Note: this transcript is not 100% accurate.
00:01
And people are like, uh-uh. I don’t know what rest means. Rest has never been validated for me. It’s never been encouraged. So let me set another goal. So this little being in the home that’s really supposed to be quite narcissistic and is just supposed to be drawing and playing and crashing into things is now becoming hypervigilant. There’s still that insecurity like A, I’m female, B, I’m ethnic, C, I’m short.
00:31
A lot of the fight is with ourselves, I want to say, and maybe others don’t care as much as we think they care.
00:43
Welcome back to Uncover Your Eyes, the podcast where we uncover the struggles behind the stethoscope. If you are listening, if you can please hit that follow or subscribe button, let us know you’re listening so we can bring you better episodes weekly. Today’s episode is for anyone who’s ever smiled through discomfort, said yes when they meant no, or felt like a fraud in a room they worked so hard to be in.
01:12
We’re talking about issues that affect over 40 % of people globally. People pleasing, imposter syndrome, and attachment styles. Our guest, Jessica Phillips, is a psychotherapist, attachment coach, and the host of the Living Out Loud podcast. And she helps people break free from these patterns daily. Thank you so much, Jessica, for being on today. It’s my pleasure. Thanks for having me.
01:41
So, know, people pleasing, we see a lot of people pleasers in the world. I want to say I am, or hopefully I was one of them. But, you know, tell me a little bit about how do you recognize that you or your children or someone else are people pleasers and that we need to do something about it? Well, you could use the term recovered people pleaser, if you like. That’s good one. like that. People pleaser in recovery. I think it’s important to understand first where it comes from so that people can have
02:11
I think there’s a lot of terms out there, right? Everybody’s all over social media and you hear all of these terms getting thrown out, but it’s very difficult when, you know, a lot of people will come to me and they’ll just say, I’m a people pleaser and I have to stop or I’m codependent and I have to stop where I always, you know, share with them that the first thing to do is really understand what people pleasing is, what the motive is behind it and where it came from. So a lot of people pleasers will often mistake.
02:41
mistakenly think that they’re very over giving and they just want to help help help help help. But the thing about people pleasing is that a lot of people don’t understand is that we’re actually trying to manipulate the way someone else views us. So it’s actually quite self self serving. So for example, if someone said, Hey, Jess, do you want to go to a barbecue tonight?
03:06
And let’s say I’m completely exhausted. I’m burnt out. I have a very long day the next day. But I say, okay, sure. So in that moment, I’m more worried about what the other person thinks of me than my actual needs and my plans. So people pleasing in general can be quite others focused, where I always encourage clients or anybody that speaks to me about it is to become more self focused. So a lot of the times
03:35
We practice pausing, for example. So if somebody asks you something, just pause for a second because so many of us are so automatic now that it’s like, yes, sure. Okay, will you help me move? Yeah, I’ll be there even though my back kills or whatever it is. So in that moment, we really have to ask ourselves, are we saying yes because we truly want to show up for this person or are we saying yes because we need to be liked by this other person? And how do we get there?
04:04
Like how does some of us become people pleasers and want others to like us? Yeah, good question. I think a lot of it stems from childhood, the way that we were raised. And I always say this with, you know, compassion and with a gentle tone because it’s not necessarily the act of going backwards and having to blame or shame our parents.
04:28
Whereas some people will need to, right? Some people grew up in horrific environments and they decide to completely cut off their families, let’s say, or there was abuse or psychological abuse. Everybody needs to do what’s right for them in the moment. But let’s say you came from a family who really did their best, but let’s say mom or dad was extremely critical or rigid to the complete other end of the spectrum.
04:58
What happens to a child in that moment is their nervous system starts to become dysregulated. And when you become dysregulated as a child, you start to think of ways to control the environment. So even as young as four or five, a child can start to say like, wait a minute, mom was in a really good mood yesterday. Now she’s in a really bad mood today. I don’t want that to happen again tomorrow. What can I do?
05:26
So this little being in the home that’s really supposed to be quite narcissistic and is just supposed to be drawing and playing and crashing into things is now becoming hypervigilant. They’re becoming experts at reading the room. So they’ll come home from school and they’ll say, wait a minute, something’s off. I feel nervous. My nervous system, my alerts are going off. What do I have to do? So it can come from anywhere from
05:54
alcoholism or addiction in the home, a parent with a mental illness, even just a very angry critical parent or someone who’s too rigid around grades, accomplishments, things like that. Whereas all these things are good, right? Like children need structure, they need boundaries, they need help with goal setting. But when it’s to the extreme, a child can lose their sense of self.
