#141 – The Best Way to Share Your Self-Development with Others
If you are excited about your self-development journey, and you find yourself sharing (uninvited) with others, wanting the people you love and care about to have these tools and feel better, just like you’ve learned, that is normal. But, when we share uninvited, and we are actually inviting push-back and frustration on both sides.
In this episode, I outline the three main reasons we share with others and why we do that. I also share what we can do instead that can be a more effective way to help others.
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Full Transcript
00:03
If you’re struggling in your family relationships, and nothing you do makes it any better. Maybe even gets worse. You’re in the right place. My name is Tina Gosney, your host, as well as your family relationship coach, and positive relationship strategist. When you make peace with what’s happening inside of yourself, you’ll begin to find the peace you’re looking for in your relationships. This is the coaching your family relationships, podcast, let’s get started.
00:33
Welcome to the podcast today. If you are a longtime listener, welcome back. If you’re a first time listener, then I’m so glad to have you here. I’m Tina Gosney. I am the host of this coaching your family relationships podcast.
00:49
This podcast is almost three years old. It’s hard to believe that it’s been that long, but it has been. It was the summer of 2021 When I started this podcast, and it has definitely evolved over time. And I’m sure it will continue to evolve.
01:06
This month, June of 2024 is the last month that you’ll be able to download the difficult conversation guide. It will only be available until the end of the month. So if you have not downloaded your copy yet, now is the time to grab that. If you’re wondering, do I need this guide.
01:28
Well if you tend to overreact and get into arguments, have these conversations, you try to have conversations and they turn out poorly because you just seem to argue, then yes, you need this guide, if you tend to shut down and forget what you want to say. And then you know two hours later, you remember all the things that you should have said, this is your guide. If you’re a person who avoids conversations, you want to pretend like everything is okay. I just don’t want to have that type of conversation because I don’t want to it I’m too uncomfortable. This guide is for you.
02:10
I’m going to walk you through how to prepare for the conversation. And when you are prepared, and you have some things under your belt you have practiced and you know what you’re going to say and you know that some of the things that might come up, you’re going to feel more confident, the more prepared you are, the more confident you can be going into the conversation. I also, I love this part of it, I outline some really simple, easy to implement emotional management tools, so that you can help yourself feel more in control.
02:49
Because this is really one of the main reasons that we avoid these conversations is that we feel emotionally out of control. Well, what if that didn’t have to be the case? What if we could feel more in control, and then we wouldn’t have to avoid the conversation. So if we could just learn how to manage our emotions. And this goes beyond having difficult conversations, this just goes into regular everyday life, right?
03:18
If we could learn how to better manage our emotions, we could really win half the battle of life. That is how important learning how to manage our emotional experience is half of what we face would just be gone. Because we would not be dealing with it anymore. We would feel more in control of ourselves and not feel like our emotions are in the driver’s seat. We feel like we can scoot them over into the passenger seat. And we can be driving the car. So this is something you need help with, which is probably I’m gonna guess 99% of the people listening to the podcast, need some help with this. Go download that link in the show notes. I want you to grab that while it’s still available.
04:07
There’s a woman in the self development arena in the self development world. Her name is Byron Katie. She’s actually been around for a really, really long time since the 80s. She’s been doing a lot of work and her work is very targeted and very simple. Simple to talk about simple to read and to understand. But like most things, simple doesn’t always mean easy.
04:40
Here’s Byron Katie’s story. She was in 1986. She was 43 years old. She was married unhappily to her second husband that marriage was not going well. She had three children. Those relationships were not going well. She was depressed She had agoraphobia, she was overeating. She was self medicating with different substances, including alcohol. And she just knew something needed to change. She checked herself into a halfway house to get some help. In fact, she was feeling so terrible about herself that she wouldn’t even sleep in a bed. She said, I’m not worthy to sleep in a bed, I just need to sleep on the floor. And she was in. I don’t know how long she was in this halfway house.
05:32
But she had one night, she describes this as a spiritual awakening. And I think when people have such a drastic transformations, in a moment like this, like she did, it is, I consider it to be just direct inspiration from a higher power. Because this is not normal. It’s not a normal experience to just wake up with such a huge awakening one day and completely turn your life around, that is not normal. So all I can attribute that to is just an incredible spiritual experience and intervention.
06:15
But she did, she turned her life around in an instant. And in the work that she did, on herself, she began helping other people at that point, she began teaching others in her home, people would just come and knock on her door and ask her questions, and she would bring them in, and she would help them. She started teaching workshops, she wrote books, in fact, she has a lot of books out if you want to look her up.
