October 25, 2024 • 27 mins
Have you ever regretted not saying something sooner?
Do you think holding in your emotions causes stress?
Today, Jay takes us on a journey through the principles of the Tell Them Method, explaining that whether it's a simple decision like not wanting to attend an event or a deeper emotion like feeling unappreciated, the key is to directly communicate those feelings to the person involved. He highlights that most of us practice what he calls the "Tell Everyone But Them" method—where we vent to others but avoid speaking directly to the person who needs to hear it. This behavior, Jay argues, not only erodes trust and intimacy in relationships but also traps negative emotions within us, leading to stress and even physical discomfort.
Jay uses relatable anecdotes and insights from research to underline the significance of expressing emotions in a healthy way. He discusses how bottled-up emotions can lead to passive-aggressive behavior, overreactions, and even health problems. By directly telling people how we feel—whether it’s disappointment, love, or frustration—Jay believes we open the door to deeper understanding and connection.
In this episode, you'll learn:
How to Use the Tell Them Method
How to Stop Avoiding Hard Conversations
How to Pick the Best Time to Talk
How to Share Feelings Without Fighting
How to Ask Instead of Accuse
Practicing the "Tell Them Method" approach in everyday life not only improves our relationships but also enhances our emotional well-being, giving us the clarity and peace that comes from being truthful and intentional in our interactions.
With Love and Gratitude,
Jay Shetty
What We Discuss:
00:00 Intro
02:33 What is the Tell Them Method?
06:11 Why it’s Hard to Tell Someone How You Feel
09:29 Underestimate the Value of How Something is Said
16:06 The Three Things That Happen When Emotion is Experienced
18:26 How Trapped Emotions Can Create Trauma
22:52 Figure Out the Best Time to Talk About It
25:57 Don’t Wait for the Last Minute to Tell Them
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
I've done a lot of things in the last ten years.
I created this podcast, started businesses, hosted a world tour,
and even wrote multiple best selling books. But one of
my favorite things I've accomplished is my newsletter. It's called
Weekly Wisdom. For the last four years, I've sent out
a newsletter every single Thursday. I write about spirituality, love,
(00:21):
life's challenges, and the practical things we can all do
every day to get closer to healing and well being.
Over seven hundred thousand people subscribe, which is still so
wild to me. I'm grateful to every person who takes
time out of their day to read it. This newsletter
gives me a chance to really channel, to express myself
and share my thoughts in a candid way with you.
(00:43):
No matter what I do, whether it's podcasting or entrepreneurship,
the craft I love perfecting the most is my writing.
I write for myself, for others, and for the world.
If you'd like to start receiving my newsletter in your
inbox every Thursday, just go to j Sheddy newsletter dot com.
That's Jay Shetty newsletter dot com. The newsletter is one
(01:06):
hundred percent free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I hope you will join me and I can't wait
for you to read it on Thursday. People underestimate the time.
I think it's so interesting, so many of us we
choose the worst times to have the best conversations. A
lot of people in their relationships will choose the moment
(01:27):
their partner walks through the door to have the most
difficult conversations. Now, that person maybe just had a stressful
journey home back from work, and you're thinking to yourself,
so did I, Well, guess what. You're not in the
right position either. Not only is the timing wrong for them,
it's the wrong timing for you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The number one Health and Wellness Podcast, Jay Shetty, Jay Shetty, Jon,
Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
come to listen, learn and grow.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I am so grateful to have you here. My name
is Jay Shetty. Thank you for joining me for the
next twenty to thirty minutes as we talk about the
tell Them Method. Now, I promise you this method is
going to transform your life. I believe it will change
the way you work with your colleagues. It will change
the way you talk to your parents, your partners, It
(02:20):
will change everything about your life, because more often than not,
we do the opposite. Instead of the tell them method,
we practice the tell everyone but their method. Now, let
me give you a quick overview as to what they
tell them method is. If you don't want to go
on a date with someone, tell them if you want
(02:43):
to cancel plans tonight because you're exhausted. Tell them if
something feels off to you and you don't want to
see someone again. Tell them. If you're anxious about a
project you're taking on at work and you're not sure
what to do with your bo us. Tell them if
you don't like to watch sports with your partner. Tell them.
(03:07):
If you usually wait till the last minute to tell
people you're not coming, don't do that, Just tell them.
More often than not, we don't tell them. We don't
tell people. We hold on to emotional information. We hold
on to our feelings, We hold on to words, We
(03:30):
hold on to energy that we're being compelled to share,
to give, to pass on. But we hold back and
we hold onto it. There's a famous Zen saying that says,
letting go is hard, but holding on is harder. Just
(03:52):
imagine yourself holding on to a piece of rope that's
being dragged from your hand. If you're holding on tightly,
gripping tighter and tighter and tighter, it's going to leave
a burn in your hand. And so often our emotions
that we want to share with others, that we want
to exchange, that we want to set free, are the
(04:14):
ones that we're holding onto so tightly. It's so important
that we actually tell people how we feel. And this
applies to both challenging and encouraging emotions. The other day,
I was talking to someone and I said to them,
you know what, I'm just going to tell you how
I feel, and I opened my heart to them. I
(04:37):
told them how much I appreciated them, how much I
admired them, how much they meant to me. And I
meant every word. And they were so shocked and taken
aback because they were just surprised that someone would actually
open up in that way and wear their heart and
their sleeve. And I said to them, I like living
that way because I'd rather say everything that matters to
(04:59):
me and be seen as foolish, stupid, weak, then to
hold it all back and miss out on an opportunity
for a beautiful relationship. Because what am I really losing
by sharing how I feel, I don't lose my dignity.