06:20
or not develop one really in the first place and just be living to validate mom and dad’s ideas or to please them or say like, hey, I’m really into art, but I can’t say that and you’re forcing me into hockey. So I’m just going to pretend that I like hockey. And if you go through life pretending long enough, what’s going to happen is that child is going to become an adult and they’re just going to have this factory setting of I’ll tell you what you want to hear. Every time I speak up for myself, I get
06:47
criticized. So there’s all these old ideas at play. So when they do become adults, it becomes very difficult to say, hey, no, I don’t want to do that, or I’m not really comfortable with you speaking to me like that, what it or ask for a promotion or stand up for themselves. It becomes really hard if they haven’t done that work, kind of going back in time and understanding where the people pleasing tendencies come from.
07:13
So I’m just thinking about my life and my three kids, and I don’t know if I would be able to tell if they have those characteristics or are we too rigid? How can a parent recognize signs that they need to maybe change things around in their house or just recognize that there’s something off and their children might tend towards those tendencies? So how do we see that? Yeah, yeah, good question.
07:41
So one word that I use over and over and over again in sessions with my clients is the the topic of emotional safety a lot of us from our upbringings and and I’m not sure if every generation says this about the future generations, but I don’t know about you but there wasn’t a lot of Feelings talk in my home or emotional safety in my home, right? It was kind of and and that’s fine It was really like my parents did what they had to do and they were doing what they thought they needed to do for us, but
08:10
Let’s say, for example, I got in trouble at school or I was really nervous about something or I was rejected or something happened. My parents were not the go-to people to talk to about it. So the best thing that parents can do for their kids today is yes, at the same time of, because also we don’t want to border into being, you know, I hear this so often, like my child is my best friend and I’m like,
08:39
Don’t do that. Don’t go to the opposite end of the extreme either because that’s not super healthy. So we want to maintain this level of boundaries and proper parenting. But at the same time, you know, awarding children a platform to say, hey, are you okay? You know, what happened at school today? You’re very quiet. What’s going on? A good way to gauge whether your children are kind of on the right track in terms of the
09:08
like self-expression department is really gauge how comfortable they feel talking to you about stuff. Yeah, that would be kind of my first suggestion because yeah, there’s so much that goes on in a little person’s mind. And then from, you five to 10 is one chapter, 10 to 15, right? And then, you know, the ego is forming.
09:36
and high school and all of these, like high school is terrible. Like it was just, it’s just terrible. You know what I mean? And nobody talks about how terrible it is. And I remember just like, you know, all the things that I tried to do to be cool or that I was terrified of this person or this teacher or whatever it was. And I just wish I could have, you know, come home and said, Hey, there’s some bullying going on.
10:05
there’s X, Y, and Z going on. the tricky thing is, that, you know, looking at my family home, my parents were great on paper. Like any, any sports I wanted to be involved in, I never went without, but they’re very disconnected from their own emotions. So it’s really hard to show up for somebody else and ask them how they feel if you’re completely disconnected from your emotions.
10:34
So as a parent, you you get to ask yourself, okay, how connected do I feel right now? What’s going on in my personal life? What’s going on in my relationship? What are the kids seeing? And one of my secret weapons is really asking questions. You know, if you’re curious, ask a question. If you’re confused, ask a question. It’s way better than assuming or just making these loaded statements. You know, even asking a kid, hey, how do you feel about our relationship?
11:02
Is there anything you need from me? Is there anything that you would change? Is there any way that you wish I would show up more or less in some type of department? Especially when they start to get older, is really not treating them like too much of an adult, but enough of an adult that they can express some things to you at the same time. Absolutely. I think a lot of people pleasers are high achievers as well, because they want to just keep achieving to please maybe their parents or somebody around them.
11:31
I think that was me. I was always trying to do that and it took a long time for me to understand that and finally live for myself. What do I want? For me, a big thing was setting boundaries and I know you touched on that a little bit. How do we set those boundaries and what type of boundaries are we setting to help stop these repeated patterns or behaviors?
