35 Who will respect you and who will not
00:33:01 Guest Two - Truth
00:40:16 Guest Three - Steven
00:48:53 Tip One: Self-awareness
00:50:26 Tip Two: Boundaries
00:54:50 Tip Three: Emotional Responsibility
00:56:45 Tip Four: Discernment vs Reaction
01:02:53 Tip Five: Self-trust
01:08:58 Tip Six: Accountability Without Shame
01:12:16 Guest Four - Julie
01:20:01 Light-hearted over shaming self

Transcript

Kristen: 0:00

Welcome to Empower Hour with KB. Looking forward to this conversation today with you guys. Of course, this came with a little bit of inspiration. This is something we've all experienced. I'm just going to be bold enough to say we have all experienced this on some level. And we do until we don't. That's all there is to it. We are human beings learning every single day, hopefully, if you're in a growth mindset, which is something I'm going to dip into with this conversation. So this morning at the gym, I saw my friend and he came over to me and he's had this female, he's a male, he's had this female roommate off and on, and she had finally moved out of his house and moved into her boyfriend's house. And it all seemed really good. He came up, he came up to me today and he said, Guess who's back? I said, What do you mean? And he's and he told me her name. He said, She's back. She's come back to the house. I said, Oh no, what's happening? I thought it was really great with the boyfriend. He said it is, but she said that he the word she used was bullies her into things. And I said, Does he actually bully her? Is it just more like pressure? And he goes, No, it's pressure, it's pressure. And I said, Okay, you know, there's me being a stickler, stickler for terminology because I'm like, bullying is a whole different gig. I mean, bullying is like you got to bully of a boyfriend, you got to get out and stay out. If it's pressure, then that's something that you can work with. Because many of us have had that experience where we have been pressured into something in some capacity. But look at the title of this talk today: They Can't Control You Without Your Permission. Something I've had to learn over and over and over again in my life. And I'm grateful to report that it gets easier every single time because of a few things that I'm gonna share with you today when I dip into the how to break this pattern. But first, we're gonna talk about what this means. It's imperative to know first, off the start, that nobody can pressure us into anything without our agreement. Let that sink in. No one can pressure us into anything without our agreement. A victim mindset will say, quote unquote, they pressured me into it. But an empowered or growth mindset will say, I allowed myself to be pressured into it. Do you see the difference there? Do you see where the first one, you are giving your power away, they pressured me into it? That's saying that they are responsible for everything. And the second one puts us back in the power seat where we say, I allowed myself to be pressured into something. Now I know that um I'm I'm really free with words. Like I said, when the guy said bullying, that she called it bullying, I was like, all right, because just my mind and the things that I teach and the coaching that I do, it's like, okay, bullying means she needs to get out. Did you mean pressuring? He said, yes. Okay, pressuring is something that we can work with. So this is really not about like every little term that everybody uses, but it is important when it comes to how we're talking to ourselves and how we're seeing particular situations, because our words matter, because they not only could have energy, but they also have definition attacked, or I'm sorry, attached to it. So if I'm saying somebody is bullying me, that's really different because that's a very aggressive, nasty, horrible behavior where pressure, believe it or not, you guys, this might get tomatoes thrown at me, is something that people are going to do because it works for them. So many unconscious and unhealed people will do whatever works for them to get their way, to get you to do what feels comfortable and good for them. Now, I'm going to say that not all people that do this are nasty, are narcissists, are heinous, or noxious. That doesn't mean this necessarily. All right. Yes, there are those out there. Yes, there are, absolutely. But the I've seen really great people in the world pull out that little unconscious mechanism of trying to get me or someone else to concede and fall in line with whatever it is that they want because that's what makes them comfortable. That's what they like, that's what they're used to, that's what their brain is saying. Remember, our brain is always trying to get us to be comfortable. It wants us to feel safe all the time. And sometimes that means that they are going to use words, behaviors, actions, emotions to get us to do something that they want us to uh us, that they want us to do. But their what I call manipulation strategies, conscious or not, their manipulation strategies will not work on us unless we give it permission. So if we fold, we fall, we bend, we morph, we give in, we give over, we concede because of the pressure or the manipulation or the uh emotions or whatever it is that they're throwing at us, that's on us. And being a recovering people pleaser myself, I actually wrote the book on it, The Recovering People Pleaser, a spiritual guide to reclaim your true worth and attract the love you deserve. Love meanings love in general in life. I almost said the United States. Why on earth would I say that? Kristen. Oh my gosh. I'm very rested today and happy, by the way. But um that was weird. My 58-year-old brain does weird things sometimes. But, you know, in our own life. So that's called the Recovering People Pleaser. It is in my profile here here. You can find it by clicking on my picture, going to where it says my link tree, and you will find it in there. And that'll take you to the Amazon link, but it's available on 40,000 other bookselling sites as well. So this is about reclaiming our personal power. That's what that entire book is about, and it is the ways to do so. This talk is in correlation to that. That's why I'm bringing this up, because I outline things in there in a very clear and distinct way so people can understand the what and why of people pleasing. So when I talk about the how-to, it makes sense. Okay, so yes, people are gonna do what they're gonna do until we decide that what they're doing is not going to work for us. I have had this experience, I still do. I'm gonna be honest, I still do. It's still sometimes people will do a particular something that makes my body react in a way that I can see myself moving in a direction of disempowerment for whatever reason. Typically, for me at this stage in the game, it's not that I'm gonna lose their love. It's more about to keep the peace. That seems to be my running theme right now. But there are many times in our life that this could be, we could be doing this because we're afraid of being alone, we're afraid of being disliked, we're afraid of being rejected, we're afraid of somebody leaving. There could be many, many reasons why these things show up for us. But for me, right now, it's not those things per se. It's more about keeping the peace. And that's like I catch it. I want you to know I do catch it, and I have to sit with it and I have to create space so that I can make a good choice and decision. I also notice that sometimes when that's happening historically, what I used to do is just immediate kind of knee-jerk respond and react to whatever they were saying. And now, through practice, everyone, this took practice for me. I just sit with it and just kind of look at them, look at the person. I don't really say anything because I noticed that my programming was to please or to feel safe or to for my because people pleasing, there is control involved with people pleasing, by the way, you guys. Not talked about too much, but I was trying to control the narrative, the environment, the relationship, whatever it is on some level. So people don't really realize that people pleasing is an equal degree of control as is people who are selfish or narcissistic. All right. We're no better or no worse than they are. We're all the same, we're all just doing the things that we're doing. So I realize I'm trying to control. Once I took ownership of that, I sat with it and I gave myself space. What's happening here? Let me process through this. But I'm jumping ahead of myself and getting into the how-to. But so I'm gonna keep going and just outline this a little bit more, and then I'm gonna bring up my first guest, who is my beloved, our beloved sister Sharon. So the last piece I want to say is that people are going to do what they're going to do. Our power is deciding what we are going to do when they do that. And part of reclaiming our personal power and having a growth or empowered mindset is to become aware, is to be very aware of what's happening in this moment because this is likely a pattern between you and this individual. Patterns reveal so much to us, they show us so much. So if we're willing to look at the pattern that's happening, we're gonna get a lot of intel and a lot of insight regarding where we want to go next with this. How do we want this to look for our future? Welcome, Miss Sharon. Thank you for coming.

Sharon: 10:25

Hello, how are you? Hey, I'm doing great today. How are you? Great. I just love that I'm having these little moments where I'm actually catching you.

Kristen: 10:34

I love it too.

