Tea at Four - Ep 55: Dealing with dating rejection, outgrowing friendships and how to unlock your confidence; navigating your emotional wellbeing

Episode Date: May 1, 2024

This week on Tea at Four, we’re joined by emotional wellbeing coach, Megan, who helps the girls deep dive into understanding their emotions. We discuss everything from navigating friendships in your 20’s, how to deal with rejection in dating and why we feel like imposters when it comes to being confident at work. The chat gets emotional as the girls look into their childhoods and the pressures that have grown ever since, and Megan also gives advice to our audience members who shared with us some of their biggest anxiety struggles.

If there is one thing that I would love people to take away from this entire episode, it's that there is nothing to fix. Even your most uncomfy, shameful habits, even shame, it's nothing to fix. They are just things to be more deeply accepted. I am very hard on myself and I do feel like I get angry at my siblings because they have it so easy and it's like you don't know what they've done to allow us to be here hi guys welcome back to t4 i'm lauren and i'm christy and this is the podcast where we talk all things that should have stayed in the group chat so in january we explored our body literacy series which was iconic and you should definitely check out if you haven't already but within this series we kind of went into how to understand your body and therefore empower

yourselves but something i think we we've neglected or not yet explored is how to understand your mind and so today on the podcast we have a special guest again we're gassed about it we're joined by Megan energy energy yeah Megs would you mind introducing yourself for our audience sure so my name is Meg and I am an emotional well-being strategist and mentor and what that really means is I help people heal from their childhood emotional blueprint the kind of patterns that we get stuck in the emotions that we keep repeating that kind of feel like they're not us anymore we feel like we have outgrown them but they still play out on our every day and we can now see the effects of them in our relationship and our confidence and our careers and how you kind of move around that without making it a something to

fix so incredible one of your most engaged posts on tiktok is how to feel your feelings instead of thinking of them could you explain that to our audience yeah that one popped off it's still growing um and i think it's because we have never been taught how to feel our feelings. Like feel the feelings. Yeah. It should be something that is common sense because it is a literal part of your everyday experience. Every second you are feeling something, whether you are noticing it or not. you are feeling something whether you are noticing it or not so what happens is when we don't feel safe with the sensations in our body we jump to our mind and our mind loves to be in control

so if it recognizes a sensation in your body like an emotion that you're feeling that it doesn't know how to process and it thinks it's unsafe you shouldn't be feeling insecure you shouldn't be feeling like an imposter you shouldn't be feeling insecure you shouldn't be feeling like an imposter you shouldn't be feeling like you don't deserve this you shouldn't be feeling shame or anger especially anger is a huge one with women then what it does is it says right we now need to work out why i'm feeling this way so we can contextualize it and therefore make it less of a threat the thing is is you always get stuck there you actually don't process the emotion so you know why it's there I bet you could tell me there's specific

emotions you really struggle to feel you know exactly where they come from yeah but actually feeling and processing them even with that knowledge doesn't make it go away I feel that completely I think one of the most jarring things I've experienced in the last couple years is I thought I had quite good hold of my emotions but I actually found out through therapy I have a really bad emotional management in the sense that like yes I can show I guess I can wear my heart on my sleeve and I can show my emotions but as for dealing with them and processing them not a scooby like I literally would look outward I'd look at my relationships um my friendships um work as like a support and then it would reflect right back at me and I would be just

stuck they would be stuck and I'm just then feeling a lot of shame because I don't know how to process them and then I'm always looking externally and i think that's is that the case with a lot of people oh a thousand percent i think if you don't know how to feel something there's that such a thing of like oversharing is also a survival mechanism it's like whoa i'm gonna give you everything that i think you might judge me for that terrifies me about myself i'm gonna give it all to you so you know up front this is who i am this is the shit that you're dealing with like i'm a really shameful person i'm going to give it all to you so you know up front this is who i am this is the shit that you're dealing with like i'm a really shameful person i'm really broken please love me and what you're doing is you're asking in return like i'm gonna bear i'm gonna wear my heart my

sleeve aka i'm gonna give you the emotions that i feel uncomfortable feelings that you can reflect back to me how i should process them but other people can't process that for you that's me to a t that is so disgustingly me but it's so common and again it's nothing to judge us like we're not taught this stuff so what are you meant to do with emotions that you don't know how to feel how are you meant to manage your feelings yeah and i think we our generation especially goes the opposite way i feel like we then think oh i wish i was mysterious i always see on social media like i wish i was a mysterious kind of girl and he's someone that like didn't show their emotions okay or then the complete opposite

spectrum opposite end of the spectrum which is the oversharer like why are we complicated why are we confusing that we have to go so far one way or the other? Yeah, but they're two sides of the same coin often. Someone that is incredibly closed off emotionally, keeps a lot hidden, is still feeling uncomfortable in their emotions. And it's like the same, it's a similar childhood pattern. It's one person has learnt, both have learnt that it's unsafe to feel certain things and it's unsafe to vocalize

those things one of them is just taking that literally and saying okay now in my relationships in order to get love and approval i have to shut these all down yeah and make sure no one knows that i'm struggling because that equals a lack of approval a lack of love it equals being shamed by someone the other the oversharer says right i'm gonna repeat the pattern and try and i spoke about this on my instagram when i was debriefing maths yesterday oh my god yes so the what we often tend to do so i'm going to skip and come back to answer that question what we often do is we try and succeed in childhood patterns that we failed in. So for example, say, and I'm going to throw out my personal experience because it's just the easiest one. So for me, I had a father figure that did not have the capacity

to give me the love that I needed. So the messaging at seven was I'm not enough there's something wrong with me that makes this person think I can't give her the love that she's asking for and obviously at seven you have no idea like you're doing the best before you know how but you are a child yeah so what happens in later life is we seek out situations and people that feel the same to that uncompleted patterns. The uncompleted pattern is I did not get this person's approval. I did not feel good enough for them. And we do that in our adult relationships. We do that in our career. set ourselves up to repeat a pattern that we're never really gonna succeed in because we're

seeking out the same person in our childhood in adult that wasn't able to give us what we needed so for example in relationships i sought out men that felt similar to what my dad represented which was i felt unseen by him so i attracted partners where i felt unseen i felt like i had to work for his approval so i attracted men that i had to work for their approval i got ghosted i got um yeah given breadcrumbs so both people are now trying to complete that circuitry right that childhood pattern the oversharer is now saying i'm going to seek out the same person that i didn't get approval from that told me i was too much yeah and i'm going to try and get these people to confirm that that's not true yeah but

you're attracting like this you're oversharing with the same type of unsafe person which is why it feels so familiar which is why you do it with them yeah does that make sense that makes severe sense severe i think i'm the complete opposite so where i had a father that was very very present i now attract people that need that affection i feel like i feel i pour a lot into other people's cup and i think neglect myself interesting yeah and i think it's the same as all with my sibling because i'm the eldest i pour into their cup more than i pour into my own but do you feel like i take i give good advice great advice sometimes i'm like i should take it myself yeah because it's like i'm the oversharing it's like oversharing like the love oversharing like

