Hanna:
Hello hello and welcome to episode number 13.
This is going to be a big one. That’s what she said. I promise I’m not going to do that the whole time.
Seriously though the title of this podcast is “that’s what he said” because today we are discussing how we let what other people say determine the quality and value of our relationships. With ourselves and with others. And the dirty little thoughts that we have ABOUT what other people say, no matter what it is they say, are what controls how we feel and move about our relationships. I’m also going to talk about how we can take what other people say, even if we think that it’s negative and actually USE it for us instead of as more ammunition to beat ourselves up with. This has been coming up a lot in my private coaching with people who are like well I don’t like what he said, I don’t think it’s totally true, but I’m still going to take what he said and make it mean something negative about me and beat myself up with his words. And I want to kinda sift through some scenarios today so we can separate ourselves from what “he said” AND from what WE said.
Because ultimately what he said is just words to us, until we say something about it with our brains. Like other people saying stuff is neutral in the world and then we have thoughts about it..and if what he said, quote, makes you feel bad, then we can look at where you are actually agreeing with what he said and making it mean something about you.
I’m using the pronoun “he” here just for ease of speaking but we are talking about what any person said. A friend. A partner. Your child. Your co worker. And obviously their gender identities are not all “he” so just insert whatever name that feels resonate to you.
So, people saying stuff. Mouth words. I had a friend slash quasi lover who called the voice notes feature on the phone Mouth Words. And it never quite, for me at least, works the way I want it to. Like the words get cut off or messed up somehow when you use that. Maybe I’m just not pressing the button properly. But what happens with voice notes is like we have a thought that we want to express, and we use this device and the device receives that it hears and translates as best as it can, the way that it was programmed to, and then relays it to the person on the other end and then they interpret what’s coming through their device…and maybe it’s exactly what I meant and felt and thought and they see and understand or maybe it isn’t received well because it got kinda messed up in translation.
And I think that’s what happens when people say things about other people. About us. Someone says something about you and it like goes through our own personal version of voice notes, and it comes out looking like our version of what that person’s intentions were. Our “device”, our brain, translates what people say via it’s programming, and via the belief systems that have been put in place. And the messaging we take away is ultimately what matters.
This is why sometimes, and I’m sure you can think of your own personal examples, sometimes we can notice that it doesn’t even matter what exactly the other person says, because we have already decided what we think and we make their words align with what we think, no matter what.
Like, your boyfriend says, “are those new pants?” And you hear “Those look too tight for you.”
Or your kid says to you, “Mom I’m starving.” And you hear, “You are a neglectful mother.”
My client said to me the other day: “My grandmother called me today and told me that it was her birthday so I was a total mess the rest of the week.” And I was like why? And she said well my grandma had to call me to tell me it was her birthday. And I was like okay so firstly she chose to call you. So let’s just give her her authority over her own life back, and second what does that mean that she said it’s my birthday? And my client said it means I am the worst granddaughter in the world.
So is she the worst granddaughter in the world? No. But she decided that what her grandmother said meant that about her. So of course she then proceeded to spend her grandmothers birthday punishing herself and making it about her which only solidified the idea in her mind that she was a bad granddaughter.
But the point is that what people say is mostly just their thoughts verbalized. Someone else’s thoughts put into mouth words for us to do with whatever we want. But we have been conditioned not to see it that way. We have been shown that certain words mean certain things, and so they should make us feel a certain way. We’ve got our device in our head to tell us what those words mean…but I’m majorly myth busting today: Other people’s thoughts do not create your feelings. Only yours do. Other people’s thoughts do not build your reality, unless you leet them. You can push the little reset button on your device whenever you want and re-program your brain to think for yourself in ways that serve you better. And the first step is ALWAYS awareness. The first step is always noticing what you think about what other people say.
So one of the most automatic things that we think when other people say stuff is “they’re right.” Especially when it comes to someone saying something negative or giving a criticism.
He said I was fat, he’s right. She said my writing sucks, she’s right.
But what if nothing anyone else said was right, for you, until you put it through the filter of your own brain and decided that it was?
And whole you’re in there, putting stuff through your own brain filter, notice what beliefs you harbor that make it easier for other people’s negative thoughts to be right. A lot of times when people say things about us, we believe the ones that we already believed before someone said it outloud. The reason you get hurt when someone says something mean is that you already think that whatever they said is true. If you didn’t, even just a little, then it wouldn’t matter at all because you’d see their thoughts as someone’s opinion that isn’t true so it doesn’t matter.