I don't lose my self worth because I can only
(05:21):
give that to myself. I don't lose my self esteem
because I don't give the keys to that to someone
else in my life. I don't lose anything. When we
think that opening our heart in a positive way to
someone else makes us the loser, it means we believe
that they have the power over us, when actually I
(05:43):
know for a fact that I opening up my heart
to someone, telling them how I feel, telling them how
much they mean to me, and protecting my future self.
I'm protecting my future self because hey, guess what, if
they react positively, there's a beautiful relationship here. If they
reject it, then I still know in the future that
(06:05):
I did everything within my capacity. I did everything I
could possibly think of. Now. Sharing positive or vulnerable emotions
is hard, but sharing a negative feeling towards someone is
even harder. Telling someone you don't want to go out
on a second date, telling your family that you don't
want to come over for the holidays, telling a friend
(06:29):
that you no longer want to hang out them. These
can be much more challenging conversations, and they rarely are
going to go how we want them to go, and
therefore we avoid them. We avoid tough conversations because we
don't want to deal with the consequences of what comes
from them. But the reason why we should tell people
(06:52):
how we feel is because if we don't tell them,
we'll probably tell someone else. If you don't tell someone
how you feel, you'll probably tell someone else how you
feel about them. We gossip about that person to another person,
and sometimes they find out, even in the most indirective ways.
(07:15):
When we gossip or take energy from a relationship into
another conversation, what we're doing is diluting two relationships. You're
diluting the relationship you have with the person you're scared
to tell because now you don't have a deep relationship,
and you're diluting the relationship with the person you are
telling because you're boiling down the quality and depth of
(07:38):
your relationship to be about gossip, to be about discrediting
someone else, to be about bitterness. Instead of building a
relationship on positive emotions, we're actually falsely bonding over negative emotions.
So let's say I want to tell someone that I
(07:59):
don't think that what they're expecting of me is in
line with my boundaries. Now, instead of telling them my
boundaries my expectations, I start talking about them to someone
else and saying, can you believe that person? They're always
just you know, they're always just like disrespecting my boundaries.
They're always disrespecting me. I don't just don't know what
(08:20):
goes through their head. Now. If I'm saying it in
order to figure out how to have a conversation with them,
that's healthy. But if I'm saying it just to get
it out there, then I'm not actually getting anywhere with it.
What happens is the next time I see that person,
I now get more confirmation bias. Confirmation biases where I
(08:41):
get more information to prove how I felt. I then
go back to my other friend and talk about it
all over again, and all of a sudden, I still
have this person in my life who disrespects my boundaries,
And now I have someone else in my life who
I could be building a healthy exchange with, but we
only talk about bitterness, pain and negativity. So instead of
(09:04):
telling someone else, tell them it completely sets you free.
You let go of the baggage of holding onto it.
You now no longer holding on to the multiple conversations
you'll have about this scenario, which means you've made space
for other things. It also allows for you to get
(09:26):
a reason. And this is the difference. I think so
often when we want to share something hard or harsh
or negative with each other, we don't realize that it
can be done in a beautiful and powerful way.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's so important to recognize that it's about how you
say something, not what you say. We think it's all
about what we say, when really it's about what we
are meaning to say, how we say it, tension with
which we share it. And often I find a question
(10:05):
is far better than an accusation. If you want to
tell someone how you feel, it's better to tell them
with a question as a way to check. So to say, hey,
you know whatever I say that, I don't like it
when you talk about me like that in front of
this other person. I wanted to ask you why you
(10:26):
still continue to do it? Where does it come from? Now?
This allows you to check in a way that doesn't
put the other person on the defensive, hopefully doesn't make
them feel like they have to be critical, And now
you're actually asking them a question where they get to
explain themselves. I think we underestimate the value of how
something said. We have forgotten how to communicate in a
(10:49):
non violent, non confrontational way. It's interesting, right we think
that if we're right, no matter what the other person's
reason is, we're going to confront them, and so because
we're trying to avoid confrontation, we avoid communication. But actually,
healthy communication can help us avoid confrontation for no reason. Often,
(11:12):
if I think someone's behaving with me in a certain way,
I'll check in with them and say, hey, you know,
I noticed this. I just wanted to know if you
notice it or where does it come from. All of
a sudden, now we're on the same page, We're on
the same level. I'm not calling that person out, I'm
not making them look bad. I'm not you assuming that
they're acting a certain way, and I get the opportunity
(11:34):
to get an explanation. I'm not asking for a defense,
I'm asking for their insight. And I think this is
so important because so often we've watched so many courtroom
dramas where all we know how to do is put
someone in their place, and then that person kind of
has to defend themselves and stand up for themselves. And
(11:56):
now we're not getting anywhere because now we're doing the
same thing back. It's so important to tell people through
a question, tell people in a non confrontational, non violent way.
