The Dr. Hyman Show - How to Quit Being a Nice-aholic

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Athletic Greens. For many of us, it can be a challenge to express what we really think, even in our most important relationships, because we seek to avoid conflict or disappointment. Unfortunately, this approach takes us further away from dealing with the real situation and we end up unhappy and suffering the consequences. I know because I, myself, used to be a “nice-aholic.” In today’s episode of my series I’m calling Health Bites, I share discrete action steps my coach taught me that enabled me to just take a deep breath, get clear about what I wanted, and tell the truth in a clear, honest way. I also discuss simple steps to having a difficult conversation. This episode is brought to you by InsideTracker and Athletic Greens. InsideTracker is a personalized health and wellness platform like no other. Right now they’re offering my community 20% off at insidetracker.com/drhyman. AG1 contains 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals, whole-food sourced superfoods, probiotics, and adaptogens to support your entire body. Right now, Athletic Greens is offering 10 FREE travel packs with your first purchase by visiting athleticgreens.com/hyman. Here are more details from our interview (audio version / Apple Subscriber version): My personal history of people-pleasing (3:49 / 1:24)  Practicing healthy and effective communication (6:59 / 4:32)  Active listening (8:20 / 5:45)  How to approach a difficult conversation (9:25 / 7:27)  Mentioned in This Episode Nonviolent Communication Conscious Communication Practice Active Listening

Coming up on this episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Talking to someone straight, having a difficult conversation is really important and it's easier when you set it up properly, it's easier when you frame it in the right way, when you start in the right way. Hey everybody, it's Dr. Mark. I'm excited to share with you a brand that I trust whose product I've seen value in firsthand, InsideTracker. InsideTracker is a wellness tracker that uses science and technology

to deliver ultra-personalized healthcare guidance. Their cutting-edge algorithmic engine analyzes your blood, your DNA, your lifestyle habits, and then gives you an actionable set of recommendations to help you meet your health and wellness goals. Since 2009, InsideTracker's science team from Harvard, Tufts, MIT have been bringing personalized nutrition and wellness to the world with a powerful evidence-based digital platform. Their guiding principle is that your body is unique, so your nutrition, exercise, wellness plans should be too. And that's why InsideTracker gives you optimal biomarker zones and a customized dashboard to help you change your body for the better.

My team tried InsideTracker and they loved it. They discovered some important things about their health that led them to adopt improvements like taking a vitamin D supplement after seeing they were deficient or eating more iron-rich foods due to low ferritin and hemoglobin and making an effort to embrace stress reduction techniques after seeing high cortisol levels.

And not for me, of course, I promise that. If you're curious about getting your own health program that's tailored to your unique needs, I highly recommend checking out InsideTracker. Right now, they're offering my community 20% off at InsideTracker.com forward slash Dr. Hyman. That's D-R-H-Y-M-A-N. That's InsideTracker, I-N-S-I-D-E-T-R-A-C-K-E-R.com slash Dr. Hyman, D-R-H-Y-M-A-N.

And you'll see the discount code in your cart. Now, the basis of any healing protocol should be whole real food. But with all the GMO foods and long transportation, storage times, and monoculture farming methods, depletion of our soils, food's not as nutritionally dense as it once was, even good stuff. And that's why I recommend supplementing a whole foods diet with a high quality multivitamin as a basis for any health oriented program. And the product I personally use comes from Athletic Greens. Their AG1 supplement has 75 different nutrients that work together to fill out the gaps in our diet. I take AG1 every day and I've noticed that I consistently feel better and have more energy throughout the day. Plus it works with any diet,

keto, paleo, vegan, dairy-free, even gluten-free. AG1 is a simple, easy way to optimize your health. Right now, Athletic Greens is giving away 10 free travel packs with your first purchase. All you have to do is visit athleticgreens.com forward slash hymen. Again, that's athleticgreens.com forward slash hymen. And now, let's get back to this week's episode of The Doctor's Pharmacy. Welcome to The Doctor's Pharmacy. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman. That's pharmacy with an F, a place for conversations that matter. And today, we're going to talk about a topic that is often challenging for people, which is being a people pleaser, or as I call it, a nice--a-holic which I am guilty of and have been

one most of my life and I'm really working on it and it's not that I'm not inclined to be nice it's just it's about telling the truth and not people pleasing where you make you unhappy and try to make everybody else happy and then nobody ends up being happy and it's big mess. So who relates? I bet you a lot of you relate out there and it's important to take these things on because they affect the quality of our lives and our relationships, our effectiveness in life, our ability to do what we want. So I encourage people to listen up on this one. It's in our new format called Health Byte, which is a little bite of health tips to help you make small steps in your life that can create big changes over time. Now, you know that I've talked about this before. I've written about it. And I thought it was really important to kind of talk about it again because