Sharon: 10:36

What an amazing uh topic. And you know, when you were talking about patterns, you know, one of the things I often say on my talks is the pattern is greater than the new message.

Kristen: 10:47

And if we start to understand, the pattern is greater than the new message. Love that. Keep going.

Sharon: 10:53

Yes. And so, you know, this the thought came to me when I was watching the documentary and it was talking about they were showing these wheels that were hundreds of years from these wagons that were dragged, you know, they would take them down to the edge, and they thought, okay, well, this is where the land ended. So then we thought, okay, so now we know the pattern, right? And everybody followed that pattern. However, when the water receded, guess what? There were still more patterns. And I think that's what you're talking about is sometimes we're able to identify on a conscious level the pattern, but it's that subconscious, the water hasn't receded enough for us to see that we're still in the same pattern, oftentimes, until we do that deeper work to understand. And therefore, we are following the prescribed narrative. And the narrative for you was people pleaser. I do the people pleasing, and you're you're absolutely correct. There is power and control in the people pleaser, but the people pleaser wants to control stuff to better balance their emotion, thinking they do it externally by controlling the person, correct? Well, in order to be a good thing.

Kristen: 12:00

It's a lot rooted in to feel safe.

Sharon: 12:02

Yes. And it's it's but it's around that emotion. That's a safe safe. Feeling safe is an emotion. We're guarding an emotion that's being triggered. And you even said that sometimes if somebody says something, you're what you're doing is it's triggering that thing. Once again, you found the wheel, the wheel tracks, but the water recedes. And when that water recedes, is when we start having that feeling, when we think, oh, hey, wait a minute, I've got this. When we feel that, then we know we have to explore a little bit more. But one of the things I found is when we start to understand that I'm following a prescribed narrative until I change that narrative, while also understanding, guess what? Everybody I'm engaging with is also following a prescribed narrative. So we can start talking about those narratives and how those narratives are interacting with each other and why they're not working.

Kristen: 12:51

But we get but once again, we get that was my beatnik snap. Sorry, Sarah, that's my I snap instead of talking.

Sharon: 13:00

It's such an important thing because we're we're once again, we're listening to the narrative as of others and we're often living somebody else's narrative. That's why, you know, early on, whatever happened that makes one a people pleaser or a caretaker, caregiver, all of those things is a conditioned behavior and response and reaction. But until we understand, but nobody wants to say, Oh, I'm I was conditioned to do this, who who am I? That they almost view it as a weakness. But not understanding that it is not a weakness. This starts from the time we are born. It starts from that moment where we come out that tabula rosa, and then what happens is everybody adds to it, and then we become whatever that is until we take the time to kind of erase those things that no longer are relevant for us. But it's being able to do that introspection and say and and get in showing a little grace.

Kristen: 13:58

Oh, yes.

Sharon: 13:59

You don't beat up the person who was when this you don't sit there and say, Well, that per I shouldn't have been doing that. No. We look at it, we have gratitude for it, and we say, What did I learn from it? Who do I want to be? If it's not that, then what is it? And how do I want these relationships to look? So we have to change the narrative.

Kristen: 14:21

One of my favorite questions is, is this working for me? Is this gonna get me to where I want to be? The relationship, the goal, whatever it might be, is this working for me? And then what I've done for me is I bring that up into my conscious because if it's the unconscious pattern running the show, I can't do anything. But when I recognize the pattern and then I say, okay, here's the pattern. Is this actually working for me? Then I've got something to work with.

Sharon: 14:48

Absolutely. And along the lines with that, I always ask myself, what is important for that? What is the most important message for me for the other person I'm communicating with to hear and understand? And if I do that, then I'm gonna have that narrative. I'm gonna be more focused on what it is I need in those moments.

Kristen: 15:05

That's so good.

Sharon: 15:06

Anyway, thank you very much for bringing me up and I appreciate it and have a great day.