It's also brave to tell people how we feel, because
when we don't, we feel self righteous, but we automatically
(12:18):
assume that that person is unaware or wrong. I found
that when I tell people how they feel, they get
a chance to tell me how they feel, and often
I realize we're far far closer than we think. So
I'll give another example. The other day, I was pitching
an idea. The idea got rejected and I didn't really
(12:39):
get any feedback, so I said to the team, I said, hey,
I didn't get any feedback that I felt was valuable
or insightful. We've got feedback, but the feedback felt pretty vanilla.
It felt pretty you know, standard feedback. And it was
hard for me to say, hey, I don't think we
got any insightful or reflective feedback, but I thought it
was healthy to say that because I was acknowledging we
(13:00):
did get feedback, but it wasn't to the degree that
would help me. And I want to learn and I
want to grow. All of a sudden, I got some
amazing feedback, and actually, when I listened to it and
took accountability, I could totally understand why the idea got rejected.
I could actually reflect and comprehend why we didn't get
a yes. And when I communicated that and communicated the
(13:24):
heart of the pitch, it actually led to our much
more powerful positive conversation. Again, it was a hard conversation
for me to have because I didn't want to look desperate.
I didn't want to look needy. I didn't want to
look like I was forcing things over. And what I
realized is I could explain all of that right. Sometimes
we think, well, I don't want someone to think I'm XYZ,
(13:47):
and so I'm not going to say it at all,
rather than saying to them, hey, I'm not trying to
be XYZ, but this is how I'm feeling. Let's figure
this out. Know is how it makes such a difference.
We have to tell people why we think what we think,
not just what we think. We have to explain to
(14:07):
people why we're feeling the way we're feeling, not just
what we're feeling. So often we just tell people our emotions.
We don't explain our emotions, and when we explain our emotions,
we give them an opportunity to explain this when we
tell people how we feel, and more importantly, as I'm
(14:28):
saying here, we tell people how we feel and why
we feel that way, and we've recognized that we can
take some accountability for it. It gives us a sense of closure.
We've realized that we've done everything within our power, we've
done everything within our means, we've taken control. We've focused
(14:49):
on everything we can control, and we don't have to
be distracted by what we can't control, and that creates
such a powerful sense of self respect. We get an
understanding that we have the ability to really stand up
for ourselves, we have the ability to really recognize how
(15:11):
we're feeling. And I think this hits very closely to
why I partnered up with match, and what I really
found was I wanted to create a space where people
could connect based on their values. And this was really
really important to me because I feel that everything I'm
saying here is because we don't realize that our core
(15:35):
values have such a big impact in terms of long
term success. If you ignore core values, you're thinking in
the next five months. If you take on core values,
you're living in the next five years. And for anyone
who's interested and invested in building a long term, long lasting,
powerful relationship, this mindset is huge. Ninety three percent of
(15:59):
match members say that shared core values are a crucial
indicator of relationship success. Now, another reason why it's important
to tell people is because of what's actually happening inside
of us. According to a researcher named Nelson, three things
happen when an emotion is experienced. The first is we
(16:21):
develop an emotional vibration. The second is we feel the
emotion and any thoughts or physical sensations associated with it.
This is where the mind and bodies interconnectedness come into play.
And number three, we move on from the emotion by
processing it. But here's the interesting thing. According to Nelson,
(16:41):
when the second or third step mentioned above gets interrupted,
the energy of the emotion becomes trapped in the body.
As a result, you might experience muscle tension, pain, or
other ailments. Express your emotions to yourself, explain them to others.
Express your emotions to others. Explain them to others so
(17:03):
that they have the opportunity to understand them. When we
do that, we release it from being stored in the body.
Nelson says, the phrase trapped emotions usually means that you
want to say something, but you're blocking it from yourself,
and then that repressed negative emotional energy comes out as resentment,
(17:26):
being passive, aggressive, It can come out as an overreaction.
It can come out as depression and stress. Of course,
and mind body therapist Kelly Vincent compares trapped emotions to
carrying around a large backpack. It weighs us down, it
impacts our mood, and it drains our energy. So now
(17:46):
that you're not saying how you feel to someone else,
you're now carrying this backpack of emotions into every interaction
you go to. And what we're really saying is I
don't want to put in the effort to unpack this backpack. Right.
Think about it when you've gone on vacation and you
don't want to unpack a suitcase. So now you'll pack
(18:08):
it again for the next trip, and you're now carrying
everything from the first trip for the second trip as well.
So what you've done is you've just made it harder
and heavier for yourself. You've just made it more and
more challenging for yourself when it doesn't need to be.