11:57
Yeah, it’s interesting that you mentioned that I just, I write a newsletter every week, three Tuesday tips from a therapist. And I was just talking about this exact topic is this idea of continuously moving the goalpost. So a lot of people pleasers or a lot of overachievers are so used to the reward cycle. So a lot of the times when they were younger, they only received praise or validation when they achieved X, Y, and Z.
12:27
So now they have the internal programming of, God, okay, I need to be on a roll to get dad’s attention. I need to become an engineer or a lawyer for mom to approve. I only date certain people for their approval. So all of that now is again, what we discussed earlier is being others focused. So we start to live to think of, okay, what do other people want from me? What looks good on paper?
12:56
Like I work with so many actually very specifically lawyers who have busted their butts to become lawyers and then now they’re in the field and they hate it. They hate it. They’re just like, oh my God, and they’re drowning in student debt. And it’s just, it’s so hard because at the same time, like we really, we want the goal because goals really help people, know, direction, purpose helps people. And it is hard to know, like kids are pushed into, I mean, at least here in Quebec, we have
13:25
Seijet before we go to university, but let’s say in the States for example You’re getting pushed into university at such a young age and it’s like how are you supposed to know what you want to do? At that age so that’s where a lot of it comes from and then what happens is our people’s nervous systems they they fall into this trap of they only know how to feel good when they’re Producing or when they’re achieving
13:53
Right? And then that starts to play with dopamine levels that starts to play with, you know, all of our internal programming. And it’s saying like, okay, now I completed this, this goal or this task. And then all of a sudden this feeling of like, you can rest now. And people are like, uh-uh, I don’t know what rest means. Rest never has never been validated for me. It’s never been encouraged. So let me set another goal. So they get into this cycle and usually.
14:22
I mean, I’m not sure about in your own specific case, but a lot of people end up hitting some type of wall. So they hit an emotional crash. Maybe it’s the crash for me. It was health. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that’s a really important piece too, is like, if your mind doesn’t stop you, your body is going to stop you at some point. So it’s always this fork in the road moment that a lot of people get to. And then they get to say,
14:52
wait a minute, and that’s where all the boundaries come in. That’s where we start to, because unless you realize what’s going on, it’s really hard to stop any behavior. So boundaries, for example, they can come in after. So if we use your example of not feeling well physically, then you get to say, wait a minute, how many hours am I working? Because especially for women too, people pleasers, perfectionist women.
15:19
overachieving women, not only are they overachieving in their business life, a lot of them have families and children. And they just naturally think like, oh yeah, I’m just gonna go crush 10 hours of work. And then I got to come home and you still got to work. You know, it’s not that you just get to kick your feet up and you know, get that rest. So there’s so much pressure or people think like, oh, if I’m if I just stay at home with the kids, then that’s not enough. And it’s like, no, that’s a full time job, too.
15:49
So a lot of these like societal pressures too of saying, you know, what’s good for you or what you should be doing or things like that. Yeah, we get to take a look at whenever I talk to clients about boundaries, I always separate them into physical boundaries. So say for example, I’m not a big hugger, I will stick out my hand and it really makes it look like I want to shake your hand instead of you coming in to embrace me for a hug. So that would be a physical boundary.
16:18
And then we have our emotional and mental boundaries. So that can look like, say somebody right out of school, they finish with all of the student debt and then in their mind say, oh God, I need to start paying off this debt. And then they start to see 10 to 12 clients a day. Well, it’s like, that’s not gonna be, it makes sense logically to start to pay off your debt, but you’ll see in a short amount of time that mentally you can’t keep up with that, just the load. So then you get to say,
16:47
Okay, wait a minute. If I plan to do this for the next 10, 20, 30 years, what’s gonna be sustainable for me? Is five clients a day for 10 years more sustainable than 12 clients a day till I burn out after two and a half years, right? And even things like I didn’t know in the past that when someone would call, say my mom was calling, it was such an aha moment for me. I didn’t know that I could not answer.
17:16
I could just let it go to voicemail. And I was like, oh, wow. Right? And then I would eventually call her back and she was like, oh my God, I’m so worried about you. And then we would have to have to the talk. Mom, I’m 30 whatever years old now. I’m not out in the streets. You don’t have to worry. I’m tired or I’m busy. I will get back to you. So that would be the boundary. You know, what time people go to bed is a boundary.
