1.2 The Best Yes

I know exactly where you think this episode is going. Trust me. You're wrong. Somewhere between Betty (yes, I named my phone), a swim meet, and one very inconvenient parenting moment, I discovered this conversation had almost nothing to do with my phone.

Every day we're giving our "yes" to something. The question isn't whether we're saying yes—it's who or what is getting it. The things that deserve our best often lose to the things that are simply easiest to reach. But when we intentionally choose who gets our attention, we become the kind of people who make others feel seen.

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I realized recently that I was getting something I'd been asking for. And be honest, tell me if you've asked for this too. More time, more connection, or more uninterrupted moments with people that you love. Um, I crave that so badly. Uh, but here's the thing. Something was getting in the way of it, and I already had it. It wasn't something huge. It wasn't some dramatic life decision. It was something that was sitting a few feet away from me every single night, something I didn't even realize was getting my yes, and it made me wonder how many things in my life have I accidentally chosen without actually choosing them. I know where you think I'm going with this, and I just want you to know I'm not Hey, thanks so much for being here and welcome to The Things We Don't Say. I'm Nicole. If you're like me, most of us move through our days without realizing how much is actually happening beneath the surface. I get it. I get the conversations, the disappointments, a laugh around the dinner table, or any other moment that seems ordinary. But here's the thing, there's something deeper, and it's time we take a closer look. Around here, we tell stories, we ask better questions, and we look for purpose and humor and hope hidden in ordinary, everyday life, because sometimes the smallest moments end up changing us the most. So let's talk about the things we don't say. Okay, so serious question. Where is your phone when you go to sleep at night? Seriously, like, is it on your nightstand? Is it under your pillow? Is it face down next to you because somehow that makes us feel like we're making healthier choices? Um, 'cause that's actually where mine is, but don't tell my mom because she's going to say that it's gonna give me cancer. Um, there's probably, like, some research article that I need to dive into, but that's gonna have to go onto my ever-growing to-do list of things that I'm going to tackle sometime in my next 40 years. Uh, but anyways, okay, so where's your phone? Where... Like, is it completely outside of your room? I wanna say this, before you think this is an episode about screen time or something along those lines, it's not, because I actually really love my phone. Like, love, love my phone, and I don't think they're all that bad. Um, I actually, I realized something, and I wanna be completely honest, and I really wanna be vulnerable with you right now. I am kind of having a little bit of an affair with my phone, because I truly love my phone so much, and I love her so much that I wanna introduce you to my phone, and she's real cute, okay? Let's, like, she's cute. Her name is Betty. She loves to wear cheetah print. So do my kids. We all love cheetah. Anyways, so she wears it every day, and like me, I'm kind of ashamed to admit this, but she's all about labels, and in particularly recently, she's really about Kate Spade. And so she wears this cute Kate Spade coverup, and she just looks so good in it. Um, but I don't know, I'm kind of struggling because she just is this know-it-all, and she can tell me which videos to watch and knows that I'm gonna laugh so hard at them. And if I try to go my own way, she has this really irritating way of recalculating my directions. So sometimes she can be really helpful, but sometimes I get the feeling that she's totally trying to sabotage my life, which is why I would go so far as to say that yes, I think Betty and I are having an affair. Okay, so I know how stupid that sounds, but thankfully, I came to my senses a few years ago and I decided that we, and by we, not Betty and me, but m- we, Trey and I, my husband, uh, we clearly, uh, needed to make this change. And I say we, I wanna be very clear that it was me, uh, because I'm the one who brought this third party into our marriage. But I decided that we were gonna sleep with our phones with Betty and, I don't even know that Trey has a name for his phone, but I do. Um, so Betty and her friend were gonna sleep outside of our room, and it was so hard. It was hard at night especially, because that's when I would get into this quiet time without all the interruptions, and I was able to sit, I was able to watch those funny videos that Betty knows to send me. I was able to respond to all those texts that I thought I responded to, but in reality, that was just in my mind when I was actually in the middle of doing dishes or something, um, and I thought