Practical Spirituality
Join this fascinating discussion between Kim, a behavioral specialist with a deep curiosity about spirituality, and Gareth, a spiritual channel of Michael, as they address and explore the biggest and most meaningful questions we face in our day-to-day lives. Featuring direct, open and informed conversations about the things that impact us the most - from self-love and self-acceptance through to channeling and spiritual understandings. Discover new ways to connect to the deeper meaning of the world around you and understand the one within you. Become a Supporter at https://www.garethmichael.com/ to join our community and get early access to new episodes, answers to your personal questions and so much more.
Practical Spirituality
Caring What People Think
In this episode of the Practical Spirituality Podcast, Gareth and Kim examine why we care so much about other people’s opinions. They delve into the psychological roots of this tendency, explaining how humans are wired from infancy to seek external validation for survival, creating neural pathways that can persist throughout adulthood. They assess how these patterns have intensified in the digital age, and the impact of social media.
Our hosts share personal stories of grappling with comparison, perfectionism, and the pressure to maintain seemingly “perfect” facades. They highlight how relying too heavily on others’ judgments can result in anxiety and self-doubt. They also discuss practical strategies for moving beyond this cycle, emphasizing self-validation, establishing boundaries, and expressing oneself authentically.
Rather than advocating for a complete dismissal of external feedback, they encourage listeners to develop a healthier relationship with others’ views, allowing them to inform but not define personal identity. For anyone who has felt the need to “people-please”, this episode offers support, guidance, and practical insights for cultivating greater peace and authenticity.
Become a Community Member at https://community.garethmichael.com/ to join our community and get early access to new episodes, answers to your personal questions and so much more.
Welcome back to the Practical Spirituality Podcast. We are so excited to have you on this journey with us, where we explore all elements of mind, body, emotions and soul through the lens of everyday life.
Speaker 2:Hello Kim.
Speaker 1:Hello.
Speaker 2:Gareth, how are you doing this morning?
Speaker 1:I'm doing okay this morning. How are you doing?
Speaker 2:I'm doing really well. I have another interesting topic for this week.
Speaker 1:That'll be interesting. Let's hear it.
Speaker 2:I don't think you'll be able to relate, because I don't think you care what people think of you.
Speaker 1:I don't think you'll be able to relate because I don't think you care what people think of you. That's funny. Yes, I don't.
Speaker 2:I don't relate. Okay, so I'll give context to all the listeners. I had a client this week that was mentioning some of their anxieties or things that they struggle with in day-to-day life, and in this particular conversation we talked about caring about what people think and basically, why is that a universal experience? I think we can all relate to that in our own ways and how that evolves and changes as we go throughout life. So I did think at the time and with that person's permission, that would be a very interesting topic for the podcast.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great topic because, like you said, it's universal and we all experience it on one level or another. Some of us may experience it more than others, but we all experience it, and I think it's a very long journey to get to that place where I don't think you ever stop caring what everybody else thinks. But I think you get to a level of what part of it is important, what part of it isn't important.
Speaker 2:So let's dive in. I do think it's a very interesting topic as we're talking about because, once again, it's a universal experience we all go through and as we go through life, our relationship with caring about what people think continues to evolve and change. Also, as we mature and get to know ourselves but fundamentally understand the roots of why we care so much. To start with, all of that is basically that because we are social beings and from a very young age, as we've talked about a number of times on this podcast, we care what people think.
Speaker 2:As parts of it is a survival mechanism in order to get through life, especially from an early age. So I know that this is leaning into your area of expertise, so I'm going to let you take it away from here of explaining why do we care what people think so much?
Speaker 1:So what I'd like to say about this is it's such a big topic and there's so many layers to this different topic that we can focus on any one of those layers, but I think it's important that we put context to some of the things that we're about to explain. So, for example, when we're born, we are completely dependent on our caregivers, and so of course we're looking for that external validation. You know, and we don't even know, that's what we're looking for because of our developmental stage. But then what happens as we start to grow? Naturally, people are always applauding us when we do great things. We learn, just like Pavlov's dogs, that oh, if I do something good, people are going to, they're going to congratulate me. So there's that aspect. But then there's also the aspect if you are in a very volatile situation as a very young child and people are not paying attention to you, you learn that if you can do something that makes them feel better, then you will survive early age.
