How can someone get out of the trap of people pleasing?
The difficulty is not necessarily just with the word no, it's with all the feelings that come with it.
Julie, you are a clinical psychologist and one of the original therapists to discuss mental health issues on social media. Your first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before? Is an international bestseller, and your new book is Open When a companion for life's twists and turns? Is there a way to turn comparison into something that's positive and useful in our life?
If your comparison turns into you feeling terrible, that's no good for you. Whereas if the comparison turns into a plan of action, that's a pretty good skill to have.
It's basically turning comparison into admiration and education.
If you're not asserting your own desires or wishes or needs and then resenting your partner or your friend fulfilling the space for you.
And then it comes back to, Okay, well what do you want?
I'm Rady Wukiah and on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfielded conversations celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in to learn, connect and find comfort together. Julie, thank you so much for being here on a really good cry. You're a clinical psychologist and one of the original therapists to discuss mental health issues on social media.
You've built a social media community of over ten million people, which is incredible because it shows how so many people want to grow and be better. Your first book, Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before, is an international bestseller and has solved over a million copies.
That is incredible.
And your new book is Open When a Companion for Life's twists and turns. And honestly, I love the name of the book and as soon as I opened it up, I was like, this is like an emergency talkit for anybody at any stage of their life. So thank you so much for writing the book, and thank you so much for being here.
I'm so excited.
Thank you. I'm really excited to be here too, So thanks for having me.
So tell me how.
I just want to start off by asking how did you begin this journey like one obviously becoming a clinical psychologist, but then to take that information and share it online. What connected you to and made you want to go into that platform.
I think in some ways.
So I worked in the NHS for about ten years, and when I had two of my now three children, I realized I couldn't do it all, not well anyway. So I decided to leave the NHS, take a break from that for a while, and run just a really small private practice, mostly so that I could control my own time and work that around the children and stuff.
And it was during that time that I was seeing people who were coming along who didn't necessarily need long term, in depth therapy, but once they had the educational stuff that went with therapy, so learning about how their mind works, how they could impact on their own mood and their relationships, they found some of that information so empowering. They were raring to go, and they were kind of saying, do you know what, I think I'm going to be all right?
I think I can cope with what comes ahead, comes up, you know what life throws at me. So I just kept saying to my poor husband, Matt, they should be more available. People shouldn't have to pay to come and see someone like me to find out how their own mind works. Right, So he kind of said, well, go on, then, make it available. Oh god, I don't think you're going
to solve that for me. So yeah, we made a few really terrible YouTube videos and stuff, and at the same time, then this huge rise in short form content was happening, and maps go with TikTok and there were loads of kids on there. There was lots of kind of dancing and comedy and stuff, but then there were also these people expressing their distress and about their mental health. But there didn't seem to be any decent education in response to that. So he said, well, why don't we
do some bite size videos? And my initial response was absolutely not. We will just get trolled out of there or people just won't listen. You know, how can I be How can I give anything that's really useful in sixty seconds these things that I would take half an hour to talk about in therapy. But it became quite a creative challenge. We decided to just let's give it go and if it doesn't work out, then it doesn't
work out. And it worked out within yea. Within like a week or two, there were just people emailing and contacting us saying, what's the next step to this?
What if I apply this to that and can you do a vide on this?
And we realize, oh my gosh, this is reaching real people and impacting them enough that they're willing to, you know, get in contact and ask more questions.
So we just carried on.
Wow, well, Matt sounds like a great supporter in everything you do. Yeah, it's very nice to have.
Yeah, it's definitely the two of us.
I mean, yeah, he still has his own business, but we kind of do that in the evenings.
What's put the children to bed? Do? We then kind of make videos and stuff like that.
It's also so sweet that you guys get to do something where you know, you're you know, it's an active service. You're helping other people together. Can I imagine that even for your relationship. Is such a beautiful thing to have between you, where your spare time is spent helping other people together.
Yeah.
And really, because I'm quite a sort of introvert, shy person, I was really comfortable doing the one on one in the therapy room, doing what I knew I was good at. So all this idea of kind of being a very public person was way out of my comfort zone. And so the thing that really made it happen was the real lifezation that with all this feedback coming through that
it's having a positive impact. So whenever I was a bit tired of it, we kind of said, well, when we're not having a positive impact anymore, will start.
Yes, but here we are.
How many that was we started in twenty nineteen.
That's amazing, congratulations, what a feet And really would love to go through your new book because I think there's so many incredible moments in them. I picked out a few of the areas that connected with me and just for everybody to give context. The book open when essentially goes through different points in your life where you might
need to open the book. So whether it's when you feel unwelcome and want to fit in, when they don't love you back, when you doubt yourself and want to feel more confident, when you're overwhelmed.
These are just a couple of the topics that you've covered in there.
But I want to start with when you compare yourself and come up shorts because I think that it is something all of us do at some point in life, if not through our whole entire life. Well, the first thing I thought when I read it was can compare Garson be healthy in some way, Like, is there a way to turn comparison into something that's positive and useful in our life?
Yeah?
And I think that's a major key to why I included that chapter in the book, And because it's something that happens to everybody. We all experience it because it's what humans do. And yet when you go on social media, the thing you see most is just stop comparing yourself.
Just don't do it because it makes you feel bad.
And it's sort of like, well, if we do that naturally, that's because there's a function to it, and there really is. Right, if you never assessed what other people around you are doing, or what kind of morals they have or how they're living, then you would become a pretty terrible community member, right.
