Perspective: Staying Connected Without Needing to Be Right

Have you ever walked away from a conversation feeling misunderstood… frustrated… or completely disconnected—even when both of you meant well?

In this episode of Wellness Within Her, Jeri dives into one of the most common challenges in relationships: different perspectives.

Through humor, faith, and deeply personal storytelling, Jeri shares how two people can experience the exact same moment in completely different ways—and how those differences can either create conflict… or deepen connection.

From a relatable (and slightly chaotic) homecoming story with her daughter… to a powerful story about how perspective can create drama… to a simple 4-step framework you can use in real time—this episode will help you navigate conversations with more peace, clarity, and emotional strength.

You’ll learn how to:
 ✔ Pause instead of react in emotionally charged moments
 ✔ Process what’s actually happening beneath the surface
 ✔ Let go of control and shift your perspective
 ✔ Stay grounded in your values while still staying connected
 ✔ Respond with intention—even when it’s hard

And in one of the most powerful moments of the episode, Jeri shares a simple encounter with a stranger in a store… and how a completely different perspective in front of a mirror became a reminder of how God truly sees us.

If you’ve ever felt the need to prove your perspective, defend your feelings, or struggle to stay connected when you disagree—this episode will remind you:

👉 You don’t have to be right to stay in relationship.
 👉 And you don’t have to lose yourself to stay connected.