Speaker 1:And so it goes from that to as we grow, we step into this social conditioning. So we go off to school or we go off to daycare, or our family has a certain way of reacting to certain things. The culture has a certain way of reacting to certain things. So we want to fit in. I think that's one of those natural things that happens to us. We want to fit in and so we're looking to make sure that we are fitting in by the expressions on everybody else's faces and we're too young to even realize what's happening.
Speaker 1:Well, once that becomes habitualized and then we start to grow a little bit, then it becomes more about this fear of rejection. Because now that we've started seeking that external validation, we think, if we don't get it, that we somehow don't fit or we're not okay or we're not the same as others. And even though it might be operating at that survival level we're not consciously aware of that we just know that we're afraid we're going to get rejected if we don't fit or if we're not getting that validation from outside of ourself. It becomes pretty hardwired in all of us.
Speaker 1:Some of us are lucky enough to build a self-esteem at a young age, that they have an internal guide. They're still going okay. Well, look, I can see you're not happy with me, but this is what I'm going to do. My daughter was one of those people. She came into this world a Leo, full of herself very strong-willed. She didn't really care, she knew what she wanted and she would go after it. And as someone that came into the world on that survival scale, as someone that came into the world on that survival scale.
Speaker 1:It used to blow my mind how much she just didn't care, but she didn't escape it altogether, just like everybody else. If it doesn't kick in at very early childhood, then you get the social conditioning at school where you're left out of a group and all of a sudden you're like why am I being left out of the group? And then it starts to affect you at that scale and I can tell you quite honestly I have quite a few clients today because our world has shifted so much. We had that pandemic. A lot of people were socially isolated and now you have a whole group of people who don't know how to go out and interact socially because they were isolated for so long. And they start believing that it's all about. They don't fit into the right culture to be able to date to interact with others their own age and they're looking for that exterior approval.
Speaker 2:And I think when you look at it or start exploring it, what becomes interesting is that people who have a strong identity and understanding of self tend to care less about it, as you were saying. It doesn't mean that it still doesn't play a role. We're all human in our own ways and which ways it can appear throughout our lives. But the more we understand self and we understand where people's thinking comes from, our own thinking comes from, and where the foundations of that start showing up, then you can begin to see, okay, it tends to leave less of a mark in day-to-day life because you start using it as a sense of a reflection about self. Why did that trigger me? Where did that come from? What experiences or who does that remind me of when I hear those? Certain phrases or certain sentences are being compared.
Speaker 2:But what's interesting about modern day is that how much of it's been shoved into our faces more than ever before of the comparison and caring what people think, especially when it comes to social media, our careers, how many likes we get, how many comments, how many friends, how many followers. It's just constantly that the rat race of trying to get ahead and to get people's acceptance. So it's always been there in our human nature, if you want to say, and it all started. It used to be just, shall we say, contained to our homes, our friends, our neighbors, our villages, our towns, our cities, but now it's actually to each person. This is now, on a global scale, of how do I get this much attention as humanly possible? But when I get it, I can't hack it or handle it either.
Speaker 1:Yes or it doesn't have the result we want. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Never. And this is what's really confusing, I think, about the human experience at the moment, and its evolution is fascinating because we care what people think. We want to control the narrative constantly, but there's a deep part. We want to control the narrative constantly, but there's a deep part of us that knows that we can't. But it's like a very addictive drug that we can't seem to get off that ride. But again that comes back down to we don't have a strong understanding or sense of self to understand why we're chasing it to start with, as well as everyone else.
Speaker 1:Yes. And the other thing that happens if you don't have that sense of self else yes. And the other thing that happens if you don't have that sense of self and you're out there and you're validating your very existence based on how other people are responding to you. That becomes a very double-edged sword and I'm sure that you have seen that with some of your own clients, as I have with mine that they can't seem to do anything without getting the external validation. That then turns into that hamster wheel of constantly running those looping thoughts of trying to work out oh, I've got Gareth today.
Speaker 1:What if I say the wrong thing? Oh my gosh, he's going to say this, I'm going to say this, then he's going to react like this and then I'm going to be pissed off and then that's it. We're not going to be friends anymore. We haven't even seen each other. You know what I mean. I for one used to live like that and it's not comfortable and it becomes very obsessive because we think that our value is based on how other people react to us. That's when it goes to that extreme and that's where the perfectionism starts to kick in. That's where we're always second guessing our decisions because it's like I have no sense of self to judge whether I can and I need to see. This is the other thing I used to do. I used to need to get everybody else's opinion, but I wouldn't just get one person's opinion, I'd get 10 people's opinion.