And so our ability to compare ourselves to the people that we live amongst and ensure that we're, you know, doing the right thing or keeping in in line with that community and their own values, then it makes us a decent human being to live around. And I think what happens is when comparison becomes detrimental is when we're
making the wrong comparisons. So often, when we're comparing ourselves to the wrong people or for the wrong reasons, or we're comparing something that can't really be changed, so you know, you might see what on social media, it's usually you're comparing yourself to someone that you wouldn't have even known existed before social media, right, someone who's not on a level playing field, has a completely different start in life, completely different resources and set up, and usually the part
you're seeing of them is a very curated image that's not even representative of what they're really like when they wake up in the morning, all of those sort of things. So it's just not a decent, fair comparison to make. And you often comparing things that can't be changed, you know, like I don't know your personality or certain talents or how you look or those kind of things, and so that is going to lead to really dark places or
you know, some time. Other comparisons that can be really unhelpful as well, I think, are comparing yourself to people that you're supposed to be in a relationship with, be
that family, friends, partners. As soon as you do that, as soon as you start to compare yourself to someone that you're trying to have some sort of relationship with, you kind of put a scoreboard between you two, and that means then whenever you experience a victory that's maybe seen as a loss on their part, or whenever they experience a personal victory, then you feel bad about it or you feel like that means that you're somehow less than them more that kind of thing, and that's so
disruptive to the relationship, right because you're suddenly in competition as opposed to being on the same team and nurturing each other and supporting each other.
So many things came into my head while you were saying all those incredible things. The first thing was, it's so interesting, isn't it, how we as humans will fixate on the things that we can't control over the things that we can control, And alway, think about that because when you say, you know, there are so many things where you're comparing yourself, you know, against people or situations that you were never put in, like you didn't have
the same start as that person did. And so many times we're fixated and can completely obsess over these parts of our life that we can't control, which takes away all the energy to actually be able to put into the parts of our life that we can control and feel good about. And you know, one I wonder why we have that psychology because in my mind, I'm like, when it makes more sense for us to focus on the things that we feel like we can control and
that we can change in our life. So why do you think it is that we end up doing the opposite and kind of put ourselves in a position where we actually feel helpless.
I think we just have that ability and that tendency to compare, But your brain only has so much information to go on, and so it won't necessarily be as refined as only comparing against things that are helpful, you know. And that's where we have to sort of be aware of it and take.
Of our attention in that way.
And so when you know you're comparing yourself in a way that is having a negative impact, then shifting the sort of trajectory of your attention towards things that are helpful and because actually you can use that skill to be able to compare to your advantage hugely, you know, if you I don't know, let's say you want to get better at public speaking, and you know, if you sort of compare your just beginning in your journey and you compare yourself to someone who's towards the latter end
of their journey, so they've mastered it all, they've had all the achievements, and you make that comparison, that's generally going to be fairly unhelpful because you're going to feel like you're just it's unachievable, it's so far to go.
Whereas if you take someone who might be, you know, half a dozen steps ahead of you, and they do something well that you are specifically trying to improve on, then you can hone in on that very concrete, specific thing and you can analyze it so you can kind of earn that sort of envy into inspiration.
Really, so, how do they do that thing really well that I want to do really well?
And you can break it down and you can be very concrete about it, and then you turn that comparison into an action. And I think that's the real key is if your comparison turns into you feeling terrible, culling up on the sofa, wishing you as someone else, that's no good for you orreas if the comparison turns into a plan of action so that's actually going to improve your life, then that's a pretty good skill to have.
Yeah, I know, I was thinking while you were saying that that it's basically turning comparison into admiration and education, Like you're turning it into Okay, how can I really admire this person? Actually, what I'm feeling is admiration because their skill set is incredible and I want to be at that level. But then how can I get to that level? It's education, so I also learn from that person and turn them into a teacher rather than somebody
that I am trying to become. How can I also become just as good as them by learning from the steps that they've taken because they are so far ahead of me in that game, you know. I think sometimes comparison can get to a very toxix stage, which is envy, and I think there's jealousy, which is where you're like, you know, I really want to be like that person, and I think they're great and I want to be like them, But then envy is kind of like I want to be like them, but I also don't want
them to have it. And if there is someone who is at their stage of feeling quite envious about other people and feeling really down about their life, what are some practical steps that people can take to turn away from that envy or really train their mind away from that mindset.
I think that often happens when people become slightly detached from their own values, or maybe they just aren't really aware of what those are. So you're so focused on looking to others for how you should be living your life or what you should be working towards, and without really questioning whether that's going to be any good for you. There's a really great exercise that I used to do in therapy with people that I continue to do on a regular base myself, and that's because it's just really
centering and really helpful, and it's really simple. So you can get a piece of paper and you just split the piece of paper up into lots of different boxes, and each one is a different area of your life. So you might have health, marriage, parenting, friendship, education, lifelong learning, whatever it is, all of those different things, all the different parts of your life, and then in each box you fill in some words about what matters most to
you in that area of your life. So not you what you want to get, not what you want to happen to you, but how you want to show up the kind of person you want to be in that area of your life in good times and bad, and then from there you get this idea of it might be a few words or sentences, but it's this kind of vision of how you want to be living.
So you kind of rate then each box.
I would rate it out of ten, really crude, So like you know, ten out of ten is the most important thing to me, zero not at all. And you get all those scores and then you rate them again, but this time how much I feel I'm living in line with those values that I've just set out in the last couple of weeks or the last month. And then what you get is these scores that show you
which way to put your attention. So if something if you scored something as ten out of ten important to you, let's say your health, it's ten out of ten important to you, but you've then put it as two out of ten in terms of how much you're living in line with the values you just set out. Then it's just a really good indication of this area of your life needs your attention. And I think you have to be careful not to turn it into self criticism.
