Ep 4: Breaking the Everything to Everyone Loop

Are you everything to everyone? Do some of the roles you fulfil bring you joy and do some drain the life out of you? This episode is all about identifying the difference between the two sets of roles and getting you to start thinking about how you can do more of what brings you joy and less of what doesn't! 

About me: 

I'm Emma Bradbury, a personal development coach specialising in NLP and mBIT coaching techniques and a Level 2 Fitness instructor and Level 3 Personal Trainer. 

I'm passionate about about transformation from the inside out, helping my clients to get fitter and stronger both in mind and body.

I work with clients in-person at my training and coaching centre in Poulton-le-Fylde on the Fylde Coast and online. 

You can find me here:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100095409783100

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Website: www.emmabradburycoaching.co.uk

Email: emma@emmabradburycoaching.co.uk

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Hello, hello, or good morning, or good afternoon, or good evening, depending on what time of the day or night you're listening to this podcast. So welcome back. And today I want to get into something a little bit deeper. So today I want to talk to you about breaking the everything to everyone loop. So we're going to identify what that is, and then we're going to look at the identity crossroads. So all the thinking that you've done over the last three weeks, if you well, not three weeks, the last three episodes, if you've listened to the last three episodes, kind of builds up to this one. So what I want to do today in this episode is help you recognise the roles that you've been playing for others, understand the personal cost of putting yourselves last, and begin reconnecting with your own identity, whatever that may be. So let me start by asking if you agree with the following statement. Many people, particularly women, find themselves in a pattern of constantly meeting the needs of others whilst quietly losing connection with themselves. Agree or disagree? I'm going to hazard a guess that a lot of you can agree with that. You might say many of us become so used to being the helper, the organiser, the supporter, the caregiver, the one who holds everything together, that somewhere along the way we forget to ask a really simple question to ourselves, which is, where am I in all of this? So what is the everything to everyone loop? It's a cycle where we say yes when we really want to say no. We prioritize everyone else's needs, even to the detriment of our own. We carry multiple roles and responsibilities, and we feel exhausted, but we keep on going. Four statements there. How many of those can you relate to? One of them, two, three, all four of them? Probably. So what I want to do is get you thinking about stepping outside of that loop for a moment and just seeing your life from a slightly different perspective. So what I need you to do is just take a couple of minutes. You might want to pause this podcast while you do that, to reflect on the roles that you currently hold. I give you a few examples, and then you might come up with a ton of your own. I've worked with ladies on this before who have thrown all sorts of roles at me that they carry out that have never even crossed my mind. And you might not come up with all of the roles that you curry currently hold today, and that's okay, because you never can when you put on the spot, can you? But over the next few days, you might think, oh my goodness, I do that as well, and I do that, and I do that, and I do that. And then you'll start to create quite a list. And then it's no wonder you never have time for you. So here are some big examples of the roles that you hold. You might be a parent, you might be a partner, you might be a caregiver, you might be an employee, or a business owner, or a colleague, you might be a friend, you might be an organiser of family life. You might be all of those things. And then just take a think, a minute to think about what you'd add to those. So you might also be a taxi driver burying family, friends, children to all sorts of different activities. You might also be a cook making tea every single night because no one else does it. You might also be the accountant for your family. You might be the travel agent for your family. There's all sorts of roles that you will hold. And some will pop straight into your head right now, and some will pop into your head over the next few days. But what I want you to do when you've had a little think, you don't have to do this now. You might come back to this in a few days when you've kind of got a bit more of a list. But I want you to reflect on two questions. I want you to ask yourself which of these roles feel energizing? Which of these roles really light you up? What do you love doing? What do you never want to give up? And then ask yourself, which of these roles feel heavy? They drain the life out of you. They make every day feel like groundhog day, and you do anything to give them up. And then you might have jobs roles that are left. So you might end up with three categories. The roles that really light you up, the roles that really drain the life