Speaker 2:The whole street's opinion.
Speaker 1:And they'd all be different. And then I'd feel 10 times worse because now I don't know which one to pick. And no matter which one I pick, somebody's going to be pissed off at my decision and I'm still going to get it wrong because it becomes an internal right or wrong thing and that's when it starts to really become overwhelming, it starts to become dysfunctional and it really disrupts our life.
Speaker 2:Because I couldn't agree more and I think this was fascinating.
Speaker 2:Say, even if we're using very simple examples here, let's say, if you or I would post a picture on social media and it's that, if we're the type of person that would check for likes or comments, and if we're searching for how many likes compared to the previous post, or if the comments are negative or positive, I think it's fascinating beginning to actually break down.
Speaker 2:What am I searching for in either being present? Okay, so it's that if there's a positive comment there, I'm looking for a sense of approval, but if there's a negative comment there that I'm also searching for in my own way, it's because I'm looking for it to also keep me down, in a sense to feed a different part of me to not believe in myself. So it goes to show how conditioned we are that why are we checking in the first place, regardless if it's positive or negative, that the positive or negative comment is feeding different parts of our lack of understanding of self, or even belief in self, in different ways, because they both trigger both sides of it that are equally unhealthy for different reasons and they both trigger the same sort of thing.
Speaker 1:You know that increases your anxiety. If you don't have a high self-esteem or a good value of yourself, it just plumbs it either way, because there is a part of you that knows, when you're looking for those positive comments, that you need, that that's your little drug of choice. And then if you're looking for the negative content, it's the proof. See, I told you, I told you. I wasn't worth anything, and so it leads to that never, ever, ever ever feeling good enough, no matter what's going on.
Speaker 2:But that's what's interesting also is that we have never been taught or shown or trained to see this, that this is an addiction within itself, and you can see why social media and all the different platforms have become so big around the world because it's exactly feeding that I had to get off social media for not that exact reason, but for a similar reason.
Speaker 1:So what would happen for me on social media is and I'm a person who celebrates other people's growth I think that's a healthy way of being. I really like it. But what I noticed on social media, when someone would post something that they were doing, especially in my industry this overwhelming sense of being behind would happen I'm behind the scale, I'm not doing enough, I need to do more, and it would keep me in that perfectionism trap that I've somehow hadn't got it right because somebody else was doing something that I wasn't doing, that I probably wasn't meant to be doing in the first place. Didn't matter, though At that point I was comparing myself, and that comes from the same sort of thing that we're talking about. That I could never get it right, and it used to send me into such a spin that I finally just went. What am I doing here? This?
Speaker 2:is ridiculous.
Speaker 1:Yes, I am not in competition with any of these people. My life doesn't depend on what they're doing versus what I'm doing. This is feeding this loop in my brain. That is not healthy for me. I just don't know how many people can see that when it's happening to them.
Speaker 2:Very few, very few, and that's why I think it's a very important conversation. Because we get so stuck in that loop, as you were saying, and because everyone else is so stuck in that loop, as you were saying, and because everyone else is equally stuck in that loop and everyone's comparing with one another about their performance. It's a very hard cycle to break, because if everyone in your house has a drinking problem, then none of you are going to pull yourself out of it, right? Because you're all drinking buddies together. It can be take a lot to actually to need, to want or to find a way to break some of these cycles, and it is also can be tricky to strike that balance of wanting to engage with the world and to engage with people but, at the same time, not being triggered or also not deeply caring what they think or what their perception is on it, especially when it's an addiction within itself. So it does take time to do that.
Speaker 1:Well, I think that's true. It's not till we start questioning it. And it wasn't until I started to work with someone else that I started to see I can't read someone else's mind and I can't change somebody else's opinion of me. No matter what I do, they're going to have their opinion regardless and it's truthfully none of my business what their opinion of me is. And that is the part when you've been trapped in this loop for a long time that can be very hard to break out of.
Speaker 1:And it's also, you know, like, for example, in my case being raised in the large family, that I was raised, in my case being raised in the large family, that I was raised in, having the conditions in my family that were there, I came away from that situation believing that I was less than believing that I would never amount, believing certain things about myself.
