What Comes Next
38: When You Feel Like The Problem
You are listening to The What Comes Next podcast. I'm your life coach and host Sydney Colby, and this is episode 38. Let's dive in. What's up, beautiful people. Welcome back. Another week, another episode. This one is particularly near and dear to my heart, and I think it'll have a lot of value, so let's dive in. Today I want to talk about those moments and phases and times in your life where maybe you feel like the problem. Right maybe that's in your personal relationships or at work or family members or intimate relationships, but I know I've had the thought before, why is it always me who's the problem? Right? Why am I always the one that has to change and fix things? And that can be very, very heavy and very disempowering and very exhausting above all. And it can put you in a very helpless and challenged and just generally exhausting position. So I want to talk through how I have navigated that in the past and how I'm continuing to navigate that, because like we talked about last week, I know for me personally, I have a really strong tendency to take things on. For people, whether that's responsibility for their emotions, or whether that's responsibility for how an interaction went or didn't go, or how things played out or didn't, I tend to be the one that says, okay, yeah, no, I get that, I can change that, I can be that, I can do that, because the reality is that I typically can. When you have a large capacity, especially a large empathetic capacity, you, it's kind of like a superpower both ways, you can do and become and move mountains to be who other people need you to be in order to either create that stability externally within like trying to create that within their environment, because you're like, okay, I can be the steady yeti here, I can be the rock, I can be the person, I can take this on, I can absorb this, like I can shoulder this. And that way they won't feel as burdened, they won't feel as trapped, right, or again, like we mentioned last week, it's more of a help them get their environment stable. So that way on the back end, you feel more stable and more comfortable and okay when everything and everyone is okay. But there comes a time when even that closet gets full and you open the door and it's one comment, one argument, one task that you can't take on or can't add to your plate and then somebody's disappointed or upset that you just feel like you are at capacity. And if you're anything like me, that's kind of my leading thought that I typically find myself sinking into is God, why is it always me? Why am I always the problem? Why am I always causing shit or turmoil or why can't I figure this out? Why can't I just be better? If I know this bothers them or I know this was really important to them or I know this task needed to get done, why couldn't I just do it, right? And you go into that kind of self-destructive thought shit storm. So I wanted to talk through that process today and how you can not only use it as kind of that mirror as to what you can work on and what pieces really truly are you and the perspective of where other people might be coming from with caveats of what you get to decide to do with that information once you are aware of it and once you work on it. So if you feel like you are the problem, the first question I want you to ask yourself with love and grace and curiosity is are you, okay? And that can be very heavy and this is important that you're in a neutral, curious, inquisitive headspace and not like I don't typically do that when I'm in the river of misery of really just going in on myself. I don't ask myself the question, oh, how are you the problem? Because guess what? My emotional reactive brain at that point will answer that question with evidence that feels very, very true and I will store that in my subconscious memory bank and use that against myself in the next round, right? So you have to be in that space of genuinely being like, okay, where could whatever this comment was or whatever the task was or whatever the circumstance was, which is typically a comment or an event that happens, where is that true? Where are the seeds of truth or the opportunities to be vulnerable with myself in that statement? And like I've said before, I use this analogy all the time. If someone came up to you and said, I really hate your blue hair and you're sitting there with a fresh lived-in brunette to blonde balayage, you're like, um, are we okay? What's happening? But if someone says, God, I just really hate that balayage hairstyle on you, that was horrible. And if you were in love with it, you would be hurt by that, right? So if a comment comes at you and it provokes or evokes that kind of, God, I've just had it. Why is always me with if it provokes that kind of emotional response within you, that means at some level on some staircase, step of the staircase, you believe and or resonate with what they said, right? Otherwise, you would just be kind of confused by the comment, right? If it didn't hit you, if it didn't strike a nerve with you, if it didn't feel true to you or ruffle your feathers in some capacity, like if you were completely neutral to it, you'd be like, okay, that's really interesting. Why do you say that? Instead of the, oh, yeah, great. Okay. No, sure. Let me add that to my plate and make sure I can do that for you too, right? Like it doesn't. It doesn't create the same emotional environment or the same emotional response. So once you've come down out of that, I want you to sit down and say, right, right down on a piece of paper, what part of that comment felt true? Where did that hit me? Which piece of me did that hurt? Or why was that so create such a big reaction? Why did that create so much in me? And some of this