That's why it's so important to tell them now. I
was reading an amazing medically reviewed article by Jennifer Littner
(18:32):
on Healthline and it was talking about how trapped emotions
and extreme cases can actually create trauma. She talks about how,
according to a twenty fifteen survey of almost sixty nine
thousand adults across six continents, over seventy percent of respondents
reported exposure to a traumatic event, while thirty point five
(18:54):
percent were exposed to four or more. Right, this could
be a breakup or before, she says, it could be
a major illness, it could be losing your job. And
what ends up happening is that when we don't share
or express that emotion on how we feel, that can
end up being stored in the body. And if you've
(19:15):
not read this brilliant book called The Body Keeps the Score,
I highly recommend it. And when we're carrying around these
emotions and we don't tell people how we feel, we
don't tell people how we feel about them, we don't
tell people how they've made us feel, we end up
blaming ourselves. We end up blaming them rather than engaging
(19:39):
with them. We can end up taking that stress out
on loved ones and so a lot of negative energy
gets trapped in the body when it's not released in
that way. And so I want to ask you, when's
the last time you've been feeling a headache? Because there's
something on your mind and your heart that you've been
wanting to say. And here's what I'd recommend you do.
(20:00):
Tell them, because if you don't tell them, you'll spiral.
If you don't tell them, you will regret it later.
And the reason why we're not telling them is we
don't think about this. I want to help you come
up with a five step formula for how to understand
how to tell them. The first thing is they're not
in front of you. What would you say if there
(20:23):
were no edits right, if you didn't have to filter it,
if you said it with all the anger, if you
expressed it with all the pain, all the tension, what
would it sound like? Write it out, audio it out,
say it out loud? How would you express your pain, stress,
tension towards someone without thinking about how they digest it,
(20:45):
let it out without them there? I ideally would say,
write this down if you can journal it, because the
next step is focused on what you actually are trying
to say. As you now edit this, you're now extracting
the explanation from the expression. It's not that you're taking
the emotion out of it, but you're taking the accusatory,
(21:10):
the blaming, the judgment out of it so that you
can truly explain how you feel over expressing what you
think of them. So you're editing now in order to
make it make sense to someone else. I couldn't be
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the code on purpose. The third thing, which I think
is really important is figure out the best time to
say it. People underestimate the time. I think it's so interesting.
(23:00):
So many of us we choose the worst times to
have the best conversations. A lot of people in their
relationships will choose the moment their partner walks through the
door to have the most difficult conversations. Now that person
maybe just had a stressful journey home back from work
and you're thinking to yourself, so did I, Well, guess what.
You're not in the right position either. Not only is
(23:22):
the timing wrong for them, it's the wrong timing for you.
The next thing is you don't know how heavy their
day was, so they're already carrying a load, and now
they don't have the ability to carry your load. On
top of it, you've now reduced the probability that they
have the conscientiousness and the compassion in that moment to
(23:45):
be present with you. Did they have any capacity? You're
speaking to them at a time where their emotional capacity
is so reduced. And it's really funny because we think,
in this moment, well, they should get it, they should
understand it. It's it's so important to me. They don't
have any other time when actually you could have made
it a lot easier for yourself to bring it up
(24:06):
at a time that they could digest it. The other
important thing, not just time, is to figure out the
best place to say something. I think sometimes again, we
choose the worst place to have the best conversations. We
do it over dinner when someone's just trying to eat.
We do it passive aggressively when someone's friends or family
(24:27):
is around them. We do it when the person's trying
to disconnect from everything while watching a TV show, rather
than setting a time in a place. We take up
any opportunity because we think it's so important, but anything
that's truly important. If you think about in the workplace,
you set in a appointment, you set a meeting to
(24:50):
have important conversations. We've got to do that even with
the people we love. Right, And the biggest one, which
I think we underestimate is that we're usually quite attached
to the result, and really what we need to do
is be detached from the result. Now, how do we
do that. We want them to change. We want them
(25:12):
to know how we feel. We want them to feel
bad about it. We want them to get the point
that maybe all these expectations we have, well, the truth
is all of our expectations are not helping us. They're
actually setting us up for failure. Instead of sharing all
of this in a way that we hope that they go, yeah,
I get it, I get it, I'm going to change completely,
(25:34):
which is our artificial hope, we could share it and
actually to see where they're coming from. We could actually
try and understand what their blocks are. We're actually try
and comprehend what their challenges are because guess what, that's
going to give us a lot more information, a lot
more ability to grow, a lot more insight into what
(25:56):
can be solved. Now, this is going back to the
simplicity of tell them method. Let's look at that example.
If you don't want to go on a date with
someone and you go out just because you feel guilty,
Now they think there's a chance they're being strong along.
Now you're feeling worse on day four that you keep
(26:16):
stringing them along. And now on day eight you've got
to tell them anyway, right, you're not going to let
it go all the way to them expecting you're going
to propose to them, and well maybe you might. And
then now you've got to do even the harder job,
because if you just told them in the first place,
you wouldn't have all that later on pain. Some of
you wait till the last minute to tell someone you're
(26:38):
not coming to the party. Guess what, that lets them
down more than if you told them a month in
advance and gave a good explanation. Tell them, tell them,
tell them, because guess what, you don't then have to spiral.