Speaker 1:And so the minute that I'm in a high stress situation or a prolonged stress situation, it doesn't take long for me to fall right back into it and it takes conscious awareness to bring myself out. So that is, I think, feels a little bit defeating, but it's true. You know, like, if it is been conditioned in for a long time, as you've often said, we're going to repeat these patterns, and it puts a strain on relationships because when you start to repeat the old patterns and the people don't understand why you're repeating this old pattern and it makes no sense to them, they don't know how to react to you. They don't know what to do. That's going to make you feel better or not feel better and, truthfully, it's not even their job to do that, it's our job.
Speaker 1:It's not their responsibility yes, to pull ourself out of it.
Speaker 2:So it becomes a very vicious cycle for some people and I think sometimes we're just like any addiction that we find ourselves in is that we're meant to be in it for as long as we're meant to be in it because there's certain experiences we're meant to have with it.
Speaker 2:But there's always ways in which we start pulling away from it or breaking from it.
Speaker 2:When the timing is absolutely right, and that's as you were saying, when the right person comes along, or multiple people that's part of their journey to assist us on ours, it becomes. Then we begin to have the opportunity to strike that balance over a period of time of what works best for us, and beginning to build that relationship with self, like most of the things we talk about, is a key factor in that, and I think sometimes, as we both did at different stages in our lives, having a detox away from social media or were a lot of the where we find ourselves in the comparison mode, especially in our day-to-day lives, can be a huge step. It's hard to realize something's toxic when you're in it, and it's only so even if you're not questioning it or asking why you just remove yourself from something as simple as social media. I've yet to hear one person who hasn't been like, wow, I feel so much better from pulling my head out of that, even if they've never explored it. One question further.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is amazing, and I don't think, you know, even our media, even our advertising, is geared for us to be constantly looking for that external validation in ways of, well, if you drive this car, you've got the look, you've got the right family, you've got the happiness, you've got the whatever, got the right family, you've got the happiness, you've got the whatever. And so we all think, oh okay, I mean, it seems so trivial, but it's true, and it often operates on a very unconscious level, that we're not even aware that's what we're doing. And so if you're finding yourself this is, I think, the side that we haven't really covered yet If you're finding yourself doing that self-analysis about what somebody else is thinking, when you're really caught up in, maybe even censoring yourself because you're worried about the other person's reaction, those are all warning signs that you need to go in and do some self-reflection and find out what you can do differently.
Speaker 1:Go in and do some self-reflection and find out what you can do differently, because you have to start to recognize that it isn't working for you first, and then, when it isn't working, how can you start to change it.
Speaker 2:I couldn't agree more, and I think that's why it is the internal journey as you're talking about, because it's not about isolating yourself, it's not about walking away from family, friends, partners, colleagues, because as long as we're interacting with the world, let it be in person or on social media every person you meet is going to have an opinion and they're going to think something about you. Yeah, they are. Were you aware of that?
Speaker 2:yeah, oh yes so we can run, but we can't hide when it comes to these realities. Kim's giving it her best. How's it going over there?
Speaker 2:pretty good job of it, sometimes pretty good job, pretty good job, but I do think it's that it's. We can take a break from it for a period of time, you know, to get our ducks in the road to understand. But longer term it's important that we build that resilience from the inside out and investing into self of what is the journey that any of us as individuals have to do with this part of us, because it's a universal experience that we all go through day in, day out. But so it's only when we realize that and have an acceptance of that in some ways that I think we can find interesting internal strength that we didn't know was possible before. And I do think that means we allow ourselves longer term to be more outspoken, to be more creative, to be more honest, to be more authentic.
Speaker 2:Because, you think about it, when we care what people think, we're often living in so much fear yes and when we're in fear, how can we expect ourselves to be our authentic selves, or to say what's on our minds, or to do what we want to do or take action in the ways we've dreamt of? So you can see how life at times pushes us to these points of actually needing to explore ourselves in that way, because it can open up a whole new chapter in any of our lives.