that I had, but I actually hadn't. Can I get an amen to that? Is someone totally connecting with me on that one? Um, I, I just, I loved being able to look up the name of an actor in a movie. You know, like if I'm laying there at night and Trey and I are watching a movie, I loved being able to look up the name of the actor in the movie because I know it was gonna bother me for the next two and a half hours if I didn't. And so I noticed something. I noticed that when the easiest thing to reach for wasn't there anymore, I reached for what was, and what was was the person, my partner, my husband, that I wanted to spend more time with. I reached for that connection, the one that we talked about in the last episode, and I reached for that person that was laying right next to me, and it was special. When Pippa was born, you know, we had the baby monitor like everybody does. Technology is really cool like that. And if you don't have kids, if you're older and you're listening to this, or if you're younger and you're listening to this, baby monitors are pretty cool today versus when they were around 40 years ago when my parents had me. And, you know, the one that we have, it's this camera and you got to be careful because you can watch your kids while they're sleeping, but so can a creeper in China and they'll break into your phones and then they're watching your baby sleeping too. And it's just this really creepy thing. And so anyways, yeah, we've totally endangered our kids because we have that monitor. And thankfully, no, we have not been broken into, but we have it because I needed it to feel better about my kid and that I could see her at all times without having to get out of my warm bed. So slowly, Betty started making her way back into our room. I started saying yes to that and no to the connection I was getting with my husband. And so here's the scary thing betty is easy to blame because I can see her. But really, every single yes is costing me something, and sometimes the thing that it costs me is my best self for the people that are already right in front of me the things that are a little harder to see though, my need to get everything done, or my desire to make everyone happy, or even my expectations of what my life should look like, those things end up getting my yes. And then because kids have this really annoying way of turning every life lesson you're trying to teach them into a lesson that you actually need to learn yourself, um, yes, that happened to me with Robbie. And so I wanna talk about my Robbie for a minute. She's five and she's hilarious, and I always tell her, I'm like, "Robbie, you are my favorite Robbie." And it's because she's strong and she feels everything so big. She has three sisters, so you can imagine we have lots of opportunities in our house to practice patience and kindness. Um, but so recently I noticed something. Robbie was being so, so sweet to one of her sisters. We're talking like dream child. Helpful, kind, patient. She was the kind of kid-- She was like the version of your kid where you're like, "Oh, good, there's something that I'm doing as a parent, and it's working." Um, but then with another one of her sisters, it was not so much. Same house, same day, same Robbie, different person. Totally different version of herself. And I remember talking to her and saying something like, "Robbie, we, we don't decide who deserves our kindness. We don't pick one person to love well and then another person to ignore." And then there it was. It was one of those parenting moments where the words left my mouth, and somehow they turned around, and they looked right back at me. Because isn't that exactly what I do? Maybe I'm not picking between sisters, but I am picking who gets my patience, who gets my attention, who gets my curiosity, who's gonna get the benefit of the doubt, who gets the version of me I actually want to be. Because the truth is, I don't wanna be someone who's just patient with strangers and short with my family. I don't wanna be someone who shows up for everyone else and gives leftovers to the people that are sitting at my own table. And I also don't wanna swing the complete opposite way and say, "Well, maybe my people are the only people who matter," because that's not true either. People matter, all people. And I think that's the tension. I wanna be very wise here about who gets my yes, though. I don't ever want wisdom to become an excuse to withhold ordinary kindness. And here's what I mean by that. I can have boundaries and still be the kind of person who notices the lonely kid. I can protect my family and still treat the cashier like she matters. I can say no to someone's access without saying no to their worth. And that's, that part is very important. And I've learned this the hard way way too many times, so I don't want us to miss it. Boundaries protect access, but they should never diminish someone's dignity Have you ever been caught in a conversation and you're sitting there and you're wondering to yourself, "What is