Becoming Trauma-Informed

S4EP18: Unpacking the Power of Getting Help as a Helper with Jenae Lyn

• Season 4 • Episode 18

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Have you ever found yourself saying yes to everything, just to realize you've overcommitted? That's a narrative we're changing as I sit down with the extraordinary Jenae Lyn, head Instructor of the TRIPS™️ Certificate Program at the Institute. Together, we explore our shared experience of planning a transformation event, diving into our initial spark of inspiration, the frantic promotional phase, and the moment of reconsideration.

 

As we chat, we're exposing the importance of creating a trauma-informed, psychologically safe space for entrepreneurs within their businesses. We're peeling back the layers of our conditioned drive to help others, even when it's not particularly beneficial. The conversation takes a deep dive into the shame that comes with not wanting to lend a helping hand, and how to understand when it's time to help ourselves instead.

 

We're also unpacking the significance of understanding our personal capacity, the daunting task of overcoming people-pleasing, and the three core needs: physical safety, psychological safety, and joy. Jenae Lyn shares her journey from being a 'yes' person to giving herself time to weigh her options. As we navigate through the intricacies of truth, lies, and choices, we end with some helpful insights on setting holiday boundaries.

 

It all culminates in an invitation to our FREE Here to Help event running Nov 20-22. Check it out here: https://institutefortrauma.com/heretohelp

 

 

Guest Bio:

Jenae Lyn believes that heart and hustle are the keys to a life well lived. She spends her days creating meaningful moments in her human resources career and her nights unlocking human potential through coaching.

She also spends her free time volunteering with one of the most untapped potential workforce groups in the country - the currently, and formerly, incarcerated. More typical pastimes include reading, snuggling her dogs, and finding opportunities to put her Spanish degree to use - and to graduate beyond playing anything other than Wonderwall on the guitar. 

 

Connect with Jenae Lyn:

 

FB: https://www.facebook.com/jenaelynismyname/

Tiktok @jenaelynismyname

Insta: @jenaelyn

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By email:

  • hello@institutefortrauma.com




Speaker 2:

Hi and welcome to the Becoming Trauma-Informed podcast where we help you understand how your past painful experiences are affecting your current reality and how you can shift those so you can create your desired future. I'm Dr Lee, and both myself and our team at the Institute for Trauma and Psychological Safety are excited to support you on your journey. We talk about all the things on this podcast. No topic gets left uncovered. So extending a content warning to you before we get started if you notice yourself getting activated while listening, invitation to take care of yourself and to pause, skip ahead a bit or just check out another episode. Let's dive in. Hi everyone, welcome to this week's episode. I always say I'm so excited. I am so excited, though, like, what a cool thing actually.

Speaker 2:

I brag that I'm always so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited, I'm so excited. I'm always so excited to introduce my guest. So I have the amazing Jenae Lynn with me here today. Everyone say hi to Jenae, hi everybody. So I'm going to have Jenae introduce herself, and this is a special episode because Jenae and I are going to have a really cool conversation about something that's happening at the Institute that Jenae's a part of. So before we get into that, jenae, like, who are you? What do you love? Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely, my name's Jenae. I live in Omaha, Nebraska. During the day I do HR stuff for an HR tech company and in my spare time I love to volunteer in prisons across the country, working with folks on second chances and what that means for themselves and in the next chapter of their lives, and then I like to take that work into some coaching that I get to do as well. That's what lights me up. In my spare time I like to hang out with my dogs and my partner and we're figuring out life and having a lot of fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, you're a big walk person too, right, yeah, and you've recently started reading more, which is so cool.

Speaker 1:

You know I'll tell you and we won't get super into this today, but like reading a fiction book for fun. It was like the first book that I've read in 15 years, probably for fun, and I forgot how good it is to read. Like alliterations and analogies and things like they don't come in self-help books and I love me a good self-help book. But like a fiction book where the words just like roll out of the pages. Oh the best.

Speaker 2:

I feel bad. Oh yeah, and actually that ties in very intimately with what we're going to be talking about today. So let me tell you a story. Picture it Sicily for my Golden Girls fans, little Sophia style. About what? Six, eight weeks ago, jenae and I really started talking, because Jenae is actually going to be the head instructor for trips next year, so she's taking over and teaching the content in our weekly modules, which is just so exciting. She's the head honcho and I am absolutely just so stoked for her to do this because she's going to be really amazing at it. And every like October, november, we usually do a what I like to call a transformation events or an experience for people to be able to get a taste of what we do in trips, which is this nine month certificate program, and it stands for trauma, informed, psychologically safe certificate program. So we were like, okay, what do?