Speaker 1:This is very true. But the other part of that is is, you know, we have to learn how to validate ourselves, which was a foreign concept for me up until I was almost 40. Like, I never even heard the word of self validation. I thought that just meant selfishness. It's taken me a long time to be able to just go hey, you're okay, You're okay as you are. Do I believe that 100% of the time, Absolutely not Work in progress here.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think it's important to say that as well, because one of the things I learned at a younger age is I learned how to front up and look like I could do it I learned how to put on that mask very strongly, so much so I can remember when my mom was almost 80 and we were having a conversation and she was asking me why I thought that I was addicted and why I had so many issues because I am the child in the family that had so many issues and I just kind of looked at her like she was crazy. I'm like what do you mean? How can you not know this? So we were having a very open and candid conversation and she got sad and she said, yeah, it makes me very sad. And I said why? And she goes because I always thought you were doing so well, you look so capable, you never complained, you always look like you had a control on all of it.
Speaker 1:And there is the mask. You know that, oh, I'll just fake it till I make it, I'll go out there. And people used to think I was okay. But you know, I was the duck where I'd look like I was smoothly across the water but I was paddling like mad underneath it just trying to exist. And I'm sure there'll be a lot of people that can relate to that. And so this concept of validating myself, of giving myself, that's what I was looking for outside, first of all A. It didn't seem to have any weight to it when I would try and validate myself, because I didn't really believe it, and then it was learning to celebrate the small wins that started to finally chunk away at it along with all the other work that I was doing at the time, but I think it's important to say, for people out there they might not even know how to validate themselves.
Speaker 2:And I think even in you saying that, it's that when we jump to thinking about what people are thinking of us, we never realize that that's actually how we think about ourselves.
Speaker 1:Yes, that's very true.
Speaker 2:I know it's so simple, but that's what's going on deep within us. So we're putting words into their mouths, but really we're saying it about ourselves. Let's take a step back from this week's episode and share with everyone what we've been up to behind the scenes.
Speaker 1:We're really excited to be able to finally offer the Gareth Michael community to each of you. The community offers a range of benefits, including access to our live events, weekly podcast episodes, articles, self-checking questions, as well as a community of individuals you can connect with and interact with along the way. It's designed to offer you support, guidance and a safe space on a day-to-day basis. We'd love to have you join our global community of like-minded individuals. That website address, again, is wwwgarethmichaelcom. Now, let's get back to that episode, shall we?
Speaker 2:Now, let's get back to that episode shall we so often on this podcast we talk about? We all live such busy lives which is true, like we're never going to sit here and say otherwise. Everyone is busy doing their own thing, but we're with ourselves all the time, but we never spend quality times with ourselves to understand where the thinking is coming from. Why are we jumping to these conclusions? How are we mind-body emotions? And so it's not surprising that when we're not able to have that quality time and to process or to understand those parts of this, then of course it's going to have that negative bias that you often talk about, because I do believe that our system has to get creative at times in order to get our attention, and there's nothing better than it gets our attention than when there's negativity going on within us. It's kind of like when any of us have a cold or flu. While blowing your nose, you're like I forget what it's like to be well, yes, you know you're wishing yes so, but so it has our full, undivided attention.
Speaker 2:So, therefore, if we're thinking negatively about ourselves and we can't give ourselves that self-validation in that ways, then it's not surprising that it keeps appearing in a lot of different ways before we even engage in another conversation with another person. It'll never cease to amaze me in all the different signals that our system and mind body emotions gets creative and trying to get our attention to show us. In all the different signals that our system and mind body emotions gets creative and trying to get our attention to show us in all the different ways we need to get to know self.
Speaker 1:And the problem is we have no idea how to get to know self, especially if we've been running on this gambit, this looping in our brain for so long, focusing on everything and everybody else and their reactions to us. And the worst part about it is it's the least effective way of discovering what's going on, because someone can have a reaction, and I have this happen to me all the time Because of the environment I grew up in, because so many emotions were not okay. Anger was okay. What started showing up for me is whenever I'm frightened, I get an angry tone. I know it, I'm aware of it. Now I didn't for a long time and everybody used to say to me you are so angry. I'm like, no, I'm actually not angry. And no amount of me telling people that I wasn't angry did they believe me. I knew it was fear. I knew I was scared to death. And that became such a hard thing because I was like why can't I get people to see I'm scared? I wanted them to see I was scared because I wanted help, but they kept saying I was just too see, I'm scared. I wanted them to see I was scared because I wanted help, but they kept saying I was just too angry for the help, Okay, so now, how am I going to learn how to navigate that? You know, when all the feedback is coming to me that I'm angry. So of course I'm second guessing myself. Well, maybe I am angry. Well, what am I angry about? Well, no, I know I'm scared. I can feel my heart beating. I can feel that feeling in my gut. I know I'm scared, but nobody believes me when I say I'm scared. And so that feedback becomes really important when you're starting to really try and get to know yourself, because you have to have feedback that is going to help you explore you, because it's never about the other person, Even if they're telling you, well, you sound angry. Well, I know I'm not angry. I have to start trusting me. Their interpretation of me is their interpretation of me, and I can't change that. However I can. And it was interesting when that started happening, because I had been on this journey for quite a while before I started to recognize. Oh See, because you know, here's a very interesting thing and I don't know if people will relate to this or not.