Yes, because the.
Key is that Okay, there are so many different areas of your life. You can't score ten out of ten on everything all of the time. So life will pull you in different directions. So let's say if I have a big project on at work or you know, releasing the book things like that, I get really busy and there's lots going on and probably not doing all the sort of parenting things that I want to be doing at that time, and so that score might go down, and this one might be really high.
But that's just an indication of me to.
Go, Okay, now I know where I need to go for the next few months and just really nurture this side of my life and health and things like that might come up as well. So it just enables you to just keep not necessarily balanced, because that suggests that you're kind of everything's perfect. It's more of a harmony of movement or just being aware of where you're being pulled away from that matters to you so that you
can return to it. And so when we look at that in terms of envy, I think we can easily get caught up in envy without realizing that that thing that looks shiny and great, maybe it isn't all it's cracked up to be. But also maybe it doesn't even feature on our own values list. You can get caught up in a feeling and then when you look at your values sometimes it can bring you back to center and make you realize, well, actually that was kind of
not warranted or proportionate. It was just a moment of seeing something that looked pretty for a while or shiny and created that desire for a moment that doesn't really feature.
Also, I think when you do thatctice, which by the way, I think is incredible, I think you then end up seeing where you feel disheartened in your life and where you feel like you feel disconnected. And often where we feel like we're failing in our own life is where we end up comparing ourselves to in other ways with other people.
And so actually, if you.
Focus on what do I feel discontent and in my life right now, because usually when you feel discontent is when you end up having negative thoughts or those envious or geedosis. That's how that's if I think about myself, those are the times that I felt I had those
negative thoughts about other people. It's when I'm actually not focusing on the things that I want to not achieving, the things that I want to putting in, the energy in the places I want to, being distracted in the spaces where I shouldn't be, and then I feel disappointed with myself. And because of that, I then see other people succeeding in areas, but I also don't see the work that they're putting in and the time that they're putting in and the energy they're putting into the right
areas in their life. And so for me, it's always been a good indication of when I feel envy or jealousy or anything like that, where am I feeling discontent in my own life?
Yeah, And I think that's a real sort of misconception out there that when you have an uncomfortable emotion that you're supposed to get rid of it, or that it says something about you that you're even feeling it, And it doesn't is information, you know, it's your brain saying,
hang on, look at this for a minute. And so if we're willing to that's a lot of what happens in therapy actually is taking people from judging themselves for even experiencing an emotion to just letting go of the judgment and then turning back towards that feeling with curiosity, wasn't that interesting that feeling came up? What's going on there?
What's the context around that? And so, like you say, whether it's envy or jealousy or anything else, you're then free to look at Okay, well, does that indicate that there's something I need to work on for myself? So that I would feel a bit better about that? And Yeah, it's just so so much more productive to connect with emotions in that way rather than try to numb them
or judge ourselves for having them. They're not who we are, They're an experience, and so when we're willing to look at them in that way, it's so much easier to learn from them and use all the advantages that they bring us.
Yeah, you said this in the book, and I really liked it. You said, resentment is not a reflection of what the world owes you, it's a sign of what you need to work on. And that just it's like the perfect conclusion to what we've just been speaking about. Resentment is not a reflection of what the world owes you. It's a sign of what you need to work on, and as soon as you start thinking about life in that way, it just constantly.
Comes back to you.
I think that's sometimes when we get stuck in victim mindset too, where you're like, this is wrong in my life, and this is wrong in my life, and this person did this to me. And actually most of those things are coming into your life for you to learn a lesson
about you. Yeah, and as soon as you if you constantly come back to that narrative, not saying that you have to be, like you said, not judgmental in yourself, but every experience is teaching you a lesson, whether it's happening to you or whether you're creating that experience, it's all there for that purpose.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that was beautiful.
The next one that really, you know, shouted out to me was when your friends are not your friends.
Yeah, so open when.
Your friends are not your friends? How do you know when it's time to let go of a friendship? Like, do you have clear signs in your eyes where you're like, these are the signs where you know what this friendship is probably no longer useful in your life.
Yeah.
I think I think this is a big one, and actually something I've been asked about a lot since putting it into the book. Is that we were kind of taught as kids, you know, friends are forever, that sort of thing that if it's a you know, a perfect friendship, it will last forever, it will always be good, there will never be ups and downs or difficulties. And the truth is that people change as they grow and move
through different chapters of their life. And when I talked about that values exercise, the reason I do that on a fairly regular bait, you know, every few months or so, it's because values changed depending on what you're going through in your life at that point. Those sorts of things like changes in your values and what matters to you also changes friendships and relationships from both sides.
So I think this is.
A it feels like a new area of conversation that people haven't really been having before around is it okay to end a friendship if it's not healthy or you know, especially if you've known someone since since you were a child. We hold onto those friendships because there are old friends and we should know.
Us from like back in the day. Yeah, they're no a version of us that no one else knows.
And even sometimes that I think the signs that a friendship might not be healthy can be so subtle.
It's not like a sort.
Of one big red flag and then you think, right, that needs to end because this is not okay. I think it often comes very gradually and subtly over.
Time in the in sort of feelings.
You know, it's the feeling you get when you walk away from a friendship group and you think, ah, they were going to stop.
Talking about me now, or do they really like me?
Or why am I being excluded from this or that or the other, and and so there's lots of kind of subtle signs, or maybe you start to realize that you can't really share positive information about it, like maybe things are going well for you in your career or whatever, you know, relationship, but you realize that information is not welcome.
