The two videos below will be discussed further in my post so read-on to see what the heck they have to do with people-pleasing!
I can't share all the stories on this journey. I don't want to hurt people or share other's people "stuff."
But here is a story I can share.
I manage my friends, Shane and Linda's AirB&B. They live in Germany. And I try to handle everything here for them. In exchange, I can use their place a few weeks a year for free. It's super helpful since we don't have a very big house and really don't have a good place to put guests.
We currently have 73 (seventy-three!) 5-star reviews! We haven't had a single review under 5-stars in the three years they have been hosting.
Pretty good track record I would say.
Today we had a guest check-out, and when she left her message to us, she seemed fairly disgruntled. Her complaints seemed overboard and a bit picky. She also said she didn't want to tell me during her week-long stay because she didn't want to be bothered by me coming in to fix things. So she doesn't say anything is wrong while she is here. And then when she checks out, she tells me all the things she didn't like.
(Mind you, we had another guest who checked out right before her who didn't mention any of the things that she is mentioning.)
I can instantly feel, inside my body, dysregulation. Now this is a word I didn't even really understand prior to February of 2024 when my body shut down on me and I didn't know why and an amazing counselor helped me uncover the chronic anxiety I was living with. Two decades of migraines were gone in a matter of weeks as I stopped trying to "hold it together" and instead started "letting it all fall apart."
This means, that prior to February of 2024, when events like this occurred, I rarely even felt dysregulation.
How is that possible? How did I not feel something that is now devouring my body?
Three reasons:
1. I numbed the sensations with anti-depressants because I could not function without them. (And please note, this is not a slam on anyone who is using medicine. I used it for a very long time and do not think I could have functioned without it at the time.)
2. When dysregulation would start to come in, I had massive strategies of coping in place to get through the sensations quickly. These included: frantically apologize, profusely groveling, do everything I could to fix the situation, etc. I also would stay very busy. Be the nicest person I could be. Don't stop and sit and think. Keep moving. Keep doing.
3. I had no idea how to get rid of the emotions so I shoved them all down and stored them in my body!
All right so now I have removed those things from my life. I am not using medications. And I am not allowing myself to behave the way I have in the past. And, I am not storing sensations in my body. I am allowing the sensations to GET OUT.
(This has been a two-year process of learning. It sounds really simple. But it is super hard to learn and actually implement. It's been harder than anything I have ever done in my life.)
Now, pay attention here. I knew that Shane and Linda would not judge me for this lady's disgruntled review. They have repeatedly made that clear. They are expecting, at some point, to get a review that isn't stellar. (We can't see this lady's review yet, but I am guessing it won't be 5-stars.) I also knew that we have had 73 good reviews! There is no way to maintain perfection forever. I know that as well.
So what are these feelings in my body? Adrenaline running through my arms and legs and neck and face. I'm getting hot. My heart is beating faster. My body is saying very clearly, "WE ARE NOT SAFE! PLEASE SAVE OUR LIFE!"
I am the impala in the opening video. I am being chased. I am being killed. I am being eaten.
Only, I am safe. Even if Shane and Linda were mad, that would not kill me. A terrible review would not kill me. And yet my body is reacting as if there is a bear about to eat my child.
Why am I responding this way?
Because at some point in my past, I created this strategy to keep the dysregulation at bay, and this was the way I learned to live.
And now? Now? And what must I do in response NOW that I now better?
Here's where this healing journey gets SO SO HARD.
I MUST DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
Oh I sent a very short and sweet response to the guest. And I let Shane and Linda know where things stood because they own the home and deserve that. But I cannot grovel. I cannot apologize for something I did not do wrong. I must simply allow the discomfort to be there, and I must sit in the discomfort.
Arggggghhhhhh!!!!
This concept was completely foreign to me. Most likely, sometime in my very young childhood years, I begin to put into place the practice that kept me alive for four decades. I read the room. I watched people's faces very carefully. I needed everyone to be happy and everyone to get along and no one to be mad at me.