Speaker 2:

we want to do. Well, Jenae, you had just been going through this other program where they were teaching you how to do live virtual events, right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And so I actually remember being on a call with you that was not related to this. And you're like, yeah, I just like don't really know what I'm going to use this for. And I was like, yeah, well, like I don't sort itself out, this is before you were going to do anything with us. And then I was like, oh my gosh, wait. Okay.

Speaker 2:

So like what if we use this for the transformation event or the sometimes we call them toe dips, like the toe dip into the trips experience? And so we both got really excited about it. We start planning it out. Teams involved, like we've got it all planned and it feels good, like it felt good to have the plan, it felt good to have everything.

Speaker 2:

And so Jenae's like okay, I'm going to go to this event, it's for that program. I'm going to ask them a bunch of questions, get a good feel of, because there's a couple things that the way they've taught us to do it isn't the way that the institute typically does things. So I'm going to figure out how we do those. I'm like, great, I'm going to start promoting it. We get it all done and we start promoting it, and I think we promoted it for like five days and that fifth day, already on day three, I was like I don't know this is right and I didn't know you had been kind of feeling the same way, and so that fifth day we had a meeting. I think you asked me right.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I sent you a message on the fourth day and I was like hey, would love to chat. We could wait till our normal meeting on Monday, or we could chat on Slack, or also, ideally, maybe we could get together tomorrow.

Speaker 2:

And I don't typically take meetings on Friday, like my Fridays are pretty protected, and so I was like, yeah, we got to, let's do this. And so I was so and y'all. I just want to say this For the entrepreneurs out there one of the things that I absolutely love about like really prioritizing a trauma-informed, psychologically safe space, not just for our clients but also for team, is that team will tell you when they think that you are messing shit up and feel safe enough to be like yo, like I think we might need to change this and, to Janae's credit, that's that's how you started the call off. You're like look like, if you want to do it this way, still, that's cool.

Speaker 1:

And it would be silly for me not to say something. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And what you didn't know is we'd already had two other team members go like, hey, if you still want to do it this way, like you know, you're the CEO, you're in charge, and and I was like, okay, if I'm kind of feeling this, if three of our team members are feeling this, this is off. And like my ego was so mad. My ego was like absolutely not, we can't change this. You, you've been promoting this, like you already changed your mind about the conference and moved it out a whole year. You already did this, you already did that. You can't keep changing your mind, you're not allowed to do that. And I was like, whoa, that was a lot of internal programming immediately popping up to be like absolutely not. And so I took a second and I was like, okay, I see you, ego trying to protect me and our reputation and all those things and also this it's not right and we can keep going down this path.

Speaker 2:

And do you remember what happened? This is this is the conversation in my head. Do you remember what happened when we realized the conference wasn't right and then we ignored ourselves and then we kept promoting it for two more months and then we went, oh, we're going to move it anyway. What if, instead, we do that in five days instead of? And so I wanted to bring that in because so many people are afraid to change their mind and so many people are afraid to like, have that conversation of like, oh, I've, I've gone into action around this thing, I've put this plan into motion and now I'm seeing some obvious like warning signs. But I can't stop, because I already told people I was going to do this, and so we then started talking about okay, well, if it's not a three day, 12 hour day virtual event, what is it? And I think you had the idea right.

Speaker 1:

I don't even remember. It was funny because I feel like there was the pause of like, okay, now we're going to have this conversation and it may get really real right now, and then it was like everything just flowed out like it's supposed to yeah, yes, okay, now I'm remembering, yeah, cause I was like, oh, okay, what if we keep here to help, but we make it 90 minutes a day for those three days?

Speaker 2:

because the three biggest obstacles are that the helpers already have their work schedules and we did this on a Monday to Wednesday, and you know, we can shift our schedules really easily because of how our our work is set up and also most people can't, so let's take that into account.

Speaker 2:

Number two these are the three days before Thanksgiving. And what do people need more? 90 minutes on how to not be completely overwhelmed, a day or three days of like a shit ton of content before they then go to their grandmother's house, right, right, or travel to four states in three days, or whatever it is, you know. And the other part was we were like, well, yeah, we can put three super helpful things here. And then what if we do the three day event in a little more abbreviated form? Yeah, after the first of the year, over January 5th through 7th, and it was like, oh, and then that's a Friday through Sunday, and they'll have, you know, eight weeks to be able to sort out schedules and do those sorts of things. And let's talk about. Let's actually walk people through trips.