You don't have to think about that emotion that exchange
for the next three weeks. You can actually create space
for the life that you want to build. Thank you
so much for listening. This helps you. I hope you
(27:01):
pass it on to a friend and remember I'm forever
in your corner and always rooting for you. And next
time you're struggling to express how you feel, just tell them.
I promise you it will make a huge difference and
save you so much mental space, so much mental time,
(27:23):
and so much mental energy. Thank you. Hey everyone, If
you love that conversation, go and check out my episode
with the world's leading therapist Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers
the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it
comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying
to figure out that space right now, you won't want
(27:45):
to miss this conversation.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard
to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold
hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.
I've done a lot of things in the last ten years.
I created this podcast, started businesses, hosted a world tour,
and even wrote multiple best selling books. But one of
my favorite things I've accomplished is my newsletter. It's called
Weekly Wisdom. For the last four years, I've sent out
a newsletter every single Thursday. I write about spirituality, love,
(00:21):
life's challenges, and the practical things we can all do
every day to get closer to healing and well being.
Over seven hundred thousand people subscribe, which is still so
wild to me. I'm grateful to every person who takes
time out of their day to read it. This newsletter
gives me a chance to really channel, to express myself
and share my thoughts in a candid way with you.
(00:43):
No matter what I do, whether it's podcasting or entrepreneurship,
the craft I love perfecting the most is my writing.
I write for myself, for others, and for the world.
If you'd like to start receiving my newsletter in your
inbox every Thursday, just go to j Sheddy newsletter dot com.
That's Jay Shetty newsletter dot com. The newsletter is one
(01:06):
hundred percent free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
I hope you will join me and I can't wait
for you to read it on Thursday. People underestimate the time.
I think it's so interesting, so many of us we
choose the worst times to have the best conversations. A
lot of people in their relationships will choose the moment
(01:27):
their partner walks through the door to have the most
difficult conversations. Now, that person maybe just had a stressful
journey home back from work, and you're thinking to yourself,
so did I, Well, guess what. You're not in the
right position either. Not only is the timing wrong for them,
it's the wrong timing for you.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
The number one Health and Wellness Podcast, Jay Shetty, Jay Shetty, Jon,
Hey everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
come to listen, learn and grow.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
I am so grateful to have you here. My name
is Jay Shetty. Thank you for joining me for the
next twenty to thirty minutes as we talk about the
tell Them Method. Now, I promise you this method is
going to transform your life. I believe it will change
the way you work with your colleagues. It will change
the way you talk to your parents, your partners, It
(02:20):
will change everything about your life, because more often than not,
we do the opposite. Instead of the tell them method,
we practice the tell everyone but their method. Now, let
me give you a quick overview as to what they
tell them method is. If you don't want to go
on a date with someone, tell them if you want
(02:43):
to cancel plans tonight because you're exhausted. Tell them if
something feels off to you and you don't want to
see someone again. Tell them. If you're anxious about a
project you're taking on at work and you're not sure
what to do with your bo us. Tell them if
you don't like to watch sports with your partner. Tell them.
(03:07):
If you usually wait till the last minute to tell
people you're not coming, don't do that, Just tell them.
More often than not, we don't tell them. We don't
tell people. We hold on to emotional information. We hold
on to our feelings, We hold on to words, We
(03:30):
hold on to energy that we're being compelled to share,
to give, to pass on. But we hold back and
we hold onto it. There's a famous Zen saying that says,
letting go is hard, but holding on is harder. Just
(03:52):
imagine yourself holding on to a piece of rope that's
being dragged from your hand. If you're holding on tightly,
gripping tighter and tighter and tighter, it's going to leave
a burn in your hand. And so often our emotions
that we want to share with others, that we want
to exchange, that we want to set free, are the
(04:14):
ones that we're holding onto so tightly. It's so important
that we actually tell people how we feel. And this
applies to both challenging and encouraging emotions. The other day,
I was talking to someone and I said to them,
you know what, I'm just going to tell you how
I feel, and I opened my heart to them. I
(04:37):
told them how much I appreciated them, how much I
admired them, how much they meant to me. And I
meant every word. And they were so shocked and taken
aback because they were just surprised that someone would actually
open up in that way and wear their heart and
their sleeve. And I said to them, I like living
that way because I'd rather say everything that matters to
(04:59):
me and be seen as foolish, stupid, weak, then to
hold it all back and miss out on an opportunity
for a beautiful relationship. Because what am I really losing
by sharing how I feel, I don't lose my dignity.
I don't lose my self worth because I can only
(05:21):
give that to myself. I don't lose my self esteem
because I don't give the keys to that to someone
else in my life. I don't lose anything. When we
think that opening our heart in a positive way to
someone else makes us the loser, it means we believe
that they have the power over us, when actually I
(05:43):
know for a fact that I opening up my heart
to someone, telling them how I feel, telling them how
much they mean to me, and protecting my future self.