So think about the difference between what someone says and what you make it mean. What someone says, is a Circumstance. It’s just something that happens in the world. Even if what they say is directed at you. It’s still just a neutral happening in the world.
And then what you make it mean is your thought, which is totally malleable. It’s totally up to you. But up until now maybe it just happens without you noticing. You automatically think something about what they just said which causes pain.
What about the difference between
What I think they might say
Vs
What they actually say
Vs
what I make what they say mean.
The first and third are usually the same. What I think they might say and what I make what they say mean.
Because they both come from our beliefs about ourselves and not at all from what the other person actually says.
Let me give you an example from a client who I was working with, this was a while ago now but she and I were working together because she wanted to improve her sex life and mainly she wanted to have an orgasm while having sex with her husband which was very difficult physically for her to do. We did a lot of different thought work about this but one of the beliefs that she had was that she believed that sex looks like a man penetrating a woman with his penis. Like that is the model of sex that she subscribed to and desired because she thought that was what it was supposed to look like and was in the mindset that she was less than if she couldn’t enjoy that depiction of sexual intimacy.
Thats a whole other podcast. I should start writing it down every time I say that and then actually make a whole podcast episode about it because I feel like I say that a lot.
But anyways, after working on this a little bit she decided that because it was difficult for her to have pain free penetrative sex, she was going to bring a vibrator into the bedroom and her initial idea was to like “work up to it” by just starting with at least having a pleasurable experience in the bed with her husband, which again, ended up just being another way her belief that p in v was the only acceptable way to have good sex was showing up but anyways.
So she was like okay I want to bring this toy into the bedroom but like he might say that I’m weird or strange for doing that.
So she was preemptively thinking, if I do X, here’s what my partner will say. Which is something we do all the time. We write the script for other people based on our own beliefs.
So then she finally actually did it, she brought a vibrator in there and what he actually said was, “oh that’s different.” So not what she thought he was going to say.
But her interpretation of that, which she shared with me, was “he thinks I’m weird and doesn’t want to do that.”
So what he said was just what he said. It literally didn’t make a difference to her inner beliefs and her death grip on this idea that my husband thinks I’m a freak and wants nothing to do with a wife that can’t just have “normal” sex with him.
But her belief that sex looks a certain way and she should be able to have an orgasm from penetration, which btw is totally statistically debunked already; right something like 70% of women cannot have an orgasm from penetrative sex alone. But we are taught that that is how sex works. Think about this from a patriarchal or religious standpoint—sex is for a man’s pleasure and to impregnate a woman which obviously happens through p in v. But that belief is not based on an idea of pleasurable sex for women. So we see that in movies and on tv and a woman is like moaning and groaning after three seconds of penetrative sex and then we think we are weird for not looking or feeling like that in our own bedroom even with a partner or partners that we love and who love us. So there was a lot of unraveling of belief systems just to get to the point that “that’s what he said” is actually what you said. What you said in your mind before he even said it. And what you said about it in your mind after. And you don’t have to say any of that anymore if you don’t want to.
So like we also need to notice here where some of these thoughts they don’t even come from us and don’t even feel like us,,,like this client of mine when I brought this up and I was like do you believe that women should all be able to orgasm from what she called “regular” sex and she was like yeah but like that does seem weird. It seems like it’s not me, because I’m a woman who also identifies as an intelligent and forward thinking feminist who is independent enough to know logically that that’s not even true. Women shouldn’t all be able to magically make their body’s enjoy one specific male-centric form of pleasure.
So this is where we can kind of look at where to give ourselves grace when we start to notice these beliefs that are like holding us back from something in our relationships and they also truly don’t seem to come from us. It’s because they did come from somewhere else and we can say thanks but no thanks, and find all the ways that that belief system is showing up and start to say thanks but no thanks again and again with patience and understanding that this may have been here driving your thought processes for a long ass time. Maybe generations. Ok.
The other thing that I want to talk about is where we can use what other people say against us or for us. Like I just talked a little about when we hear words and we interpret them to accommodate our belief systems. But what about when we hear the words and we truly hear what the other person is saying and we’re like okay but that really does sound bad to me. I’m not twisting what they are saying. He really just called me selfish. She really just said that I am a bad friend.
Now of course you can just go back to the knowing that you don’t have to agree and you can just think like, “well that’s just what he said” and it doesn’t bother me. But sometimes, instead of getting mad that the person said something that seems rude or critical and instead of disregarding it completely, what if we could take the time to decide how to use what they said for good. And what I mean by that is, in what ways IS this true, and what do I want to do with that truth?