it's such a problem for so many people who feel no, right? Where your heart says no, your body says no, and your mouth says yes. And who can relate to that? I think many of us. And I've had that happen most of my life because I grew up in a situation where I had a rageaholic stepfather who if I told the truth

or I didn't try to keep him pacified, it would be like hell. So I learned very early that it was good to lie or to not quite tell the truth. Or as I joke with my friend, he's got the same problem. We call it smuggling, which is sort of not quite being straight and not quite telling the truth and trying to people please. But actually, it ends up being a very manipulative way of relating because you're

trying to control the other person's emotions. You're trying to control their reaction instead of having an authentic relationship based on the truth. That doesn't mean you have to be mean. It just means you have to tell the truth with love. And that's a hard trick to do, but there's a skill. It's a skill like any other skill, and you can learn how to do it. So many of you have asked how I gave up being an isoholic. Well, I've built a model for myself of actually learning how to tell the truth and actually avoiding a lot of the disappointments and the conflicts that happen when you say yes, when you actually mean no. And then I would complain about it and I would get called out on the complaining. I'd work with my coach. And she was basically like, oh, you know, stop being an alcoholic.

And people pleased her. So really, really important to learn how to deal with what's really going on in your life and face it straight on and being willing to deal with the consequences of whatever might be the reaction. And it might not be something you like. Or who knows? It might be something that's even better than what you can imagine. But instead of dealing with reality by actually telling the truth, you're often avoiding people

pleasing. So I think I learned I could do it. And I learned there were really steps that helped me do it. And I want to share some of those with you. But it just kind of helps me to reset. And I still sometimes get this problem when I get an email from somebody or someone wants something, I want to help them. And I just, I'm sort of too overloaded and I sacrifice myself to help them, which isn't always a good thing. And if I learn how to say no with grace and with love

and with wisdom and kindness, then usually it goes fine. So I, you know, I actually be able to talk, talking about this and working with someone on it for a long time, I was able to reset these patterns. I'm going to share with you how you have a difficult conversation. And it's really important to learn how to have difficult conversations. There's great books on this called Nonviolent Communication. I think there's one called Difficult Conversations or Courageous Conversations, something like that. It's really about how do you actually have an honest conversation. I grew up in a family where

people didn't do that, where you kind of had to manage each other's emotions, where it would be a blow up or a stuffy situation. They're not great. So what do we mean by communicating in a healthy way? What do we mean by grace? grace well you want to talk in a way that people can actually hear you and and it actually um required me to practice like no tennis you can't just go and play tennis and hit the ball and expect you can have a forehand a backhand to serve and a net game uh overnight you literally have to learn the strokes you have to learn the technique you have to practice it over and over you have to write it down like i mean i have to learn the strokes. You have to learn the technique. You have to practice it over and over. You have to write it down. I mean, I have to write off and down what I'm going to say. But once you get good at it, once you do the mental, physical, and emotional

preparation for any conversation, you can sort of do it in a way when you're out of the activated state. You can do it when you're calm and collected and cool. And then you can do it without blaming the other person or exaggerating what happened or making it about something bigger than it actually is. And it's also about being curious about what the other person's experience is. And you don't actually even have to agree with them. You don't have to have the same perspective,

but you can really listen and get where they're at and have an understanding of it, even if you don't have that experience yourself or you don't agree. So you don't have to agree to actually have a relationship with someone, believe it or not. And so it also means actually being curious about the other person's perspective, what their experience was, and listen to what they said.

So basically, it's a technique called active listening. You inquire about what someone's feeling. You ask them to share. You listen. You don't react. You don't have a narrative in your head of what you're going to say or how you're going to rebut what they're saying or why they're saying is wrong or what you want to do to correct them or all this sort of stuff that goes on in our head. But just be a blank slate and just deeply listen. And then try to express back to them what you heard.

How are they feeling? What was their experience? Try to get in their shoes and often just by simply having the experience of being heard people will shift into a more relaxed calm state and it really really works um and so you have to kind of do that inquiry now in terms of wisdom that's the other piece. But, you know, I think for me, I realized that, you know, telling the truth is way better than not. And it's not necessarily about lying. It could be omission. It could be softening the truth. It could be not being honest and hoping that, you know, you'll, you'll, you know, just be able to sort of manage the situation by avoiding it. And then all of those are forms of lying, you know, I think. So talking to someone straight, having a difficult conversation is really important. And it's easier when you set it up properly. It's easier when you frame it in the right way, when you start in the right way. And so you kind of sort of go in with an open slate, not having to prove your point and be

right, you know. So someone once said to me, you either can be in relationship or you can be right and you can choose. So often it's not about being right or being validated in the way you think, but it's about really getting someone and having them get you. And then often that's enough. So what are those steps to have a difficult conversation? Well, the first is ask for permission. Say, hey, I'd love to talk to you about something. Is this a good time? If not, when's a good time? Let me know when you're ready. I want to have a conversation about something important.