Speaker 2:

Yeah the fund like the core pieces of being trauma informed and psychologically safe. So this is helpful for people if they're already trauma informed somewhere else and they want to get our flavor on it or our flavor of it. This is helpful if people have never been exposed to this and they want kind of just like the down and dirty, like what do I need to be trauma aware, trauma sensitive. And then also for the people who are like yeah, I actually think I want to do trips, but like that's $5,500. And I don't. That's a hard thing to commit to and I think people don't talk about that.

Speaker 1:

Like I need to know a little bit more before I make a decision like that. Yeah, and not a little bit, but a good amount of a bit.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, like if you don't know us from Adam and you're in the here to help event and we're like, okay, go join this $5,000 program. Could we do that? Sure, do I necessarily want to do that? No, I want the people who, after that three day event, are like oh my gosh, I want more.

Speaker 2:

Like, of course I'm going to sign up for this. That's who we really want in that space. Now, that's not to say if you're already like oh no, I know, I want this. Some of y'all have been asking us when this next round opens, until like in April. So, like I'm not talking you out of joining, please go ahead and join Totally.

Speaker 1:

If you're waiting, if you know, come on in. Yeah, I said.

Speaker 2:

We're welcoming you. Yeah, exactly, and I think this is key and it directly ties to what we're going to be talking about in here to help. There's three core topics, which we'll talk about in a second, but there's been a big shift in the online coaching, education, programming space in the last year and people need more before they sign up for things, and I think a lot of there's been a lot of entitlement in the space because people are like well, this used to sell super easy, so it should keep selling super easy, and it's like okay, but like, how's that working for you? Yeah, people are struggling to trust as quickly and as easily, and for good reason, because a lot of people have been really burned in education and programming and so, like we really want people to feel safe when they join, or as safe as possible when they join. Can you still be nervous? Absolutely? Can you still be like I don't know if this is really gonna help absolutely? And we want you to have a way better idea of what you're gonna be experiencing inside.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I feel like you're nailing it. It's like so us getting together for these 90 minutes during the week of Thanksgiving is like a taste test to do. You even wanna hang out with us for three days? Yeah, and if you wanna hang out with us for three days, we're also going to give you the opportunity to hang out with us for more of a year.

Speaker 1:

But no matter what you're going to walk away from either the 90 minute sessions during the week of Thanksgiving, with enough stuff to be able to get yourself started, and then way more even during the three day conference, and then the invitation has come join us, and if not, you're gonna get plenty of stuff too, and I think that's how we can serve people. But we have to do it from a place where we feel so good in doing it that way and it really goes back to kind of what we're going to be talking about. It's like water has to feel like a yes and our no to feel like a no, and then we can serve from a place of like wholeness.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'll see why she's cleaning this knackle. Like I'm over here, like yeah, you just said that so beautifully. I just talked for five minutes and you said it in 30 seconds, thank you. Seriously, though, so let's talk about the three things that we are going to touch on November 20 and through 20 second in here to help.

Speaker 2:

So the first one is day one is why we, as humans, feel so deeply called to help, and there is an interesting dynamic around this identity of being a helper, because it's both pedestalized and put up as the best type of person to be, and there's also this like low level people, please, are vibed to it, right? We all know those people that you're like I don't even want to tell them about this because they're going to be like they're going to just start doing stuff, and I don't want them to just start doing stuff because they think they're being helpful and they're really not being helpful. So understanding the innate reason for why you want to help is key, because when you understand our drive as humans to support other people and to be supported, then it becomes a lot clearer how you want to do that. And I don't know about you I'm actually I don't think I've asked you this. I'm curious about your experience. But I was just raised in this like well, if somebody needs help, you help them.

Speaker 2:

I was referred to as selfish a good amount of my life, not by my parents, but just by humans in general. Like the underlying tone was please selfish, because there were a lot of times when I was like, no, I'm not helping, like you made the mess fix it Right, and that was so not okay, so not okay. The other thing was is I needed a lot of help and you and I brought that up before we started recording that example of my license plate when I got my first car said high maintenance, like I was taught. I'm really high maintenance, I need a lot of help. And so there's this. Well, there's times I'm being told that I should help or pitch in or support and I don't want to, but I guess I should and I will because you're telling me I should want to, so kind of feeling bad. And then there was also I've received so much help, so now I feel like I need. I can't receive anymore and I need to help everybody else.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely, yeah, same. I grew up in a family where we gave a lot to the community and my dad's favorite thing and I love this about him is that you know he would show up for a neighbor whenever a neighbor was in need, and I'm thankful for that. And we also did it sometimes from a place of if it meant that we were going without things or my dad wasn't showing up to things because someone else needed it. My needs necessarily weren't the same as maybe some others and and that's okay and that's completely human. But that was also what I was taught is there was kind of this performative element of it. Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, I'm a Gold Star student. If I can perform and if helping is the way I can do it I get to feel good through the whole process I will pull her out.