can turn into a thought to upload. It may be that you were just at capacity and that was the cherry on the top that you haven't had time to sort through and process through 18 other small little digs or little cracks in the ice. And then this was the one that was like, okay, no, this is something that really brought it to the surface and really showed you what you get to work on. And so sometimes just asking the question of why did this hurt me? What did this bring up for me? What about this could be true? And also just the question of was that comment truthful? Was it factual? Can be very, very helpful sometimes because sometimes you'll look at it a day, a couple hours or a day later and be like, no, it really wasn't true. And then you can dive into, okay, if that wasn't true, what about that comment did create that reaction in me? And that would be an amazing time to run a model. If you have the comment, that would be in the circumstance, right? And then you can kind of backtrack or if you have a better feel on the emotion that you had start there and then track back up, okay, what thought for me created that emotion? All right. And then how did you act while feeling that emotion? Did you get huffy? Did you get sassy? Do you get distant? Do you get reactive? Do you get angry? Right? And then what was the result from that? How did that situation resolve based on how your model played out? Okay, so that's the first one is just looking at the question of, are you the problem in that specific situation? Was it true? Was it factual? Where did that response and you come from? And you can also look at, this is really fascinating for me personally, if you get the same comment in different groups of people. So if your parents say one thing and then your romantic partners say one thing and then your friends say the same thing that the first two said, right? Like, if you look at trends over time, that's a really good opportunity to sit down and be vulnerable with yourself and say, okay, I'm getting similar feedback from different groups of people that I love and respect the opinion of where which pieces of this can be true. All right, and that gives you a phenomenal opportunity to really sit down and you don't have to share that with anyone because that can be really, really raw and really, really scary, but also incredibly eye opening and freeing to say, oh, okay, they all have a trouble, they all have problems with my timeliness, right? They're always making comments about me being late or me not showing up on time or me forgetting that we had a coffee date, right, where in your mind, you're like, I am doing everything I can to keep my head above water. I am working full time, I have projects, I am trying to support my other friends, I'm trying to keep myself healthy, like, I am doing everything I can and then I get shit from all different directions for not remembering something simple, okay? And so from that perspective, you could say, okay, the general feeling here for me is overwhelmed and disorganization, like, disorganizing the scatter rate, right, and from that place you can say, okay, I can see how they would feel disrespected or like I wasn't appreciating their time or the valuing their time by showing up or giving a heads up or even letting them know that I'm slightly drowning, right? You can come at it from a different perspective than just feeling attacked from all angles, but first it takes, it truly takes a lot to be able to swallow that pride pill and say, okay, if this is trending in the relationships of my life right now, there has to be something unless they're all in a group text and, like, talking about what they can piss you off about this week, there has to be something that they see that you don't or can't or won't. So you can use that as an amazing opportunity to get to know yourself a little bit better and look at the trends which brings me to my second point, are there any self sabotaging behaviors that people around you may be picking up on that you either haven't or aren't ready to confront and address yet? So in relationships or friendships, if you constantly just blow people off, text them and then don't text back for several days on something that you know is important, right? I'm very guilty of the not texting back for several days. My friend Haley calls it, what does she say? Oh, we say we have a three to five business day text window before we'll, like, nudge each other and say, hey, hey, are you alive, be, can you answer my text? So there's some people that just, they get it, you know? But if there's a specific behavior, like when things get hard in a friendship or a romantic relationship or even a business partnership or relationship and you start backing away, you make yourself distant, you don't get, you don't hit deadlines, you don't communicate as well as you usually do, you're passive aggressive, you're outwardly aggressive, like, if people talk to you about that, be willing to say, okay, that could be me self sabotaging and not wanting to have uncomfortable conversations and not wanting to tell you that this specific aspect of our current relationship or exchange isn't really working for me. And it could be that's because you don't know what working for you looks like, which then opens another door, right? You could just sit with yourself and say, okay, why don't I like that? What do I want out of this relationship? What would make this feel mutual in what way, if I knew I had to have this hard conversation, would I like to show up? No matter what, no matter what the outcome was, it could be you and your friend part ways and never talk again. But if you have to have that hard conversation, how do you want to show up? You want to show up as passive aggressive and beating around the bush and