I'm protecting my future self because hey, guess what, if
they react positively, there's a beautiful relationship here. If they
reject it, then I still know in the future that
(06:05):
I did everything within my capacity. I did everything I
could possibly think of. Now. Sharing positive or vulnerable emotions
is hard, but sharing a negative feeling towards someone is
even harder. Telling someone you don't want to go out
on a second date, telling your family that you don't
want to come over for the holidays, telling a friend
(06:29):
that you no longer want to hang out them. These
can be much more challenging conversations, and they rarely are
going to go how we want them to go, and
therefore we avoid them. We avoid tough conversations because we
don't want to deal with the consequences of what comes
from them. But the reason why we should tell people
(06:52):
how we feel is because if we don't tell them,
we'll probably tell someone else. If you don't tell someone
how you feel, you'll probably tell someone else how you
feel about them. We gossip about that person to another person,
and sometimes they find out, even in the most indirective ways.
(07:15):
When we gossip or take energy from a relationship into
another conversation, what we're doing is diluting two relationships. You're
diluting the relationship you have with the person you're scared
to tell because now you don't have a deep relationship,
and you're diluting the relationship with the person you are
telling because you're boiling down the quality and depth of
(07:38):
your relationship to be about gossip, to be about discrediting
someone else, to be about bitterness. Instead of building a
relationship on positive emotions, we're actually falsely bonding over negative emotions.
So let's say I want to tell someone that I
(07:59):
don't think that what they're expecting of me is in
line with my boundaries. Now, instead of telling them my
boundaries my expectations, I start talking about them to someone
else and saying, can you believe that person? They're always
just you know, they're always just like disrespecting my boundaries.
They're always disrespecting me. I don't just don't know what
(08:20):
goes through their head. Now. If I'm saying it in
order to figure out how to have a conversation with them,
that's healthy. But if I'm saying it just to get
it out there, then I'm not actually getting anywhere with it.
What happens is the next time I see that person,
I now get more confirmation bias. Confirmation biases where I
(08:41):
get more information to prove how I felt. I then
go back to my other friend and talk about it
all over again, and all of a sudden, I still
have this person in my life who disrespects my boundaries,
And now I have someone else in my life who
I could be building a healthy exchange with, but we
only talk about bitterness, pain and negativity. So instead of
(09:04):
telling someone else, tell them it completely sets you free.
You let go of the baggage of holding onto it.
You now no longer holding on to the multiple conversations
you'll have about this scenario, which means you've made space
for other things. It also allows for you to get
(09:26):
a reason. And this is the difference. I think so
often when we want to share something hard or harsh
or negative with each other, we don't realize that it
can be done in a beautiful and powerful way.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Right.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
It's so important to recognize that it's about how you
say something, not what you say. We think it's all
about what we say, when really it's about what we
are meaning to say, how we say it, tension with
which we share it. And often I find a question
(10:05):
is far better than an accusation. If you want to
tell someone how you feel, it's better to tell them
with a question as a way to check. So to say, hey,
you know whatever I say that, I don't like it
when you talk about me like that in front of
this other person. I wanted to ask you why you
(10:26):
still continue to do it? Where does it come from? Now?
This allows you to check in a way that doesn't
put the other person on the defensive, hopefully doesn't make
them feel like they have to be critical, And now
you're actually asking them a question where they get to
explain themselves. I think we underestimate the value of how
something said. We have forgotten how to communicate in a
(10:49):
non violent, non confrontational way. It's interesting, right we think
that if we're right, no matter what the other person's
reason is, we're going to confront them, and so because
we're trying to avoid confrontation, we avoid communication. But actually,
healthy communication can help us avoid confrontation for no reason. Often,
(11:12):
if I think someone's behaving with me in a certain way,
I'll check in with them and say, hey, you know,
I noticed this. I just wanted to know if you
notice it or where does it come from. All of
a sudden, now we're on the same page, We're on
the same level. I'm not calling that person out, I'm
not making them look bad. I'm not you assuming that
they're acting a certain way, and I get the opportunity
(11:34):
to get an explanation. I'm not asking for a defense,
I'm asking for their insight. And I think this is
so important because so often we've watched so many courtroom
dramas where all we know how to do is put
someone in their place, and then that person kind of
has to defend themselves and stand up for themselves. And
(11:56):
now we're not getting anywhere because now we're doing the
same thing back. It's so important to tell people through
a question, tell people in a non confrontational, non violent way.
It's also brave to tell people how we feel, because
when we don't, we feel self righteous, but we automatically
(12:18):
assume that that person is unaware or wrong. I found
that when I tell people how they feel, they get
a chance to tell me how they feel, and often
I realize we're far far closer than we think. So
I'll give another example. The other day, I was pitching
an idea. The idea got rejected and I didn't really
(12:39):
get any feedback, so I said to the team, I said, hey,
I didn't get any feedback that I felt was valuable
or insightful. We've got feedback, but the feedback felt pretty vanilla.