this? Um, okay, well, I better just smile and nod my head," right? Like, we've all been there. Um, but my husband, he's so gifted in working with younger kids. He always says he wants to win the lottery so he can become a school teacher and I can still do my dreams, and our kids can still go to college loan-free. Um, yeah, right, okay. We'll see about that. Um, but he is, he's so gifted in noticing the kid who's sitting on the sidelines. He's so intentional about being inclusive so that no kid he encounters ever feels overlooked. And he's like... A few years ago there, a few years ago, like a long, long time ago, uh, there was this whole thing that George W. Bush did. It was called No Child Left Behind, and so I always say Trey's like the walking campaign button of No Child Left Behind, but we just have to change a few things and replace all findings of academic achievement with social emotional achievement, and we have to replace all findings of standardized testing with personal interactions. And so Trey's actually the complete opposite of No Child Left Behind, um, but also, like, the walking epitome of No Child Left Behind, and I love him so, so much. Um, okay. So Trey's entering the chat. Let me set the scene. We're all at, we're at the swim meet- And the moms are talking, and he sees one of our girls, 'cause that's what we call them, our girls, because we love our friends' kids like our own kids, and we try to love them really, really well. And so he sees one of our girls, and she's just sitting there. You know, moms are talking, and he starts chatting her up. And I don't know, like, if you're listening to this, which most people who are listening to this are probably friends of ours, but if you know Trey, this is not a surprising scene for you at all. He gets down, and he talks to kids. And so he sees this one kid, and he's, he's telling her something about something, you know, 'cause he's intentional about that. But I kid you not, she looks at her mom, completely talks over him, and she says, "Why is he talking to me?" And like, and we're all just sitting there, and we're like, oh, my gosh, she totally... Like, she just sh- she... God bless that girl. We love her. We all die laughing. And of course, I fall in love with him all over again because my husband is so intentional. And our girl, she wasn't wrong. She truly didn't have an answer, but he did. And I wish we could... I talked to her mom about this. I was like, "Can I please share this story in my podcast?" Um, because I really wish we would've handled this a little bit differently. But he was talking to her because she matters, and here's where I go back on that. I wish that he would've answered her or that I would've answered her and said, "Hey, he's asking you because you matter." He was intentional, and he was inclusive. He gave her his yes because she matters. And I think I would... Like, the opportunity to tell someone or show someone that they matter, I don't want us to ever lose that. And so how many of us have been there before? We're having these conversations, and we're wondering things like, "Why are you being so nice to me?" Or, "Why are you... What... Like, what are you trying to get from me out of this?" There's always this, like, ulterior motive. It's like we're standing there waiting for the other shoe to drop. And so here's the thing we don't say Why have we been conditioned to think that not every conversation we have is a genuine conversation? What has this fast-paced generational culture done to us that we forget that we might actually matter? We think like, do we actually deserve someone's genuine yes? That we have value? Why should any of us deserve less than a yes? And if we deserve it, then why shouldn't the person standing right next to us or right in front of us, why shouldn't they deserve it too? And so I want to be so, so intentional here. And obviously I want my friends to get my yes, and I want my kids to get my yes. And obviously more than anyone, I know that my partner, my husband, he needs my yes more than anyone. I want the people closest to me to know that they matter. But even more than that, I want them to know that they matter too. And so I, I already like briefly touched on this. I want to take a moment to address boundaries though, because that is so, so important, and I don't want this whole message to get twisted at all. Um, I don't give everyone the same access. I don't believe that we should give everyone the same access. Absolutely not. Unfortunately, I, I think, and I've experienced and learned the hard way that some people just aren't safe. Whether they've proven that through the way that they've treated you or you've watched the way that they've treated other people, I believe that some relationships need boundaries. It could be a family member, it could be a neighbor, it could be the person sitting right next to you at your kid's extracurricular activities. Um, but why do we act like someone has to have unlimited access to our lives in order for us to believe that