06:44
And then there’s this other part of her story. And I tried to find the reference for this when I was prepping for this podcast, but I could not find it. And so I’m gonna go off my memory of what I remember. And I could be getting some of it wrong. totally acknowledge right now, I could be getting some of this wrong, but I’m remembering just the main points of this story. So her own daughter at this point was an adult. And her own daughter was struggling with so many of the same things that she had struggled with when she was her daughter’s age. In fact, her daughter was a heavy drug user. But she didn’t ever go to her daughter and say, hey, I can help you. She never offered her daughter help.
07:36
Maybe you think, what in the world? Why would she not do that? Maybe you think she’s crazy for not doing that. Maybe you’re thinking like, my daughter would be the first one I help. If I had that type of awakening, and people were coming like making special trips just to see me so because they knew I could help them. My daughter would be the one that I helped first. But she didn’t.
08:05
What did she do? She continued to love her daughter. And of course, we all love our children. She did this in a different way. She didn’t try to intervene in her daughter’s life, to show her that she loved her. She just loved her as she was a drug addict and all.
08:24
And if I remember correctly, the relationship that she had with her daughter at that point, was also when she you know before, Byron Katie had this awakening this spiritual awakening in the halfway house. Her relationship with her daughter was on pretty shaky ground. It was not in a good place. It takes time to repair relationships with our family, when we have been doing damage to them. So after a period of time, and I don’t even know how long it was, I can’t remember that part. But I know it was a period of time her daughter came to her and asked for help.
09:03
So why didn’t she offer her daughter help before? Well, she knew that her daughter was not ready. Now, if this were your daughter, you will know that she’s struggling. She’s self medicating herself. She’s doing harm to her own body. You see how much she’s hurting herself and probably hurting others. Yet you don’t offer help?
09:27
Why not? Well, great question.
09:30
When we start down this self development journey, even if we don’t have a drug problem ourselves or have children that have drug pop problems, it is really common. We start down this self development journey and it is so common to want to jump in and help other people, especially people that we love and care about. And there are so many reasons that we do this. But humans act in predictable ways.
10:01
And I’ve seen three main reasons I want to talk about those on the podcast today, three main reasons that when we come to an awakening, of our own ways begin to make progress, we start down this self development journey. And then we want everyone else to make progress, especially those people that we love and care about. There are three reasons I’m going to outline today. But when we start trying to reach out and help other people that can backfire on us. So I want to take a look at the three main reasons that we would share and we would intervene. And why we would be doing that.
10:40
And those are, the first one is, we will be super excited, we’re super excited about what we’re learning, and we want to share it with other people. The second one is we’re really worried about the person that we love and care about.
10:54
And this is the category that Byron Katie, I think would fit into, we’re really worried about the person and the choices that they’re making. And we want to help them in some way. I say that Byron, Katie would fit into that. But then I know her work. And I know that she probably was not worried about her daughter.
11:09
And the third one is, the way that this other person is operating in their life is negatively affecting your life. And so you want them to change.
11:21
Okay, so let’s go back to number one, which was, we’re so excited about the things that we’re learning, and we just want to share it. So think about the things that you share. Like when you’re really excited about something and you tell other people about it, it might be a new restaurant, it might be a workout or a gym, that you love to go to, maybe a new neighbor moved in down the street that you think is so cool, and you think she needs to get to know everybody. So you tell everybody, hey, go meet that neighbor.
11:53
It’s natural to be excited about something that we feel is making a positive impact in our life, and then want to share it with other people. My husband and I started seeing a functional medicine doctor a few years ago, and we immediately started feeling better, we, in fact, my husband lost 50 pounds in a short period of time, I think it was six months. So not only were we excited about the progress we were making, other people could see the progress visibly within us. And we ended up referring a lot of people to him, we told people about him. And we referred a lot of people to him. And they referred people, the people that we referred then refer to their friends, about half the people that we know now are going to this doctor, in fact, we can’t usually even go to an appointment with him without running into someone that we know.
12:51
Why did we share about this doctor? Why do we share about a restaurant or a gym, or some new thing that we found that we’re super excited about? Well, this really highlights our need to know that what we’re doing is valuable. Not only are we excited about it, but we see value in it. And when we see value in it, and other people agree with us that hey, that thing that you’re excited about? I’m excited about it, too, that it makes it more valuable. It provides more validity in our own minds that, yep, that thing that you love that’s helping you is valuable to me. So then we decide it has even more merit.