advice and stuff i don't i forget about myself i don't allow myself to have moments if that makes sense total sense that's the older sister syndrome i'm the eldest as well we um yeah we're very good at giving advice not so good at taking it and putting ourselves first yeah yeah definitely so how do you deal with that so that's i mean there we go so the elder child often listen at the same time i want to give context that this isn't the same for everyone right but in general the oldest child is the one that grows up the quickest and you're the first born right so your parents are never done this before so we're going to take as much help as we can so when you have other siblings that come into the scenario you end up learning that right my parents emotional

capacity or even physical capacity is this much but actually i can notice my younger siblings need that much and there's a mismatch there so you kind of step in as the middleman to make sure everyone's needs are met so you're making sure your parents aren't feeling overwhelmed by their parental responsibilities and you're also making sure that your siblings feel loved yeah and it's this really weird dynamic where as an adult, you never really get out of that. You almost act like everyone in the world is within your family dynamic. Yeah.

Which is like, well, no. Yep. They're not all your family. A lot of them can be responsible for their own emotions and actually you do people a disservice by managing that for them because then they never learn the skill of being able to manage their own emotions so you're actually not giving you're actually taking oh in a really in a really blunt love you yeah but it's um it's not as selfless as you think it is okay interesting and sometimes that's the shift that makes okay maybe you know if i'm doing it from a real like i'm doing this because i'm a really

good person i'm really kind i'm really loving i care a lot about people i'm not arguing that you don't but actually when you put it through the frame of but am i taking someone else's experience of learning how to develop that skill yeah so then it's not so selfless and then that gives you that reframe of like okay i'm not a bad person by stepping back that's true yeah and you not feel it's exhausting oh it is now i leave the mate oh right i just leave just like yep i see the opposite i see what's going on ss it and be like do i no it's all right i just leave just like yep i see obviously i see what's going on ss it and be like do i no it's all right it's kind of like oh no it's like sit down okay what other things to worry about it's hard it's one i think it's one thing noticing and acknowledging

these habits and you know things that you've got from your childhood and seeing it now but like as for tools i feel like our 20s are so messy and confusing because like if I'm not paying out money for therapy or I'm not actively listening to podcasts every day changing up my lifestyle um doing all these things it can be so like where do I start so from your experience as a emotional well-being coach what do you see people doing and where are they at in life I want to preface this question because i think what my answer because i got started in personal development when i was 15 someone actually said to me when i shared that they were like you know you started personal development before you'd even stopped developing and i was like oh oh my god

yeah the brain you sit down yeah your brain stops developing at 25 i think yeah oh wow um i know i'm done but um yeah my mom was super into it and by this stage she had been diagnosed with cancer so she got diagnosed when i was 14 and I'd already lost my biological dad's my biological dad died when I was three months old so I have no memories of him um but that's why I had such a difficult relationship with my stepdad at age seven so I kind of found out that he wasn't my real dad by accident the one day and I literally don't have memories of my childhood before that day which is insane how your brain like shuts down certain parts of your childhood to literally protect you um and so at seven I was shipped off to therapy no one else in my family

I was the child I was shipped off to therapy and listen again I understand people can only do what they you know the best that they can with what they know how and my parents just didn't have the capacity for different reasons so I've been in therapy since I was seven I was been doing personal development work since I was 14 15 so I've spent I turned 30 this year so like half of my life and there is a real danger with too much therapy too much personal development work because what it can do is convince you that there is something wrong with you yeah and if your brain thinks right i've got a problem to solve and in solving this problem i feel safer aka the problem is me

it will never let you get rid of the problem yeah i feel that right because then it's got to admit that okay now we're safe and it's like well it never wants to admit that, okay, now we're safe. And it's like, well, it never wants to do that. It'll just continually look for another problem to solve. Another problem to solve because it's the pattern of solving that makes your brain feel safe. Right. Not actual safety. So the main narrative that you tend to subconsciously take in personal development which is where I got really really stuck I was so good I had all this self-awareness I knew exactly where all my you

know trauma came from my childhood patterns all these kind of things but it didn't make me feel any better I was just more aware of it because I was still thinking that these things were things to fix about me and so if there is one thing that I would love people to take away from this entire episode it's that there is nothing to fix even your most uncomfy shameful habits even shame it's nothing to fix they are just things to be more deeply accepted because the safety that you're looking for actually is the safety to be yourself something i want to i feel like i have a bit of an identity crisis when it comes to that because in my personal life i very much have that mindset of like like it's not that big of a deal

like just go with the flow what's meant to be will be but then something I struggle with is uh at work I think you have to be quite assertive and quite hard to be respected especially if you're in like a management position or just generally if you want to work your way up I think you need to have a more harder hysteria I don't know and then I think in my head I'm doing that nine to five five days a week and then on the other bit of my time I'm softer and I'm more sensitive like where how do we find the balance between wanting to you know be this person at work that everyone respects but then also lean into that more vulnerable side yeah my free time I mean that is the ultimate question isn't it I don't know if i have a perfect answer i don't think there is a perfect answer to that i think it's very individual very

personal i think you just have to be really clear what you're sacrificing whilst you're at work that when you get into your personal space and your safe space if there is something that you've pushed down during the day that felt triggering that felt like oh I felt really uncomfy there that you give yourself the space in the evening in your personal time like it's a priority it's kind of process and you say hey like spend a couple minutes being like what did I need in that moment that I couldn't give myself at that time but I can now because I'm you know at home or I'm in bed it doesn't have to be anything major it's just I think the most powerful thing for us to do as individuals is just recognize there's like a mini human within each of us you know some people call it your inner child that is really seeking

you as the parent as the adult adult version, just some recognition, some validation, some support. It's the time that you maybe didn't receive as a kid or the approval you didn't receive as a kid or the safety or that it's okay. You're allowed to feel how you feel, like tell me. I've got all the space and time in the world for you type of thing. So it's just like micro shifts in how you yes you can perform listen there's time and places where we do just have to put on a front we have to put on a mask we have to perform but i think it's just

still recognizing you're in a performance yeah and that i'm going to take a mental note of this for later that when i'm in my safe space i'm just going to give myself a couple of minutes or however long or maybe i'm going to do something that i know is going to make me feel a little better and give myself the space to process this thing when it's safe love that interesting you say about performing because I think something we spoke about is confrontation and it does not come naturally to me let's just say no neither no yeah but it's like it's like everything before a simple confrontation at work not like not like a fight but like even even bringing up something asking for something i need um like i have to write it all down before

i'm like pumped with adrenaline i'm having to walk around to kind of exude that panic and or I just don't ask at all because I'm scared of rejection like how how do I kind of embody the because I think our generation especially is so obsessed like fake it till you make it I get that sentiment but how do i truly embody this person that is comfortable with confrontation especially as a woman like do you see that in your work and how do you kind of deal with those things oh definitely and like from personal experience confrontation is still something that i fucking hate um so the way in which you kind of learn to navigate this is again you make it super comfortable that it's uncomfy it's not a big deal that i really struggle with confrontation like who where am i