Speaker 2:

And then you feel wrong, or you know, you feel bad or you feel shame when you're like like, yeah, I want to be the Gold Star student and also I'm tired, I don't want to do that. Today, one of the things that I felt a lot of shame around was helping people with money. You know, like my whole thing has always been peace and point Our son's on a travel baseball team and when he joined they were like, hey, the fees on average per year about 750 bucks, and we do this three day tournament where if you volunteer for all three days will take $400 off of the cost or $300 off the cost. I was like cool, not doing that, like I would rather give you my money because then I can use those three days to rest or do whatever I need to and then I can go make a ton more money and then donate more money other places. That feels good and aligned for me and the ability to even say that like that was so hard to be. Like, yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not going to be volunteering for that, because I know my own capacity, I know myself and being outside at a rainy tournament for three days in March in Ohio, like I am going to be so mad at myself and I'm like, if I say yes to this and that kind of takes us into the second part, that day two that we're going to be talking about, which is like how to know if you should offer help to someone, including yourself, in any situation.

Speaker 2:

And I think that you know, based on the example you just shared, that wasn't a question you asked yourself. It wasn't. Did I offer help? It was well, somebody needs help, so I help.

Speaker 1:

Right, and sometimes I didn't even know if they needed help, I just assumed it.

Speaker 2:

Well, can you talk more about that?

Speaker 1:

I'm like I haven't always taken the time to ask, like, what is it that you're wanting here? I would just jump into me trying to fix something Instead of sometimes someone just wanting a place like people don't, naturally, unless maybe you're in our spaces for a while like say things. Like I just need a space to like vent for a minute, and I would just love for you to listen and not try to action it. It's so rare.

Speaker 2:

I do love that about our space. That happened this morning. Somebody on team was like, hey, can I just talk to you for a second about this? And this is exactly what I need around it. And I was like, actually, no, they didn't start off with this is exactly what I need around it. They went, they asked for consent. First I said yes, went through it, and then at the end they were like, oh, I think I'm just venting. So I was like, okay, did that vent feel sufficient, or would you also like? Or, and would you also like comfort, or do you want me to like hop in the mad seat with you and get mad with you, because I can totally do that? And so then it was just a chance to they were able to say, yeah, this is what I need. And then I was able to feel really good about providing that, because I only offered what I was willing to do. I didn't say, if you want to hop on, zoom for an hour and talk about it, because I wouldn't have been beneficial for me, right?

Speaker 1:

Right. So we're talking about what to do or when to know, like how, when to know when you should offer? I'll tell you, one of the things I knew very quickly, without ever learning any of this, was when not to when I was starting to feel so much resentment for how it was showing up for other people. And I remember specifically I was going to a happy hour. Someone wanted to chat with me about like some stuff that was going on in their life and I didn't want to be there. And I was texting with another friend in the car and I was like I don't even want to go, like but I'm going to go, and my friend was, like does your friend even want you to come? If this is how you're thinking about it, and I'll never forget that that conversation was like seven years ago. I will never forget that because I want to show up in as much integrity of wanting to be there, but I didn't check in with myself first, even see if that was the case.

Speaker 2:

That is not taught to a lot of us the check in, because what we have modeled for us is no, people are going to just and we talk a lot about boundaries and needs, because boundaries really are a fancy word for needs. And I got in a little I don't want to call it drama, but I got a really interesting experience on Facebook a few months ago when I was talking about how a famous person set boundaries and people are like those are boundaries, those are like that's abuse. And I was like it's actually not. And I can totally see how you think that, based on how we talk about boundaries in today's society, and actually that's not really it like. So that's something we go really deeply into in trips and we'll touch on in the trips conference in January to, and the reason that relates back to this is because if you don't know your own needs, how the heck are you supposed to know if helping someone else will violate one of them? And that is crucial of like. Okay, I'm going to actually stop and think about myself first, which I know is is so the opposite of what those of us who who identify as helpers tend to do. We're like, like you said, I'm going to just jump in and do the thing. I still do this occasionally.