17:43
finances our boundaries. So there’s so many boundaries that we get to put in play. It’s I think at the end of the day, the fight is always with ourselves. Yeah. A lot of the time, you know, we can set all these things up that we want to, but if our subconscious believes that you’re not enough until you achieve X, Y, and Z, you’re gonna maintain that forward motion.
18:10
because you have this subconscious idea saying that, you know, only, and the really disappointing part of all of it is that so many people hit the goal that they’re after, and then they don’t get the payoff that they think they’re gonna get. I always make the reference of, do you remember that awful show, The Biggest Loser? Yes. It on TV, right? So they did a study, I mean, amongst all the other problems that that show created, but they did a study that it was almost 97 % of the people gained.
18:39
the majority of the weight that they lost back. And it made me start to think, right, because they’re saying once you get to this destination, you will be happy, joyous and free. Right. And then they all get to, you know, whatever 150 pounds. And they’re like, that was a lot of work to get here. And that’s not really where the work is. The work is always in how sustainable is your goal? How are you able to maintain this?
19:08
How do you feel, right? If you starve yourself for six months to get your picture taken on TV, I can guarantee you’re not gonna feel very good for long. Once the hype wears off, then it’s like, oh God, what do I have to do to maintain this? So yeah, found that you called me a recovering people pleaser because that’s basically what you’re saying, right? It’s ongoing and it’s for life that we’ve got to keep going. So setting those boundaries appropriately or sustainably.
19:38
Um, you know, a big piece of it was kind of what you were touching on a little bit guilt, right? Not picking up that mom’s phone call, um, makes you feel guilty. a lot of people people pleasers, they set those boundaries, but then they feel guilty. So they get sucked back in. Um, how do we feel less guilty about those things? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. These are great questions. Um, so setting boundaries with.
20:05
certain people, it’s going to be a lot easier than other people. So, you know, when I’m working with clients, I always suggest that we start to set easy boundaries first. So an easy boundary might look like and also to setting boundaries with new people or people who have just met you is so much easier than parents or a loved one because they’ve known you your entire life.
20:31
Families and partners are great at trampling all over boundaries because a lot of people have grown up in homes where boundaries didn’t exist. Kids are told like you don’t have a voice or just, you know, just sit there and listen to what mom and dad have to say, right? So that becomes very confusing when you get older. But let’s just say you start a new job and your boss says, hey, can you work till 9 p.m. tonight? And you’re like, oh, no, actually, I have a dinner. have to be gone by. I can stay an hour later. I have to be gone by 630.
21:01
boom, that would be an easier boundary, right? But if my mom calls me and she has lost her password for the 97th time and I have to walk her through her Netflix password at nine o’clock at night, it hits differently, right? guilt is a huge part of this. And it’s also a sign too that there’s been some
21:31
unhealthy dynamics in the relationship. Because if you were to think of your healthiest relationships today, say a girlfriend called and said, hey, do you want to have lunch on Sunday? I really want to see you. And you say, oh, I really want to see you too. But unfortunately, I’m busy with the family. Is she going to guilt trip you for the rest of the day? Probably not. Healthier people don’t do that. They can be disappointed. They can say, oh, man, I really wish I really wanted to see you. Let me know when you’re free.
22:01
next time. And then you can assess how guilty do you feel? Probably not that guilty. So when you are feeling that real guilt sting, you get to take a step back and it’s very hard in the moment, but you get to take a step back and say, why do I feel so guilty right now? You know, what’s what’s going on in this dynamic?
22:25
If it’s parents, it can be often this idea of like triangulation. So the two parents and the child, maybe they’ve had an unhealthy relationship. They can put the child in the middle of that. They can talk badly about one another. That gets very confusing for a child. So if you start to stand up to them, you’re gonna be riddled with guilt after. And I always share with people that the guilt is not a bad thing.
22:53
It’s okay to feel that at the beginning. You’re going to go anytime you start to do something new or set a new boundary or say no when you really mean it, you’re still going to feel guilty for a while, but it’s about doing it anyways. It’s like the gym, right? Everybody’s terrible when they go to the gym for the first time, but then you start to go regularly or semi regularly and you’re like, oh, okay, this doesn’t hurt as bad anymore.