Kristen: 15:12

Thanks, Sharon. That's our very own beloved Sharon Abeda. She is a speaker here on the app, everyone, and she is here Saturdays and Sundays at 10 a.m. You don't want to miss her, miss her conversations. And as you can see, she's a very delightful human being and very easy to talk to. So if you you can join her stage, and it is a definite safe place to be. All right, so let's keep going. I have a couple questions that I want to ask you guys because you know I take these little tallies and these polls to so everybody can feel like they're not alone. So that if you relate to the question I'm asking, whether it's current or in your past, because that doesn't really matter, we're just trying to, through a show of emojis, have people say, Oh, okay, I'm not alone. This is not, I'm not the only person, because we can feel so alone on this journey sometimes, like I'm the only one. Because maybe we see other people in our immediate surroundings, our closest circles, that are not doing the things that you think that you're doing or you believe that you're doing, or maybe they are, you just don't see it. But if you start to broaden that lens and look out, you're gonna see that maybe in this circle of five people, I'm the only one. But if you broaden it out, you're gonna see, oh my gosh, there's so many people that are contending with this. So the first question, and send up your emojis, if you relate to this either now, because I'm saying in the past, meaning you're working on it actively, you're healing it, or you have healed it, or you are um you're dealing with it right now in this current moment. Are you or have you been easily persuaded or affected by others' words, actions, or emotions? Have you or are you easily persuaded or affected by others' words, actions, or emotions? Here we go. Yes, we're seeing all the people shoot up, the emojis who have dealt with this. Yes. Very, very common, isn't it, guys? It's very, very, very common. Amani, Jeannie, Linda, Truth, Lisa, Steven, Dr. Robert, Michelle, absolutely. Let me see if there's anybody else. Uh, Jeanette, yes. It's a very common thing, you guys. So here's the second question. Have you allowed, or in the past, or currently dealing with this, have you allowed other people to guilt or pressure you in some capacity? Have you allowed their guilting or what I call manipulation strategies to affect your decisions and choices? Yep. Once again, Steven said yes as well. And let me see. Okay, yep, everybody's coming. Probably, Donna said yes. I love that that my um Android device users are learning to use the DM since they don't have the um emoji feature. I wish you guys did. I really want that to happen. Awesome, you guys. Yes, thank you so much for that because this is it's it's more common than we think it is. And I want you to really settle into that bean bag of truth. For those of you who are new here, I have what I call a bean bag of truth, which is matter no matter what the truth is, I see this big light blue bean bag, probably because we had one, and this thing was well loved, and you could sit in this bean bag and your buns almost all the way touched the floor, not you know, not in a painful way, but the bean bag was well used, so it would curl up around us and just made the most comfortable chair for anybody who sat in it. So I call that the bean bag of truth. If we sit into that bag and we really just snuggle into the truth of these things, then we are going somewhere. And like Sharon mentioned, this is about grace. This is all about recognition, eyes wide open, ownership, taking accountability without beating yourself up, because that never does us any good. If anything, it works against us. All right. Hidden shame and unworthiness have been driving the train for a very long time in your life. You don't want to keep contributing to that by adding more shame to it. Once you realize that you are a human being, that you have come here uh whole and perfect without anything on your whiteboard about who you are and how great you are, you knew everything about you, all your complete worth. But as you grew and your brain levels started to increase, you started to take in more information from the outside world. And then the brain that's designed to keep us safe and alive starts to give us these messages. And then we start to function from a place of, ooh, I better change that because this might happen, or I was disapproved of over. Here or this happens when that happened, or maybe you have an abandonment wound and you're afraid of people leaving, so you shut down and play small in order to be able to procure or to keep this relationship that you're in. And I've seen this so many times where people are in a particular relationship that really is not serving to them, but they don't even see how unserving it is to them because they're so busy trying to keep that other person happy. They're just all their focus is on that other person and how, you know, even the person's facial expressions, like, was I approved of, was I not approved of? Should I do this? Should I go left? Should I go right? Should I pay more? Should I, what is it that I need to shift and morph in myself to keep this person happy? Because deep down inside, I'm scared of being alone, or I think they are my last chance. This is a very interesting one because I had that feeling at some point. I didn't know it until I became conscious of it, because I was holding on to a relationship where the person didn't want to be with me. This was not my tsunami ex. This was the guy that I refer to as Jacob in my book, The Recovering People Pleaser. You'll you will hear all about this story in that book. But I was holding on to him and holding on to him and holding on to him. And then when I started to really question myself, this was all during my college of Kristen, where I started to question myself and ask myself questions. One of the things that I came up with was, I'm afraid this is my last chance at love. I was 42 years old during that. I was 42, 43. I was afraid that this was my last chance. So of course I was going to shift, demorph, evolve, and jump through hoops and cirque de soleil my way through that relationship, hoping that this guy wouldn't leave. And guess what? None of that mattered. None of that mattered. In fact, it I don't know this for a fact because I haven't asked him about this. But part of me thinks, you know what? I wonder if that energy that was coming towards him felt, even though I wasn't acting it on the outside, I wasn't acting desperate energy, like blowing up his phone, chasing him all over town, doing all these things, if he felt that and if that was off-putting and unattractive to him. Because he thought I was the bee's knees at one minute. He was like, Where have you been my whole life? Oh my God, you're the gift from God. You're amazing. So all he kept saying, you're amazing, you're amazing, you're amazing. And all of a sudden, boop, gone. Well, it wasn't because I was acting ridiculous, but I will say that probably that energy that was coming at him, and maybe it showed up in some of my dialogue with him. I don't know. I don't really remember. But you know what? That could have been off-putting to him. So here I was jumping through all these hoops and deciding that he was more important than me. And this is what one of the things we really have to ground into here is that you have to make yourself the priority of your life. That's all there is to it. There's nobody that can do this for us. We have to be willing to put ourselves as a priority. This is gonna feel very awkward, very uncomfortable, kind of weird at first because it's gonna feel like it's wrong. And I want to tell you why it's gonna feel wrong. Even though intellectually up in your brain, you're gonna know it's right because it's gonna click. You're gonna say, Yeah, that's true. I do need to make myself a priority. I hear people say it all the time. But the reason why it's gonna feel wrong is because it's going against your programming. It's going against the way you are programmed. So actually, the script, people use that word, or the tapes that are running, or I call it the programming because if you look at it like a computer, it just runs the system over and over again. That programming has been in place for so long, the brain, get this, does wants us to be protected at all times. So it doesn't like us stepping into the unknown. So recognizing we need to be a priority is stepping into the unknown. Now we got to do things and behaviors, hopefully from a completely empowered place, not from a place of aggression. We need to do behaviors that we've never done before, and we don't know how the people are going to respond. That's scary. That's what feels scary. Here's what I've learned on this journey. The people who truly love me and value me in their life, although they gave me pushback because they were used to the old narrative, the old way of being, although they give me a little pushback in certain areas, and by the way, none of them are narcissists. This is just humans again. Remember, I outlined this in the beginning. They want things to their brain wants things to stay the same as well. So even though they gave me a little pushback, they eventually fell in line with this because of for a couple of reasons. Okay, I need to slow down my brain. God slow down my brain. I got a lot coming at me right now. One of the reasons is because the my consistency. So when we're consistent, and this, and I don't mean this bad, so don't take this next next sentence bad. But how do we train a dog? We have to be very consistent with the dog, right? Eventually the dog gets to know the new gig. Same thing is true with our family or our friends or whoever. When we do the same thing over and over again, eventually they realize this is the new deal, and their brain will get quote unquote comfortable with it because this is just how it is right now. Even though they might figuratively kick and scream a little bit, push against you a little bit, they're gonna eventually fall in line. And here's the second thing they, on some level, in their soul, in their being, know that it's correct. They know, they know, and remember, we're all unconscious in certain areas until we become conscious in that area. So even though they're unconsciously wanting this particular behavior from us over and over and over again, by us being willing to make ourselves a priority, make ourselves matter, and choose in a high H-I-G-H way for ourselves, in a in an elevated way for ourselves, eventually they will fall in line. Now remember, these are the ones who love and value you. The takers, the selfish ones, the narcissistic type people, the NTPs. I only use that term because that is the word that everybody's using in the world right now. There is not everybody you know is a narcissist, by the way. It's one of the great follies of social media. Anybody who's difficult has been labeled a narcissist these days. It's really not it. There's a lot of things, I call them unhealed. They could be emotionally immature. There's a lot of things. Yes, there are true narcissists, but they're pretty rare. But the NTP type people in our world, so these were people that were not that, but the ones who are, the ones who are, they are not gonna sit around and play. They're not gonna play this with you, they're not gonna fall in line. In fact, it they might get bigger and worse when you do this. All right. That's a key indicator to you that something's going on here. Because when love, capital L, love for you, they have love for you, when love is in the room, when love is in the relationship, when you have that energy swirling between you, love does want what's best for the other person. Now, I had to personally shift a lot of my behaviors in myself. And like I said, I use my family as my examples a lot, but I have a beloved, amazing, extremely close relationship with we all do with each other. We all call each other our best friends. Like that is the narrative in our house. We're like, my family, you're all my best friends. And this means my eldest daughter sees all of us as her best friends. My son sees all of us as his best friends. See, we're all each other's best friends, even though they have best friends as well, like the friends, but we we are that close and connected. When I start, remember, they were much younger too, but when I started to really heal and put myself first and to make decisions for myself, and oh my God, the guilting, I was such a self-guilter. So if they gave me a little innocent, sad look, or but so-and-so's mom does this, or whatever it was that they would say, I would feel so bad that I would give in because I because I guilted myself. So some of it was theirs, some of it wasn't theirs. And I've told this story before, it's one of my favorites. This was many, many years ago. My eldest is 31 right now, and she was about 16 at that time, and she was a 16-year-old, let me tell you. And I remember when I set a boundary with her over something, and she, you know, was fighting with me and what have you. And then she looked at me in this very just sort of what I don't know how to explain it, um like uh disapproving way. And she lowered her voice and she goes, You are changing. That's what she said. I remember where we were standing when she said this. And organically, do you know what came out of me? I did not think about this. This wasn't a smite. I wasn't trying to be uh win the conversation. I just said, I know. Isn't it amazing? I know. Isn't it fantastic? And I said it in such a way that the look on my face must have like shocked her because she just uh looked at me like her eyes got wide and she walked away. 16 years old. Anyway, my point is is that she that was an unconscious manipulation strategy. You're changing, like it's this really bad thing. And when I said that, she realized, wow. Now, back then they don't know what they know now. My 31 years old, she knows everything about what I've been through, everything that I've learned, everything that I teach, you know, all of these type of things. In fact, she's become quite a teacher in the world herself. And um, but back then she didn't. And now she understands this and she works on this within herself to allow herself not to be, I'm gonna say casually manipulated by others. I I have no other word for that, meaning allowing those passive manipulation strategies to work on her. In fact, all my kids have had to learn to do that. And I remember when my son really did this the most because someone in his life, it wasn't me, but it was somebody in his life was a huge guilter, and this person would guilt him all the time to get him to do things. And at one point, he just dug his heels in. He's got will, this boy. Oh my God, the his will, when he makes a decision to do something, he will dig in. He's got iron will, and he decided that he was no longer gonna let that person guilt him. And boy, it came out, it came out kind of, I wouldn't say aggressive, but stronger when that happened because and he was quite young when this was happening, definitely in his teen years. That's the way it came out. He was like, no, you're not gonna guilt me into this. And I loved it. I loved it because I was watching him do something for himself. It made him angry that that person tried to guilt him. And he had to go to that uh anger sort of place first. And then eventually, once he was telling me about this, we talked about it. I said, you know, you can do that, you can feel the anger of them doing it and then pull yourself back down to center so that you can show up in a more grounded and healthy way with your nose or however you want to speak this to the person because this is all about emotional maturity and growth and things like that. And he understood and eventually he did as well. Wherever you're at, you guys on this journey, wherever you're at with this, please give yourself grace about it because we're all learning things. And that's the beauty of Empower Hour with KB and the Noom Vibe app is that we talk about things real time live right now. And although some, you know, I always call myself like a 99% healed from people pleasing. And the reason why I say that, and I see you in the queue, I'll be right with you. The reason why I say that is because even though I have, I don't have those knee-jerk reactions and behaviors anymore, every once in a while, something will creep up where I'll either see myself say something or do something that I was like, ooh, that was out of alignment. But it's not very often where it used to be. It just was my whole life all the time. Just, you know, always shifting and morphing and changing for somebody else. All right, we're gonna bring up truth. And truth, I'm gonna mute a little bit while you come up, if that's okay. Hey, Kristen. Hey, Truth, thanks for coming.