out of you, and then the meh roles, the ones that do neither one nor the other. Often we become so focused on fulfilling roles that we actually stop asking who we are beyond them. So when you've got your lists, think about how you can do more of the roles that light you up. Think about how you can do less of the ones that don't. Is there any that you could offload? I hate drying dishes. I don't mind washing them. Well, I do actually. Boom, straight away. Offloaded. Some tasks, some jobs, some roles will be a bit easier. Others might be a little bit harder. My mum has Alzheimer's and I do a lot for her. I've got two brothers. And you know what? They're not bad people. I just don't ask them to do stuff. And I should more. Because when I do, they're like, yeah, I have no problem, I'll do that. So then we're also a bit rubbish at asking for help, aren't we? I think that I have to be the one to take them onto all of her appointments. I have to be the one to sort out all their medication, do all their shopping, pick up all the bits and pieces. But I actually don't because all of that does drain me. And I have two perfectly willing and capable brothers that will do stuff if I only ask them. So it might be that you need to learn to ask for help. It's not a weakness, it's actually a strength. But all of this now brings us to the identity crossroads. Okay. So the identity crossroads is the moment when you begin to realize that the life you're living may be built almost entirely around other people's wants and needs. She might ask yourself, like, who am I beyond all these roles? What do I actually want for myself? When did I stop choosing my own direction? And again, you might want to pause for a couple of minutes to just have a little think about those questions. And also to ask yourself, when was the last time I prioritized me? Like really prioritized me. And when was the last time I truly felt like myself? How long ago was that? Because you can get back there. You know, gaining a little bit of I can't say that word, gaining a little bit of perspective can help us see things that are difficult to notice when we are just on that treadmill, that hamster wheel of day-to-day life. So just taking a moment, like you're doing here, listening to the can't talk now. Like you're doing here, listening to this podcast. You're just taking the moment, and this isn't about fixing anything right now. This is about raising awareness because awareness is the first step. Once you're aware of something, you've got some knowledge, and knowledge is power. You can then do something with it. So, are you living the identity that you really want to live? Are you living your authentic real self? And if not, what can you start to do about it? It helps sometimes to dissociate. So, what that means is that you kind of look through a different lens, you dissociate your mind from your body. So it's almost like you have an out-of-body experience, and you see yourself as if you're in a movie. And if you do that, if you see yourself in a movie, and a movie's about your life, and you're not actually in the movie, you're just observing it. Okay, you're watching the main character on the screen, you're noticing how she moves through her day, the roles that she plays for others, the responsibilities that she carries. And as you watch the story unfold, ask yourself, what would you notice about watching the main character that she can't see for herself? And just observe it, and then just let that unconscious mind take it in and start to percolate. Love that word, let it start to just work on that and see what bubbles up for you. Because there is a cost to putting everyone else first, and it might just be exhaustion and tiredness, it might be lost confidence, you lost that confidence you used to have, or you've lost that get up and go that you used to have. So just see what comes up for you without judging it. Give yourself that awareness to see what you might like to do differently going forward. You know, today isn't about fixing anything, it's about noticing something important. You are not just the role that you play for other people. You are also writing your own story, and your story's not finished. You've all got many, many, many years left on this planet that we call Earth. What do you want to do with those years? Do you want to keep on as you are doing? Or do you want to pause? Do you want to reflect? And do you want to reset? And write the next part of your story. So I've just encourage you to take the awareness from this session into the coming days, a couple of weeks, and just see what comes up for you. And maybe just consider one small action that you can build into your everyday life that will help you to reconnect with yourself. What have you stopped doing? What did you used to love doing, but you never do anymore? Maybe you could go back to that. What you're doing now that you never used to do. Maybe see if you can stop that. And don't be hard on yourself if nothing's coming up for you. Because most of our thinking happens in our unconscious mind. We're not even aware of it until the thought presents itself in our conscious mind. Just see what comes up. And I'd love you to let me know. And thanks for listening. I'll uh speak to you next time.