putting myself on such a pedestal that i have, X, Y, Z, of course, confrontation is going to look and feel really uncomfy and unsafe. You know, I grew up with a mum who was so loving, so giving, terrified of confrontation and would take it personally if she had confrontation, you know, even if it was a disagreement. So the messaging from her was take the high road. Never let anyone know that you're upset or you're pissed off or whatever. Take the high road. And as much as I can sometimes like, yeah, I get, yeah,

there is definitely a time and space for taking the high road, but also there is time and space for actually standing up for myself and saying listen that made me feel really uncomfortable um and i don't want to be put in that position again so it's like a balance but i think the first thing is it's it's like recognizing why am i making it such a big deal that i feel uncomfortable about this like that's not going to help me feel any better so i might as well just say shit i really struggle with confrontation this is going to feel uncomfy up until the point that it feels comfortable like that you can't jump from uncomfortable to comfortable without going and doing it uncomfortably so it's just again it's watching that mental narrative of i shouldn't be feeling this

way i should be feeling more confident in this scenario and shift it on to you know what i'm really proud of myself that i'm gonna do this even feeling like i'm gonna shit myself yeah and like you say there about should i think uh self-talk is quite important as you say in that moment because you could be saying uh i should be bringing this thing up at work i really should be maybe shift it to also i want to be doing this for myself and like this is something that's going to benefit me and that i'll be proud of rather than thinking in that mindset of like i should because that sounds a lot scarier than yeah why are you not doing it yeah is that you're stopping yourself from doing something that you actually need to do so i think the words that you choose the won't can yeah the do

like the should to do so yeah yeah should is shame i'm gonna shame myself into doing something like does that ever work does that ever work for you and i always do it in a really emotional way i do it but i think i dress it up as just like it's laughter it's just a bit of banter so it's weird i think that's my coping right as in confrontation for you so you'll address it like a humorous a humorous way so that it's not too serious amazing i'm out the window because i'll be like so i have to right yeah find the fun in it and kind of like yeah yeah address it in that way to ourself as well though by if that seemed like i don't take it seriously um i think whatever again it's like don't expect yourself to run before you can walk if humor right now is a safety

mechanism you're using to even have these conversations which in turn build your confidence build your self-esteem build your evidence that it is safe yeah to have confrontation and by all means do it and do it until something else replaces that but just be aware like this is where i'm at now and actually maybe the next stage of what i want is to not have to use humor. Yeah. Then that's going to look slightly different. But again, it's just this, it is safe to feel like you struggle with things in life. Like I'm so bored of watching people on social media never admit that they struggle. Never admit that they're going to record something or they're going to a huge meeting or they're

speaking on stage or they're running a company and they don't have human days but they don't because i think if we normalize the fact that you will never have the perfect career the perfect relationship the perfect friendships that completely eradicate your insecurity like that does not exist so we need to stop chasing that and then we need to stop perpetuate perpetuating the narrative that that is a possibility like it is boring now because what we're doing is we're disempowering society we're disempowering each other by not sharing these things and then i think we would see a real shift in how we approach personal development yeah I saw this viral clip on TikTok at the weekend and it was Stephen Bartlett basically

saying that he in his interview process for bringing people into his workplace he has to approach it in a way where he asks how much their capacity is for putting work first he thinks basically that um gen z are too soft compared to his dad's generation that um knew the importance of work and doing something for someone else to keep the cogs turning um before you know your evenings or your weekends and i think this personally is quite toxic to me with kind of removing any personality for yourself or time for yourself and being soft I don't think there's anything wrong with that and I think it's that mindset that you have to be on all the time for an employer that leads to burnout and that's something that probably wasn't around in his

dad's generation how do we kind of yeah stay true to that soft side of things with people telling us that we have to be hard and we have to be robust and doing things for other people all the time to you know stay afloat have a good income um yeah i don't know how do you handle those conversations i think i first want to mention that everyone's opinion comes through a very personal lens like we are selfish by nature we view the world we experience the world through main character right so i think steven is a first generation immigrant i'm sure his parents moved from yeah they did something so of course if you've grown up in a dynamic and obviously i don't want to speak for someone else but in general when there are such

polarizing opinions like that of you're too soft or you need to be this that and the other i think you have to remember that's coming from someone's personal experience they're playing that through their own childhood dynamics which is fine we all do that naturally do i think it's true no do i think it's advice that's applicable to everyone no we all experience different things we all want different things out of life ultimately you know if you are very career driven and a lot of your fulfillment comes from your career of course you're gonna put that on yeah um as a priority and when we talked about what your career requires of you requires often a lot of performing so an opinion based on i prioritize my career a lot is always going to say i perform a lot yeah it's what he's actually saying everyone has an opinion like we all have

assholes you know it doesn't mean yours is right it doesn't mean yours is the only one um and I think the too soft argument always comes from an opinion where or an experience where performance has been more valued than vulnerability yeah and i think we're just a generation now where we have reached the capacity generationally of what we are willing to sweep under the rug because if you think about the amount of trauma that we're holding from our parents and our parents holding from their parents and down the line and down the line and i think this argument of oh jonesy you're too soft no i just think we have gotten to the point where we actually are about to explode as human beings and we do need to talk about this so that we can have more fulfilling careers that we are

experiencing less burnout so that we are not sacrificing uh personal time for the sake of how much money i'm bringing in. And it's just a conversational switch. I think our values as a society are changing. And I think that's for a good thing. And I think potentially the conversational shift again, maybe, in a couple hundred years where we have learned, right, we experience burnout less because we talk about our emotions more.

We're a more emotionally vulnerable um society and then it'll probably switch to right how do we hide less about ourselves in our career how do we find more of a balance with a career that's fulfilling and not just a career that ticks the societal value so i think it's just conversations that will swing around and roundabouts. Like I think it has no basis. Yeah. On this note, actually, one of my biggest issues is the pursuit of perfection. And I think especially in social media, which is my job for one thing. But in terms of my personal creativity, I think what holds me back the most is I have to put this perfective version of myself out there

otherwise someone's going to see that think something small less of me and that's not what I stand for that's not what I want to put out to the world yeah and I feel like though I think as a quote I remember Katie and I sat saying something that uh perfection is the enemy of good enough and I feel like if I constantly stay in this mode of like I can't put anything out there until I'm at 100% a thousand percent happy with it or I'm not gonna put this out until there's a perfect time of day that I should post this I'm never gonna I'm just gonna keep prolonging that thing but I think also what's quite toxic is we live in a society where we're obsessed with goals and resolutions and always waiting like