Speaker 2:

There's still a couple areas in my life I'm working on this. One of them is with my husband, because it's so funny. I grew up as the child of a social worker, and so social workers solve problems is literally what they do. Yeah, they find resources and help you solve your problems, and so we used to joke with my mom when she'd go into problem solving mode. We'd say, hey, stop social working me. And you know TLC and I being in the same space and us working together, I have to be really careful about our roles.

Speaker 2:

Because the other day he was expressing, like how he was going through something and I jumped right into like so what I'm hearing you say is and he's like can you not psychoanalyze me right now? Like can you not coach me? And I was like oh shit, sorry my bad, he's like I've read the same books as you. Like he's like we're not on a trips call, we're not in here. Like there you have explicit permission to coach me. And he's like and even there you ask for consent.

Speaker 2:

So that's why I'm just finding this so hilarious that she just like first through the boundary and we're like. So what you need to do is and what I realized was I was actually feeling uncomfortable around what he was saying because I was judging myself. I wasn't trying to help him, I was trying to help me, and a much better way of helping both myself and him is recognizing. Oh, I'm having feelings about what he is saying. What would I like to do about that? I tell you what this will shift all of your relationships in some very unexpected ways. I know you've had that experience.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, very much. So we had a conversation the other night and I said actually, when you say that, like and it was a joke and I was like when you say that, it actually hurts my feelings. There was a pause and then like a laugh and a oh shush, like the haha, and and I was like what do you mean by shush? And then I'm like I need to take some space and just like, and then later a conversation around. Actually I didn't mean shush. I don't want you to not not share when something bothers you, and I can see how you thought that. That was how you felt.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and but I would have never done that before, lee. I was the person that like if someone's like what's your favorite food, I'm like. I'm like I have all of my. All the foods are my favorite food. What's your favorite food will always have what you want first. I have no idea what my actual favorites are. I do whatever you like to do. Are we having fun yet?

Speaker 2:

because if we're having fun, yeah, I feel like whenever we put on events like this we've talked about this before is like I go through the portal of whatever the thing is before we do the thing, and so this event's been really interesting because it's been two portals of oh, can you actually like change your mind? Can you implement what you've learned before and like not make the same mistake? Can you trust your gut? And then the other side of this has been there's still a lot of places that I'm quote unquote, helping that are not helpful, and they are actually harming me and harming other people, and so I'm going to say something that is probably very controversial.

Speaker 2:

There's this definition of addiction that I think is super interesting, and it's by Terrence Reel, and he says that addiction is the continued use of any behavior or substance or whatever, despite known harmful consequences, and what I love about this is is that it doesn't presence the behavior itself. It presences you're doing this because there's something that's driving you to do it, so it takes the focus off of the substance or the behavior or the the thing and instead goes why are you doing that thing that hurts you? And one of the things we talk about a lot in trips is that self-sabotage is really self-protection. Anytime you're harming yourself, part of yourself, or you're harming someone else, you're most of the time we're doing it because we're protecting another part. So a lot of us have developed a helper identity to protect a part of us or or protect other people from us a part of us and in reality, as we've grown and as we've entered into new situations and new experiences, that helping behavior is becoming less helpful and more harmful.

Speaker 2:

I know I just totally kicked y'all in the pants with that, some of you. So if you're like I hate you, lee, I am going to stop listening immediately, I get it Cause. Anytime I think about this for myself, I'm like, right, right, there's still places that I am showing up in an addictive way with helping because it's trying to meet a need, and so that leads us to the day three of what's the number one practice you can use to prevent burnout from over-helping. So basically, if you've become addicted to helping, how do you stop doing that? And really it's incredibly simple and it is the hardest thing you will do.

Speaker 1:

Simple does not always mean easy, no, simple rarely means easy.

Speaker 2:

I think Right. I think the simplest things are the hardest things you know and getting philosophical.

Speaker 2:

But you know we have three corn eats as humans. We've talked about them on here on the podcast. We go extensively into these. We'll go into them in the trips conference and in the actual certificate program and in here to help, we're going to just touch on them for you so you understand what they are and you can start seeing them.