13:36
If I’m not the only one that loves this, other people love it too, then it’s even more valuable. And then it’s validating for us that we saw value in that thing, right? So we want our choice to be accepted by others, to solidify in our own minds that Yeah, you made the right choice. That’s right. And it’s good. And we often need buy in from others.
14:02
In fact, we did refer one friend to this doctor. And she came back and she said, I don’t like him. That guy I don’t like what he does. I don’t like the way he operates. And I noticed in myself how much I wanted the validation that I was not getting. So this is a real thing. We want validation of our own choices from other people. And when we get buy in from other people, it helps us feel more valid in our own choices.
14:32
Okay, number two, you’re really worried about the person the choices that they’re making. You want to help in some way. You see them hurting or making destructive choices in their life. Maybe they’re severely overweight. So maybe you send articles on fitness and health and new diets, and maybe even some articles on the new you know semaglutide I don’t know how to say that, or ozempic – those shots that are out that are helping so many people lose weight, maybe you’ll see someone struggling in their relationship, maybe they bring, maybe they bring some of their troubles to you and they confide in you, and you give them my advice and share what’s helped in your relationship because you want them to not suffer.
15:20
Maybe you see, this is something I’ve seen quite common in my coaching practice, is you see a loved one who’s questioning their faith, they’re questioning their belief in a certain faith or belief system or their church. And so you send articles you bear testimony to them. So just so they know that know this, you need to see it differently. You’ve maybe you conveniently invite missionaries, or church leaders over to your house the same time, you know, this loved one is going to be at your house, and maybe that person can convince them that the error of their ways.
16:00
So sometimes we just act from fear. And fear is a powerful motivator. Fear will have us throwing love and reason out the window. And acting from a lot of lack and scarcity. And holding on to I need for this person to listen to me, because I am so worried and afraid of what will happen if they don’t.
16:29
So if this is you, I want you to check your motives. We aren’t always acting from fear when we’re trying to help someone. But it does help us to know what our true motives are behind our own actions. And lots of times we are really good at lying to ourselves about what our real motives are, we are blind to the fear that we’re reacting from, we get really good at not telling ourselves the truth. And we disguise our true motives from everybody else, but even from ourself.
17:04
What is often playing into this third reason that we would want to share and try to get someone to listen to our own self development tools that we know, the way that they are operating in their life is negatively affecting our life. And we think, Well, if you just knew this, then you wouldn’t be doing that. And then if you weren’t doing that, I could feel better, I wouldn’t have to deal with you.
17:33
Maybe your spouse is super negative. Maybe they’re complaining all the time, or being negative and argumentative with you, and you’re tired of it.
17:42
Maybe your adult child is living with you. And they’re not making decisions in their life, they’re just kind of stagnant and stuck. And you think, well, if they had some of these tools, if they just knew what I know, then that kind of pushed them forward to make a decision. Maybe they could move forward. And maybe they could make progression and move in their life. But they’re just they just stay stuck.
18:05
Maybe just an extended family example. Maybe your family has a habit of gossiping about each other, or you talk about each other when you’re not there. And you want it to stop, maybe you’re so tired of that dysfunctional family dynamic that you’re like, I don’t want to put up with this anymore. I just need to teach them these relationship tools, these self development tools that I’ve learned so that this will stop and I don’t have to experience this anymore.
18:36
Now, this is super common for us to want to control other people, and to get them to change, because it’s going to make our life easier. It’s going to make our life more comfortable. We rarely actually have this specific thought in our mind, but it exists in some way. And it is this thought if you would change my life would be easier. Or it might look like if you would be different, I wouldn’t feel this uncomfortable emotion that I don’t want to feel. So instead of dealing with my own discomfort, I’m going to try to get you to be different. And that’s what’s really behind what we’re doing here.
19:22
Okay, so there’s the three things, I may or may not have done all of these things in my own life, and in my own journey and in my own relationships. So I may or may not be speaking from experience here.
19:36
But I do see these three main reasons that we share uninvited, popping up in coaching all the time. So I think it’s really interesting.
19:47
And so why’s that Byron Katie did not offer she did not go to her daughter and say I can help you. I’m not sure I don’t remember if that was in the original story – in the details of the story, so I can only give my best educated coach guess. And that is she knew her daughter wasn’t ready.
20:13
Byron Katie had changed so much. She was a completely different person, by this point than she had been for decades in her life, such a deep and profound change. And she had been living a very messy life. And she knew what was involved in living a very messy life. She knew that down to her core. And she knew, she probably knew a lot of things that her daughter was going through. Byron, Katie also knows this, when the student is ready, the teacher appears, that’s something we hear quite often.