i'll see something come up every four tiktoks that's like in six weeks if you start working on yourself you'll you'll feel it in 12 weeks other people will notice it in and it's like we're just always on this like length of time until you get to the perfect weight yeah until you're the perfect amount of confidence yeah like what like how do we stop going in these patterns of just waiting and waiting well perfectionism if we take it back to that that need to be perfect that's a protective mechanism for either rejection either uh i mean it tends to be rejection feelings of not being good enough you've almost got to ask yourself what is it about producing or being myself that really terrifies me like

what is it about producing a good enough piece of work that terrifies you like what is the feeling you're trying to avoid feeling by getting it perfect um i don't think it's not getting it perfect it's about getting getting it not perfect and then being angry at myself that i've not gone over something so many times that but the anger is masking a like level of showing yourself that you're not happy with so what is it in showing yourself less than perfect that terrifies you what are you afraid will you'll feel 100 is an acceptance thing and i think i i want to be deemed as someone that looks competent and um why oh man she's getting people because i've been out of therapy for months um why um the acceptance is to be loved to be seen and when i'm being seen i feel like i don't

do it so often so there's even more pressure on like making that good yeah so then that's something that you will never ever receive enough of from someone else 100 couldn't agree never yeah so in those moments and like i so relate like that's exactly like i have a huge fear of being seen which i know it sounds ridiculous because i do this for work i speak you know i have to be seen but it's you almost have to learn right what is it that i'm terrified of feeling that's the thing that that inner child within me is looking for validation that she's safe to feel she's safe to feel like she's not enough she's safe to feel like she's safe to feel rejected yeah because when you think about it what really

is rejection your people are your people they're either going to love you or hate you there's nothing in between and people in between can also go in the other category of like they're not your people yeah if people are going to judge you for subpar of like they're not your people yeah if people are going to judge you for subpar work not perfect work not your people yeah if someone is going to think that you're too much too loud too whatever not your person not your audience yeah so who are you performing for are you performing for the person that you will never feel accepted by therefore you were just entering a you're setting yourself up to fail or are you just embracing the fact that the people that are meant to be in my life the opportunities that are meant to be in my life will always be in my life

when i show up as myself yeah and when i make it really safe to be me you know and those people can only find you when you're not hiding behind that mask of perfection which sometimes literally looks like physically hiding yeah not posting the thing um so you've just got to be like brutally honest what is it i'm trying to avoid feeling and in turn shaming myself about and then playing out these patterns that are really just setting me up for failure yeah word word word yeah um i think it's also giving yourself grace because you feel like when you start speaking to yourself you get you're just digging digging digging digging digging a deeper

hole and once you're down deep in that hole how the hell are you getting back climbing back up oh my god i'm queen of ruminating so once i get that negative thought in my head it's very hard for something to just quickly swipe in and i think yeah i don't know i think the problem is like you say is just pushing the feelings down and not actually feeling them. But it's also making that a problem. Yeah. Right? Again, the language, I have a real problem with ruminating. Yeah.

You're shaming yourself for that. Do you think that helps? Do you think that's going to help you cut that cycle of ruminating? No, it's going to throw you deeper into it because it's like, right, I need to solve this. I need to fix this. I need to do the impossible. It's like shifting the narrative of i'm ruminating again i've done this before i know it'll eventually stop it's not a big deal am i the only person

in the entire world that ruminates no yeah you see the difference in like this isn't something to fix it is something to accept give space about make it not a big deal yeah and obviously that's a practice but it's like even the layer of yeah but i'm doing this wrong it's safe to feel like i'm doing this wrong yeah but i don't want to be doing this it's safe to feel like i shouldn't be doing this i love that it's just like that continual if you're gonna speak to yourself you might as well just make everything you're saying i've learned a new word something safe what illuminating oh this is the one i was like what the hell that room are you quickly googling it oh okay love that for me i wanted to ask something that kind of aligns with the

whole confrontation thing um all of that jazz is confidence and i saw something on your page about the 51 confidence rule could. Could you explain that? You only need a window of confidence. So if you think about it like the seesaw, you just need it to tip from 50-50 or 30-70 to then maybe 50-50 to then 51-49. I'm trying to do the maths as I'm saying this. Just 1% in the direction

of confidence and it'll feel like a tiny window it'll feel like the fear will be there the self doubt will be there but there's also this like tiny voice that's saying you know what i might just have this and it feels like a might i might be able to do this that's what you're looking for jump that's your 51 that's your one percent it's technically a one percent window yeah um and the rest kind of you then build evidence i can do really scary things even when i don't feel 100 confident and i think that is just the most incredible gift you can give yourself because it no longer means you put distance between where you are who you are um who you were being and what you want to create in your life it was the same thing with my relationship

i've been with my boyfriend now for it's coming up to seven years already and before that i just had a string of very unhealthy i wouldn't even call them they literally weren't even relationships right uh they were situationships i was ghosted constantly i only ever got ghosted i was like what is this um and even with him i had to do the work to really recognize maybe this will this might work and i can make it safe to feel really insecure in this relationship i can feel safe to feel like maybe he's gonna leave again or he's gonna ghost me but it was this like one percent maybe i can have this yeah and i'm just gonna like take it one day at a time and give myself a look back and take that as evidence that like okay

maybe this thing is working and you know maybe i can deserve these things you're just looking for that tiny window i feel that so much because i feel like the moments where i've kind of just let life be life and not worry put so much pressure on this i'm going to do really well at work this this video is going to be perfect or my relationship or my dating life is like it's not consuming me but it'll be nice if it does work out that's when it's flourished and i think it's because i've not put so much pressure on myself and other people to you know be perfect and be everything i could have ever imagined it's that one percent that i've just let let it be and it's worked out yeah it's also that like the ability what you've done in those moments probably on a subconscious level

without even realizing is you're taking back instead of projecting i need the validation i need the approval from these things working out you're actually looking you're learning to self-source by even just saying i don't need these things to work out i'm going to be safe regardless i'm going to have my back regardless i'm going to get through this regardless it's like that just the it's these micro shifts in confidence and how you talk to yourself and how safe you make it to simply be you yeah love that i think um something you just brought then about love could be something that'd be quite good to touch on uh because i think the case for a lot of people especially in their 20s

we don't want to even go into the dating pool we don't want to invest our time in dating because so easily people are irresponsible and taking your feelings and hurting them and ghosting you and gaslighting you and i think um how does that complete fear of rejection and putting the onus on someone else um how do we get past that and just try and make ourself open but also protect ourself and self-source how do you do it i know this is the thing see like there's such a gentle like um the way you talk about personal development you have to be so careful about how you talk about these topics because again it's not something to get right it's really hard it's difficult when you've

grown up and you've had really shitty experiences in dating and you're already kind of you feel like you've started off in the dating world on the back foot because you didn't have certain needs met in your childhood or whatever that case may be i mean nine times out of ten it all links back to childhood and i keep thinking as you were talking i was thinking about that quote which i feel like it's gone semi-viral again which is you accept the love you think you deserve and i bring that up because i think in dating we constantly externalize how we're feeling and of course we meet shitty people when we're dating right we meet people that aren't ready