23:20
So the guilt does go away eventually. I mean, I can still get little pings here and there with family members or certain people, but I have to tell myself, it’s almost like this act of reparenting, where I’m like, no, Jess, you’re 39 now, you’re not nine. And I tell them, I can’t do this for you right now, but I can come on the weekend, or I can, and that’s where the boundaries come in. But yeah, it’s unfortunate.
23:48
I mean, I’ve worked with a lot of people and their parents even at an older age, like these clients can be in their 40s, 50s, 60s and their parents are still using this because we have to remember too, if you say that this is green and I say this is purple, we’re always gonna go head to head. And that’s the difference with parents. If parents fundamentally believe or a partner,
24:16
fundamentally believes that their view is right and you’re wrong, that’s when you have to take a step back and say, okay, do I still want a relationship with this person? If yes, what do I have to do? Right. Yeah. Where are my limits despite what they say? Oh, you’re such a bad daughter. Oh, you’re such a bad son. Okay, sorry, this is the best that I can do.
24:43
We have to also be able to recognize how unhealthy it is because anybody that I’ve received the most amount of guilt from is not the most emotionally mature person that I know. Right. I’m going to shift gears a little. I feel like this is a therapy session just for me. I look into the bill in the mail after the hour is done. But you know, these like high achievers tend to be people pleasers and they tend to suffer with imposter syndrome.
25:12
I mean, I think I saw some study there where it was over 70 % of people globally experienced imposter syndrome. You I had never even heard of this thing until a few years ago and I didn’t even understand what it meant or like could grasp it. And I think everybody goes through it, right? I mean, you have to, you know, why do we feel this way and how do we distinguish between true imposter syndrome versus just feeling that sense of humility, I want to say.
25:41
I know that’s a loaded question, No, it’s a great question and it all ties in together. So imposter syndrome is really this feeling of I’m going to get found out. I’m not actually who people think that I am. I’m not qualified enough for this job. You know, I remember when I received my master’s degree in the mail, the diploma finally, I looked at it and I was like, I should
26:11
I should go do a PhD. That was my first thought. No, let’s celebrate. Oh my God, this is such a huge accomplishment. You couldn’t even read and write when you first got sober. And now you have a master’s degree in counseling psychology. And I was just like, eh, you know, it’s not X, Y, and Z. It’s not enough. This other person has this, right? So all of that goes back to the programming that I was talking to you about before. So as a child,
26:41
A lot of the issues that arise for adults happen between zero and 10. And it is quite scary, right? Because children, they’re little sponges. They’re listening. They’re watching, right? It’s like the mom that’s on a constant diet. I’m not eating today. My dad used to say that all the time. I’m not eating today, I’m fat. A child is really going to absorb that information. And when he was never overweight his entire life.
27:11
And he was always fit and he was always working out. was a professional athlete. So to hear those things, even when somebody isn’t struggling with a weight issue, you kind of look down and you’re like, what’s wrong with me? You know, so we get a lot of these messages from when we were younger and I don’t know specifically about your parents. I feel like this is just turning into a podcast of trash talking or parents. I’m like, you built me a very successful career. Thank you very much.
27:41
But my father, I’m convinced was his mother, and I call her his mother because she did not feel like a grandmother to me at all, was highly narcissistic. She used to send me photos of herself on my birthday, in my birthday card, like swimming championship photos. And I’m like shaking it out for the money. I’m like, why do I want these photos? But there was this obsession with self.
28:09
Now my dad and his sister raised by this woman and an alcoholic father, what happens is that these two children now are not able to develop their own sense of self because the parent is hyper-focused on themselves.
28:26
So it’s all that generational trauma that comes down too, you know? I mean, my father and my brother are both professional athletes. So they really had, they got to find themselves through sport, which I think is great for anybody. But on a personal level, even my mom, like a lot of family trauma, she didn’t know, she thought her mother was her aunt until she was 13.
28:52
Um, she had her out of wedlock in Scotland and that was a big no-no back then. So she was raised by her grandparents, very, very strict grandparents. It’s going to cause a fractured sense of self for a child. So now when these two people have children and they were, they were so wonderful in a lot of ways, but the emotional piece, you know, I, I was never understood that, right? They never understood.