just ghosting or not having the hard conversation at all and then harboring resentment towards that friend or would you rather show up and say, hey, this is actually really, really difficult for me. I've sat with this a long time and I know how I'm acting towards you is just me avoiding a really tough conversation that I just don't want to have, but I think it's really important that we have that, right? You're not coming from a defensive place. You're not coming from a protective place. You're not coming from an abrasive or defensive like in your face, blaming place. It's that honest recognition of, hey, I've been acting a little bit like an asshole. I have a reason. It's not an excuse, but I've looked at my piece of it. I understand it better and now I would like to present that and a solution to you. So it takes responsibility about understand I haven't shown up in the best way possible and I've looked at why for me, right? That's that massive ownership, that's that responsibility piece. At that point, you will not feel like the problem because you are actively finding the solution for and within yourself. You are actively doing something to change the not only outcome of the circumstance, like the result that you're going for, but you're also actively changing your own internal environment. You are solving equations for yourself and by yourself and then presenting that result to the other party. That's the work. You're only the problem if you don't do anything about it. If you aren't willing to look at it, if you aren't willing to work the problem, whether you're the actual problem or not and we'll get into that a little bit later. But that's where the magic is, is being able and willing to look at the whole equation, the whole model and say, okay, this is my piece. This is what I have to look at. This is what I get to explore and this is what I get to plug and chug and change and look at and differentiate and try different things and be wrong and be right and then present my findings. Sometimes it's going to be great and it's going to go really well and other times you're going to be like, I was absolutely terrible and I was incredibly wrong. I'm so sorry, but the growth in that is seeing it and seeing it without judgment and seeing it from the lens of, okay, I saw what result that gave me. I didn't like it and so I'm going to do something different and learn from it. You're only the problem if you keep doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting other people to change. Those are the big ones to consider for the first part, is using those moments where you feel like you're at capacity or you feel like you're going to blow or you're really feeling like the problem to really dive deep and go back to creating that foundation and that safety and that knowing of yourself and using that situation or the circumstance or the comment as kind of a mirror and a checkpoint to say, okay, if there is any truth in this, what would it be and what's my role in that? That brings us to the second part of this is also acknowledging your source, right? Being very aware of where and who and when those comments or those situations are coming up, okay, something I'm learning and I've learned it on a conscious level, but the practice piece of it has been very, very difficult for me, but knowing and understanding and repeating and looking for proof that people can only interact and express themselves to the depth of which that they know themselves, okay, take a second. People can only interact with you on the level that they have interacted with and seen and dealt with and healed and sat with themselves, so that can mean if you are working with or around someone or multiple people who have not taken the time to get to know themselves and done this type of work right here, then they're going to be more on that default setting of defensive, protective, it could come off as rude or abrasive, passive-aggressive and there could be a lot of projection of their fear and their beliefs, their limiting beliefs of themselves because like we said earlier, what you see and believe about yourself is what you respond to. So if something comes up and you're late to a coffee day and your friend all of a sudden just blows up and said, okay, I'm not really sure why I don't matter to you and why you think my time isn't worth anything, but you showing up late to our third coffee day is absolutely unacceptable. So I hope you enjoy your coffee that I paid for because I thought you'd be here 20 minutes ago. You enjoy that. I'm going to go. Whoa, hold on, right, that could very well be a projection that they feel like their time doesn't matter and they could be at the same capacity as you, right? They've had two days or however many days or hours of proof and different circumstances in their life and on their end that have presented as evidence that their time isn't worth anything, other people are more important, they're just going to afterthought, right? And then they see their friend, one that they love and we're just getting ready to offload all of this bad stuff on to 20 minutes late. And that is kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. So it's not that they think you're a terrible person or terrible human being or terrible friend or even that they don't think you actually value their time. At that point, it's more of that reactive projection of, okay, this is one more, you know, drop in the bucket, one more piece of evidence that I'm not worth anything. But if you look at the flip side of that, if you look at someone who has done work on themselves and can be aware of that reaction or that tendency or that really strong pull and can say, you have the same situation, you walk in 20 minutes late, you sit down and your friend