to give us what we need them to give us they don't have the capacity for whatever reason and instead of thinking of dating as i've got to get something from someone else it's almost like you need to shift that into what am i seeking from someone else that I don't think I can give to myself right for example that safety and rejection or that safety in it's safe to simply be me I don't have to be this perfect human whoever's gonna love me is gonna love all parts of me it's safe to feel rejected it's safe to feel not good enough for this person because it's really not personal it's we're all playing out we're all just like big kids trying to figure it out and we've had unmet needs in our childhood and dating is just one of the biggest places that that plays out because we're interacting

with another person so it's going to immediately trigger old patterns that we're used to playing in they're like you know for example with my boyfriend my pattern was definitely I felt very unseen by my dad and so I play you know it played out when I constantly got ghosted what is that I'm not seen they don't recognize or value me and when I met him I had to do a lot of internalizing what I was trying to put onto him. So the safety, the validation, the approval and say, actually, this is like a younger version of me terrified of feeling like she's going to be unseen again. Like that's on me. Yeah. You know, that's not someone else's issue.

And I think when you can kind of just approach dating like we're all just big kids yeah trying to work this really difficult and scary thing out you kind of take the pressure out of things like it's not personal dating first and foremost is about your relationship to self yeah but how do you not take it personal when things like dating apps are literally your personal profile? Yes. It's four of my best photos. It's a bio which sums me up in four sentences. Yeah.

And someone decides to swipe left or right based on what they think of me personally. Yeah. So how do you kind of separate yourself from putting yourself out there and then also retaining that sense of worth yes so i think first of all you make it not a big deal that this is i feel personal about this about dating i take it personally make that safe cool do you think you're the only person in the world that takes dating personally no like it's not a big deal right it's safe to feel this is scary then the second thing is rejection when you really think about it doesn't actually exist it's not actually true because it just means they weren't the right person for you wasn't the right career for you like hindsight is a

beautiful thing and i think you have to look back and remember all the times you got rejected by things and people that clearly just didn't have the capacity to see you, wasn't for you, wasn't meant to be. You're either colorblind and you have like, you can only see the color red or you can only see the color blue. Yeah. Right? Your people will be the people that, let's say you're red. They can only see you if they're the type of person that wears the red tinted glasses. Yeah.

If they're wearing the blue tinted glasses, they't pick you up you're like a gray you're not even existing right it's like there is that match and i mean that in all sense of the word like friendships i mean we don't talk about friendships enough that's also a really difficult space yeah um i just don't believe you can ever lose out on a person or a thing that is actually meant for you like in some cases rejection really is protection yeah it's like listen this person clearly doesn't have the capacity to love you the way that you need to see you the way that you need to be seen that career opportunity definitely didn't it wasn't you might have thought it was the thing for you but actually if you knew what really it entailed you'd hate it i think you've got to trust that if you ever feel rejection it's not because you're

not good enough it really is this thing of it's not meant for you cut it move on and i think it's fine especially when it comes to friendships that friendships have seasons so you have you'll be a friend with somebody for a certain period of time and then it's okay for that friendship to frizzle out it's just it's accepting the fact that we've we've gone through what we've gone through and now we're like let's say you they've taken this from you i've taken that from that person and now we can go our separate it doesn't mean that it's bad blood there but it's just the growth of like okay accepting that we can let go of each other i see i get that but i think there's a fear around that kind of just dropping friends especially in your 20s because i feel like the people that around you later on in life feel a little bit more sacred than you

know going to a party when you're 15 and meeting a whole new group of people yeah and I think especially in terms of uh growing up and having more emotional management what can be hard in your 20s is outgrowing people that haven't and they're kind of stuck in those repetitive behaviors and I guess how do you retain that sense of compassion and what if I don't want to just drop a friend that I've been friends with for so long and I've outgrown them and they're going through things and that might be a season but ultimately I do love them but we're just not vibing at the moment yeah so how how do you stay patient I mean mean, it's tough. Like, I've had family members. I've had to cut out family members that maybe outgrown is, yeah, I guess you can outgrow family members.

But it happens with friendships as well. And it is, listen, it's difficult, number one. And again, I'm going to sound like a stuck record. It's safe for that to feel really difficult and uncomfy. again I'm going to sound like a stuck record it's safe for that to feel really difficult and uncomfy but I think you need to recognize like you've done something for you first right you didn't grow maybe it started out like you were doing it for someone else but ultimately you've invested in yourself because you actually do care enough about yourself to want to improve things and I think the pain comes from because the friendship will naturally fizzle

it'll fizzle out just like in the dating world and that tends to be what happens your schedule stop aligning with each other your idea of hanging out changes um maybe they move across the world and now suddenly like I had this with my best friend from Cape Town she moved to Dubai and it felt like a long-term like a long-distance relationship and at one point we completely like the friendship kind of completely fizzled out and that was really painful because like you said like I had been through I lost my mum with her you know she was in my life a huge moment in my journey she was such a sacred friendship but I think what we tend to do is we like attach we almost think it's almost like a grieving process you have to kind of accept comes up that not everyone is going to stay in

your life and like you said every friendship kind of has seasons but i'm trying to think how to answer your question of do you ask how to make that i guess just like in terms of not completely cutting them off but staying patient or maybe communicating i'm not i i'm in a different place to you right now i want to be your friend but yeah i can't fucking deal with you doing the same things over and over going back to that same person yeah yeah yeah yeah how do you yeah it's difficult and i think in a way you can use them as an added layer of like, what triggers me about them staying where they are? Like, am I actually projecting some shame from a past version of myself that sees myself in that pattern? And is actually judging myself through her?

So again, you have to be brutally honest. Like, are you judging her? Or are you judging a past version of yourself you see in her that you wish you'd sorted out your shit earlier right so that's like a shaming technique and then it's realizing you aren't better than someone because you've done the work and i have to be brutally honest like i definitely there was a stage with a particular family member where i really had to check my ego and actually say listen they're just not ready to do the work on themselves it doesn't make me better than them because I've

chosen to do it we've just had different circumstances and I felt like I needed it so it's like having that same grace it's using every experience in your life as a tool for having deeper self-acceptance for where you are because i think the more like comfy you are with what your journey's been where you are now the less triggering someone else's who's still playing out patterns that maybe you can relate to is it's kind of like they'll find their way yeah um that's really profound i like that yeah yeah yeah does that feel practical i think so for sure and i think in your 20s we put so much pressure on ourselves like you say to be like a final perfected piece and like even if i

consider myself brutal but like better in a better place than like a friend is now doesn't mean there's going to be something that comes around again where I'm a bit of a messy version of myself and they're a bit better than me yeah um yeah very interesting and I think just to circle back to the dating thing a big thing at this age I think between the 25s to 30 point is setbacks like constantly having things happen something puts you off dating for a long period of time then you get back around to it and people are just going through that constant cycle how do you stay um true to yourself um confident strong with all these things that are pushing you back do you want want to give me an example? An example.