Now sometimes people are just lashing out and acting our their emotions with harsh words and you know when people are just saying things to be mean because they are having an emotional struggle, right? So we don’t need to go down a rabbit hole of like how can I use my ex boyfriends text that says I’m a complete bitch for good? You don’t need to do that. You probably could if you want, haha, super evolved moves. But not necessary. None of this work is necessary you guys. You take and use what you want to.
Ok so when you want to use what people say, to see your truth in the thoughts they are offering, just notice your visceral reaction to a criticism or to a comment is driven by a thought that you can decide against and to instead just ask like what about this is true and okay? Or how can I use this for good in me? Right because there are sooo many good answers to that when you let yourself find them. In relationships especially, when its someone we truly continue to choose for our life by design, like a partner or a friend…they say stuff sometimes that we could react to, or we could use to help us learn how to get better at processing emotions, or we could take something from to build on. And when we build ourselves it ultimately strengthens our relationships right? When we can learn how to respond thoughtfully to what people say instead of reactively or from instinctual conditioning, that just brings more intellect, curiosity, understanding, compassion and purpose to the relationship. Understanding yourself better always benefits your relationships.
I’ll tell you a couple of personal anecdotes that I think might be helpful.
I had broken up with my long term boyfriend, this was years ago now, and I was dating casually for a bit before reconnecting with my now partner Michael and I was, in my opinion, extremely causally, seeing this guy who was a friend of friends that I had knows for a while. So we knew each other previously, I hadn’t just met him. Thats probably all the context you need. But we had been, I can’t even say dating, literally just “hanging out”…I’ll say hanging out because my mom listens to this show. Interpret that how you will. But a few weeks maybe. And we were talking one night about like the first time we had met and how long we had actually known each other but you know, I was dating someone else monogamously so it wouldn’t have worked out and we were discussing a little bit about my breakup and he said to me, “You’ve gained some healthy weight lately.” And I remember in the moment my reaction was like totally pissed. I was pissed and embarrassed and ashamed. And it was because obviously my visceral thought reaction was, “I look fat. I should be thinner. Guys think I’m a horrendous pig person.” And I remember even getting validation for these thoughts from my girlfriend who also knew this guy and she was like omg how could he say that what a total idiot. Two thoughts in cahoots, right? For those of you who don’t know that reference…Two thoughts in cahoots is like what I say now when we get someone else to agree with our thoughts so we can feel like they are true. But two thoughts in cahoots don’t make a fact. Just an agreement. So anyways. I had all these negative thoughts about him and about myself…right like the belief system I had about women’s bodies and our bodies as things to be shaped into ways and to be looked at and measured against other bodies and objectified and that is their purpose and I am not fulfilling on that purpose…again, another podcast, for another day. And then the newer belief system I had about men all being horrible misogynistic fucktards that didn’t know what they were talking about ever.
So none of that served me, nor did it serve that relationship. I hated myself and hated him and we stopped seeing each other shortly after. Obviously if he ever hears this which I doubt he will but I am absolutely sure he will not remember any of this…as happens when we just live in our own brains wreaking havoc in there silently. I have certainly perfected that skill.
So anyways, fast forward to working with my own coach and I honestly don’t even know how it came up but I told this story to my Coach and she was like, well did you gain weight? And I was like omg not you too. Right? But I was like actually yeah. I had lost about 20 pounds when I was breaking up with my ex, and then gained most of it back over the months afterwards. So what this guys actually said, the words that came out of his mouth, were pretty true. I had gained weight. And on top of that my coach was like, what are some other possible meanings of the word healthy. Because he said you’ve gained some healthy weight. So like, you made that word mean TONS and PIGGISH and GROSS and WRONG…but what else could that have meant? And I noticed that healthy could have actually just meant healthy. Like it actually was healthy for me to come back to a physical body that could get out of bed, lift weights, expend energy, feed itself good food. It was true, after all what he had said, if I took the time to notice my thoughts about what I was making it mean, and then what meaning I could make that would actually be much more helpful to me. I did gain healthy weight. And that was a great thing. And I swear to god I like wanted to call this guy like 8 months after the fact and say thank you. Haha because in the moment I certainly hadn’t said thank you. But I was like omg I need to say thanks for noticing that, I was having a really hard time and the physical manifestation of that was a weak and kinda gaunt body and you noticed that I must have been feeling and doing better and feeling healthier and my body was getting back to normal. I didn’t call him. But if you do hear this, thanks for noticing that I was coming back to myself. I didn’t even notice because I was too busy bashing myself and you in my own head.