goes, "Hey, just so you know where my head's at, I'm really struggling that you were 15 minutes late. I'm telling myself that you don't value my time. I've had a lot of other things happen today that kind of got me on that track. But next time, if you are going to be late, I would personally just really appreciate a heads up. I really want to sit and enjoy this coffee time with you. I have a ton to catch you up on and I want to hear about your life. But the lateness just kind of really, really threw me off. So I just want to let you know where I'm at, right? And that is that golden nugget of communication where you take ownership and responsibility for how you're feeling and how you're showing up and your emotional temperature while letting the other person know. So if you come off as cold or chilly or a little bit curt, they won't have to guess as to why or if they don't pick up on it and they're just in a really good mood and don't notice it at all, chances are that we'll piss your friend off even more, right? I barely said three words that whole time and she didn't even notice, doesn't even care. Right? Like it's this loop of patterns and behaviors. But coming back, knowing your source of the comment or the situation or the specific circumstance can be incredibly helpful because then you get to choose how to address it and how to respond. Right? So a couple of my favorite three favorite ways to go about this that I am very, very actively practicing and very, very actively failing at a lot on a lot of different levels. But these are the three that have stuck with me the most and have made the most impact. So I want to share those. The first one is to lead by example. If you have the ability to self-regulate in that moment and feel that triggered or that kind of like, great, why am I the problem, that frustration, that exhaustion, that just desperation? If you can recognize that and regulate that, then you can lead by example and communicate and take that responsibility just like our last example, right? If somebody makes a comment to you and it just really hits home, you can be like, okay, I just need a quick time out that felt like a very loaded comment to me. And it really makes me want to punch a hole in the wall right now and or scream at you. So I just need to take just a second and either have a little bit more context around that or if you are in an emotional state, then I'm going to step out for about five minutes and then I will come back, right? So it's showing that assumption of personal responsibility for where you are at because if it escalates on both ends, then it's just as much your fault, it's just as much of your responsibility I should say, right? Because you're going to have blowups, you're going to have slips, you're not always going to be the most regulated person, you're not always going to be like, you know what, hold on. It made me angrier than Mount Vesuvius. Let's just talk about our feelings for a second. It's not always going to go like that, okay? So understanding and giving yourself grace when you do have those blowups to say, wow, that really did not work. That was one thing that either really, really hit me and I need to look at, but that was ugly, okay? But that is the first way to address it or respond to something like that is to lead by example, whether that be in this kind of ties in with the second one of setting boundaries, whether that be, okay, as soon as insults are included in the conversation, I'm going to step out for five minutes and then I will come back. That's my personal rule is if you leave the conversation, you are the first one to come back. I will not chase you. I do not want to be chased and I make that clear, like, I'm going to step out for five minutes and then I'm going to come back. That's just me. That's what works for me personally. I've seen another boundary that states the person says, you can be angry, but you cannot insult me or I will leave the room, okay? Or I will hang up the phone, right? You can be furious with me, but you will not be unkind to me. You can be angry with me, but you will not raise your voice in me, right? Those are ways to set boundaries in a way that keeps you emotionally safe and can help you stay regulated, right? Because as soon as, for me, like I said before, I'm tending to be very reactive. You want to yell, buttercup, let's yell, you know? Like my dad and I are the same person and so we have just a little bit of a button, but I can get very defensive and very sassy very quickly. So sometimes that boundary is just as much, if not more, for you than the other person, okay? I understand you're completely upset with me right now. I want to hear you out, but I will not have this conversation with yelling involved. I'm upset with outside voices, okay? But just whatever boundary works for you, whether that's removing yourself, just make it something that you can control and is not made a threat, okay? So boundary isn't, if you want to yell, you can talk to yourself, right? If you yell again, I'm never having this conversation with you or if you're on the phone, like if you yell at me, I will never, I will hang up this phone and I will not call you back, right? Not a threat, it's just letting them know how you will respond to a behavior. You can be mad at me, you can yell, but I will not have this conversation with you while you do that, okay? That's more of a, if you choose to yell, I will choose to leave for however long, okay? Same thing with inappropriate comments. If you choose to use insults or profanity, I will choose to remove myself until we can have a level-headed conversation, okay? So setting those boundaries can be very, very helpful, kind of jumped ahead, but the first one is leading by example of A, creating and holding that space