Speaker 1:When I get angry, you know what happens to me. I get quiet. And my kids? The first time I realized that it was my kids that said it to me. My kids said, uh-oh, mom's gone quiet, Watch out, the volcano's going to blow any second now. And I was like, what are you talking about? And they're like come on, mom, we all know that when you get quiet, you are really angry. So you see, if we are looking for that external validation, if we are looking at it through someone else, my signals would completely confuse the living life out of you, because that's not how average person would respond to those situations and we all respond differently.
Speaker 2:It's all such an internal process which is often funded or fueled by a lot of misunderstanding about ourselves and funded by fear also.
Speaker 1:Yes, yep. So you can't get to know yourself unless you can have a way of getting that feedback loop and start to understand what the reactions mean to you and then also understanding that what you might be reading outside of yourself isn't valid either, and that is a part I think a lot of people don't understand. So I guess it's about then, once you start that journey in learning about yourself, learning who you actually are, what that means to you. And, gareth, I would say this I knew for a long time, because I can remember when I first walked into that 12-step program and people asked me what I wanted, I remember saying I just want to be comfortable in my own skin. I had no idea what that meant, but that's what I wanted. I wanted to feel okay, being me, but I didn't know how to do that. And you just don't learn that in everyday classes anymore.
Speaker 2:And the good reason is we talk about often of why it's not meant to be taught that way, because it takes you on a very extraordinary journey of a lot of life experiences with a lot of individuals that you wouldn't have met otherwise, and that's why we're not meant to be fed all this information from a very young age, and it's easy for people to say, oh, I'm too late in life learning this and it's like I think I could have learned it a little bit earlier, that I'm sure there are other adventures and areas of growth that I could go on.
Speaker 1:Once I understood it, I know that I would have really loved to. Okay, so we're talking about just about every single one of us here, talking about just about every single one of us here, and so the journey inward, as we have said so many times, is truthfully where we're going to get the biggest growth, as long as we have some help along the way to understand what we're discovering, because if we could have figured it out on our own.
Speaker 2:we would have done that a long time ago, Because if we could have figured it out on our own, we would have done that a long time ago. That's where you can't fake this journey and when it comes, there's a lot of the books of information that we might all be fascinated now that might be in front of us, but 20 years ago we probably would have scoffed at it. I said I don't need that help, why are you giving me that book? Or I'm not going to listen to that person, but that's where we were at at that time. So yes, we all might say now I wish I had have learned this earlier, well, earlier. None of us were interested, true. We thought we had it all figured out. That's true. This is why, when all of us are following a similar timeline in our own ways of when we start exploring this, it's not a coincidence.
Speaker 1:No, it's not. It it's not a coincidence. No, it's not, it's really not. And you don't realize that unless you're working with a lot of people, like we are. You know, because I remember when I first started really working with people, I started seeing the different stages of life, that we start to have different awarenesses or different things get triggered, and it's, it's incredible how typical it is for each of us. I mean, it varies a year or two, but there is a general age that certain awarenesses start to happen. The old midlife crisis is actually oh, this is the time we get to start waking up.
Speaker 2:Midlife awakening.