People don't want to.
Hear it, or it's followed up with kind of praise
that feels like insult under the surface. Or maybe you're sharing something that you're going through negatively and you're making a bid for connection, right, You're looking for support, but it's met with a sort of one upmanship of oh, well I had it much worse, and so that bid for connection is kind of squashed by someone who doesn't want to hear that either, And so then you find yourself censoring yourself in your friendships and just doesn't feel
like a safe environment to be anymore. Well, you don't feel like you can fully be yourself because if you are, you wouldn't be accepted. And those sorts of indications. It's sort of kind of a mixture. It's like a big soup of subtle signs and feelings, isn't it. And so that's why in the book, in that chapter, I kind of make it really clear that you don't make any rash decisions when it comes to me, because it's your life, right And friendships are so important, and not only friendships,
but good quality friendships. And so you could have a good quality friendship, but your friend could be going through a rough time exactly and not be at the best for a while, And so we have to be able to tolerate that in the way that we would want them to tolerate us not being at our best, but also looking after our own sort of well being at the same time.
Yeah, I think red flags make it almost easier to be like, Okay, this is the end of a friendship.
But yeah, when I was reading that, I've been through so many moments in my life where, you know, some of my bestest friends from childhood, we've had to have periods, maybe years in between, where we just don't speak, not because anything drastic has happened, or if we just aren't connecting and the connection is based on our past selves and everything is based on the past and not the present or the future, and we end up meeting, but
there's no true connection. It's purely nostalgia. And I think there is an element to nostalgia which I think is really beautiful and wonderful when you think about all the times you've had together. But when it's only that and you're not able to connect as who you are now and you have to keep going back to these versions of yourself that you used to be. For me, that ended up being a sign, and so I had a
choice to make. I was like, Okay, either we try to reconnect as the new people that we are now or the friendship is pretty much withering away. And so with some of them, because I felt like it was worth the investment, I was like, I want to get to know you again, like brand new, not the people we were ten years ago. I want to know what do you like to read now? Like what type of person you? How do you want me to communicate with you?
It really is like a relationship, And when you think about it in that way, you know, with me and my husband, we've been through so many different versions of ourselves as we've been together, and there's only so many people that you can make the time investment to truly get to know each other over and over again, and so it's actually quite na for friendships to wither away because there's only so much time.
We have.
A lot of that is focused on trying to make sure your one relationship that you're in is remaining stable and the connection is staying good. And then after that you may have your family members and then so friends. It's almost like you have to pick the few that you really want to invest those moments in because you can't have more than that. It's so impossible to invest
that time into so many more people. I think that that part is the ebbs and flows of allowing the friendship to leave if it needs to leave at that moment in time, but also knowing that there may be a time where it comes back, even stronger, and I've had that so many times in my life, and it actually has been better the second time around, where we needed that time apart for us to reconnect again.
And it's knowing that that's okay.
Isn't exactly you can have different chapters of your life where because a lot of friendships are also really based around circumstance, So you know, if you're both in that same chapter of your life at the same time, then you might spend lots of time together at that point, and that's okay. But then it's equally okay to I love those friendships where maybe you have a certain few chapters in your life where you don't see each other, and then when you come back together again, it's like
that time never happened. You're just straight back into it. And it's wonderful and it's lovely to have those kind
of connections. But I think when we set friendship up around all of these kind of rules and you know, it has to be this and we have to see each other this much, and we have to phone each other all the time and we have to yeah, yeah, and that's when it's so sort of almost overly sensitive, then too, isn't it that it becomes an unsafe environment because there are so many things we can get wrong.
Yes, the situational part is so true. It's like I had friends that I grew up with and then some of them started having children way earlier than some of our other friends were, and so naturally the way that you can spend time together shifts, or the times that you can spend time together shifts. And it's not that any of us fell like out of love with each other as friends. It was just that the situations were
not allowing us to connect in the same way. And so, but I get a lot of messages from people's saying my friends whenever I do a podcast to do with friendship, my friends like, I had a baby, and I feel so alone now because all my friends don't have children, and now I feel disconnected. They're all going out doing things, and I remember one of my friends felt like that too, and now looking back, I was like, yeah, we could have probably could have been a bit more sensitive to that.
But when you are not in that situation and it's ninety percent of you are actually without a child and that one friend has one, it's almost like it's so difficult to put yourself in their position, but saying that when the rest of our friends ended up getting children, they were reconnected and had that relationship again. So I do think situations can change. I have a lot of single friends, and so the way that they spend time together is really different to the way that I would
spend time with them. The conversations that they have are really different to the conversations that I might be able to participate in. And so, yeah, I think where you are at in life can also really determine the type of conversation and connection that you can have with friends.
Yeah.
Yeah, And I think when you start to kind of sense that friendship might not be healthy, or someone might not have your best interests at heart, or maybe the trust is stop going because you know, you've had a few of those sort of sarcastic comments or you know, loaded comments that make you feel like, oh you don't you're not happy about this, or you're not as trustworthy
as I thought you were. Then I think it's okay to kind of take that slowly, isn't it, Because of all those things about the different chapters and people change and people going through different things. So you talk about in the book, is watch and learn, just observe, take it on board, don't ignore it. And it doesn't have to be a big dramatic thing either. You could just observe, note it, and keep learning about the person as they
reveal themselves to you. And because it might be a bad patch, it might be that they're going through some stuff, or it might be too much, you know, something that you don't have to have.
In your life.