they still have value? I'm gonna hit you with this thing that we don't say. It is completely acceptable. This is what I believe. It is completely acceptable to say that some people have lost the privilege of unlimited access to my life Boundaries are healthy and boundaries are good, but here's the ever so hard part. Boundaries should never become permission to forget someone's value. I can say, "You can't have access to my life", while still believing you were created with dignity. Those are two very different things. That person that was ill-willed, guess what? I know about it. I know, but you still matter. Boundaries determine access, but love determines dignity. Oh my gosh, I could go on about this. Like, seriously, I could go on and on and on about this. So I'm gonna save boundaries for a different episode. Stick around. Um, but can I just say I haven't always gotten this right. I've had to learn it, like, really, really in hard, difficult ways, um, that sometimes loving someone well, it just means loving someone differently. All right. I don't even know where to go from there. I don't know how to segue into the next part. Uh, here's something else that we don't say. Have I become so focused on protecting my own little world that I stop noticing everybody else's world? I, I'm just gonna pray right now. God, please help me not become someone who is so focused on protecting my own little world that I stop noticing everybody else's, or even worse. Why am I talking to someone and pretending? When did I lose the authenticity? Ask yourself, is that you? Something we don't say, uh, most of us are all probably guilty to some extent, and why? Because in reality, everybody has a story. Everybody has something going on beneath the surface. And so when did we elevate our worth over another person's worth? And I think sometimes we forget that Uh, before staying home with my girls, I spent years and years working with teenagers and their families, and then that later progressed to working more with adults. But that's how I know that we can learn from them, because if there's one thing that these kids can teach us, um, I see it with the adults too, and it's something we don't say. It's that we all want someone to notice. And I, I, that's why I brought this up, because I saw it more with my work with the teenagers. Um, what you see on the outside, it's never the whole story. Um, the attitude, the anger, the sarcasm, the kid who pushes everyone away, but secretly they're saying like, "Hey, come here. Actually, I want your attention, so come here." There's always something underneath. Maybe it's something like getting laughed at on the bus or on the way to school, or maybe it's anxiety about a math test, or maybe it's parents on the verge of something. Here's the thing, though. One person's something doesn't elevate over someone else's something, all right? So, like, think about the people that are in your circle, right? So whether that's your own kids or your family or your boyfriend or, like, two of the closest people. Are you telling me that both of those people are gonna come to you with two entirely different things and you're gonna give more attention to one over the other, right? Like, how do we choose? We can't-- Like, how do we choose the favorites there? We don't, because both people are sitting in something. And it's true for all of us. We walk into Target, we sit in the carpool line, we go to work, we sit across the table from each other, and everyone around us is carrying an entire story. And most likely, we don't know a lot about it. Here's the thing we don't say. Don't miss it, because this is where it all ties together. We all want someone to look past the attitude, the mistakes, the bad days, the messy parts, the moments when we aren't the easiest version of ourselves, and we want them to see that there's more, and we want them to give us a simple yes. There's always more, because behind every person is a story we haven't heard yet, a hurt we don't know about, a worry they didn't say out loud, a battle they're fighting quietly. And maybe if we remembered that more often, we'd give people a little more grace. We'd give them the value we all deserve. And don't we want that for the people that we love? Yes, we'd give them a yes, and that's why it matters so much. Every person that you just pictured, whether it was the teenager, the cashier, the lonely kid on the sidelines, the person carrying something that nobody else can see, those two people that you just imagined, I really hope someone is giving them a full yes. And so the question is this, what kind of yes are we actually giving? When I look at Jesus, I read his story, and I so want this part of him. This is, like, the biggest part of him that I want to reflect when I interact with people, and it's this, that he noticed people. Um, there's this story. He's walking through these massive crowds everywhere. Everywhere he went, people wanted something from him. They wanted to hear him. They wanted to be healed by him. They wanted to see what he was gonna do next. And so he's, like, he's walking in this mob. I... Like, whenever I read this story, I try and, like, put it into today's world, right? So I picture, like, Justin Bieber or Taylor Swift or in 1999, my favorite boy band, NSYNC, and all these people are just crowding around him. And so there's this person, and she'd been bleeding for 12 years. The Bible tells us she was bleeding for 12 years. So can you even imagine that, ladies? Like, bleeding for 12 years, right? 