Speaker 1:Yeah I think that would be a better word for it a midlife awakening we start recognizing where it's not working, everywhere. So when we talk about finding our way out of this loop that we've gotten ourself into, of that external feedback, I think one of the first things that helped me that I was taught, was I had to sit down one day. I'm not suggesting that everybody does this, but because I was so deep in the loop. I was at a personal development seminar and the person leading the seminar said you know, you need to start celebrating small wins and recognizing how much you've actually already overcome. And I was like nothing, I haven't overcome anything, blah, blah, blah. But and I use it with my clients sometimes I did learn how to crawl, I learned how to feed myself, I learned how to walk, I learned how to tie my shoes, and when you do that massive list, all of a sudden it wasn't anybody else that told you how to walk, you got up and did it yourself, and so it's really starting to celebrate those small wins. But you need the self-reflection as well as you're doing that, and sometimes we talk about doing journaling. Sometimes that is just talking with another person about it and tearing it apart. Some people say mindfulness, but I personally like present moment awareness because as I started bringing myself back to the present, it was easier for me to see what was real and what wasn't real. Like, for example, dragging my brain back to the present.
Speaker 1:I was the only person in the room. Why was I concerned about the group of people at school, or why was I concerned about the boss? It was me. It was me doing that, and one of my famous stories that I tell so many people is about I was sitting at my computer. One day my kids were quite young and I was at the beginning of this journey. Phone bill came in and the phone bill was astronomical and I went into a full-on panic attack because I was so worried about my husband's response to the phone bill and that we didn't have the money to pay it at that time. And as I sat there, I had just started this process and as I sat there, I was like whoa, stop.
Speaker 1:And I did my present moment awareness and I was like very firm with myself Kim, what's changed? You're sitting here at your desk. There is no one in the room, it is only you. The only thing that has changed in your life is. You opened up a page and there were some black and white letters on a page that you read that created this snowball effect. This has nothing to do with the outside world. This has everything to do with the inside world and it sounds so simplistic, but that was an awakening moment for me. I was like, oh, this isn't about them, this is about me. And that was when I started to be able to turn it around and start going okay, so what's happening in me in this moment? So how do I want to be, how do I want to respond? And it just brought a brand new awareness to myself.
Speaker 2:And I think, to add on to that, I know in the past what's worked for me is that if I'd found myself stuck in that loop of caring about what other people were thinking or felt it was stronger than usual, that often meant that probably I was running a lot of anxiety, I was stressed or my current routine, I was not finding enough time for me and, as I said earlier in this conversation, I was learning as I went along that my system had to get creative to get my attention when I wasn't fulfilling my own needs and therefore it was like an alarm bell going off and suddenly other people's opinions or other people's worlds that were imaginary in my head was becoming a more of a priority for me, which was make-believe than my own present-day reality. So therefore, when those alarm bells started going off, I said, okay, do I, you know, take the dog for a walk? Do I go and take? Try to reorganize my day to find more time for me. Am I exhausted? Do I need to actually see? Can I get some more rest in some way?
Speaker 2:So I just think it's that it's often because we haven't been able to feed ourselves in the ways it's actually necessary in those moments, and that's when the noise gets louder and louder over a period of time that brings us to a breaking point, that forces us back to self. So I think it's only with time and experience that you begin understanding these signals for what they actually are, that they're not trying to hurt us, they're not trying to make our lives harder. It's trying to say to us we can't keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result, exactly.
Speaker 1:Exactly, yeah, and it can get right down to that simpleness, as you said. I think it's amazing that that is one of the key factors that taking care of ourself in so many different areas that we talk about no one ever teaches us about it. It's a hard learned lesson for most of us, and it goes against so much conditioning and we get told. And so this is where I coined a phrase self-full because we get told if we take care of ourself, we're being selfish and you can't give back to anybody if your cup is empty, and so that's why I came up with self-full. If I could fill myself up, then I'm not running on those nerves that you just talked about, that raw anxiety, the stress isn't getting to me, I'm not overwhelmed. When I'm comfortable in my own skin because I've been giving me what I need, then I can respond in a completely different way to the outside world.
Speaker 2:Because we're never not going to care what people think in the sense of any addiction that we have. We're going to be aware of when that starts to appear within us. But then it's what we do with that information. Which is what you're saying is that if we haven't been taught how to manage that information, what to do with it or what action is required when that appears, you know so. Therefore, it's that when that begins to appear, it's telling us something that we now know what to do with that information that we didn't know before, because you and I, of course, are going to find ourselves in those positions where we certainly care. But then, once again, it's like what does that say about where I'm at present day? Because it says a lot more about me than it does about them.