Truth: 33:10

Yeah, that's topic as usual. Uh relevant as usual, even um relevant to my conversation today. I'm finding myself in a place with uh my year-round job that pays my bills. It's an admin job. And the owner of the company, we've been friends for over 15 years. Um, I used to do his PR when he threw shows many, many years ago. Um, now he owns a different service-based type company, and I'm one of his main administrators. I do his payroll, I do his scheduling, um, all kinds of stuff like that year-round. And as I've continued in my growth, and I'm so grateful for this job because I've had it through the like hardest parts of my growth journey, and I've had the like space that I needed to work on myself and like take time off when I needed to. So I'm super, super grateful. Um, but also as I step more and more into my authentic self and taking down the masks and all parts of my life and trying to live my entire life in alignment with who I really am instead of just pieces. I'm seeing that we're no longer in alignment, basically, is what it came down to. And that's even what I said in the conversation we had this morning. Um, a few weeks ago, we had this like major shift that he wanted it implemented by the next payroll, which gave me two business days to change the entire system. I asked for the full two weeks of the next system. I said I couldn't do it. He said, That's fine, I'll do it for you, keeping in mind he has no idea how to do any of the pieces, literally. So that didn't feel helpful to me. And he did acknowledge in our conversation today that he was adamant about it happening by that next payroll and he was not going to take no for an answer. Wow. But he offered to do it, so he didn't understand why that wasn't the solution. And I got really real with him, and I'm like, you're a throw a dog in the water and see if it can swim type of person. And honestly, I don't trust you to redo the entire spreadsheet that you don't even understand and entrust and ensure that it's going to be correct when we're talking about people's money. And I was very pleased that he heard me. Um, but like the reality of the overall situation is that like we're and what I said is like we're not gonna see eye to eye on it because he was very stuck that him offering to do it for me was a solution and there shouldn't have been an issue. Instead, I knew that wasn't the solution. So I still ended up doing it and I sacrificed my peace of mind and my capacity and worked extra hours and did a lot of things. And like at first, I was angry at him for like pressuring me to do it, and I am still like frustrated by the pressure. I was angry that he wasn't hearing me, that he wasn't respecting me. But now I'm actually grateful for it because that drew a line in the sand for me. I saw that he is so used to the old patterns of me just being like, okay, I'll make it work, whether it's reasonable or not. And he's not listening to or respecting my boundaries, and this isn't the first incident. So it was just a big eye-opener. And I was like, you know what? I was supposed to be transitioning out of this job in the spring. I was like, I'm done giving him my capacity, he'll get a certain amount, and anything past that, I'm not gonna give it anymore. I'm gonna put that into myself, and it has been my choice to deprive myself and to put his needs first and to succumb to his pressure. I chose to do that, and now I'm choosing not to do that. But like it had to get to a point that I felt so incredibly disrespected that I was like literally in tears and shaking. It had to get to that point for me to be able to be like, I don't want to live like this anymore. What do I have to do to change it? Yeah, and I don't know if I would have gotten there if it hadn't been such a like hard situation.

Kristen: 37:36

Yeah, it's like a yes, I understand completely. And I think that's totally relevant. I don't think we realize what we're doing until it gets built up sometimes because we are running on that autopilot.

Truth: 37:46

Yeah, and I had trained him to know that when I pushed back, he could push back against me and I would give in. I had trained him to know that. That was on me.

Kristen: 37:57

Oh, truth. I love you. Thank you. That's talking about radical responsibility right there. Yes. Do you know how many people I have trained? Oh, I've trained them to just keep treating me the way that I was treating me. And they did. But truth brought up a really powerful point, and and that is that she said, and I'm paraphrasing. I'm always gonna paraphrase you guys because I'm not that person that can remember, I don't have a photographic memory. But she said something along the lines of, I'm not sure that I would have gotten to this place without it, without getting to the place of recognizing that she needed to change something without it getting so bad. Story of my life is it seems like that's how it was for me too. It's like once I, because I just kept doing the same things over and over again, autopilot, autopilot, and then it was building up inside and building up and building up and building up. And it either came into some type of crash and burn where I'm yelling at the kids or I'm yelling at somebody, or I'm exhausted, unmotivated, mad, being angry, being a little bitter, being resentful. Like those type of things came up. And then this is why emotions are so important. This is why they're here, everyone. There's signals, they're signaling us, yes, green light go. No, red light stop. Something's going on here. Sometimes it's a yellow. Caution, caution, what's happening here? Right. And so it was me going, all right, I'm feeling like this. What's happening here? And we do have our answers if we're willing to ask ourselves the questions and be honest with ourselves. And my question was, what are you doing? That's not working. Why are you allowing yourself to get into this space? What is happening? Oh, okay, you're not holding the line. You're not. And this is way before I knew much about boundaries, to be honest with you. It was way before that. Okay, not to the extent that I know now. But I did know enough to know somehow in my being, without being taught, without reading a book, somehow in my being, that if I want a different experience. That I'm in charge of that. And I've got to be the one to be able to shift something within myself to get a different experience. Truth, thank you. Thank you for that very awesome, vulnerable, real life, just chef's kiss spot on example. Hey Steven, welcome.

Steven: 40:16

Good morning.

Kristen: 40:18

Good morning.

Steven: 40:19

I think some of this becomes there's a difference in it if it's a person that you have been around for a long period of time as opposed to it's oh, this is new. Could you do this? And it's like, nope. I think that's that whole analogy of boiling the frog, you know, slowly it gets turned up and the line gets moved and moved and moved, and then you're like, Well, how did I get here? I have no clue how I got here, but I call that the slow burn. Yeah, and uh you know, when I was listening to truth, I was thinking, um, you know, there's a lot, there were some things in my job that I wouldn't do, and there were other things at home here that it's like, okay, um, I need to get my rest. Oh, can we stay up? It's like, I need to get my rest. It's okay if you fall asleep in front of the computer. They frown when I fall asleep on the steering wheel, it goes out of control.