12 years of suffering. 12 years of wondering if anyone even saw her anymore because of this condition that she had. And I just... So I try to empathize with her through this story and think through, like, "If I can just touch him, if I can just touch the edge of his robe, then maybe I'll be healed." And so, like, I go back to that analogy, and, I r- I remember, like, sitting and watching TRL and seeing these, like, massive mobs around NSYNC, and I just remember thinking, "Oh, man, I so wanna be those girls." Um, but here's, the difference in that, is that this woman, she reached out and touched him with all these people around, and Jesus stops, and he says, "Who touched me?" And everyone just kind of stops and they're like, "Dude, what do you mean? Like, there's a million people here that are trying to touch you. Look around. Everybody is touching you." But he, but he notices the one, and he keeps looking because he noticed her, and the her was the her that everyone else was overlooking, the her that everyone else would've just walked right past. But he was different, and he stopped. Why? Because she mattered. I love that. I love it so much because that's my Jesus. He wasn't looking at crowds. He was busy noticing people, the individual people. He wasn't just healing their bodies, he was restoring their dignity, and he looked at someone else without looking past, and he saw her. And I already said it before, but that's how much it matters to me to say it again. Sometimes the people who matter most to us, they're right in front of us. They're the ones that are fighting the hardest for our attention, and that's why the yes matters so much. Listen, attention, it's just how we communicate value. Think about that. Attention is how we communicate value. And so think of your people. Think of your family, your boyfriend, your girlfriend, your best friends. It's how we tell them, "Yes, you matter." And so now think of the people in your communities, the person sitting next to you at church or the other mom quietly sitting across from you while you're waiting for your kids to finish their activities. Uh, I don't know, like think of those lonely kids sitting on the sidelines. It's how we tell them, "Yes, you matter." And it's how Jesus told that woman, "I see you. You matter I have something to confess. Um, I used to sit at a keyboard and just bleed my heart out into words, and then somewhere along the way, I stopped. I think I had, like, way too many kids. No, not actually. They're all my favorites. I love them. They're totally worth it. Um, but when I decided to launch this podcast, I realized how much I missed writing, because every time I finished writing, I walked away changed. Not because I had all the answers, but because slowing down long enough to notice what was really happening inside of me, it changed me. So I wanna be very intentional about saying this. I don't expect this podcast to just come in and change your life, but I do wanna share what's helped me live a life with more hope and more contentment and just this growing awareness that there's always more going on beneath the surface than I can see. And honestly, if this podcast gives even just one person this beautiful perspective, it's totally gonna be worth it far more to me than a hundred downloads. Um, so anyway, I say that 'cause I just-- I wanna leave you with this. Maybe this week, just pay attention to where your yes is going, because your yes, your attention, it's telling a story every single day. Whether we realize it or not, it's telling the people around you what you value, and I want my attention to tell the same story that my heart has been trying to tell all along, and I want it to do that without Betty interrupting me. um, If this conversation is resonating with you or if you'd like to keep having these conversations, I would love for you to reach out to me. I'd love for you to follow this podcast, um, because there's so much more beyond this. Uh, like here's something. What if the things getting our yeses are also creating the expectations that we live under? And I think that's where we're headed next. Sometimes the words just come later. At its heart, The Things We Don't Say is about helping people recognize that there's always more going on beneath the surface of everyday life. It's about paying attention. It's about meaning. It's about beholding the bigger picture hidden inside ordinary moments. Because often, the things we don't say reveal the things that matter most. Thanks for listening