I also think sometimes when can get really close to each other, there's this idea of being able to give extremely raw feedback to someone, Like the criticism that you're able to give, you think it's constructive, but sometimes it can be kind of cruel. And so you know, I don't know whether you have an opinion on this. Where the difference between when you get close to somebody what how to know the balance between whether the criticism that you're actually giving is constructive.
Or whether it's actually just not your place to say anything.
I think that's something women struggle with more than men, is the idea of oh, I have to tell you my opinion, and I love you, and so why I'm going to tell you what I think about this, this and this, But sometimes giving your opinion isn't part of the relationship that you have.
Yeah, and you know what, it's a really tough one where a lot of and again there's lots of stuff online, isn't there where it's sort of you know, if your friend isn't supporting you and your girls, then ditch them, and that kind of And actually, I think that sort of neglects the nuance of what happens if your friend is self distructing and going down a path that's not
good for them. That takes a really brave friend to say, you're making their own decisions right, and let's pull it back, because that kind of honesty and criticism's mortally honest.
Yeah, and it is what.
That person might need, but it also puts the whole friendship at risk because they might say, don't want to hear it. I'm on this path and if you don't like it, you know, that's it. So I think there's often that really difficult judgment call as to do I just want to hold onto this friendship even though this person might be making some really bad decisions for themselves, or do I try and be a kind of positive force for them, And that's such a hard decision to make.
And a really difficult conversation to have, even once you have made the decision to say something, because the likelihood of them listening is potentially fairly slim.
Also when it's to do with the other person's partner, Like I I recently did a podcast all about friendship with some of my other friends, and one of the key things that came up in a poll was people separating from friendships because of the other person's partner. And I was like, wow, I didn't realize that was such
a big part of it. Where they've had they don't believe that person should be with them, or they've had bad interactions with that person and so don't want to be around them and therefore can't be around their friend as much. And so I think it's it's quite hard for people to separate their friend from the person that they're with, and that can be quite tricky.
Yeah, And all of those situations are just again, it's that judgment call, isn't it. Of how useful is it in this situation for me to be honest about it, right,
you know? Because you know, is it always useful to have a big, dramatic ending to a relationship to a friendship, or do we just accept that, you know, our lives are going in different directions and so we're probably going to see each other a little bit less, or when we do see each other, probably not going to tell them all the things that I would have trusted them
with in the past. And I think it's okay to have both, isn't it Sometimes as a really significant end point to a friendship and other times it might just be a bit more kind of a gradual drifting, and that's okay.
Yeah, exactly.
You know. I think with the rise in how anxious people are feeling nowadays, connecting in social situations can feel really daunting, or you can come away from an event or around your own friends and feel like you still feel so disconnected and haven't had a meaningful conversation. For people who feel really awkward in social situations, do you have any tips or tricks for them of how to actually connect and how to come away feeling like they've had meaning in that interaction.
I think this is a huge one, actually, where so much of it is around the focus of your attention. So if someone is feeling socially awkward or socially anxious, generally their attention will be focused inward, so it will all be how am I coming across, What is this other person thinking about me?
What did they think when I said that? Are they judging me?
And it's all this kind of inward focus and self adjustment that generates more and more anxiety in that situation, whereas someone who is confident not so much focused on how to avoid all the awkwardness and getting it wrong. They're not really focused on that at all. They're focused on the other person and getting to know them or finding out certain things about them, or making them feel welcome.
And that's something that was really key for me in the book was.
This idea of we often go into a situation and we're scanning, and we're looking for someone who is going to greet us and make us feel welcome and help us feel calmer and more comforted. But most people are probably in the same situation, right So, especially if it's one of the events where everyone turns up kind of on their own, you don't really know anybody.
Everyone's hoping that someone else does that for them.
And so something I'll talked about in their book was about what if we were all going to go into a situation and be the welcomer instead of waiting to be welcomed, even if it's not your arena and it's not.
Your home or whatever.
Is going to someone and making it your mission to make them feel welcome and make them feel interesting or you know, have them walk away from you feeling ten feet tall. And so because when we do that, the same comes back. And because we're all just human, we're
all just waiting to feel welcomed and accepted. So a lot of the time, you know, if I'm working with people who feel socially awkward or socially anxious, we work on that kind of shift of attention from inward to outward, but also this mission of action towards Okay, how can I make other people feel a bit more comfortable, because in the process you do that for yourself as well.
Yeah, and then you feel more useful in that situation as well. I actually wrote that part down because every lected don't wait to be welcomed, be the welcomer. When I was feeling through it, and I was like, that's such a beautiful thing to do for someone else when you walk into an environment. And I started doing that when I was started to going to lots of events by myself. I would automatic say, did you come here alone?
I came here alone too. I was a little bit nervous coming into here, but it's so nice that I finally found someone that I can speak to or like, you know, kind of addressing the elephant in the room helped well, because I was like, oh god, I was really nervous too. I was meant to come with a friend, but I ended up coming alone. And now and I would always say, I usually find one person to stick to. That person might be or like, you know, making a joke or something that might not be useful for them.
They're like, God, I want to get rid of this girl.
But for me that made me feel comfortable because I was kind of just sharing how I was feeling in the moment and it wasn't just pent up inside of me. And then it allowed the other person to also be vulnerable and share too.
Yeah, And it's only through experience that we managed to kind of acknowledge that. I I remember going to someone's book claunch event on my own in London, and it was the first time I'd ever done anything like that, and I noticed in myself it's sort of almost cover avoidance strategies. So I got there, I sort of nursed my jacket for a while before some one took it from me, and then I went to the bar and I sort of spent time, you know, choosing my drink.