It felt pretty you know, standard feedback. And it was
hard for me to say, hey, I don't think we
got any insightful or reflective feedback, but I thought it
was healthy to say that because I was acknowledging we
(13:00):
did get feedback, but it wasn't to the degree that
would help me. And I want to learn and I
want to grow. All of a sudden, I got some
amazing feedback, and actually, when I listened to it and
took accountability, I could totally understand why the idea got rejected.
I could actually reflect and comprehend why we didn't get
a yes. And when I communicated that and communicated the
(13:24):
heart of the pitch, it actually led to our much
more powerful positive conversation. Again, it was a hard conversation
for me to have because I didn't want to look desperate.
I didn't want to look needy. I didn't want to
look like I was forcing things over. And what I
realized is I could explain all of that right. Sometimes
we think, well, I don't want someone to think I'm XYZ,
(13:47):
and so I'm not going to say it at all,
rather than saying to them, hey, I'm not trying to
be XYZ, but this is how I'm feeling. Let's figure
this out. Know is how it makes such a difference.
We have to tell people why we think what we think,
not just what we think. We have to explain to
(14:07):
people why we're feeling the way we're feeling, not just
what we're feeling. So often we just tell people our emotions.
We don't explain our emotions, and when we explain our emotions,
we give them an opportunity to explain this when we
tell people how we feel, and more importantly, as I'm
(14:28):
saying here, we tell people how we feel and why
we feel that way, and we've recognized that we can
take some accountability for it. It gives us a sense of closure.
We've realized that we've done everything within our power, we've
done everything within our means, we've taken control. We've focused
(14:49):
on everything we can control, and we don't have to
be distracted by what we can't control, and that creates
such a powerful sense of self respect. We get an
understanding that we have the ability to really stand up
for ourselves, we have the ability to really recognize how
(15:11):
we're feeling. And I think this hits very closely to
why I partnered up with match, and what I really
found was I wanted to create a space where people
could connect based on their values. And this was really
really important to me because I feel that everything I'm
saying here is because we don't realize that our core
(15:35):
values have such a big impact in terms of long
term success. If you ignore core values, you're thinking in
the next five months. If you take on core values,
you're living in the next five years. And for anyone
who's interested and invested in building a long term, long lasting,
powerful relationship, this mindset is huge. Ninety three percent of
(15:59):
match members say that shared core values are a crucial
indicator of relationship success. Now, another reason why it's important
to tell people is because of what's actually happening inside
of us. According to a researcher named Nelson, three things
happen when an emotion is experienced. The first is we
(16:21):
develop an emotional vibration. The second is we feel the
emotion and any thoughts or physical sensations associated with it.
This is where the mind and bodies interconnectedness come into play.
And number three, we move on from the emotion by
processing it. But here's the interesting thing. According to Nelson,
(16:41):
when the second or third step mentioned above gets interrupted,
the energy of the emotion becomes trapped in the body.
As a result, you might experience muscle tension, pain, or
other ailments. Express your emotions to yourself, explain them to others.
Express your emotions to others. Explain them to others so
(17:03):
that they have the opportunity to understand them. When we
do that, we release it from being stored in the body.
Nelson says, the phrase trapped emotions usually means that you
want to say something, but you're blocking it from yourself,
and then that repressed negative emotional energy comes out as resentment,
(17:26):
being passive, aggressive, It can come out as an overreaction.
It can come out as depression and stress. Of course,
and mind body therapist Kelly Vincent compares trapped emotions to
carrying around a large backpack. It weighs us down, it
impacts our mood, and it drains our energy. So now
(17:46):
that you're not saying how you feel to someone else,
you're now carrying this backpack of emotions into every interaction
you go to. And what we're really saying is I
don't want to put in the effort to unpack this backpack. Right.
Think about it when you've gone on vacation and you
don't want to unpack a suitcase. So now you'll pack
(18:08):
it again for the next trip, and you're now carrying
everything from the first trip for the second trip as well.
So what you've done is you've just made it harder
and heavier for yourself. You've just made it more and
more challenging for yourself when it doesn't need to be.
That's why it's so important to tell them now. I
was reading an amazing medically reviewed article by Jennifer Littner
(18:32):
on Healthline and it was talking about how trapped emotions
and extreme cases can actually create trauma. She talks about how,
according to a twenty fifteen survey of almost sixty nine
thousand adults across six continents, over seventy percent of respondents
reported exposure to a traumatic event, while thirty point five
(18:54):
percent were exposed to four or more. Right, this could
be a breakup or before, she says, it could be
a major illness, it could be losing your job. And
what ends up happening is that when we don't share
or express that emotion on how we feel, that can
end up being stored in the body. And if you've
(19:15):
not read this brilliant book called The Body Keeps the Score,
I highly recommend it. And when we're carrying around these
emotions and we don't tell people how we feel, we
don't tell people how we feel about them, we don't
tell people how they've made us feel, we end up
blaming ourselves. We end up blaming them rather than engaging
(19:39):
with them. We can end up taking that stress out
on loved ones and so a lot of negative energy
gets trapped in the body when it's not released in
that way. And so I want to ask you, when's
the last time you've been feeling a headache? Because there's
something on your mind and your heart that you've been
wanting to say. And here's what I'd recommend you do.