And it's what they say. If they're really not, you know, that's okay. You say, when is good? Is it tomorrow? Is it next week? Is it tonight? Just give them a sort of a time. So it's not just, oh, it's not good and it's never good. You want to be able to have the conversation. Next, explain your goals. Let's say you really

want to understand each other or you want to have a conversation. You want to get more connected, not less. And you really want to start with something positive. You want to sort of give them some understanding that you see who they are, that you understand their perspective. You own your stuff. There's a very simple rule called cop-to-itiveness. You have to cop to it if you had a role in whatever the dynamic was. Own it. Really share your insights and reflect on what your role was, what you could have done differently. And it's a little bit disarming for the person because they go, oh, wow, they're taking responsibility. And it feels like you're not blaming them. You're not pointing fingers. So it's really very helpful. Then, you know, you've got to kind of draw on your wisdom, your higher self, because often we're listening to that. I call it the inner asshole, which is

our negative inner dialogue and think that's real, but it's our lower self. So call in your higher self. And then sometimes you need to like read. I had a friend who didn't know how to do this and I literally coached him and I, I gave him a script of, okay, here's how you set up the conversation. Here's what you say first. Here's what you say second. Here's the questions you ask. Here's how you share what you're sharing. And it, you know, it's sometimes like that, but basically, you know, you know, do it without blame or judgment. That's the key. You can say, well, this is what it seemed like to me or my experience, or I could be wrong, but this is what I remember. And next, you know,

ask for their perspective. You know, once you've shared what you've got to share, and obviously you want them to practice active listening too. So it's good if you can with somebody, especially a close partner or someone you have a long relationship with to sort of set up the parameters so they're willing to be part of it too and work on it together and be tolerant of making mistakes of not getting it right and start over again. I mean, just give yourself some kindness in all of it, but, but it, it's really important to ask, you know, what their perspective is and, and what do they think? And so give them a chance to really unpack that.

How do you remember it? And that really helps. And then you can kind of come up with agreements like, okay, well, I get this and I'm sorry for doing that. And, you know, I'll pay attention to the future and I hear you or, you know, you just so I really get why you're feeling this way about something. And it's not something you'd have to address or fix. It's just being heard sometimes enough.

So people get relieved to say what's in their mind, to be listened to, to be seen. And you might want to be together as a team and say, okay, as a team, as friends, as partners, as business partners, as marital partners, spouse or friends, what is your goal together? You want to stay more connected. You want to have more intimacy. You want to have more understanding. And that's where you're moving towards. So it's always about, you know, creating as a us against it conversation rather than us against each other. It's really important. So it's, this is not easy. I encourage you to check out resources. We'll put them in the show notes, but things like nonviolent communication courses and conscious communication

practices, active listening, really, really important to learn these skills. And we don't learn them in school. We don't learn how to take care of our health, our money, and our relationships. It's really important. Those are the three most important things we can do to manage and have a good life. So I encourage you to check it out. How do you do that? Practice it. Don't feel bad if you get it wrong or screw it up because there's really no getting it wrong. It's just learning. And it really works. I promise you it works. It can diffuse almost any situation and it helps you build deeper connections and relationships. And it's really at the end of the day what it's all about. So we hope you've loved today's Health Byte. Share with us how you've learned to communicate better, have deeper connections, and to deal with

your people pleaser and isoholic, because we'd love to hear. Subscribe wherever you're podcasts, and we'll see you next week on The Doctor's Pharmacy. Hey, everybody. It's Dr. Hyman. Thanks for tuning into The Doctor's Pharmacy. I hope you're loving this podcast. It's one of my favorite things to do, and introducing you to all the experts that I know and I love and that I've learned so much from. And I want to tell you about something else I'm doing, which is called Mark's Picks. It's my weekly newsletter. And in it, I share my favorite stuff from foods to supplements to gadgets to tools to enhance your health. It's all the cool stuff that I use and that my team uses to optimize and enhance our health. And I'd love you to sign up for the weekly newsletter. I'll only send it to you once a week on Fridays.

Nothing else, I promise. And all you do is go to drhyman.com forward slash pics to sign up. That's drhyman.com forward slash pics, P-I-C-K-S, and sign up for the newsletter and I'll share with you my favorite stuff that I use to enhance my health and get healthier and better and live younger longer. Hi, everyone. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. Just a reminder that this podcast is for educational purposes only.

This podcast is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided on the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, seek out a qualified medical practitioner. If you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, you can visit ifm.org and search their find a practitioner database. It's important that you

have someone in your corner who's trained, who's a licensed healthcare practitioner, and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health.