And really all of this was an.
Avoidance of finding interact to you, yeah, because then I kind of held my drink and then I went off to the bathroom there.
Yeah.
And it's all cover avoidance, isn't it.
It's all us trying to feel a bit safer from that anxious feeling. And actually when up, you know, the whole situation turned around for me in the moment that I decided to just be brave and start a conversation with someone, and you often find that that person is also on their own or knows somebody. And I heard an amazing story actually from a home about a group of girls that all went out to a pub together to have a little sociure and they're all giggling and
having some fun. And there was another woman in the pub reading a book, and she had just moved to the area, she didn't know anybody, and she looked over and she could see these girls having fun together, and she just did the bravest thing. She put her book down, she walked over and she said, Hi, this is really strange thing to do. I've never done this before, but I've just moved to the area. I don't know anybody, and you all seem like you're really fun.
Would you mind if I join you? And that was a couple of years ago.
She's now a really solid part of that friendship group, just because of that moment that she was enough to say to risk everybody kind of looking funny at her and saying no, thank you. She was brave enough to say, could I come and join you? This is my name, what's yours? And from that developed really incredible human connections.
But I thought, how brave was that there was me at that book launch, holding my drink and going to the loutino anytimes, And I thought that was such an inspiration to think it just if you're willing to have that vulnerable moment in which you have to kind of cultivate some real courage, the potential to develop friendships is huge.
It's creating these opportunities for connection.
Yeah, because a lot of the times there aren't that many opportunities, so you kind of have to be the one to step out of your comfort zone to create them for yourself. Yeah.
And if you're willing to kind of sit with that feeling of the potential for someone to say no, thank you, then you can always kind of cope with that afterwards by acknowledging that it was a risk and if that person is going to behave like that in response, they're probably not for you anyway. So you've learned that quicker than you perhaps want to go to.
Yeah.
The next area of your book is open when you keep saying yes but want to say no. I think you shared a quote that in the book that says, when you say yes to others, make sure you're not saying no to yourself. So how can someone get out of the trap of people pleasing yeah, Because I think that's also something many of us struggle with.
Yeah, And I talk about it in that chatcha around how the difficulty is not necessarily just with the word no. It's with all the feelings that come with it, right, And it's that sense of I am somehow responsible for how they feel, and if they feel disappointment, that's my fault and I need to be accountable for that and or responsible for it, and so a lot of the work that happens in therapy around sort of a lot of ascertainness stuff happens in therapy actually, but a lot
of that work is around the feelings, you know, because people say, well, well, I'll feel guilty if I say no, and so it's the feeling of guilt that feels intolerable. And as soon as you're willing to accept that guilt, welcome it, acknowledge it, and take it with you, then it can't hold you back. It's only if you're unwilling to feel that sense of guilt that it becomes too difficult to say no or to hold a boundary. And if you have again, it comes back to the value stuff.
If you have clarity on your values, so you understand why you're going to say no at this point, or why you're going to hold a boundary, then it's much easier to acknowledge that I'm going to feel guilty about it. But that guilt doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong to
hold this boundary. That guilt might be an echo of the past where maybe I grew up in a home where you know, I was taught that if I said no or I put myself first, that I got punished for it maybe, or you know something that might have taught you to feel guilty about putting yourself first, or even not even putting yourself first, but putting yourself to the same level as everybody else. Sometimes can feel filled
with guilt. But if you acknowledge that that emotion doesn't have all the information, so it can be an echo of the past then because the reason it can be an echo of the past is that you know, your brain is constantly taking information from the outside world and inside your body about how to make meaning about what's going on. But it will also take memories from the past about when you felt similar or when something similar is happening to help it make sense of what's going on.
And so everything that happened, you know, in childhood or your early years, is still a part of the equation today but might be unhelpful.
So if you can.
See that guilt as Okay, this is an echo of my past, but it's not necessarily relevant to how I want to live now, then we're able to kind of scoop it up and take it with And I do this because I always you see this metaphor of kind of put it in your backpack, take it with you so that it can't hold you back. And so if you're willing to kind of take the guilt with you knowing that it doesn't mean you're wrong to do this thing. Sometimes you listen to Gil and it means you're wrong
about what you're doing. But it's if you're willing to look at the feeling with curiosity, then you can decipher whether it's warranted in this moment or whether it's from the past.
You talk in your book about the I don't mind kind of person, and I resonated with it so much because I really really used to be that I don't mind kind of person, where you know, what do you want to eat? Oh, I don't really mind, what do you want to I don't mind.
What do you want to do in life? I don't really know. I don't really mind.
And at that time, it was it was me thinking I'm just so easy, like I'm such an easy person to be around.
I can be.
Really flexible, and I don't really have my own desires or opinions, and so in my mind it made me seem like an easy person to be around, because if I was an easy person to be around. Then you've got no reason to leave or to not be my friend or to not be my partner. I'm certainly thing when I was reading it, because I've really worked on that since, because it also made me someone who did it have an opinion, and therefore if I don't have an opinion, it felt like I lacked personality, and so
actually my personality became the people's personality around me. Oh you want pizza, okay, yeah, I'm a pizza person too, Or oh you want to watch that movie Okay, yeah, I think I like that movie too, And so essentially I was absorbing everybody else's opinions and personalities around me without being it, because if you're not exerting your own personality, it ceases to exist. And so constantly taking on other people's narratives and what they liked and disliked, it was like, then,
who who am I? And it reminded me of what's that movie where? Or maybe it's Rachel and Friends or something where they say whenever she dates someone, she'd ended up being being that kind of person, like whoever you end up dating, it's like, oh, yeah, I'm you reade Motorbikes I read motorbikes now too, or like you like heavy metal music, I like heavy metal.