Kristen: 41:19

Kind of.

Steven: 41:21

And you know, I I might have put a little of that pressure on my ex because it's like, I need to get my rest so I don't drive into the ditch. And it's just what is that pressure?

Kristen: 41:33

Is it isn't that self-love?

Steven: 41:35

Um, I would think it would be that, but I could see it from her side being it's like, yeah, I can't do this because he's got to get his sleep. And it's like, yeah. Um when you were talking earlier about how the the love thing that they would know in the in deep that this is good for both of you. Yeah, I'm not sure that was a skill she had. Because I've had other people be um mainly people that I've dated recently, and they're like, okay, what time are you getting home um this time? It's like, well, would you want to go out tonight? Or would it be better if it was on uh another night when you were more rested? And when a couple of those questions came in, it's like, oh, you mean I get a choice? Huh. Okay, what are we gonna do with what am I going to do with this? Because I just wasn't used to the choice. Oh, well, you gotta do this because otherwise they'll be unhappy. And I'm like, sometimes now, all right, here's what I see you asking, and here's how this is going to affect me positively, negatively, and if I'm really conscious about it, I can bring that up to the other person.

Kristen: 42:56

I like that, Steven. That's really groovy. I like that. Well, and sharing that, would you share that with them? You say, you know what, okay, here's what you're asking. All right, here's how this would affect me. Have you had those conversations? That's pretty that's cool.

Steven: 43:14

I've I've had some of those. That that person between January and July of 23 brought out a lot of this in me. I had never, and I'm saying never, is like we could talk about anything and everything. And there'd be like, well, why is this going on? I remember one time she wanted to come up as um on the bike ride across the state. There was uh we had the week kind of planned out because we were gonna be close, and so she was gonna get my clothes on one night. Um, the next night, uh, I was gonna it was close to her place, so I was gonna stay there, and then the next night she was gonna bring my clothes up. She wanted to sleep in the tent. I'm like, it's gonna be so freaking hot. And then like, and I pushed it off. And you know, a few days later it came up again, and she pushed and I pushed it off. And then finally she's like, What's going on here? And I'm like, Oh, I actually hated sleeping in a hot tent. And she goes, I think you were like, Oh crap, I did that. And she's like, Yeah, you were. She goes, We used to camp, you know, before Travis her son got the RV. She goes, We camped for 20 years in tents. I know what it's like. When she pointed that out, I'm like, oh, dude, what were you doing? And I'm like, but to be able to sit there and break it down without any judgment. Oh, it was powerful. Yeah. Never had that. It was so sweet.