Thanks for being here on Wellness Within Her. Remember, this chapter matters, your story matters, and the wellness God placed within you is enough. If you’d like to explore personal growth, healing, and purpose with me one on one, you can connect with me at lakeshorelifecoach.com.  Behind every smile is a woman carrying a weight she shouldn’t have to bear—let’s speak honestly, share vulnerably, and lift that weight together.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hi, welcome back to Wellness Within Her. It's a place where we like to talk about leadership, both emotional and physical, and spiritual parts of our life that women are navigating, not the polished version. How are we leading our life? Like the real version, whether we're in the workplace or we're at home or anywhere else, right? Today I want to talk about something that shows up in almost every relationship, and honestly, it's something I had to learn the hard way. And it's perspective. I want to share something that sounds a little silly, but stay with me. Have you ever gone shopping, tried on an outfit, and thought, dang girl, you are rocking this outfit? Like I am singing praises in my TJ Maxx dressing room. I bring it home, I cut off the tags, I hang it in my closet, I go to bed thinking, tomorrow, you know what? I am gonna have the red carpet rolled out. And then I put it on and I think, what in the blazing high noon was I thinking? It's the same outfit, it's the same body, but I had a completely different perspective than I did the day before. And if our perspectives can change that quickly about outfits, just imagine about ourselves. Imagine how we can shift inside of our relationships and our work lives. Because perspective shows up everywhere. It can be perspective on religion and politics and parenting and work and health. And believe it or not, this week I still had a conversation with somebody about COVID, like it just will never go away. But even something as simple as you know, saying, I like dark chocolate, and somebody's like, I like milk chocolate, right? And honestly, that conversation matters. I want to know why you like milk chocolate, and it can be everything that creates disconnection between us because when someone sees something differently than we do, it can feel like they're saying, you're wrong, or even at a deeper lever level, you don't matter, and that's where things can start to break down. So my perspective lesson in God's wonderful plan for me came between my daughter and I. So my daughter and I tend to see things differently. She has a master's degree and is a psychotherapist. She has like 22 acronyms behind her name. Yes, she's like super fun at family gatherings, right? We have one distinctive difference. She tells me all of her theories and all of her reports and her medical findings to back up her perspective on something. And I have one thing that I just think trumps it all. I'm mom, and I've had 54 years of theories, reports, medical findings, experience, you know. But seriously, she is my best friend and has taught me one very important way to process different perspectives. She says, Can you tell me more, mom? She brings curiosity and not contempt with perspectives. So I'm just gonna say she gets one point for that. But other than that, mom still trumps everything. Anyways, when I was working on um my way through this subject of perspective, I thought about one story that my daughter and I had together, and it was homecoming. So I think it was probably her freshman year, so it was a long time ago. But my daughter's side of this story kind of goes like this. She was 15 years old and had just started her freshman year of high school, and she got asked to go to a dance with, you know, what she called was the cutest boy ever, mom. So of course she wanted the perfect dress and the perfect hair and perfect makeup and everything. She wanted to make it kind of a fun mother-daughter day, like with shopping and getting lunch, and you know, all the fun things, all the fun things that you thought about when you had a daughter. And on the day of the dance, you know, I did her hair and her makeup, and I got some jewelry and some shoes from my closet, and then it happened. Her hair didn't turn out at all, and the call the curls were falling, and the the tears came, and then the makeup all melted off, and the sadness came, and so did the blame because she's young, and it turns out it's mom's fault, right? So I tried to calm her down, you know, with me saying, You look great, it's it's no big deal, it's definitely not perfect, but you know what? Um, it's still great, but I also didn't make her feel heard, so things started to escalate, and I got upset, and I took a curling iron and I like smacked it on the counter, breaking the curling iron. So I can give explanations as to why I wanted certain things from my family that maybe I didn't have, and I can give explanations definitely of the low self-esteem I had at the time and the feelings of just always being a failure. But when I look back on the story, this is my perspective of the story. I saw other moms being able to take their daughters to, you know, Brookfield Square and to Mayfair Mall and be able to buy a brand new dress. And I had to take mine to a resale shop, and I prayed that I could find something in our budget that I knew she would like. And I wished I could have gone shopping and got her the matching earrings and the matching shoes and