Speaker 1:Absolutely it does, and I think the other process is becoming authentic and living from that place of authenticity. Now, this also was very confusing for me as I stepped into the world of authenticity. Because of the lack of boundaries, because of the lack of sense of self, I didn't know. So I was not very tactful with my truth bombs because I thought authenticity was about being truthful, and it is. You know, it's more about that. My words and my actions are matching. What I'm saying. What I'm saying and what I'm doing is matching. Again, that's an internal guide which I didn't know, that I thought it was all about just being brutally honest, and so I didn't have the discernment of when to be honest and when not to be honest.
Speaker 1:But coming back to learning how to be authentic with me was about what someone says do you want to? So here's a pleaser example for everybody, in case you don't have one hey, where would you like to go eat? I don't care. Where do you want to eat? Well, what do you like to go eat? I don't care. Where do you want to eat? Well, what do you want to do? I don't care. What do you want to do? It's a classic, isn't it?
Speaker 1:And so then if someone picks so like, my favorite food is Mexican If someone says, let's go have Chinese, I'm like, but then I don't think I have the right to have an opinion because I just threw it away and now I'm going to sit in a little bit of resentment because I got to please this person instead of going. Oh, I was kind of feeling more like Mexican, and that's being authentic. I'm not saying we have to have it, I'm just saying I was feeling more like Mexican. Now you have a negotiation where both people can decide what's going to work best, but if everybody's going, oh no, I don't care. What do you want to do? That is more the authenticity and the discernment that I'm talking about when it comes to learning how to do that.
Speaker 2:And I think one of the last things that comes to mind is important when it comes to building that relationship with self and caring less what people think, and understanding the roots of that is learning the different boundaries that we need to set. And when I say boundaries, to my mind, I'm not thinking just with people. I'm even talking about, say, with our schedules, our routines, our relationship with social media and different things are just no longer healthy as part of our lives, but has become the standard and it just takes up so much space that there is an imbalance in our lives. If we don't have the time to spend with self, as I was mentioning earlier, then how can we expect anything to improve, even in the slightest? And then, of course, if we move across to other people, it's about if there's certain boundaries that are not there or our mind is running all the time because people are not respecting our space or not giving us a chance to express or constantly dominating the conversation. Then we can all make sense of why our mind is constantly filling in the blanks, because we don't know how to have an opinion, to express ourselves, to be authentic, to express. So it takes up a lot of space brace, so it takes up a lot of space and I think the only way to build confidence about learning how to create boundaries is by speaking with professionals, actually understand the different techniques and ways we can start engaging in that way in a safe environment.
Speaker 2:Because, especially when we've been in those environments from a young age with dominating individuals, it doesn't come naturally and normally.
Speaker 2:When we try to insert those boundaries it ends up in some sort of argument or some uncomfortable position, especially if you're running those people-pleasing patterns as you mentioned.
Speaker 2:All we feel internally is see, this is exactly why I don't try this or do this, and then increases the anxiety, then increases projecting what's going to happen in conversation and we get stuck in that hamster wheel, as you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2:So learning the art of actually creating those boundaries that works for both individuals under those circumstances and creating boundaries, even with the sometimes work, personal life balance and even in making sure that there's time in the day where it's just with ourselves, becomes very important, because we've never been taught the importance of that and when there is that imbalance, just because we get used to living that imbalance does not mean that it's okay and it's because everyone around us is living, potentially that imbalance does not mean it's okay, because if you look around you don't know if you've noticed it's not working for him anymore no, it's not we can all pretend it is as you mentioned, we all learn the skill of painting on the face but we're all deeply exhausted more often than not, and we are all running a lot of high anxiety, high functioning anxiety, which only leads to a lot more of the addictions that we can see and a lot of them that we can't see in each other's lives.
Speaker 2:So, setting those boundaries and when we find ourselves breaking our own boundaries, that's all the validation you need that things need to change.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Couldn't have said it better. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, then you might want to check out our online community. We built it to offer you the comfort of having a supportive community by your side, no matter where life takes you. Connect with like-minded individuals through our app. Navigate each step of the journey together with us by joining our Gareth Michael community. Here are a few of the things you're going to get. You'll get exclusive real-time access to live recording and events. Advance access to each new episode. The opportunity to ask questions directly of Gareth and I. Input into what topics we cover in the show. Access to exclusive content not available anywhere else. To learn more about our community, please go to wwwgarethmichaelcom. Thanks again, and I hope you guys are having a lovely week.