Kristen: 44:53

I love that for you, Steven. I love that for you. That's so good. Let me talk just briefly, you guys, about what I had mentioned earlier about when people truly love and value you, they're willing to look within and to shift things as long as we're being consistent with our behaviors. Keep that in mind. They can't break through if we're being inconsistent because they're running the same programming over and over again as well. Here's the way I look at that: a person can only love fully to the level of their own healing. Let me try to make sense of this for you. A person can only truly love fully to the level of their own healing. I am thinking of a person in my life right now who I know this person loved me. Absolutely. But man, they were a wreck. They were a wreck and was not loving me very well, but I know they loved me. See what I'm saying? It's because that person had some healing to do. They had things that were going on inside of them. And that's the compassionate spiritual way to understand this rather than everybody throwing these labels around. That doesn't mean we can we give into it. It doesn't mean we accept the unacceptable. That's not what I'm saying. Self-love tenant number one, respect and protect self, okay? But what I'm saying is that a lot of times people say you can't love others until you love yourself. Well, I was loving the heck out of my kids. And I wasn't really loving myself. And I'm not really sure that that verdict is out for me. What I'm going to say is you can't love others to the full extent of your capacity if you are unhealed, because your wounds are going to bleed through and they're going to dictate your actions through the filter of them. Okay, I see people understanding that. So thank you because that was um that was something that I had to unpack. And I wanted to make sure that you guys got that message clear because this is there's so much, so much talk in the world today about certain things and people labeling people as good as bad, good and bad. Doesn't mean, yes, there are some people out there that might just be in it to use you and to get what they can get from you, and they really could give a crap. And I did talk about that. They're not, they're not willing, they're not going to be willing to change because not only do they not really care, they're there to use you, but they don't truly love you at all. But some people that are showing up in our lives a little messy, a little discombobulated, it doesn't mean that they don't love us. It just means they can they can only show up to the level of how they have healed themselves thus far. Okay, so we're gonna move on to the how to break this pattern. And the pattern that we're breaking is written in this title right here. And I wanted to make that title very, very clear because it was based on the inspiration of the story I told earlier about my friend at the gym who was telling me about his former roommate moving back in and saying that the only reason why she moved in with the boyfriend was because he quote unquote bullied her into it, which I later said, was it really bullying or just pressure? He goes, It was pressure, it was pressure. And I said, Okay. And then I thought, mm, you mean she allowed herself to be pressured into it because we know somewhere deep inside of us what we really want to do, and we know when the time is right and when the time is not right. But yet sometimes we allow others to come into our life and to conve or to come in with their words and their emotions and their actions and sway our vote in one direction or another, sway our choices, sway our decisions, and then that doesn't last very long. It's not a very sustained thing, and then we go back to dargone it. I should have done it the other way. So this is about getting ahead of this curve, and this is about becoming very mindful and aware of what's going on, which is our first point, is to become self-aware. Because when we are aware of where we are manipulatable, what is our weak spot, where are maybe some triggers or some fears that are within us? Believe it or not, you guys, sometimes it's just the mere awareness. This is mind-blowing to me because we become aware, we're bringing it up to the forefront, the prefrontal cortex. I always tap my forehead when I say this. We're bringing it from the back of the head to the front of the head, and it's in the front now. Now it's within our awareness. So when something that mimics the past of where this person or peoples did the things that they were doing, that awareness is now there. So we have information that we didn't have before. So no longer is it just an autopilot thing. Now we're aware of it. Awareness is key. I say that all the time. Awareness is key. The more that we become aware of ourselves, the more that we ask ourselves questions and are honest with ourselves, the better off we're gonna be on this empowerment healing journey. Okay, we cannot choose differently if we don't notice what's driving our reactions. So this is going within and saying, okay, why did I do that? What was my, what was the driving factor behind that choice that I made that did not end up being a great choice for me? The next one is boundaries. Remember, we're breaking the pattern of other people controlling us, all right? Without our um uh controlling us, us giving permission, us falling in line, conceding, giving over giving up. Healthy boundaries are about protecting our energy and our peace, right? Had this conversation with my eldest the other day, and we talked about energy. I don't know, it was something I had said to her, she goes, Mom, that's really good. I said, Well, babe, you have to understand that these days, where I'm at these days, is I'm all about protecting my energy. So it has to do with the way people are coming at me, the way people are speaking to me, the way um, whatever, all kinds of things in my life. And when I put my peace first, when I made that a priority, that my peace and well-being is first, all of a sudden the boundary started to naturally appear. Because that's a no, that's a no, that's a no, that's a yes, that's a yes, that's a yes, but these are no's. Once I understood what the no was, then I was better positioned to speak a boundary and to start setting a boundary. And sometimes, you guys, boundaries aren't always about going up to the person that's crossing our line and saying, This is what you did and this is what I'm gonna do. Sometimes they're just about begging off early, leaving the event early. This is just a personal boundary. These are boundaries with you. It's not about uh setting a line with somebody else for something that they've done. So, or you know what? Uh my son and I, my my son threw his back out, so he was, he was um his his what the heck? My flashlight turned on. What is this? Oh my gosh, this is so weird. Okay, it's off. Flashlight on my phone. A big flashlight came across the screen. That was funny. So he went to the Cairo, and the Cairo said, Um, you know, stay off your feet as much as possible. So at some point I said, You want to watch a movie together? He said, sure. He looked one up because let's try this. Ooh, once I found out the subject matter, it was something he bought, so he had to buy the movie on YouTube. And once I found out the subject matter, I just threw the disclaimer right out there in the beginning. I said, This might be too much for me. Wasn't a horror flick, it was just uh didn't like the subject matter. He's like, understood, mom. And of course, my husband knows that too. I'm like, I'm gonna do my best to stick it out, you guys, because I want to watch a movie with you, but I don't know about this one. That right there was me being ahead of the game. I know me. And I know that that subject matter might be too much for my heart. That might have been a little bit too heavy for me. I made it through the whole movie, by the way. I think it was way that the way the movie was constructed didn't pull on my heart as hard as I thought it would, but I also dissociated a bit. I'm just gonna tell you, I tell my son, I said dissociated a bit, he goes, Yeah, I saw you getting on your phone. I said, Yeah, this got a little too heavy, Instagram, you know, or email or send a text back to somebody or whatever. And then I would come back out of it and and re-engage with the movies. Sometimes I get up and leave. I'll go to the bathroom, I'll go get a snack or something, and I'll re-engage. But this is about understanding my energy. In the beginning, when I did this without speaking that out loud, the kids were younger too. They'd be like, get off your phone, mom, be present with us, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, hey, you guys, this is what I'm doing. And then they would give me pushback. And eventually I'd say, All right, here's the deal going into this. Like if my daughter wants to come over, like she's, you know, sometimes she's like, hey, we're we're in the air, we're gonna stop by. I'm like, okay, but I'm it's it's let's say 8:30. Um, I'm going to bed at nine tonight. Okay, no worries, mom. But see, I've started because I've started to implement this, now they understand this is how it's gonna go. I get up earlier, I go to the gym, I give a live talk every day. I want to be fresh. Five days a week, I'm speaking live from my heart, right? I'm like, okay, I want to be fresh for this. I want to be, and that's another reason why my energy is so important, believe it or not, is because giving my life talks every day. That that was one of the catalysts for me to really take care of myself in this department because I want to show up the best I possibly can for you guys. I didn't want to wing it. I didn't want to barely make it through. I didn't want to not want to be here. And so these type of things are what contributed to me taking care of my energy in the way that I needed to. So boundaries. The next one is emotional responsibility, and this means taking ownership of your emotions and not blaming others for how you feel. It's about understanding what's going on inside of you. What is being activated? Why do I feel this way? Why do I fold? Why do I concede? What am I afraid of? A lot of times people say, you made me feel that way. Now, that's that's I'm just gonna call it lazy language. I do it too. I've said, well, that made me feel like this. I've said it too, I still do to this day. But I don't mean it in the way that that made me feel that way. It's that that behavior, this was the emotional response I had to that behavior. Now, this is gonna be shocking to some of you. Sometimes we think we don't have control of that emotional response, and we do. We do. We don't just have to let fly out of our body any little emotion that comes up. We have control over that. So I have learned, again, been practicing this stuff for a while now, that if something makes me angry, I don't have this big angry reaction like I used to when I was younger. I'm angry, I feel the angry, I allow it to be anger. Anger's healthy. It's a guidepost, it's a signal, just like any other emotion. But I don't let it take over. Okay, I do fully express it because I don't want that energy in my body. But I've now learned anger, mm-hmm. This has made me angry. Hmm. Why has this made me angry? What is this showing me? Is there an injustice here? Not you made me angry, you make me so mad. Like a lot of times in abusive relationships, that's what the person will say. They'll say, You did this. You made me mad. You're the reason. You're the fault. Mm-mm. No, never, never, never, never, never. All right. We get a choice with how we are going to deal with whatever emotion that comes up inside of us. Asking yourself questions about it is key. All right. The next one is discernment versus reaction. Discernment is all about pausing. I don't believe that we can have discernment without pausing. We can't. Otherwise, we're just, again, knee-jerk responding. We're just autopilot responding to whatever it is that's happening. So for me, using that discernment is about pausing. And I wanted to learn to use that discernment. Like I mentioned in the beginning of this, when things come up, I tend to now, I'm still working on this because I'm such a talker. I've been at my first grade report card said Kristen talks too much. Right? I'm a talker. So I'm very communicative. I'm very open about my feelings and everything. So when something happens, I'm just but you know, I'm automatically using some words. But now what I've done is I've gotten quiet. Let me tell you something. This was a little disconcerting for my family members at first because they thought they were in trouble or something's wrong. Because I would just sit and sit there and they go, What? What? Why aren't you talking? I I can hear it. I can hear it right now. My young, why aren't you talking? Why aren't you saying anything, Mom? I said, because I'm just I'm feeling through this. And then they would think that the feeling through this was a bad thing. And this is not about something to do with them and me per se. This could be just a story that they were telling me. And I just I just got more quiet. And I just felt through things more. This is where we get our power because we're taking the time. We are giving our precious, adorable, little, awesome little selves our time. We're taking time and we're giving it to us. And we're saying, you matter, you don't have