a matching purse, but instead we went to my closet to find something that would work. And then I wish I could have hired someone to do her makeup and be able to take her to a salon to get her hair done so she could look as perfect as her expectations for that day. But in reality, I was completely broke financially. And yet, with my whole being, I thought if I could not live up to the expectations of what her homecoming dance should be, then I was a failure. So I tried to go overboard and do everything to make her happy. And when there was that comment made that her hair wasn't perfect at all, I felt that she was gonna see that in every aspect of my life I was failing. My perspective was that she couldn't even see that this family was broke and all the hard work I was putting into making her day perfect. So she must have been completely unappreciative, right? And uncaring about the efforts that I made. And in that moment is when I grabbed the curling iron and smacked it on the counter. And that's when I started asking myself, how do I handle this better in the future? Because perspective isn't going away. So how do we stay connected without feeling that we need to be right? And what I came up with was these four simple things. The first one is pause. So pausing has been one of the hardest things for me because I don't know about you, but I've spent my entire life thinking about what I'm going to say next instead of most of the time listening. And pausing reminds me that my perspective matters, but so does theirs. And guess what? We have time. There's time. I care about this conversation, and I need a minute so I can show up better. And sometimes I can say things like, you know, it looks like holding hands mid-argument, right? Sometimes there are there are this research that was done that I'm sure my daughter will say wasn't done, but there's research that was done that says when you are in a confrontation with someone or you're arguing with someone, especially in marriage, that if you actually lay down mid-argument and hold hands, it ends the argument. So I'm gonna say if you see me laying on the floor in Minards holding my husband's hand, you know. You know, we are doing very advanced communication work. We are proving the research to be true. The next part is process. Processing is asking what's really happening here, right? What's really happening here? Because most of the time it's not about the facts, it's about the feelings. So one of the easiest tools that my daughter has given me is the three bucket tools. And bucket one is basically like things I can control, bucket two are things I can influence, and bucket three are things I can't change. And once you know what bucket to put it in, everything gets clearer. Because not everything needs a reaction, some things need to be released, and by putting them into a bucket of things that I can control, things I can influence, and things I can't change, it truly can be one of the easiest tools that I've used to process when I'm going through listening to somebody else's perspective or even trying to understand mine. And then being a woman of faith, I just believe prayer changes everything for me. Because I've stopped trying to say the right thing and started just talking. Because in prayer, God sees both sides, so he's gonna see your heart and theirs. And sometimes prayer can be simple, it can be, God help me to handle this better, and sometimes it's inviting him at the right time, the right place, into the right moment. Then the next part is about proceeding, and when it comes to procedure, it's like this is where your behavior shows up. So even when you're tired, even when you're frustrated, even when you think you're right, love is not a feeling, it can be a choice. So I can say in those moments when I'm about to proceed, I'm gonna listen first. I'm gonna listen first, and I'm also gonna lower my voice, and I'm gonna respond with care. Because sometimes we have to say to ourselves, quiet, be still. And that brings us back to that pause, that pause moment. So when you use the ability to pause, remind yourself you have time, process what's really, really happening here. And pray, please invite me in. God, help me to handle this better because I want to proceed with listening. I want to proceed with a quieter, more caring voice. I want to proceed with being still. So I have another another story that really shifted something in me regarding perspective. I was at an at-home store one day and I was checking out. I had three mirrors in my cart, and actually, I was pretty darn proud of myself because some were some of the mirrors were a hundred dollars but a piece, and I needed three, and I found three for thirty dollars a piece, so I was pretty proud of myself in that moment. I I like to get a good bargain sometimes, and I was standing there, um, and then there was a woman behind me, and and she says, Are you getting all those mirrors so you can just walk around your house and look at yourself all day? And I laughed, and I said, Gosh, no, when you get to be my age, you're not really looking in a mirror much. And she walked over to me, left her cart, and looked me right in the eye. And she said, No. You put those mirrors up, and when you walk by and you say, Look at who I am.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Look at how far I've come. Look at how well I've done. You stand there and you'd be proud of yourself. And I just stood there.