for yourself so you are coming from a clean, regulated place, and then offering that to them. Hey, I really understand you're upset right now, I really want to be on this team with you, is this a conversation you can have right now or do you want to have it later, right? Like, or that, hey, that comment was actually really hurtful for me, I would, I know that's not your intention, I know that's not how you probably meant it, if it is, I want to talk about that too, can we just pause this conversation for a second, right? So leading by example, which is hard too because, again, I'm very, very good at getting, giving other people advice, but when it comes to taking it, it's a little bit more challenging, but telling someone you need to know when they're upset is a lot easier than being upset and telling someone you are upset, right? It's the easiest thing, hey, if you're mad, just tell me, but then tables are turning you're mad and you're like, okay, you should really know, like that was blatantly obvious why I'm so pissed right now. But if it's not, and if you were to reciprocate the action that you desire or would appreciate, what would that look like in your moment of passive aggression and if you were to take your own advice, what would that look like? A lot of times, I'll try to take my brain out of it and say, okay, if I was a client right now, if I was one of my coaching clients, what would I tell me? And then it's easy to kind of step into that advice brain and then you're like, oh shit, all right, I have to be better at communicating too. And then the last one for how you choose to address and respond to these situations is offering and/or taking space, okay? So if this is a coworker or someone that you're not super familiar with or aren't forced to interact with every day, some of the stuff that has worked for me is saying, like, hey, I feel like you are just not in the best of head and spaces. Right now this is coming off in kind of an aggressive way for me. If you want, I'm here to have a conversation with you about it. But if not, that's totally fine and then taking space. Like if you can, if this person is constantly just coming at you and it's just not a relationship that you feel like is beneficial or growth-oriented on one direction, like one way or another, or both, then you can also leave and say, you know what, I appreciate your time, but I just don't think this is for me. Or just something like, I'm trying to think of a good example. If someone is just constantly negative or constantly just coming at you in a way that they're like, oh, whoa, you're so messy or you're so late, like just coming at you with a little jobs, then you can also say, hey, I don't really find those funny. I totally get where you're coming from, it's just I don't appreciate those comments. So if you want to keep making those, totally fine, but I'm just probably going to have some space and have some time to myself. Don't be afraid to leave a situation that does not serve you. Okay? All right. Last little bit, I just want you to know and believe that you are not the problem. No matter how heavy it gets, no matter how tired you get, no matter how exhausting and depleting it feels. You feel like the problem because you have the capacity to feel like the problem. You have the awareness that you are not perfect and that you do have flaws and that you do have defects and that those things do impact other people. You feel like that because you have such a deep capacity or compassion and empathy and you want to do everything in your power to help people be okay. It comes from a really, really good place and I see that and I want to encourage you to really try some of these steps and really take a bird's eye view of where can I look at this for some growth and some information and where do I get to let this go? Where do I get to give responsibility back to the other person? Because that's the whole pie there, right? You do your part and they do theirs. People can only interact with you to the level of which they have known and healed themselves and there are a lot of people who don't do work like this, who aren't willing to check in, who aren't willing to look in the mirror, who aren't willing to question what might be true and what might not be pretty, right? And that doesn't always make it easier. I've had that conversation before too, it's like okay, it's not my responsibility to emotionally manage you but it still comes off on you, it still comes off on me, right? I'm still left feeling like the problem and I just want to say I see you and I hope that you, when you get in those ruts and you get in those little valleys and those ditches and you just feel stuck and annoyed and just freaking tired. Take time for you, okay? Go back and say okay, if any of that is true, great. I can table that here are all my great qualities. And just remembering it hurts because you care, because you have the capacity to know how deep the human emotional pool and just wealth of experiences, that's amazing. If everyone could do that, this plan, it would be a different place but not everybody can. It's the people that resonate most with this episode that have that extra gear, right? For better or for worse, some days it sucks, some days you're like, I really wish I couldn't care. I really wish I didn't care one way or the other but you were given this specific little talent and skill set for a reason, okay? So I'm with you, I feel you and I think these tools can be really, really helpful to give yourself some grace and just to kind of pull you out of, either pull you out of or help you walk through that river of misery where you feel like everything is just heavy, okay? So take the nuggets you need and I will talk to you next week, bye. [Music] (upbeat music)