Speaker 2:

And so the first one, the kind of base level one, is your physical safety, and so this is not just your body staying alive and healthy, this is also your resources. So this is like your time, your access to knowledge, your access to money or financial abundance, those types of things, and then energy. And so all of those things really add up to your capacity, and your capacity is the number one thing that you should be aware of and know how to measure it. So the famous quote, which I don't know if anyone knows who said it now, is like you can't pour from an empty cup, right, that cup is your capacity, and so if you have no resources, you can't give resources to someone. And so being a helper in the truest sense of the word means you're going to want to make sure that you have an overflow of resources to be able to share with other people.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

And I know for me the number one part of those resources was probably energy. And I cannot tell you how many times I sacrificed sleep, hydration, nutrition, physical touch and connection and intimacy, like conversation, that energy piece, like the physical, spiritual, emotional, mental energy. How much I sacrificed that and I was pouring from an empty cup for a really long time. And even now, sometimes I'll still make myself wrong. I'm like, oh gosh, why am I so tired? And I'm like because it's only been three years, lee, it's been three years and you poured from an empty cup for like 20. So maybe you give yourself a break. Which one do you think like if you think about those physical safety, which one do you think is the one that you struggled with the most? Resource wise?

Speaker 1:

I would definitely say energy, but what it actually showed up in was joy. I got to a point where I had no more energy, so then I was literally giving away the last morsels of joy that I felt like I had. Oh, man.

Speaker 2:

So that's actually really fascinating, because my question to you would be why, like what did you trade the joy for? I think I know the answer, but I want to, I think, validation.

Speaker 1:

Okay.

Speaker 2:

That it was Okay. I was like I hope this is going to go where I think it's going to go. This is like so perfect, okay, yeah, validation right. So really it was the second need, that second core need, which is psychological safety, which is, I feel valued, I feel important, I feel like I belong, I feel included. So you're like, oh, like you just said there, oh, I don't have a favorite food. What's yours? Oh yeah, we'll have that every single time that's coming from a place of.

Speaker 2:

I would rather fit in and have you like me and think that I'm a nice person or like that I'm fun to hang out with or I'm so helpful. I would rather have that than risk. This is a, this is the word risk. I'm not like you. I'm not like you, you're not like me if I actually told you what I wanted and welcome to the plate of nearly every single woman that I have ever met. This is something that I've been recently going through and it's been really painful and also I'm kind of digging it Of. Okay, I've experienced what it feels like to live life selfishly and like not put other people's needs above my own. What does it feel like when I value their needs and my needs, and I start with mine?

Speaker 1:

So I don't ask you when you say what would you like to eat?

Speaker 2:

I don't say, well, what were you thinking? I say you know what sounds really great is a burger, and I would be open to some other things. If that doesn't sound good for you, yeah Like, let me tell you what would feel supportive and good for me. Let me tell you what I would enjoy. And then I'm going to be vulnerable and open myself up to you, saying like, oh my gosh, you're not a, you're not a vegan. Oh my gosh, you eat Like that. Right, that's what we're.

Speaker 1:

Well, and it's really interesting because let's use that as the yeah, we're also assuming that the other person can't handle the answer that you're going to give them and you don't give them the power to decide if they want to handle that answer or not. Preach, I mean, how harmful is that?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, this is one of the conversations that I have with people who identify as people Pleasers a lot. I'm like do you realize how harmful your people pleasing is? And they're like what? I'm sorry, what? It's? The the L woods, legally one. I'm sorry, I hallucinated. What did you just say? People pleasing is harmful Because what you do is you Condition people into believing that they don't need to have those hard conversations in their lives, that they don't need to learn how to do things mutually beneficial, because the person that they're in relationship with is always going to defer to them.

Speaker 2:

I'm a say thing. We can't get mad at people for acting the way we train them, you know. I mean we can and it's, it's not particularly helpful. Right, there's this accountability piece of like. I have to take accountability for the fact that I'm not trusting you. I'm not. I'm judging you and going. You can't hold Discrement, you can't handle the truth.

Speaker 2:

Full of movie quotes today. I like TV show quotes, I love it. But that, right, I mean I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that. I'm not going to say that because I love it, but that right there. Even this is a perfect example of psychological safety. Some of y'all might not have seen those movies and for me it's like oh, we're doing this podcast episode and I said this, and maybe people there's somebody who hates golden girls oh my gosh, are they going to stop listening to the episode? Y'all that happens in my brain. That's the helper going. Oh well, what if that takes away from the value of this episode for them? Well, that's a them problem. Yeah, being in my full joy, I can't give away pieces of my joy to try to prevent you from potentially not liking what happens.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And you had mentioned the word resentment earlier, and I think this is key psychological safety. When you are helping from a place of Brené Brown talks about this you're helping from a place of fitting in rather than belonging. Fitting in is the opposite of belonging. When you are helping from a place of trying to fit in, that is one of the most resentful things you can do. When you are helping from a place of trying to get someone else to then help you, that's also one of the most resentful things you can do, because resentment is based in envy, and envy means I want what you have. So if I'm resenting the fact that when you ask me where I wanna eat and I say, oh, wherever you want, and you don't volley it back to me and say, no, really, where do you wanna go, if I'm feeling resentful, what I'm actually feeling of is envious that you are letting yourself choose. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And that takes us to that third core need, which is choice and agency.