to just blindly react to anything that's going on here. So I find myself do I've gotten so much more quiet. And it's not that mellowing with age thing, because I do feel like I've mellowed in ways. That's it's I don't believe it's that. I've looked, trust me, I ask myself 8,000 questions every day. I think it's just I calm my nervous system on the regular, and with that comes space. And so I'm better able to do what is more serving for myself and the people that I love and who love me, the people that I'm in relationships with. And I find and I see now so many people fighting over each other to talk. I'm gonna be honest, a little frustrated to me sometimes. But I'm just like, okay, everybody, like the other day, I think I told the story. My son, me, and my youngest were talking about something, and one was misreading the other one and all these things. And one of them started raising their voice a little bit, not yelling, not screaming, not cussing, just raising, just getting a little get a little elevated. And the calmest voice. The calmest voice, I said, We're not doing that. We're not raising there's no reason to raise voices here. Just take take turns, guys. Because I know without the raised voice, with the taking turns and listening to understand, we're gonna fly through this thing like that. Like that. That's exactly what. Happen. So these are the type of things that we can do with that discernment. So again, me uh what's the word I'm looking for? Pull pulling my view back and watching what's really going on in this entire situation, no matter what it is, whether it's just me in one person, maybe it's me in a group, maybe it's me just in my head, just pulling back, pulling back the lens, zooming out, and just sort of observing, like what's really happening here? That has been one of the most serving things that I have ever learned to do and still learn and still practice because my nervous system goes up and down just like everybody else's does. This is one of the reasons why I stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, stress, meditation. I stress meditation. I was talking to a coaching client the other day, and um I give my, by the way, you guys, I give my coaching clients when they're actively coaching with me, okay, not like, well, it can a little bit, depends. But I give them permission to text me and message me if things come up. Because I just don't want them to have to wait from session to session to session to do so. So this particular client reached out to me and said, I'm having a really difficult time. This one's this one's going through a breakup and has these swirling emotions going on about, you know, I'm never gonna find somebody else, all these type of things, and you suck, you're you're not good enough, all that lovely stuff that the brain can do to us. This person I have been stressing to meditate because they're like, Well, I really good, get into this anxiety spiral. Uh and I said, Yeah, I remember that happening a lot to me on Sundays. And they said, Yeah, the weekend's pretty bad for me. It's because we're not distracted with all of our work and everything else. But this is the optimal and opportune time when you're alone to work on this stuff and let instead of allowing yourself to spiral. And so I said, You need to catch those things. And they had learned enough from me so far. They're like, is this where I need to talk to my ego and whatnot? I said, Yeah, catch those things. They're just lies and your ego's trying to keep you small and stuck. Just catch them, turn them around. And they said, okay, and they're like, it seems to be harder this weekend. And I said, Well, this is why I have really emphasized to you that you do this meditation practice on the regular, because this will slow everything down and will allow us to actually do the things that are going to serve us on this journey. I've done it both ways, guys. And I will tell you, there's only one way that works. I've done it when I've been just rushing through life and and trying to change my brain about certain things. And yeah, that just it would, it was almost fruitless. It was almost futile, really, is the word I'm looking for. It was almost futile. But then I thought, okay, every time I call my nervous system, it's like it, it's it creates the space for the new information to implant. But it also keep it creates space for us to use discernment about the choices that we're making. All right, let's move on to the next one. And these are how to break the pattern of allowing others to manipulate and control us. The next one is to self-trust. And that means we can rebuild our personal power by trusting our inner guidance over the external voices in our lives. I gave a whole talk on this last week, I think. I'm not sure when it was exactly. It was a whole talk, the entire thing, 75 minutes on self-trust, really getting in touch with yourself because this is crucial and paramount on the journey of reclaiming our personal power. We must learn how to do this. Is it gonna happen in a day? Likely not. This is about grace. Grace, grace, grace, allowing yourself to trip up, allowing yourself to fall. The one thing I've noticed about life, which is really crazy, and I don't, I haven't taken the time yet to word this. So work with me here with the language I'm gonna use. But life is very forgiving, it's very flexible. And we can trip up 10 times and then course correct three times, and then boom, it starts us on the right path. It's not like, oh, I messed up 10 times, now I'm that deep. I'm I'm now I'm 10 feet deep. No. It's we can mess up 10 times, do the right thing, we pop right up to the top. Does that make sense? Am I making myself clear is a better way? Or am I making stating it in a way that you guys can understand? Is it even a better way to say it? Okay, thanks. I appreciate that, guys. Just because we have a little back step, we can override that system for lack of a better word. Thank you, Peter. I got really hoarse all of a sudden, you guys. I don't think I took my allergy meds this morning. But we can override that system by course correcting, which I found to be a really fascinating part of this journey because sometimes we think, well, I'm so far down here. I keep doing the same thing. And I'm sure people who have recovered with a lot of recovered addicts in on Noom Vive. And I'm sure you guys can understand that. Like day one matters. Day one matters. It's it's it's it's a reason there's a day one. And it doesn't mean like, oh, I've messed up 10 times now. This means that I can't heal from this addiction. No, and you can, yeah, see, they're all clapping. Yes, for former addicts. Did I call you guys addicts? I meant to say former. I'm sorry if I misordered that. I'm my brain is swirling in 2020 different directions right now. I'm getting like massive downloads and I need to slow the train down. But former addicts, people have recovered from their whatever addiction it might be, because there's many, you guys, not always drugs and alcohol. But when they have recovered from that, and you've gone through that process, you understand it doesn't mean that the whole thing is washed out because you made a mistake. Yeah, recovering addict. Thank you, Jeanette. Recovering addict. That's what that's the terminology Jeanette is telling me to use. And here's the thing that I've learned too is that even though I've been doing the right thing for a while, yes, great, feeling good, in my power, and then all of a sudden I have a back step. It doesn't erase those days, months, weeks of the power that I was in. So it's not like I'm starting back from go. That's part of my healing, part of my spiritual growth. And that stays in place. I once heard a quote that said, we don't go backwards when we spiritually grow. Like anything else, I question everything, you guys. I really do. I'm not, I wouldn't say I'm a healthy skeptic. It's just I just don't believe everything I hear or I read. So I looked back on that. I was like, yeah, there's a lot of truth in that. I can see that. So just because we were walking and we're doing great, we're doing great, and all of a sudden we trip, that doesn't mean the the last 40 miles on the marathon didn't matter. Or 40 miles is incorrect. Okay, the last 10 miles of the marathon didn't matter. Well, they still mattered. We don't have to go back to the beginning because we tripped while we're running. So self-trust, huge, huge, huge. And get this: the more that you honor yourself, the more confident that you become. And the more that you demonstrate that in the world through your boundaries, your words, and your action, okay, once you, the more you demonstrate that, you're gonna become more confident in that area. Once I started to see, and this is this is as dramatic as I'm gonna make it sound, that no one died and that I didn't lose a relationship and no one stopped loving me because I trusted myself and set my boundaries and used discernment, it formed a stronger foundation beneath me. So where it might have been first one inch thick, it started to be four inches thick, then 10 inches thick, then three feet thick. So we become better at it and internally it builds a strong foundation. I think that's imperative to understand. It's the more you practice, the stronger that muscle will grow. It's the same thing. So keep that in mind that you will be building a stronger, stronger, and stronger foundation. And your confidence will raise and increase, plus, it will exponentially increase your personal power. It will increase that as well because you are practicing it. Jennifer said, no worries. I'm not recovered. If I drink, uh if I engage in behaviors that are destructive to my peace, my risk of drinking again grows exponentially. If I am or have actually recovered, then I need not worry. Is it's actually in the past, I can do it now. For me, that's not the case. I understand, okay, that's a good way to put it. And that's what I said to someone too when I talked about recovering people pleaser. They said, no, you catch yourself and you change it. And I was like, no, I've still seen sometimes that behavior. It's it's it's minute. It really is. It's minute, but still there. So yeah, okay, thanks for that, guys. I appreciate that. All right, and the last one is accountability without shame. I've mentioned this before. Gonna keep mentioning this again, probably on every single talk until I die. You gotta stop shaming yourself. You just got the red X on Family Feud. Anytime you shame yourself, I want you to hear that red X on Family Feud. It's so obnoxious, isn't it? I wish they would have changed that because every time that happened, it jarred my nervous system. But give yourself that red X. Shame is ridiculous. It's not working for you. It's it's working against you, if anything. Who wants that? I don't want anything working against me these days. We can be our own worst enemies. And I gotta I had to remove that from my equation. I gotta start being my own best advocate, protector, friend, parent, confidant, all the things. And none of those things would shame me. None of those things would shame me. By the way, I don't shame others either, and I hope you don't either. I do not shame others. I learned that in my early years of parenting that my kids shamed themselves and guilted themselves enough that I did not need to add to that. If they knew and they felt it, that was all that needed to happen. They had the information that they needed to move on. So don't shame other people either because people can be very susceptible to that. And then we are actually stunting, can be contributing to the stuntage of their growth as well. I'm sorry, I'm cracking my stuntage. Oh, you know, talking real time here. Sometimes the right words don't come. I gotta make some stuff up. Okay, so accountability without shame. Remember, we're we're trying to eradicate victimhood here because way in the beginning, I talked about that. I said that a victim mindset is they pressured me into it. A growth mindset is I allowed myself to be pressured into it. No part of that did I say blame. And no part of that did I say blame. When I say I allowed myself to be pressured into it, that is just accountability. That is responsibility, that is strength, that is standing tall. That's what that is. That is not blame. Blame. We need to be very careful about the word blame. Certain people in my life say, are you blaming me? Or you're always blaming me, or whatever. No, I'm not, I'm not blaming anybody. I'm talking about a situation, but their filter is blame. So they're gonna see it is blame. And the minute I hear someone say blame, I'm like, uh-uh. We're not talking about blame. We're talking about what is it that you need to take responsibility for? What do I need to take responsibility for? How can we meet in the middle with love? That's it. So take blame out of the whole thing. It's ridiculous. It's really just about recognizing our role in the thing with compassion so that we can do something differently and choose differently next time. Alrighty. Going to be bringing up my sister. I haven't heard from from a while for a while. Miss Julie, she's also a speaker here on Noom 5. So definitely give her a follow so you can be notified when she comes up to talk. Julie, we got the uh-oh, my dear. Oh, there she is. Oh, weird. Got the uh-oh, and you popped up anyway. Hey, Julie. Hey, is isn't this great?