It's been a long time since I've... Like, for example, I would go onto dating apps. I'd be in the back of an Uber, drunk. I'd be the only time that I'd feel like I could communicate with men. Yeah. Which fucking says it all, to be honest. I wasn't serious about investing my time into dating seriously or being taken seriously probably and then I'd go on a date with someone I'd have a

negative experience it would fizzle out it would be quite to be fair me even associating the word negative it's probably one of the biggest things because it's probably just didn't have the capacity not the right person yeah um so important to reframe right doing my own therapy here um but then it would just then go past another year and I would just tell myself I'm protecting my own peace a little bit too much I'm waking up with a dry phone and then it would happen again I'd think oh I need some attention I'd go back on the dating apps I'd start dating again have a negative experience and then it would take even longer to bounce back and I'm just stuck in this period when people would ask me like are you dating at the moment are you looking for someone I'm like I'll be like no do you know what I'm just

not bothering I can't can't go through that period where you can't sleep at night because you're worrying that someone's taking advantage of you or your feelings or they're just going to you know fuck you in the end yeah and then you just stay in this constant state of i'm just gonna look after myself and i'm not gonna date and if someone's meant to be for me they'll come to me but in that same sense i'm not putting myself out there all roads lead back to yourself so i feel like in those moments where you are really seeking something that you can give to yourself from someone else you'll always meet a dead end you'll always be like you're not gonna get it from this person so you might as well stop trying and you can do that

for years listen i did this for years years and years and years because it felt safer then I think I'd like cut myself out of the own race I was like I can't give myself validation I can't give myself approval or the permission slip that I'm looking for so naturally you look for right I'm gonna find it in a partner I'm gonna find it in a relationship or whatever I think it really does come back to that self-sourcing conversation again it's what are you seeking from someone else that you could if you put the same amount of effort and time in that you do with other people getting it from someone else you did from giving it to yourself you'd have such a different result I think it's just easier again it's that childhood pattern

that you're playing out it's like someone in your childhood didn't give you something that you needed and that's okay to admit like a lot of people come out of their childhood not getting something because our parents aren't perfect they're just grown-up kids like we are so it's it's just learning is this really a confidence knock or am i being shown that the way in which i'm seeking confidence isn't working i mean i'm not in that anymore i mean i mean the love came when it wasn't knocking when i wasn't looking for it same and in a weird way i was in a time of my life where i was so looking for anything but love and i was loving myself by doing things and going out traveling and then literally on the monday i'm having a

conversation with my therapist about um how to have basic conversations with people when you're out i literally had a conversation about eye contact and she was like well you know when your friends are getting approached by people when you're out and in what's your demeanor like and i'm sat in the corner i'm closed off and she's like why don't you just try eye contacts and opening yourself up just seeing what comes don't yeah go into that scenario that environment looking for something like it's going to attack people for a conversation and it was that one person i laid literally eye contact on and then the universe kind of rewards you. Well, that codependent energy is heavy. People feel it from a mile away,

which is why I think we tend to, when we are in that codependent dynamic, we will attract people that are completely adverse to showing you any form. Because you're the only safe like they're the ones that can be like i can handle this heavy energy because i'm gonna give her nothing right so those tend to be the people that that's where you get the runner and the chaser so it's recognizing how much like if you literally think of your like emotional state as this thing people can literally see it's like i can feel you can feel

a codependent energy from a mile away it's it's heavy it's really taking it's like you've got to give and give and give someone so you're never going to find that healthy dynamic that needs you to meet yourself in a healthy place because they're not willing to overgive yeah they're willing to you know come back and forth and when someone's feeling a little low it's but they're meeting you at the halfway point they can sense you have the capacity to give yourself what you need so that they know you're also capable of giving them what they need because ironically even the over givers it tends to be and people pleases it tends to be a very selfish giving you're not actually necessarily have the capacity to give someone something else and all your energy even though it feels like that is literally what you're doing yeah you're giving

something in return for something straight away yeah so it's like an empty give I'm a people pleaser are you? not anymore, I used to be she's changed I think it's from past relationships like doing way too much and not doing way too much and accepting

if I don't get anything back in return it's normal it's fine and then after I was like wait hold on so you're telling me going back to mr tour guide you can take somebody on holiday for their birthday whatever but when yours comes nothing happens and you're okay with that no yeah there's you've got to like literally sit down and kind of like reflect and look back at the situation and see where you're doing yourself a disservice that's what i've basically taught myself but also it's one of them ones where it's like it's okay not to do everything for other people it's actually okay to say no yeah i always be like yeah i'll do it for you yeah but i'm overworking myself and not like feeding or pouring into my own cup but i'm pouring into others

so it's like if your cup's not getting full how the hell am i made to get the energy are you overthinking and thinking the outcome of the next scenario where you do give that selflessness of yourself it's going to end up in the same way no so you're not stopping yourself from going to opportunities because you're scared someone's going to do that again i don't know wow sorry i'm role-playing as the emotional wow i don't know it's often a case-by-case example you know you can get something right not right yeah you can create a really safe space for yourself one time and then you just learn like how to repeat that you won't always get it right yeah there will be scenarios where it's potentially more triggering yeah to not over give but i think what happens is the pain sometimes it just requires us to get into

a really shit place yeah and the pain outweighs the fear of the risk we need to take to get what we want and when that kind of goes off balance that's when we tend to change our behavior yeah and like that's okay too it's still a road to where you want to get i feel that i only ask that and bring it up is because i feel like boundaries was a big thing for me and once i got them it was almost like the boundaries stopped me from wanting to feel anything other than like my my you know my neutral yeah happy Lauren state and like I didn't want to let myself even feel joy feel sadness like I know it sounds crazy but it bled into like not wanting to open a text because I was scared of

what might come on the other side of it even if it was a positive thing or a negative thing it was like my body physically didn't want me to and my mind didn't want me to see what was on the other side of it even if it was a positive thing or a negative thing it was like my body physically didn't want me to and my mind didn't want me to see what was on the other side just in case it was anything than my normal like neutral that I know and I was safe in um so sometimes your boundaries can be so in place that you don't let yourself you know see what could be well there's different ways of like feeling safe in life you can set like you probably just set a slightly bigger box for yourself but you're still in this box where it's like anything outside of that remit is not safe so for example joy can so easily come into that have receiving things that you really want can fall outside

of that safety box yeah um boundaries are just a continual conversation of how do i make more and more situations feel safe for my entire self yeah how can i self-service more than i service others because ironically the more you fill up your own cup the more you can give to someone else right um it's just a continual practice there is no perfect way of doing this i think again that it's like no one is doing this wrong yeah you can't get this work wrong because it just leads you to right well that's a lesson okay feedback i'll take that on board as long as you can take it on board that's the most powerful thing like you cannot do life perfectly ever so we asked our audience some questions around dealing with emotions and we got some very interesting responses so i feel like it's only

right that we bring them here and chat about them how about that okay so one of the first ones was we asked the audience what holds you back the most in life and the answers we got was one I go through phases but anxiety fear failure what people think about me people's expectations and trying to juggle it all is there any you guys you know relate 100 expectations yep um i ironically think people think a lot about me which is so far from the truth um and that's something i've had to kind of peel away from myself is that i could be going over and overthinking conversation till till the later hours and the the expectation is that they're just not doing that at all that fear of disappointment yeah yeah 100 what about you fear of failure it's a big. It's a big one. It's a big one.