I have another one that I have never shared expect once before in a group coaching program but I thought it was powerful then and I wanted to share it again now because it really represents what I’m talking about when I said like sometimes you just need to ask, how is this true for me? In what ways can I use this to see myself more clearly? What do I want to do with this other person’s thoughts?
So some of you may know that I hold a handful of degrees and certifications one of which is from the Health Coach Institute, which was where one of my most epic experiences of self development and personal growth occurred, thanks to some amazing mentor and instructors so plug for HCI if you ever want to become a Health Coach and want to be certified, check them out. So anyways, I was part of their Holistic MBA grad program and at the end of the program, prior to its completion, the school offered a challenge to it’s students, called the 10k in 10 weeks challenge. Essentially, we were challenged to make ten thousand dollars in the final 10 weeks of the program in our personal businesses. And the people who accomplished this were invited to speak on stage at an event in Miami and then a winner would be chosen, though audience vote, and the prize was an additional ten thousand dollars. So long story short I did the challenge and I won. I literally almost pissed myself on the stage, my first public speaking engagement of that scale. And you can actually listen to the audio from my speed on the HCI podcast I think but my voice was shaking so badly you can hardly understand me at some points. But I received the most votes and won the challenge and all the things, it was so amazing. I was literally like a celebrity for the day. So many people coming to congratulate me and speak to me and it was quite overwhelming for someone who is so introverted and does not thrive in large groups but anyways. I was at lunch, at the event center, standing in line for the buffet and a group of students and instructors from the school, who I knew and respected came up to say Hi and congrats and they all said nice things that of course now I don’t even remember because the one that I do remember is there was this one guy, who again I knew and respected and thought was just way beyond me as a Coach, but he said to me, “Congrats. I think you won because people could see that you just needed it the most.”
And I was like, excuse me? I mean, in my brain. I didn’t say anything to him. In my head though I was fuming. I was irate that he would put me down that way in front of other people, diminish my efforts and what I had created in that way, I was so embarrassed that people thought that they had to vote for me because they felt bad for me or something. Right? All the thoughts about what that meant about me. I wasn’t a good coach. I shouldn’t have won. Maybe I should give the money back. No one really liked me or thought I deserved it because of what I did or said, but because I was needy or in distress and people were just being nice.
And OHH did that one go a long way. I was so shook that I literally stopped communicating with anyone associated with the school. I missed so many opportunities for connection and relationship building because I had decided that I was not worthy.
YEARS, literal years later, I was looking back and doing some self coaching work on this and I just asked myself, what about what he said might be true? And I realized that I probably DID need the money more than anyone else on that stage. I was the most baby coach there was. We all shared how much money we had generated in our businesses and my number was only barely over 10k. Everyone else’s was higher, much much higher in some cases. And we were also asked what we planned to do with the money if we won and I shared that I would be giving it to my parents, who loaned me the money to go through the program in the first place. And that’s what I had done. Like they gave me this huge check and I actually had it delivered to my parents doorstep after the event, to pay them back. And I was like you know what, I made that guys comment mean so much about me and my abilities when really he was just making a partially true observation. I did seem to need it most. He couldn’t have known why other people voted for me, but I didn’t see that then. I was like Oh My God everyone pity-voted for me and this guys knows it. But instead of noticing that and getting curious about how I could use what he said to see myself more clearly, to appreciate what I had just created when I really did need it, I spend years beating myself up. Honestly I even remember saying to my mom before I left to go to Miami to speak, I need to win because I can’t really even afford this flight. So that guy was just holding up a cracked mirror. That’s what I am gunna call it. It’s like when we judge ourselves based on what someone else says, it’s often like they re holding up a cracked mirror. We can see ourselves, how we already see ourselves, with a few cracks and “wrongs” which are just the other person’s thoughts running through it.
So like we don’t have to dig for examples that are super profound to find instances where that’s what he said is a great opportunity to teach ourselves something or see ourselves. I was just driving in Oregon and I got flipped off twice on the same highway. And I was like what the hell? But I took a sec to just think about it…and while I’m not like wow that was really great that these guys flipped me the bird, haha. Road rage. But I was like ok maybe I was going too slow in the left lane. Or maybe they saw my California plates and didn’t like that I was a tourist in their town. So I got in the right lane. And I was like what Is this here to teach me? How many times have I personally been irritated by the simple presence of a tourist in my town? A lot lately. So I got into an internal dialogue with myself about being the tourist and hating the tourist and how I sometimes play both roles. I love to travel and I do travel and I hate when people travel to my town. So I gave myself a little teaching moment about not zoning out in the fast lane and about not being a hypocrite.