29:21
their generational trauma. I mean, I feel like now it’s in our generation, you we’re more open to therapy, open to talking about things. I didn’t even know what imposter syndrome and all these things were before. So it’s more, you know, even anxiety, like I suffer from anxiety and I’m like, I think my mom might like, you know, we’re like, we would have never known any of it. So I mean, that’s the good thing. It wasn’t their fault. yeah. We didn’t have language for it. And to be honest, a lot of them didn’t have time for it. Like,
29:50
A lot of us are blessed today in the way some of us in the way that we’re raised, right? Like I never went without as a kid. If I wanted, you know, a new outfit or to go into soccer or into private schools, all of that was there for me. So my parents, like they were hustling, right? So a lot of them have this mindset of like, oh, we were grinding to put food on the table. We didn’t really have time for feelings. And a part of that is true.
30:18
You know, when I’m super busy or focused on something, actually don’t have a lot of time to focus on how I feel. And then when I’m in my downtime, I have a lot more time to focus on how I feel. I’m like, hmm, I’m happy, I’m right? So all those thoughts tend to come in. But this idea of imposter syndrome is, yeah, I mean, I think too, it can also come from, I think everybody has a little bit of it. You know, we spend so much time comparing.
30:47
Social media has not done us any favors, but it’s easy to say, oh, that person over there must be so happy or their relationship is probably all roses or, you know, this woman is way more beautiful than me, whatever it is, but we don’t know how everybody feels. I get a front row ticket to how, you know, some of the most successful people on paper will present.
31:16
And then you really get this kind of inside view of what their inner world is like. And oftentimes too, if somebody has a critical parent, that critical voice will stay with them. And that’s a tough one to get over, right? Because if you’re always told a B plus is not good, you have to get an A or you have to lose weight or you have to whatever.
31:45
that kind of spins and spins and spins. But the idea of imposter syndrome, I think it’s cool because it can go away. I think it’s a day at a time affair. Like going back to the sustainability piece, I don’t think you just snap your fingers and all of a sudden you’re like, oh, I’m over that and let’s just move on. There are things that I continuously work at in my life, but I always ask myself, are you helping people?
32:15
Can somebody follow you around with a camera wherever you go? Right, my counselor used to say that in rehab. He used to say, if I were to follow you wherever you go, would I be okay with your behavior? And at the time I was like, God, no, you wouldn’t be. But now, right, I try to live a good life. I try to help people. I try to not fall into over consumption, under consumption, whatever it is. And that way,
32:44
I can have like a lighter self-talk. Say I’m about to do something scary, like the podcast or whatever. You know, the voice could be, who am I to be interviewed on a podcast, right? So say that’s the example. My number one tip for any of that is action. Because if I say I were to have denied your request to come on the podcast and I just kind of sat in that and I was like, oh my God, what am I going to say? And
33:14
What if it goes really bad and who am I? I’m just gonna feed that. And it loves to be fed, that ego machine. Or instead I get to say, you know what? I’m gonna act as if I’m gonna show up, I’m gonna do my best. If she doesn’t wanna air it, she doesn’t have to. If whatever happens, happens, right? But.
33:35
It’s usually- We are hearing this. Live right now. But it’s usually through action that helps the imposter syndrome. You know, it’s a lot of people are terrified to sign up at the gym. What if people are staring at me? What if I get made fun of? And, you know, in my head, I don’t know about you, I’ve never made fun of anybody at the gym before. I’m like, good for you.
34:03
that you’re here crushing it, but when we let our minds take over and that like egoic voice take over, it’ll often hold us back from what we really want to be doing. I think you nailed it. But like for me, a big piece of it and, you know, likely being a woman, being ethnic, I think a big part of it is
34:27
when I am at corporate meetings or part of corporations and I used to work for a corporation, there’s that insecurity walking into a conference. Now there’s a lot of females, I’m not saying there isn’t, but there’s still that insecurity like A, I’m female, B, I’m ethnic, C, I’m short. I have a lot of those insecurities and so I feel like I’m not good enough.
34:54
And I’ve always had those feelings. I mean, ever since I was young or started in the workforce, but how do I, or how do people, you know, tell themselves that, you know, we are good enough, you know, I obviously went through with everything I had to, whether it was a conference, but you just don’t feel good enough. And it’s not like you said something or you did something. It’s literally like your appearance or like the way you are that makes you feel like that.