20:49
But when the student is ready, the student will find the resource, the student will seek the resource, ask questions, make it a priority in her life, if it’s important enough to her to do the difficult work that changing your way of being requires, she’ll find the resources that she needs, that might be coming to her mom, and asking her what she knows.
21:17
You can’t care about someone else’s progress more than they do. And I’m sure that Byron Katie knew this. Because if you care about it more than they do, you’re going to end up frustrated, you’re going to be dragging, you’re gonna feel like you’re dragging them, or you’re going to feel like you’re pushing them. No one likes to be dragged or pushed, you’ll be frustrated. And they will probably be even more frustrated than you are.
21:47
That doctor that my husband and I referred people to, some of them went for one appointment, some of them went for a month, and decided that the lifestyle changes were too much that that was not something that was a priority for them, or that they felt like they could do. So they stopped going and didn’t mean anything about my appreciation and my value of this doctor, what it tells me is it wasn’t their time to do that work for themselves.
22:21
I have absolutely zero judgment on the people who went once or went for a month and then quit. We all get to decide when and what we prioritize in our own lives.
22:35
The frustrating thing is, is that when you’re really worried about someone, or when the way someone else is being is really affecting you in your life, that you want to reach out and help. Or you want them to be different. You want them to make the change. But you don’t get to say when that happens.
22:57
What do you do instead?
23:00
If you really want to help, we ask questions. Before we comment, we ask questions.
23:09
The first person we should ask questions to is ourself, we should look inward. You should ask yourself, Why am I sharing this? Why do I want to share this? In fact, let’s just take a look at the an acronym.
23:24
WAIT, which stands for Why Am I Talking? This is a chance for us to pause, stop. And just and check in with ourself. Is this something that I need to share? What is my motive and sharing it? Why am I sharing it? Am I trying to get them to change so that I don’t have to do something difficult? Are you wanting them to be different so you don’t have to worry about them. So your life is easier. Maybe some other reason I haven’t outlined?
24:02
Remember I said that our own brain will often hide our own motives from us. We get so blind to ourselves that we will often do something and say it’s to make someone else’s life better. But what we’re really trying to do is avoid our own discomfort and avoid digging deep into ourselves.
24:23
If you’re thinking Byron Katie was crazy for not offering help to her daughter, I am sure you’re not alone. I think a lot of people listening to this story would say, that’s crazy. I could never do that. I think that she was doing her daughter harm.
24:38
Well, that’s okay. But maybe take a minute or two and ask yourself why. And remember questions before comments, even in our conversations with ourselves. We can learn a lot about ourselves and others when we simply ask why. With a lot of genuine, non judgmental curiosity.
25:01
Here are a couple takeaways for you today. Self-development is for the self, it’s actually in the title. It’s for us when we come to it, and if we come to it, it’s when we’re ready. You get to say when you’re ready, but you don’t get to say when someone else is ready.
25:21
Here’s the second takeaway is that you can be an example of what is possible. So many times we stay stuck in repeating who we are, and just operating in our own dysfunctional ways in the world. Because we’ve never seen someone do something differently. You can be the example to someone else of doing it differently.
25:47
The best way to help others is to show them what they’ve never seen before. And let that speak for itself. We can when we can actually see someone modeling something for us. It becomes tangible, it becomes real. And then there’s a part of us even if it’s in the very back corner of our brain that says, well, maybe I could do that too. That is the best way that you can help someone else.
26:15
Be an example of the change that you want to see.
26:20
I’m going to be doing another Ask Me Anything episode soon. I just did one recently. I’ve had quite a few submissions for this one. If you want me to answer a question for you. Maybe you want some clarification on something that I’ve said in the podcast, or maybe you want more information about something I have covered in the podcast? Or maybe you’re wanting me to cover something I haven’t even touched on yet. You can ask me to do that. Maybe you have a tough relationship issue right now. You’re not sure how to handle it. Maybe you feel stuck. Also a great thing to ask, or something else entirely. Like Hey, Tina, how did you do such and such that you were talking about on the podcast? That’s totally valid question. So please ask away. There’s a link in the show notes that will let you submit a question very quickly and easily.
27:11
And again, thank you for being here. Sometimes it feels like I’m talking into the ether talking into a microphone in my office. But when I get feedback from you guys like these asked me anything questions or replies to my emails. I love hearing your experience and I love hearing that what I am sharing is being helpful to you. So have a great week. I look forward to seeing your questions come in and I will see you next time.
27:43
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