(20:00):
Tell them, because if you don't tell them, you'll spiral.
If you don't tell them, you will regret it later.
And the reason why we're not telling them is we
don't think about this. I want to help you come
up with a five step formula for how to understand
how to tell them. The first thing is they're not
in front of you. What would you say if there
(20:23):
were no edits right, if you didn't have to filter it,
if you said it with all the anger, if you
expressed it with all the pain, all the tension, what
would it sound like? Write it out, audio it out,
say it out loud? How would you express your pain, stress,
tension towards someone without thinking about how they digest it,
(20:45):
let it out without them there? I ideally would say,
write this down if you can journal it, because the
next step is focused on what you actually are trying
to say. As you now edit this, you're now extracting
the explanation from the expression. It's not that you're taking
the emotion out of it, but you're taking the accusatory,
(21:10):
the blaming, the judgment out of it so that you
can truly explain how you feel over expressing what you
think of them. So you're editing now in order to
make it make sense to someone else. I couldn't be
more excited to share something truly special with all you
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(21:32):
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(22:37):
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the code on purpose. The third thing, which I think
is really important is figure out the best time to
say it. People underestimate the time. I think it's so interesting.
(23:00):
So many of us we choose the worst times to
have the best conversations. A lot of people in their
relationships will choose the moment their partner walks through the
door to have the most difficult conversations. Now that person
maybe just had a stressful journey home back from work
and you're thinking to yourself, so did I, Well, guess what.
You're not in the right position either. Not only is
(23:22):
the timing wrong for them, it's the wrong timing for you.
The next thing is you don't know how heavy their
day was, so they're already carrying a load, and now
they don't have the ability to carry your load. On
top of it, you've now reduced the probability that they
have the conscientiousness and the compassion in that moment to
(23:45):
be present with you. Did they have any capacity? You're
speaking to them at a time where their emotional capacity
is so reduced. And it's really funny because we think,
in this moment, well, they should get it, they should
understand it. It's it's so important to me. They don't
have any other time when actually you could have made
it a lot easier for yourself to bring it up
(24:06):
at a time that they could digest it. The other
important thing, not just time, is to figure out the
best place to say something. I think sometimes again, we
choose the worst place to have the best conversations. We
do it over dinner when someone's just trying to eat.
We do it passive aggressively when someone's friends or family
(24:27):
is around them. We do it when the person's trying
to disconnect from everything while watching a TV show, rather
than setting a time in a place. We take up
any opportunity because we think it's so important, but anything
that's truly important. If you think about in the workplace,
you set in a appointment, you set a meeting to
(24:50):
have important conversations. We've got to do that even with
the people we love. Right, And the biggest one, which
I think we underestimate is that we're usually quite attached
to the result, and really what we need to do
is be detached from the result. Now, how do we
do that. We want them to change. We want them
(25:12):
to know how we feel. We want them to feel
bad about it. We want them to get the point
that maybe all these expectations we have, well, the truth
is all of our expectations are not helping us. They're
actually setting us up for failure. Instead of sharing all
of this in a way that we hope that they go, yeah,
I get it, I get it, I'm going to change completely,
(25:34):
which is our artificial hope, we could share it and
actually to see where they're coming from. We could actually
try and understand what their blocks are. We're actually try
and comprehend what their challenges are because guess what, that's
going to give us a lot more information, a lot
more ability to grow, a lot more insight into what
(25:56):
can be solved. Now, this is going back to the
simplicity of tell them method. Let's look at that example.
If you don't want to go on a date with
someone and you go out just because you feel guilty,
Now they think there's a chance they're being strong along.
Now you're feeling worse on day four that you keep
(26:16):
stringing them along. And now on day eight you've got
to tell them anyway, right, you're not going to let
it go all the way to them expecting you're going
to propose to them, and well maybe you might. And
then now you've got to do even the harder job,
because if you just told them in the first place,
you wouldn't have all that later on pain. Some of
you wait till the last minute to tell someone you're
(26:38):
not coming to the party. Guess what, that lets them
down more than if you told them a month in
advance and gave a good explanation. Tell them, tell them,
tell them, because guess what, you don't then have to spiral.
You don't have to think about that emotion that exchange
for the next three weeks. You can actually create space
for the life that you want to build. Thank you
so much for listening. This helps you. I hope you
(27:01):
pass it on to a friend and remember I'm forever
in your corner and always rooting for you. And next
time you're struggling to express how you feel, just tell them.
I promise you it will make a huge difference and
save you so much mental space, so much mental time,
(27:23):
and so much mental energy. Thank you. Hey everyone, If
you love that conversation, go and check out my episode
with the world's leading therapist Lourie Gottlieb, where she answers
the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it
comes to love, relationships, heartbreak, and dating. If you're trying
to figure out that space right now, you won't want
(27:45):
to miss this conversation.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
If it's a romantic relationship, hold hands. It's really hard
to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold
hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.
Host
Jay Shetty
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