Speaker 2:

I think I've said it on here before, but, like when I have people say well, is agency really a core need you go hang out with a two-year-old for more than five minutes and tell me that choice and agency is not a core part of being a human Right and the reason why so many kids first word after mama and dad is no.

Speaker 2:

One of the first things we learn to do is set boundaries by saying no. That's not what feels good for me. Now they're two and they have absolutely no life experience whatsoever and really don't know what they need. But they think they do. And the process of being able to say no so often with our kids we just skim right over that and for a lot of us as kids, after a while that first or second no you said and you got the tar taken out of you you might have learned really quickly that no wasn't an option. So there's a lot of people out there that are helping because they don't even know what their no is. They don't even know. They don't even know how to tell if something is a no.

Speaker 1:

Right, and no judgment around that. Like you've lived in that for a long time and it feels great to be walking out of it, yeah, there is zero judgment around that Like.

Speaker 2:

In fact, I just I have so much empathy and compassion because I knew that there were certain things that were going to be no's that I could not push, and so part of what I did as my little rebellious butt was just went around it and acted like I wasn't gonna do it, did it anyway and then lied about it. And one of the things I had to learn was and this goes back to the psychological safety piece and the choice piece if I'm in a situation where I don't feel safe telling people the truth, it feels easier to lie than to tell the truth. I'm at the point now in my life where, if I have the impetus to lie to somebody, that actually says more about them than it does about me, because what that tells me is I'm not a human who goes that route anymore as the default. So if my nervous system is feeling threatened enough that it's like well, just don't tell the truth and go around it, ooh, something's really off here, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And I used to be like, oh my gosh, I felt like I needed to lie again, I can't believe it. And now I'm like no, no, no, what it did not feel safe for you to take the risk of telling the truth. And so now you get to look at was that a you thing, was that a them thing, was it an off thing? And there isn't any judgment around that. Now there's no judgment around how, wow, I told a white lie or like I felt like I should lie there. Well, what was just? Let me approach that with curiosity. Yeah, I know you said this, that you feel like you can own your no more now.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely. Am I perfect in it? Absolutely not. Am I feeling so much better about it and have I gotten better at determining? So, when to say yes, when to say not now and when to say no, yeah?

Speaker 2:

I remember before this you were talking about the practice you use now, and we'll talk about this somewhere Somewhere in here. These three days around, there's different ways in which you can figure out what your yes and your no is, and I say your yes, your no, you're not now, you're not like this. Those are really the four questions or the four answers. Excuse me, but you said that your practice is delay, right? What does that look like?

Speaker 1:

So I would naturally automatically say yes. In fact, I would get teased, because if I didn't even hear a full question, my answer was always yes, before I even understood what I was agreeing to. And now my response is I find a way to delay it. So if it's.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Thank you for thinking of me. I want to take some time and think about this I'll text you about it tomorrow and just a little bit of space to be able to give me some space to actually take the time to think about. Do I want to agree to dinner or phone call or whatever? I need a little bit of space, because my tendency was always an immediate yes and sometimes it actually meant no, not like this, not now.

Speaker 2:

That is one of my favorites. It's one of my favorite things. So if you're somebody who says things immediately, if you can start practicing like what you just said. Thank you for thinking of me. I say I'm going to do it a lot. Come back to you, right? One of my things is that capacity piece now. So I've talked a little bit about this on here.

Speaker 2:

I'm really big into human design, so I'm a generator and I have started asking myself those yes or no questions in my head or out loud. So when somebody asks me, what do you want for dinner, that question can completely overwhelm me. And then that's when I go well, whatever you want. So what I've started doing with the people I love is like can you ask in a yes or no question? Like can you say do you want to choose what we're having for dinner? Yes, okay. Do you want to go out? No, do you want to stay in? Yeah. Do you want to cook? No. Do you want to order in? Yes. And then I can go oh, that new restaurant, the taco place, and it's like cool, right, it's there. Now you might go. Oh, that's a lot of questions. How many of y'all have had fights with your partners over what you're going to eat for dinner that have lasted way longer than that. Right, yeah, we're still arguing about what we were going to eat on Tuesday, on Thursday, yeah, so a lot of people go oh, that's, that's. That's a lot of work and I'm like, upfront, it feels that way, it saves you so much on the back end, and this is something I'm really even earlier, tia, I'm just remember like this is just clicking right now TLC asked me something earlier and my brain completely blanked and I'm realizing it's because he asked me an open ended question and I was like he did not get a good answer out of me, because I was like I'm I don't even know how to answer this, and so I'm like, if you're listening to this, going, oh wow, those practices sound amazing, and also I don't know like I'm still in it too, y'all. So it is, it's practice.