I think in regards to my own personal experience, it's because my parents left Congo and they came here for a better life, for I'm guessing for us and for myself. And it's the fear of making sure that what they've given up, what they sacrificed, I don't,

how do I word it? It's the fear of not doing enough so that they can be happy for the decisions that they've made here i do feel like um now that they've moved back it's like why did you guys come here if you came here for a better life but it's like so i've got to make sure whatever i do or the career that i'm doing i've got to make sure i'm successful enough for them to be like yeah we've you know we've crossed off that thing of the list we came here for a reason now our kids are exceeding the expectation so i think that's my that's massive that is a big one that's a lot of pressure yeah it's a lot of pressure for a child to have because you are still the child in this dynamic yeah and it's also like

remembering your parents you didn't force your parents to make a decision right they are adults and i think this is the hardest thing as kids with when we're grown up right is to remember that we are still the child in the dynamic they are adults who are fully responsible for the decisions that they make yeah you know you weren't chirping in their ear being like babes can you give me a better childhood please like move you do have to allow even if they're your parents people to make decisions and live with the decisions that they've made because they were independent of you even if they say that they did it for you we are still selfish in nature by the sense of like your parents would have also moved for themselves right and that's okay that's fully allowed of course yeah um but your fear of failing them is actually doing you a disservice in the sense of

it's not something to fear it would never have changed their decision anyway yeah when you put it because this is hindsight right yeah like they would have still moved you know like you know what i mean you can't ever go back and change their decision to move they were always going to move yeah regardless of what happens to you in your career and actually it just puts you in a really like it puts you on the back foot by making putting so much pressure on yourself to do something right to validate someone else's decision that's so true that's been asked me yeah to the point where i'm just like sometimes i i think i'm very hard on myself i'm gonna cry yeah it's big it's a big one it's good to cry. I do feel like... You've got me thinking.

Teeth at full, bleeding hell. No, it's a good cry. I am very hard on myself. And I do feel like I get angry at my siblings because they have it so easy. And it's like, you don't know what they've done to allow us to be here. Yeah. But then at the same time, it's true.

It's like, I wasn't alive when they decided to come here. I don't know whether they thought maybe they should have stayed you know i mean but it's always that kind of like i feel like with every every child that has a parent that's migrated they feel like that so it's doing i'm sure before they had you and they were moving though they weren't like when we got over there our firstborn better exceeds otherwise we're moving back yeah i'm sure you were a fucking bonus to the whole scenario of moving over here you know give yourself some credit i'm giving her a tissue give yourself some credit you've done so well yeah so well and your dad's obsessed with you. I know. Oh, that's so adorable. That's my best friend.

That's the things, like, if you put yourself in the same dynamic, right? Yeah. Like, you have a child. Would you regret a decision that you made that at the time you really believed would be the best decision for myself and my family? Yourself and your family? No. And you wouldn't want your child to carry that burden i think it's how i like you said how you take it in like yeah wow man you guys made me cry it's good though it's

such a good sign of a release it's a process because it means you're feeling your feelings and that's a big feeling to feel yeah you know and a lot of people will relate to your story which is amazing that you've shared it yeah because it means someone else doesn't feel less alone in their you know situation where they're also first generation um and it's it's it's a really real experience to have and a very valid experience yeah but i think it's that's where you learn like that another word for boundaries. It's where do I end and someone else begins. Like you aren't your parents and you can't make those decisions for them. You also can't assume that that's how they experience something. And even if you know there might be people listening that are like my parents 100% expect me to have this incredible career because of what I've sacrificed.

percent expect me to have this incredible career because of what i've sacrificed and again i think it's remembering our parents particularly if they've immigrated are acting out of a survival mechanism right it's a real difficult decision to make so the outcome is always going to be a little bit more they're almost going to be much more codependent because they might just because they've moved different countries doesn't mean that they've necessarily come out of that survival mechanism where they're still thinking that right my survival depends on my kids being really successful and their survival depends on them being really successful so it's still from a really caring place you've just almost got to rationalize what my parents grew up in and what i'm growing up in now are two very different situations you know so it's just a little bit

but also grace and space to feel that discomfort because it's big yeah man i bet you just spoke for so many people out there yeah a thousand percent yeah that was nice cry guys it's good i love a good cry yeah god we're clapping for crying this podcast has got two right good okay amazing let's go on to how our audience responded to what would you like to change about your mindset so we had a couple of responses comparing things knowing the grass isn't always greener i wish i could just focus on me sometimes it is this selfish i worry about other people more than myself i always think of the negative before the positive that i'm constantly doing something wrong or not being good enough i'd like to be kinder to myself and listen to the advice that I give to others and not have such high standard sorry not have such high standards for myself

I feel that just set myself to such a high point that it's just life isn't enjoyable living in that constant state of like i said like survival yeah i'm always trying to fight to be the best to be seen to be loved to be it's exhausting and it's not sustainable it's not and then if you reverse that you think right what am i running away from i'm running away from feeling like i'm not good enough that i am unsafe yeah that i am not good enough that i need to be perfect, that I can't be seen. Those are the things you actually need to focus on. Making safe versus making yourself this perfect, super confident.

I always feel like I'm enough. I believe in myself 110%. Because to be honest, you're going to struggle jumping from. I don't feel any of those things too. I feel all those things all the time. And the only reason you're looking and chasing for that perfect version of yourself is because you're running away from the version of yourself that exists right now. And she's loud because she is present. Well, they are present.

And that's the version you need to actually spend time being with not this future imaginary self because she they'll never arrive like the future moment never arrives it's just the present after the present after the present a little bit um so if you can reverse that and say, right, I actually need to look at the things that I am afraid of feeling, which makes me run towards that thing and make this thing safe. You no longer need certain things to happen in your external environment to feel safe.

That's ultimately what you are looking for. It's like safety in every sense of the word. Amazing, love it. Do you know how it says, I always think of the negative before the positive. Why is it so, why is it easy to sense of the word. Amazing. Love it. Do you know how it says, I always think of the negative before the positive? Why is it so, why is it easy to think of the negative first before the positives?