Julie: 1:12:19

You get an uh uh oh, and then here she comes.

Kristen: 1:12:24

That was so great.

Julie: 1:12:25

You didn't heed the warning, did you?

Kristen: 1:12:28

I love it.

Julie: 1:12:30

Oh, what are you kidding? Yeah, um, yeah, blame, right? But when I see the word blame, I always think of it's lame to blame. When you are about to blame either yourself or anyone else, it's because you need, you have a need in you to to lean on something. You need to lean on another person or lean on yourself in order to get through a thing. There's no need for blame, blame's lame, okay? I love that.

Kristen: 1:13:05

That's a great, it's a little catchphrase to remember.

Julie: 1:13:08

Yeah, it's good.

Kristen: 1:13:09

Blame is good. Blame is lame.

Julie: 1:13:11

Blame's lame. Why am I trying to do that? What's the story? What's the story behind me? Either blaming myself or others. What's that about? And what's it gonna fix? What's it gonna do? What's it gonna do for you? You blame yourself or you blame someone else. How is that going to kind of enhance or change the experience that you're having? It doesn't. It just is like a doorstop.

Kristen: 1:13:39

I was just thinking that. I as you were speaking, Julie, I was thinking blame is like falls flat. There's nothing happens from it, but responsibility for something else.

Julie: 1:13:50

Yeah, it's a stone, it just gets dropped there, and you're gonna trip over that blame all the time. It's gonna get in the way, you're gonna have to move it, you're gonna have to put it in different places. Blame's lame, okay. And the thing about shame as well, I've got something to say about that too, because I often have a lot to say about a lot of stuff. Bring it, sis. I love it. Shame for me. I was thinking about this the other day when I was answering a question about shame. So you say, what's the biggest shame that you've ever had and what did you do about it? Oh, yeah. I thought, isn't shame something I'm allowing myself to feel? Isn't that me giving myself permission to feel crap about a thing? To feel as if there's something that I need to shelter or hide. That's what shame is. And you know, we kind of if we feel ashamed about something, it's us saying that whatever this thing is, it's off the gauge of goodness. Yeah, it needs to be hidden. It's something that um is like it's like saying it's a darker side of yourself that you can't reveal. You have to sit in it like um a sinew of colour.

Kristen: 1:15:13

Maybe subtracting from our goodness. That's what I'm getting. Yeah, yeah, and yeah, that's so good to it.

Julie: 1:15:20

Yeah, yeah. So I was thinking about that, and I thought, well, shame, you know, is something that I think definitely you allow yourself to have, or you allow others to feel when you shame someone else, when you want to shame someone, what are you trying to do? How are you trying to get them? What are you trying to make them feel? And that's the thing to think about is do you really want to own that? Do you really want to pass that to anyone else? Shame again, like blame, blame and shame, are useless things, yeah. Useless heavy uh think blockers, if you want. I think you think of them as great big stones or door stops, but things that get in the way, there's no real use for a blame or a shame. So when you come to that point where you're feeling like you're feeling this shame, no, you're you're you're telling yourself that that's what you want to feel, and you're gauging it in that kind of good thing, bad thing, that lovely judgmental thing that we tell ourselves that other people think or feel about us, or that we think or feel about others. It's all about that judgment thing. Shame and blame need to be just put in a box with a lid slammed down on it, and don't go there again. You don't need that, that's not helpful to you. So slam it away, put the lid on it, and continue on your road. Taking in everything that's good for you, everything that's learnable, everything that's moving.

Kristen: 1:17:10

Yes, thank you, Julie. I love that. I love her creative expression of language, and I love how she put all that together. And I appreciate you taking the time, Julie, to come up today. That was truly amazing. Love, love, love. Now, my second thought that I was having is that I'm I was processing and pondering why people want to shame somebody. What is that all about? And if you think about it, it's really about control. What does that mean? Because we think if we shame them, if we make them feel bad enough, they won't do the thing again. Right? So it's really this backwards manipulation strategy of our own to try to get that person to not do that thing. Let me just shame you and make you feel really bad, like you're you're a terrible person. Well, my goodness, now we're contributing that we could be someone who is contributing to their lack of worthiness, helping them further decrease or empty their worthiness cup. And then what kind of behaviors are gonna come from that? It's also shaming somebody is not of love. Remember my talk, WWLD. What would love do? That's not too far back here either. That was an excellent talk as well. And I did put that one on my podcast. What would love do? Huge. I think we had a two-part one with that one, I think. At any rate, what would love do? Love is not going to shame. If I notice that somebody gets it, the minute somebody takes responsibility around me for the thing that they did, I'm done. The conversation can move forward in the healing capacity or solution capacity, but that's it. Because I know they got it. I want them to be able to figure out how what's their next step. Like, what are you gonna do? Like, how much does this matter to you? Shame is an emotion. It is part of our emotions. So, in the respect that we are ashamed of ourselves for doing something wrong or we're embarrassed or we're cringing, it's just a guidepost. It's a signal. That respect of it, that's a healthy expression of it. We need to have that just like we need to have anger, frustration, resentment, any of the things. But to self-shame and to continually to tell ourselves that we are bad is not gonna do anything. Start to look at yourself as a work in progress, look at yourself as learning. Oh, I'm learning here. I'm figuring this out. Whatever language that you can use that's gonna make this feel a little bit lighter and less heavy to you. But shaming yourself, I suck, I'm terrible, I'm awful, I'm uh no, that's just gonna keep you further down in the pit. And we're trying to be stay on top of the pit. We're trying to get out of the pit, right? So, why are we gonna implement things that are gonna make things worse? I also found that when I'm lighthearted. About the things that I the mistakes I make or the cringies or the embarrassing whatever. When I'm like when I can laugh at myself and be lighthearted about it, that is so helpful. That makes me feel so much better because I'm not absorbing the negative energy from the thing. So keep that in mind too. And in this quest, if you will, to reclaim our personal power, we're gonna take our accountability, we're gonna know what part of this equation is ours, and we're not gonna shame ourselves for it. We're gonna merely be the observer, we're going to be the witness, we're gonna say, mmm, I see what I did. When it came to me taking ownership or responsibility for being the common denominator in all my relationships, I remember not judging myself about it. I just remember sitting there in reflection, going, oh my God, this makes so much sense. It actually made me happy. I didn't beat myself up for it, but some of you may be in the habit or the process of beating yourself up. So keep that in mind. It's not going to be helpful. I appreciate you all being here for another episode of Empower Hour with KB. You guys make these talks so full bodied, so robust, so bountiful. Much love to you guys. Thank you for all the claps. I appreciate it, and I look forward to having another conversation with you tomorrow. Bye, everyone.