Why?
Well, because I did not know what to do with my own emotion. I had no idea what to do if I felt scared or lonely or sad or sick and so I needed to not feel any of those things. And if I could avoid feeling these emotions, then I could be okay.
The impala and the polar bear in the opening videos knew better than me. Once that crap (adrenaline) gets into your body, get it out! Shake it out! Don't let it stay there. You can't just get up and pretend it didn't happen. YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE TIME TO RECOVER!
This evening, my youngest child got very dysregulated when we got home from helping load up trucks for the ballet company. She was exhausted, and she couldn't figure out how to get all of her things in the house in one trip. (I suggested two trips, but at this point, she was already quite upset and nothing was going to be welcome as a suggestion.)
I encouraged her to go up to her room and calm down a little bit, and while she was in her room, I heard her scream at the top of her lungs.
And you know what I did?
I went into her room calmly and peacefully and told her I was PROUD OF HER. "That's great that you figured out a way to get the icky stuff that you feel inside to come out on the outside without hurting someone else or yourself," I told her.
"Well," she said, "I think I should try to find another way because now I have a sore throat."
We laughed together. But this is something that I didn't understand before this journey occurred. These emotions we feel, from the time we are young, are SUPER important. It is our body's way (God's way!) of helping us clear out the sad and uncomfortable and distressing emotions that are stuck inside of us.
This means that your child NEEDS TO CRY WHEN THEY ARE SAD.
This means that you as the adults NEEDS TO CRY WHEN YOU ARE SAD.
You need to yell when you are angry (not at someone else, but safely and in private.) Or if you don't feel like yelling, you need to figure out another way to get that anger out. If you don't dear parent, it will come out at your child.
Side note: A child should NEVER be yelled at by their parent. EVER! I didn't yell at my kids a lot (but I still definitely did) until about a year before my breakdown. Suddenly I was yelling all the time. At them. At John. At the dogs. The anger inside of me was ridiculous! Where was all this anger coming from?
It was coming from FORTY-SIX YEARS of being shoved down inside of myself instead of coming out!
GET IT OUT!
Be an impala.
Be a polar bear.
Learn to FEEL your emotions. Sadness? Grief? Anger? Frustration? You are allowed to feel it.
Here is the truth: If you are dealing with anxiety right now, it is because you have emotion shoved down inside of you. You have not listened to your body. You have repressed your emotion. And it has to find a way out somewhere. Somehow.
If you are battling anxiety, you only have three choices:
1. Take medication to cover it up.
2. Numb it/ignore with social media, food, busyness, etc.
3. Limp your way through it -- battling it on a daily or weekly basis.
4. Go back and FEEL THE EMOTIONS that lead to the anxiety in the first place.
In my opinion, #4 is the only way to do this properly. And it will be the hardest thing you ever have to do.
Because basically what I am doing is going back and feeling the grief and the fear and the sadness and the anger that I never let myself feel before. I'm feeling it now. It's in your body right now folks.
I'm two years into feeling it. And it's getting better. I'm crying less. I'm grieving less. I'm getting angry (in my close by myself) less. The emotions have been coming out.
Be an impala.
Be a polar bear.
AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE teach your children how to do these things! I had no idea, and I'm teaching them now. I thought if they cried or were emotional or angry or frustrated they needed to "stop it!"
No, they need to EXPRESS IT!!!!!! (Properly. Not rudely. Not at other people. But their emotions ARE WELCOME ALL THE TIME!)
Okay, that's all I got right now. This post is not my best writing. It's a little all over the place. But it's a lot of things I can't wait to help teach other people. I can't wait to let me good friend sit across from me and scream their lungs out about something from their past that was really hard for them. I can't wait to let them cry in my arms. I can't wait to hear it all.
God designed us as emotional beings. He designed us for community with others. And he designed us to share these feelings with others.
Stop pushing it down! Get it out!
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