Speaker 2:

Really, what we want to do in these, these three days with you, is we want to help you create more bandwidth and capacity for yourself and, like that cup we talked about, we want you to be able to find where it is Right, like even find your cup again. Maybe the cup got lost. Find the cup again. Figure out how to measure how much is in the cup, check in with yourself and see, okay, what do I have capacity for, and then also, how do I refill that. So when it does feel aligned for me to help, I can say yes and not burn myself out.

Speaker 2:

The other cool thing we're going to be doing and I'll just let you know this right now in case you're like, okay, I will have, I will be ready is on day three we're going to open up the Trips conference event. That's in January 5th through 7th, and if you decide to join that, we're actually going to have a here to help for the holidays Facebook group available. So what that will look like is a space that you can actually practice bringing us a scenario in and going, oh my gosh, I got asked to wrap Christmas presents and like I really don't want to and I'm not sure how to say it, and one of us will be in there and we can brainstorm and kind of talk it through with you and if you're somebody who likes yes or no questions, you can say can somebody ask me yes or no questions? And you can actually start to practice putting these things into place.

Speaker 1:

Absolutely.

Speaker 2:

And we're going to do it too. So this isn't going to be just like. Oh, janae and I are the gurus. Like, yeah, right, like. I might be like I might pop in there and say can somebody ask me a yes or no question around this? Or you know, one of the other things you might say is like, can you just tell me I'm not a jerk.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Can you just validate my desire to not want to help here? Because sometimes you need that hype up of like no, you're not. You're not a jerk for saying no to going to a five hour 20 degree weather, like, yeah, look at Christmas lights. Like you can be like nope, I'm going to stay in the house and drink hot chocolate and y'all go have fun. And if you're not used to saying no, you're going to feel like a jerk. So it's helpful to have a group of people who you can go and say like I feel like a jerk and somebody please tell me I'm not a jerk because we make ourselves wrong for that, for needing that support. We think, oh, I can't ask for that help. Yeah, you can. We want you to Anything else you want to add, janae?

Speaker 1:

I'm looking forward to taking up some space myself and being a part of the group through the holidays. I know that one of the biggest gifts that I can give myself is the ability to be able to say no and feel better about it. And so just an invitation that, if you would like to give yourself that gift through the holidays, to definitely check it out.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'll say this too Some of you don't need to join the group because you need support and saying no. Some of you need to join the group because you need support and saying yes. I see you too, because some of y'all say no to the things that you need and the support that you need all the time and the practice of saying yes to like somebody saying, hey, can I do this favor for you? That's no strings attached, can I do this kind of thing for you just out of the kindness of my heart, like you might need help on that and saying yes to those things. So we'll also be there for that and you'll get to practice there, so that sounds like a great gift to be able to receive Right.

Speaker 2:

We want to give that gift to you. It is gosh. I'm on a movie theme today. I just thought of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, which we watch every Thanksgiving evening. That's how we kick off Christmas season. And I just thought of Randy Quaid and the Jelly of the Month Club, where he's like it's the gift that keeps on giving. Yeah, it really is, it's the gift that keeps on giving. You, giving this to yourself, you helping yourself this way, is going to make a huge difference. And if it doesn't hit us up afterwards and be like I didn't learn a thing, we want to know that. I don't think that's going to happen and also we're oh, it's safe for you to say that to us, so let us know. Okay, the link to join us is in the show notes. Invite your friends, invite your family, if you want them in there with you, if you don't say no to that, and we hope to see you in there. There's already over 100 people in there and we still have like three weeks before this starts, so it will be good.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, absolutely. It's a. I feel like the best way for us to end this is, like you know, whatever we can do to support you, that's exactly what we're wanting to do, and we are truly, truly here to help. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

That chef's kiss. We're done All right. We'll see you all next week. Hope to see you inside here to help and love you all. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. Invitations to head to our show notes to check out the offers and connections we mentioned, or you can just head straight over to Institute for Traumacom and hop in our email list so that you never miss any of the cool things that we're doing over at the Institute. Invitations to be well and to take care of yourself this week and we'll see you next time.