No, it's Julia Robertson in Runaway Bride.
Now you have al watched that, so you're almost a chameleon who you're with.
And so yeah, I think it was just really a big light barb moment because I think there is this idea that you should be able to be assertive without feeling like you're being harsh, Like you can be assertive without being aggressive, and I think I hadn't been able to distinguish between the two. So for anybody who's trying to create boundaries, like is there any advice that you have for that and being able to be their own person without feeling like they're being too harsh or aggressive about it.
Yeah, And I think I absolutely resonate with what you kind of said.
I did a video I think it was a couple of years back now about this idea that with the kind of I don't mind type approach. But I had this Jenger tower and I would I said, every time you say I don't mind or you can choose, it's like taking a piece out of the middle of the tower. And then I said, well, but then when you get to the point where you're on a stage in your life where you have to make your own decisions or
you have to make you have your own preferences. And I sort of then turned around the at the Junga tow, which then was just full of holes. And then you kind of think, I don't really know what my preferences are because I've never had a chance to choose them, or you know, I've never never given them the time of day, and so, like you say, you then feel a bit empty, like I don't really know what I like or I don't know what I would choose on. And I find it difficult to make decisions because I
always put those decisions onto other people. And it can be a real path to resentment as well, because if you're doing that and you're saying you know, you can choose everything, then when those choices are wrong for you and you don't have a nice experience or you know, it doesn't work out, then it's therefore.
You blame them. Yeah, I think I did that to my husband at the beginning. Actually, yeah, but.
You told me I should go to this, because I didn't actually tell you you have you had a choice.
Yeah, that's it, and then that feeling of resentment.
The quote that you came up with earlier about how you know resentment isn't something that the world owes you, it's that you know something that you need to work on. I would say with this staff is look out for those feelings of resentment because they're a sign that there was some sort of boundary that wasn't held before.
You know that if you're not.
Asserting your own desires or wishes or needs and then resenting your partner or your friend fulfilling the space for you, then it comes back to Okay, well, what do you want that's not this? And how are you willing to advocate for yourself? And if you don't advocate for yourself that you know that path into resentment bitterness is steep and dark and not fun.
And then it's not good for you or the other person.
Like you think you're doing it for the other person, Yeah, but actually it messes with that relationship too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The next one that hit me hard was open this when you want to win the argument, Emilio. Not that that's an excuse, but I will say that I am working on this a lot. I've gotten better, but so stubborn. He was so stubborn an argument with someone who is like my husband is the sweetest arguer, Like he has zero desire to argue with me, even whether if he's wrong, He will like apologize if I'm wrong, he will try and like have the conversation in a really loving way.
And I'm there, hot headed, and I.
Know I'm in the wrong, but for some reason, there is no part of me that wants to admit I'm in the wrong. And on top of that, I want to keep my argument going for as long as possible. And so you said, I was just there was a part in their way. He said, think very carefully before beating down your own team. When you fight with the people you love, the only person who thinks you look good in victory is you.
I was like, Oh, that's so true.
To those you defeat, the memory becomes less about how you turned out to be right and more about how you made them feel crushed, unheard and unloved. Their witness to how you were willing to be in the name of winning an argument will corrode their trust in you for a long time to come.
And I was like, that is.
If anything was going to stop me it'll be those ways. But yeah, it's so true. It's so interesting how your ego can completely take over. Even with the person that you want to love the most, or even with the person that you never want to hurt, you end up trying to have an ego with them. And it's like there is no place for ego in love, but for some reason it shows up quite a bit.
Yeah, and it's but and it's natural, isn't it.
You know that's where you know, anger is that kind of last resort emotion almost where something is important to us, that's that's happened and you know, and we want to change it, and a big emotion has risen up. Then it makes sense that we we just want to be heard in that moment and we want things to go our way. And so that's very normal and human. And you know, even having written those words, I still you know,
don't get that right. Every time I'm right, I'm right, and so you know, it's still human for that to happen.
And I think that's key with all of this stuff, is that knowing it doesn't mean you will ever be perfect had it. It's just something.
You know, humans are complex and so something that we always can remind ourselves of And that's why I kind of wanted to with both my books, actually wanted to write them as a dip in, dip out, be able to know what your scenario is, go straight to it and get the words that you need to here in the moment, and then get back out, not go cover to cover re searching for something in the moment, because you just need I think so much of what we need in the moment when we're struggling is just something
to shift our attention in the direction that's going to help us move through and out the other side. We don't need kind of you know, advice about you know, actually, if you'd just started mind from a six months ago, you'd be a right now, No, I just need to calm down right now. So often it's just that, you know that sometimes we have that person that says the right words in the moment, and sometimes we have to do that for ourselves, and it's really difficult to do
that for ourselves. So I think that's where things like books can be really helpful. But if you can kind of shift your attention in the moment so that you can come back to some sort of baseline and remember what's important, and so you know, lines like that around actually, why why on earth would you want.
To win this one? You know, if it's a fight.
About I don't know, someone being laid home for dinner, but actually there's a person you want to spend your whole life with.
It's just the perspective issues. It feels.
Lots of things feel big in the moment, but when we have that ability to kind of put it at arm's length and see it for what it is, then feelings.
About it can often shift.
That's often an experience people would have in therapy a lot actually, where you know, they get to the end of a session they come in kind of steaming with lots of emotion, and the sessions that, oh, I.