35:22
And women, I think, are the biggest targets, or they’re the people that probably suffer from imposter syndrome the most. I don’t have a stat on it, but I’m sure it’s out there and it’s a lot higher than men. So, you know, what do we do when we’re caught in those situations? Or like you mentioned, the gym. I mean, I actually dropped my gym membership exactly what you said, and I got things at home because I didn’t want to work out in front of people because I did think, you know, people are looking at me like, you know, I’m not that…
35:50
know, stereotypical skinny person that should be working out at a gym. Like that’s how I felt. thoughts on what we need to tell ourselves in that moment. Yeah. Well, first I will ask you, and now this is really turning into a therapy. First I will ask you, what have you made it mean that you walk into a boardroom and you’re short?
36:20
Let’s start with that. What does being short mean? I think for me it is a sass. I feel when you’re taller, that’s a sign of authority, power. You know, all the speakers, all the big people talking are always taller, you know, and I think it’s just what I’ve always seen. And it’s likely in my head, obviously now things are changing, but it’s that sign of authority I want to say. Interesting. Okay. So being taller gives you more authority.
36:50
That’s what I’ve sensed. Yes. Okay. Okay. And the female part? I think that more hits me once you have a family. I feel like once you have kids or you’ve been on mat leave, there’s that value, oh, but you’ve got to go home or, hey, you… So then you kind of take that as, I’m not good enough or I can’t spend all that time working so I’m not an authority anymore, even though we’re working double as hard.
37:20
That’s that sort of impression you get from others. Yep. And the ethnicity piece that you mentioned? I I graduated very young. I think I was 23 and I started working in a corporate world with a lot of, you know, Caucasian men. I mean, that was the majority of the corporate world back then. mean, this was 2008, 2009. That kind of stuck with me, right? Like I would literally walk in and be one of the, first of all, one of the few females at that time and…
37:47
than be ethnic. So it was more of, my gosh, know, can I break through in this environment? Am I good enough? Like, why are there so many non-ethnic or immigrant people? Things are shifting now. I’m not going to say they’re not, but there’s still that stigma and mentality that I still feel walking in through some of those doors and some of those conferences. Yeah, yeah.
38:13
Definitely, and all those pieces that you mentioned, know, like especially women, you know, fighting for their seat at the table, which is a real thing. It’s not an imposter thing. It’s not a made up thing. We have stats. So you have voting stats. you have everything is definitely starting to change. you know, these underlying ideas, these core beliefs, they follow us, right? They run really deep, you know, and what you’re talking about going to the gym and what people think.
38:43
I mean, I do the same thing even with making videos, you know, I’m like, because before my company used to be like primarily fitness and helping women with binge eating when I was in my 20s and I was like, washboard abs and super fit. So now I have this voice in the back of my mind that says like, you can’t make video content now, because you don’t look like that anymore. Right. So we often have this where a couple of the things that I do to help myself get over that is a I
39:13
Think of, I do a lot of, speak a lot in the recovery community, so people recovering from drug and alcohol abuse. And anytime I have attended a recovery meeting, when there’s a speaker up there, I’m sitting like in the front row and I’m like nodding and I’m smiling, because I know how nerve wracking it can be. Like these are not professional speakers. It’s terrifying to go up there in front of 50 to 100 people and share your.
39:41
innermost deepest darkest thoughts. So I’m really encouraging them to like, you could do it, you could do it, you could do it, right? Or when it comes to work or whatever it is, is I try to think about how I view other people. The more I can think of that, because anybody that’s ever said something totally wild to me, I remember a client’s father back when I used to work at the treatment center.
40:10
How did the blue, I can’t even remember what we were talking about, but he looked me up and down and he goes, well, you don’t look like a vegetarian. I just thought like, what an- What vegetarian look like? What do you have to say? You know, like, are you saying that I look puffy? Are you saying that I look like a meat eater? Like, but then I think to myself, and before I used to have like a nuclear weapon on my shoulder because I was used to being teased a lot in my home.
40:37
So I got into the habit of being able to defend myself. Yeah, I don’t really do that anymore if somebody is able to say Something that disturbing the first thought in my mind now is how unhappy are you inside? You got to be you have to be in a bad place to say pretty aggressive things to people So I just think now like when I walk in somewhere or I’m trying something new
41:06
I try to think how I would be viewing the other person doing that and hoping that there are just a bunch of other people like that in the room as well. And the truth is too, you know, for example, like, you know, my podcast or my content, maybe it’s not gonna be for everybody. And that’s okay too. Maybe somebody’s like, I don’t like blondes that wear glasses and have tigers on the wall. She’s not for me. Okay, great, great. But I’m gonna keep spreading the message for the people who are.