Because it's survival. That's annoying. I know, but it's the way we're wired. We are human beings wired for survival. You are constantly, your brain is looking to keep you safe, right? And I think this is the other thing. If you're an overthinker,

if you catastrophize if you constantly berate yourself you're actually not doing it out of hate for yourself you're doing it out of such care for yourself because you're trying to do the things you think you need to do to be safe or be the person you think you need to be to be safe yeah it's actually coming from a very caring place because i think we can add a lot of shame onto those coping mechanisms you've come up with yeah as a child but yeah we're wired for survival like you would your brain would be doing your disservice by not looking for potential threats in your environment yeah like the car that's speeding down the road or the person that feels unsafe you can't put your finger on it but you just get an

off vibe from them yeah it's it's just learning to moderate that like what's a threat and what's just uncomfortable to feel interesting okay love that um yes um so question was what would you like to embrace more about yourself and the answer that we got is my empathy my body shape how kind i am sometimes people are unkind to me and i sort of and it sort of holds me back the way i look my people skills and being kinder to myself it's a lot of kindness yeah yeah it's that's definitely something i struggle with the most i have a very loud inner critic like there's nothing you can say to me that i've not already said to myself and again like the best reframe that i ever had for that was that whole thing of like i'm not doing this because i hate myself even though it feels like that I am doing it because I think I need to be a different version

of myself in order to feel loved and in order to feel safe so what I'm actually looking for is to feel safe and loved for who I am and the only person that can really give that to myself is me it's got to come from me first. Otherwise, I'm going to rely on someone. That's going to make me feel unsafe anyway. I'm going to constantly panic about keeping this person in my life in order to feel these certain things. Or the job. I'm going to constantly panic about losing the job. So even if you do find it or think you can find it in something else think about the anxiety that's going to give you

yeah when you're looking for something outside of yourself like you're constantly going to be codependent with it so it's that whole thing of like being kinder to yourself really is about accepting the very humbling fact about life that you will just never be perfect. Yeah. You will never, ever rid yourself of insecurity. Yeah. You will never get rid of feeling uncomfy. And actually, if you can spend time just sitting with that truth

and making that kind of feel like, okay, I can't run from this truth forever forever um yeah i think you'd be a lot less needy in your environment i just wanted to ask sorry because uh on that answer i found it really interesting that all the people that said body shape be kind to myself the way i look were women so is there any do you see any difference in men and women and how they deal with things emotionally do we do we experience the same emotions or is it just how we're dealing with them i think that comes straight back down to like societal expectations because we all are navigating life as best as we can right no one has the blueprint because there isn't one so we naturally

fall into what society what we think we need to be and how we think we need to show up in order to feel safe yeah so for women that's very much how we look how we present how we how much space we take up you know i was saying like anger earlier is an emotion people women in particular really struggle with because generationally women were really you're seen you're not heard yeah and you think about parenting styles that also develop from parenting styles the kind of silent generation they call it i think it's oh i don't know our grandparents were the silent generation i think which meant kids weren't seen kids were seen not heard yeah but i think for women ours is very much linked to the space that we take up

and that can literally also be body shape yeah it can be the way we speak the way we present ourselves I think for men it's very much again in the primal role it's more about how much value do I provide to the people in my life am I doing enough in my career am I earning enough money um so it kind of does we do we're humans at the end of the day so regardless of which gender you identify with we all none of us are unique in what we experience emotionally like we are so basic in the sense of i've never met a client or had a session with a client who told me something I've either not felt myself or I've not had the client before speak about you know so it's the human condition yeah and I think we just I wish there was more conversations about a that that's present and b that's fucking okay

yeah it's safe yeah I've had had something before about like you are not special when you're suffering no like you can really think you're alone in something and we're all trying every day to be kind to ourselves to do this and doing that we're all doing the same thing yeah but it's just unspoken yes like maybe just through these conversations we're having now definitely people feel more comfy as you say to know that everyone's in the same boat and then imagine the difference you can make in your own life by having these conversations because the worst thing you can do is isolate yeah because then you feed the evidence that you are alone in your problems which nine times out of ten or all the time you are not yeah um and then you present evidence that oh my gosh a i'm not alone

and b the person that i've just shared this with says they feel the same way and now we're having a conversation and now i feel a little bit a little bit safer to not present so perfectly to them yeah it's like we all have to do the work of getting really comfortable being ourselves yeah love that um and just the final one we asked our audience were um what would you like to do more of that you usually procrastinate over passion projects be more creative i love painting etc i just don't make it a priority writing my creativeness and passion it's used up on my job and i never get to do anything for myself more time for creativity yeah I feel that so much I feel like I give so much of myself to work that I say in my free time I've not got the capacity now for anything else but then the more I think about it I'm like this just excuses if I wanted

to I can make time but I think in in a society a day and age where we are expected to give so much of our time and our energy to work like yeah how do we stop procrastinating that fact it's difficult and i think i want to validate that it is really difficult there's not just something wrong with you and the fact that you're not getting it right and you're not making enough time and everyone else is it's something i think almost everyone struggles with because of the way that our days are set up our work life is set up you know nine to five that's i'm not gonna do the math what is it eight hours a day and then you get home and you're commuting this that and the other it's it's tough right it's tough being a human and again i think we

need to give ourselves grace for that like it is difficult managing work life social life dating health exercise all of these kind of things so first off nothing wrong with you because you're struggling with it right secondly i think when we look at something as a chore we're always going to procrastinate about it like if you're doing it because you think you should be doing it then I think you'll always struggle yeah I think if you can find like what is it about that passion project like what's the desire in it not what's the should not how is this going to make me a better person like what is the reason it fills up my own cup um and then kind of like micro dosing that throughout your day or throughout your evenings and looking at the way that you can practically like embed that into your existing routine not look at it as something extra on your to-do list right so it's like maybe it's shifting the way that you spend time with your friends like maybe you go to a

pottery class or something or you go and see a theater show or you know what i mean it's like i think we can get in the habit of overthinking things and really you just have to start somewhere yeah right you can try and think up the perfect way of doing this but until you try something you'll never do it so just don't expect yourself to get it perfectly because you're gorgeous well that was an incredible conversation yeah i just felt like i had a therapy session oh but it's a good therapy session it's a release of sorts a wish yeah yeah thank you you're very welcome thank you for being so open and vulnerable agree it's big you're gonna help a lot of people with that share yeah and that's i think that's the biggest thing like i just wish

we had more of these conversations with each other, within our friendship groups, within our relationships, with our parents at work, you know, find micro spaces that we can bring a little bit more of that humanness. Yeah. And ironically, I know the podcast says conversations that should have stayed in the group chat, but have those group chat conversations and then say it to the masses. Yes. Like, I agree with that wholeheartedlyedly and thank you so much for sharing your point of view it's been incredibly valuable

thank you for having me thank you if you guys at home also have any other thoughts, feelings about the app please send them over to us at tf4 at junglecreations.com or you can DM us on Spotify Instagram all our channels you

can find them somewhere and um yeah thank you for joining us we'll see you next week fucking hell silence yeah well there's never enough okay amazing Bye.