SPEAKER_00 12:49

Because we're looking at the same mirror. But we were seeing completely different things. I saw someone who questions herself sometimes. I saw someone who wasn't worth celebrating. And I thought, how often am I doing this in my life? Because others are seeing me in a way. Complete strangers are seeing me in a way that I didn't see myself. Her perspective of me was different than my perspective of me. When we see ourselves one way, and God sees us completely different. Oh man, can that change the story? And when I am in a leadership role, and I can't see the real me in that meter, in that mirror, I will see the person that I think I should be. And I start living that out. So even if you don't believe you're that perspective in the beginning, I start living it out. And I don't believe in faking it till you make it. I believe in facing it till you make it. So sometimes when I think about perspective, I think about standing with someone, and in between the two of us, we're holding a book. I see one, let's say I see the cover of the book, and the other person sees the back of the book. We're both seeing the same book, but we're getting different perspectives because the cover of the book always looks different than the back of the book. So two people, same book. One sees the front, one sees the back, and instead of arguing over who's right, like, well, this book must be about this. Well, no, according to the back of the book, it's about this, right? Instead of arguing over who's right, what if we opened the book together? Because the goal isn't to win, the goal is connection, right? And when we fight to be right, we lose that. But when we're grounded in who we are, you don't have to fight so hard. You can listen, you can stay calm, you can stay connected, and maybe you can finally see the inside of the book together instead of arguing over the front and the back. So I had a situation that came up in my work environment, and it was it was really kind of strange to me how it all played out, and yet it made me a much stronger leader based on this perspective. So basically, what happened is I was walking into work one day, and my key broke off in the door, and so now you know I'm I'm coming in, I'm supposed to be setting up the salon where I work, and and I'm realizing now I have to call a locksmith, and like this is already taking up so much of my time, and then I realized my gosh, I'm looking at our schedule, and we are so incredibly busy. So I start thinking, you know what? I really I keep saying this, I need to put an ad out for another nail tech. We need to get one as soon as possible, right? So this is all kind of a normal day for me, even just before I even do my clients, right? Except one of my nail techs sees this. She sees that I'm calling a locksmith and I'm changing all the doors, and I'm telling them I need all new keys. Mine already broke off. Like, I need a new lock, I want the chain, I want the lock changed, I need new keys. It has been old, you know. Let's just get some new ones. So want to start fresh. And then she sees me post that I'm looking for a new nail tech. She immediately assumes my perspective must be, I'm firing her. So she goes and she tells another nail technician, I think she's firing me. She's getting the locks changed, she's getting new keys made, she's doing a post that she needs a new nail tech. And unfortunately, she went to another nail technician who said, you know what? I think you're right. I think she is probably gonna fire you. So the next day she comes in and she quits. And she's not herself, she's totally upset, as if, you know, I've created something really bad in her life and now she has to quit. So she quits. I wish her well. And then the other nail tech says to me, you know, when I said, Oh my gosh, like she just quit, she's like, Yeah, she told me about how you were gonna fire her. And you know what? Honestly, I told her you probably were because I don't care. If she leaves, that just means that there's more clients for me. And I'm standing there thinking, what in the world just happened? Like slow down mac and cheese, what is going on? This is perspective. Because it's the same situation, same broken key, same hiring post, and somehow when it turns into fear and assumption, and unnecessary drama, the perspective is different, it's completely black and white. And here's the part we just don't talk about enough because drama doesn't just happen, right? It's allowed. And if leadership doesn't address it when it shows up, it's gonna spread. So I did look to myself because when people start creating stories instead of asking questions, you don't necessarily have a communication problem, you have a culture problem. Because if she would have just asked, you know, hey, what's going on? Because my mind is going here, right? Tell somebody your perspective, communicate it, the whole situation would have never had to happen. It's a situation where two completely perspectives had zero communication, and it's happening in so many different areas and in so many different lives. You're in a position of authority, and perspective can drop it down, and that authority could be as a spouse, as a coworker, in a family situation, as a parent, any of those things. So, again, looking back at that book, if we're gonna argue over who's right, because I see the front and you see the back, the goal isn't to win, the goal is to connect. And when we fight to be right, we're gonna lose that. But when you're grounded in who you are, you don't always have to fight so hard. And then maybe we're just gonna be able to see that inside of that book together. We're gonna be able to see if we just pause and communicate, somebody else's perspective doesn't mean that I'm wrong and she's right, it's just communication, it's keeping the care and the love in the forefront of our conversations. And I have to say, when someone's like, you know, they hear that story sometimes and they're like, well, clearly she was young. She was, she was very young, and someone might say, I wouldn't do that. I'm not going to just assume, oh, sometimes we do. Sometimes we do, and we're just not able to communicate that. Yes, she had responsibilities, but I can't control that. I can only control my perspective, and I can ask more questions and be curious than to be condemning. So I want you to think about these stories today and think about when perspective comes up. Think about how certain things are the same situation and how it can be addressed and how it can be stopped from being spread. And truly, it comes from a lot of drama. It really does. It comes from a place of not wanting to create the drama, you're not thinking that that's where the drama comes up, you're not thinking that. Exactly what you're trying, what your goal is trying to be. But when we get defensive, our perspective tends to make us think we're right. We just don't have to fight that hard anymore. There's too many things in our life that are making us tired, anyways. To want to to fight even more than that. So today I ask you to choose to listen to listen. I ask you to choose for connection. I ask you to have conversations where you're reaching someone. It's such a meaningful, meaningful place to be. And I think it's gonna come from a place of peace. And permission. Permission to have your own perspective and permission to allow someone else to have their own as well. Without it being such a fight. Listen, stay calm, stay connected. Thank you so much for listening. If you're ever interested in working one-on-one, I do offer a free clarity session at Lakeshore Life Coach. And honestly, it's not a sales pitch. It's not one of those, you know, follow-through uh photo they call funnel emails. It's not, it's not one of those. I just want to talk with you. Let's see what your perspective is. Let's see if there's ways we can work together and see where change can happen. Thank you so much. My podcast has just reached like 750 downloads, and I have to tell you that I don't take that lightly. I sometimes feel like I'm just kind of sitting behind a microphone, and I'm just so grateful because sometimes, yeah, when I'm, you know, I'm hoping it lands somewhere. I always am, and then I see this 750 and I think, oh my gosh, people are actually listening. It means more to me than I can actually put into words because this podcast isn't just content. It's my heart, it's my stories, and it's my faith, and the things that I wish more women felt safe talking about. So if you've ever pressed play like you are listening right now, I just want to thank you. Truly, truly thank you for listening. Have a great day.