So when can you think of a time that you created a rift in a relationship, either with yourself or someone else by having thoughts about what he said. Or what they said. Or what they might say. And how can you bring more awareness to your own internal dialogue about what others say?
We are always like: What is he thinking? What are they thinking? What are they gunna say?
What about what you’re thinking!?!
We spend so much time in the worry beforehand and then the beating ourselves up after. But we miss that it’s us, thinking.
Here’s the thing: some of you are like okay this is all well and good but sometimes someone says something that I know is mean or rude or isn’t what I wanted to hear and I don’t want to make it into something positive. I just want to be mad about it.
I say be mad. If you want to choose to feel mad, then do it. Feel anger. Feel hurt. Feel sadness. I am a proponent of processing the feelings. But when you get tired of acting out those emotions, not processing them but acting them out, you can come back to yourself and do this work, if you want to. Because now that I’ve told you that thoughts create feelings, not what he said, you can’t unhear me. You know it now. How you think about what he said generates your feelings about it. And I want you to decide to use that new information when it’s going to empower you. Not when it’s going to make you more upset or shameful. I don’t want you to force yourself to think, What he said doesn’t hurt me if that creates more bad feelings.
You guys know this right, the same thought, for different people, can elicit a completely different emotion, depending on your unique personality, your unique strengths, your history and culture, and the lense through which you see the world.
What he said doesn’t hurt me makes me feel powerful. It makes me feel bold and autoritative and rich with sense of self because to me that thought is fuel. But someone else who may be new to this work or conditioned differently than I am or just not me, might feel that thought so immensely differently. It might be draining not fueling. It might be more like “What he said doesn’t hurt me” so what the fuck does? Me. And that feels so uncomfortable. Because what he said doesn’t hurt me might also feel like a total lie. And when we try thoughts that are lies, our body doesn’t respond well. It feels icky and gross and the feeling of fakeness. Your body knows when your brain isn’t on board. So use this when it is time to use it. That’s all I’m sayin. If you’re in worry or in beating yourself up or in shame or anxiety about what someone said, it might feel better to not stay there. Maybe. And maybe that’s what he said is just that, That’s what he said…and I didn’t like it…I do think it was mean…and I don’t want to act out my feelings of being upset, so here’s what I say.
Noticing how we feel and how it’s a “me” problem is not about making you feel crappy. But it will when you first start doing this work. It almost always does. Personal responsibility feels like shit sometimes, but especially in the beginning when you haven’t does this before. It’s gunna be just one more reason to beat yourself up. Just one more way to say “this is my fault”, “I am messed up.” I want you to notice that this happens naturally…and by naturally I mean it’s been conditioned and socialized into us and through the negativity bias in our brains to look for reasons to feel inadequate. Women are conditioned to beat themselves up. There I said it. We trust other people before we trust ourselves. We look for validation outside. We try to be, do, say, act the way other people want. And it is a vicious cycle. Because we try to feel better outside of ourselves and then when someone like me comes and says hey it’s actually all created inside of your brain, you’re like well fuck me. Right? Here comes your Coach telling you that its not what this guy said that made you feel bad, it’s what you decide to think about it, and you’re like great, one more reason to hate myself. One more thing to add to the list of things I do wrong.
But you are not wrong. You have work to do and it can’t be done from a place of self hate. Or self doubt. Or self distrust. Because all of that will just come with you and make it 10000 times harder. So take this work and make it mean that you are powerful, not powerless. You are evolving, not stagnant. You are affecting change in in your life now, not at the affect of it. Choose Love for yourself for where you’ve been and where you are and where you’re going.
If you’re loving what you’re hearing here on the podcast, you’ve gotta come get coached. I have a transformational coaching program where we debunk your personal dirty little thoughts so you can start getting results that you want in your relationships, in your career, in your health and in your whole life. Check out my website hannakokovai.com where you can sign up for a free consult or follow me on my current favorite social platform instagram where I am @hannakokovai. I share lots of coaching tidbits, plus some personal life things, you can find me being me, sharing some heartfelt writing with some f bombs thrown in, trying and failing at making reels, It’s a bit of a bumpy ride but I’m there for it and I hope you’ll strap in and come along.
Thats what she said.
Until next time. Thanks for listening!