41:35
for me, the people who do, you know, because if I let that other voice win, because I’m pretty convinced that the egoic thought always wants to win. It’s hard if you have been telling yourself once, like if you’ve been telling yourself you’re short, little, you’re disempowered, you’re short, you’re little, your whole life, it’s hard to, it’s like swimming upstream.
42:01
You’re to walk on stage with your shoulders back and say, I got my heels on and I don’t give a shit that I’m short and I’m just gonna blow this talk out of the water. You’re going against the grain. But the more that we do that, I think it’s like the recovery term, fake it till you make it. The more I keep showing up, the more I keep practicing. again, I think the fight is often, because I’m not sure how many people have ever told you,
42:29
I don’t think you’re qualified because you’re short, ethnic, and a woman. Yeah. Nobody would say that. You know what? A part of it is in our head. Now I’m kind of tying the piece back to generational trauma because I remember- I’m gonna get a phone call after this. What have you done to me, Now my dad can’t listen to this podcast because when we were young, I remember he put this bar in our basement that we had to hang on because he thought it would help us get taller.
42:58
And he didn’t want us to be like following his family’s trend, which was to be shorter. And obviously that didn’t work, nor did drinking the milk. But it’s funny because you know what? I think that was always ingrained in us. So like you said, I don’t think anyone else feels that it’s more of a, it’s more of an internal thing, right? Because if I walked into those rooms,
43:23
feeling like I’m tall or feeling good, feeling confident, then I wouldn’t be talking about this with you today, right? So a lot of the fight is with ourselves, I want to say, and maybe others don’t care as much as we think they care. Yeah. Yeah. But look how old that messaging is, right? If that happened again between zero and 10 years old, that’s been a long time that the underlying message has been,
43:52
taller equals successful, taller equals empowered. So it doesn’t just come out of nowhere, right? And again, not in a blame or shame way, but somewhere along the line, your mom or dad got that same message. You didn’t get this because you’re petite or whatever, they were criticized about their height or their weight or whatever it was. And then we just pass down that misinformation. Yeah, yeah. And I think that’s the…
44:22
Like I look at my kids now and I, you know, I’m like, you know, sometimes like if I’m, I say something to them, cause as moms we just say things like, you know, Oh, that shirt doesn’t fit you anymore. How come? You know, and you’re kind of like say it in that tone. I’m like, shoot, I better not imply anything. I don’t want them to think that they don’t fit into their shirts. Right. Like, so I think we’re, are maybe overly conscious of what we say now, but we do have to be, I guess in this, in this day and age. Um, yeah.
44:49
No, thank you, just for today. feel like again, like this was a counseling session for me. So we have to do a part two because I really talked too much. No, I always find it so helpful for listeners when you when you can share a real experience, right? Like, there’s such an error in the therapy department that you you know, self disclosure is bad. And it’s like, no self disclosure is really it can be I mean, if it’s appropriate in the setting, but
45:15
especially on social media, I share so much of my past because a I’m not I’m in a healed healing place of it. And it helps it helps other people listening because they think like, Oh, God, and then they start tying it to their own experience. So I always think it’s helpful to share real stuff, real stories. Thank you so much. And I think the take home is we got to start living for ourselves, not others.
45:42
You can catch Jess on her Living Out Loud podcast. You can see her background there, which I love, the tigers with the bright pink that she is going to shine now. But subscribe to her. We’re going to link everything in the show notes and hopefully she’ll agree to do a part two so we can talk about the things that we didn’t get to. So thank you so much, Jess, for your You’re very welcome. Thanks for having me. Thank you, listeners and viewers for tuning in. If you want to catch more episodes of Uncover Your Eyes,
46:10
make sure to follow or subscribe on your favourite podcast platform and on YouTube. To learn more about me, follow me on Instagram @Dr.MeenalAgarwal Until next time, keep those eyes uncovered!
46:31
See comfortably, near and far.
46:37
with total multifocal contact lenses. Feels like nothing.