Kind of feel differently about it now.
And it's just having that chance to shift perspective on things and see it from a kind of bird's eye view enables you to kind of just rejig your thoughts about it.
Yeah, and taking time with it.
I think we're so used to rushing through life, where whether it's our emotions they have to come out fast, or whether it's our decisions, we have to make them really fast. And so when we're in this constant feeling of fastness. You think every part of your life has to be fast, but actually most things done fast are
not done well. And so taking especially with the things that you care about the most in your life, or the people that you care about the most in your life, it's the place where we should be giving space and time to make those decisions and have those emotions and think about it. Because the most amount of time that you spend on something is what matters in your life.
And so the more time you spend on the people that you love and thinking about the way you're speaking to them, acting towards them determines everything.
I think, shift and change everything.
Yeah.
I mean, your relationships are such a huge part of your life, aren't they. So if you can make ten percent improvement on the person, on your relationship with the person you see every day, then you've improved a huge part of your life.
This was the last one that I wanted to touch on, which was when it's hard be with yourself. When you're in a voice, is your own worst critic, you know, whether it's your physical appearance, whether it is again comparison, whatever those things are. I think having this inner critical
voice can sometimes just completely take over. And so, do you have any tools or techniques that can help people create a different narrative in their mind about themselves, or do you have any specific tools or things that someone can do every single day to help shift that a little bit.
Yeah, I think there's something quite key that's been a real game changer for me personally and for lots of people that I've worked with. A lot of people, even when they know they are highly self critical, they'll hold on to it for dear life and they'll so but it's the source of my success.
It's why I get up.
In the morning and get to work, and I don't want to or anything that makes me try harder. And they think that the only way to strive is through kind of fear of failure or you know, through a fear of not being good enough, things like that, And you can actually strive from a much more contented place where you also feel enough. But a lot of it is sort of convincing people of that, and sometimes it's also a misconception around the opposite of being a kind
of bully to yourself in your own head. People imagine that, well that if I'm not doing that I'm just going to be self indulgent and I'm just going to let myself off the hook with things. And the difference between self compassion and self indulgence is quite kind of distinct. So let's say, let's say my daughter says, do you know what, I just don't feel like i'm to school today?
Mean, I just I'm I'm tired. Indulgence might be saying, okay, well, we'll go when you feel like it. It's okay, just chill.
That would be indulgence, right, But compassion would be saying, okay, I get that you're a bit tired today. It's tough sometimes, isn't it when you haven't slept. Well, here's the reason that going to school consistently is really really important. And so today we're going to do the really difficult thing, and we're going to go anyway, but then to we're going to have an early night, and then we're going to you know, make sure you're kind of feeling better tomorrow,
and we're going to do the right thing. And so compassion is often doing the more difficult thing that has your best interests at heart for the future, right. And so when we're talking about that kind of that inner voice and being kinder to yourself. It doesn't mean being indulgent or not being honest with yourself or letting yourself off the hook of anything. I always think of it as like, you know, if you're in a voice sounds more like a bully, that's going to be taking its
toll on your mental health without a doubt. But if you can turn that voice into something that sounds more like a coach, you know, like every elite athlete wants to be their best. The way that they do that is by hiring a coach. They don't hire their high school bully to be their coach. They hire someone that they fully trust. Someone they know that we'll always be honest with them about when they're doing things right and when they're doing things wrong or when they're failing. They'll
deliver that honesty with kindness and support and encouragement. And so someone who wants them to be at their best and achieve great things and has the same goals and values, and so someone will be able to kind of hauld them back up when they're on their knees and you know, send them out and when they're feeling scared and you know, do all those things, But we can kind of take that idea of the coach and apply that template to how we speak to ourselves.
Right, So when I, you know.
Little interrupt me kind of started doing things like live TV and the UK and stuff, it's like, oh my gosh, how am I going.
To tolerate this?
And the only way I was really able to put myself in that situation was when I fully committed to having.
My own back if it all went wrong.
Right, So it's not that it's only good if it's a success every time. It's that, okay, if something goes wrong and I fall over and flash my underwad the nation by accident, or humiliate myself, I am not going to be the one to kick myself when I'm down. I'm going to say the things that to me that help me pull myself back up and carry on in the face of setbacks and failures and things like that.
And it takes a lot of work, because if you have a sort of harsh inner critic, it didn't develop overnight. It took a lifetime to hone its craft. And so what we don't want to do is then become self critical about the fact that we're being self critical, and that's the whole circle. So it's acknowledging, Okay, this is turning around a lifetime of habit. It's going to take time, but I'm always going to have that idea in my mind about Okay, what's well, that's very critical. What would
a coach say instead of that? What would if I had a coach that was following me around helping me be my best? What would they say in response to this situation? So then you can always consult it. You can always ask yourself what might sound a bit better than that and what would be the impact?
Yeah, that's that's good advice.
Actually, I think it's again it's just a question of pausing and creating. It's almost like shifting the narrative from this is what I did say, and this is what I would like myself to say. Yeah, this is what I would say if it was somebody that I loved, and I'm somebody that I love, and this is what I should be saying to myself.
And sometimes you'll go around the circle again, and do you know, old habits die hard, So you'll do those old cycles and that training, and sometimes you'll go the other way. And so the more you practice it, the easier it gets.
Oh my gosh, thank you so much. This is such a brilliant conversation.
And thank you so much for your incredible books and all the information you're sharing with people online. I think you're helping so many in so many different ways. So thank you for being here.
Thanks for having me.