094: How to Value Others without People Pleasing 8.7.23

3:40PM Aug 4, 2023

Speakers:

Amy Hoyt

Leina Hoyt, MFT, MA

Keywords:

trauma

people

evaluate

work

greater

symbols

mending

figure

learning

boundaries

limbic brain

equal

oftentimes

build

body

set

commitments

problem

brain

hoyt

Hi, Amy here. Are you feeling stuck or overwhelmed by things that pop up in your daily life. And perhaps these are because of past traumas or toxic stress? Have you tried traditional therapy and found that it wasn't enough? I know that was the case for me. That's why we developed the whole health lab. Mini trauma has put together a program that combines the latest research with proven methods to help you recover from trauma and move forward from these daily stressors and triggers. We use somatic therapy EMDR, cognitive behavioral therapy and internal family systems therapy. We use nervous system regulation, and many other tools so that we can combine the best methods that are identified in the research to help you recover without being completely overwhelmed. So you can work on trauma on your own pace, your own time. And still with the mentorship and support of a highly trained certified staff. That's us. No more waiting for appointments or sitting in traffic driving to see a therapist. With our online program, the whole help lab. You can access it from anywhere, anytime, even on an app, visit mending trauma.com backslash whole health lab and learn more. Get your questions answered. We've got a Frequently Asked Questions section and sign up so that you can have this life changing program in your world today. Don't let your past hold you back any longer take control of your future and we can't wait to see you in the whole health lab. Welcome to the universe is your therapist. We are your hosts, Dr. Amy Hoyt and Lena Hoyt, we are sisters. Take a seat and let's dive into this week's episode.

Welcome back to another podcast episode. We're very excited to be here. We just want to thank our listeners, we have loved all of the feedback and just really appreciate it. So today's episode is math of the soul, which is a new thing. What is it tell

me I think about it as a way to use the symbols of math that are equal greater than and less than in order to help support our best sense of self. So recently, I had a client come in, and they said that they were struggling because they were being told that they should put themselves first but then they also were told never to offend anyone and don't hurt anyone's feelings and that sort of thing. And she said to me, I'm so confused, like, how am I supposed to do this. And so what I came up with in the work that we were doing was that if we have a way of seeing ourselves as equal to each other, it serves us in multiple ways. One is that it serves us as being as valuable as another person. And the other is that we have a sense of our own worth in relation to other people. That is where it started. When my client came in and asked me that and I came up with this idea. I also realized that one of the other things that needed to be included were the symbols of less than and greater than because this is how people tend to evaluate themselves. That limbic brain is designed to do comparisons. The idea behind that is that by comparing ourselves, we will keep ourselves safe from potential danger, risk of abandonment or rejection. And when we do this, it sets up a false dichotomy about either somebody else's value as compared to ours or our own value as compared to someone else's. And so instead of being less than people, which tends to happen with people pleasers, the other person is always much more important and needing to be pleased as opposed to ourselves. And as opposed to the greater than symbol, which indicates that somehow we are elevated or more than other people. The equal symbol allows us to have relationships on an equal footing and to value ourselves and what our path is, as well as that of others. The idea behind this is that it is common for us to have a belief system, a faulty belief system, about our own value. And one of the ways that trauma impacts that is by preventing us from seeing ourselves as we really are, and particularly as an equal to other people in our world. We were talking a few minutes ago about how we tend to see this more with females who are so conditioned or socialized to consider everybody else's needs before their own. And what trauma does is it alters our ability to find worthiness in ourselves. And the idea behind math of the soul is that we use the math symbols of equal greater than and less than to help us sort through how to respond to people from a place of our own value. And our own sense of self, the way this came up was that I was working with a 16 year old, who's great. And she came into the office and said, I'm supposed to take care of myself. But I'm also supposed to not ever say no to anybody. And I'm not supposed to do anything that somebody might be upset by. And I don't know how to prioritize myself, while I'm so busy worrying about what everyone else thinks and feels. And I thought that was brilliant. And what I did is I always write on my whiteboard in my office because it helps me think more clearly, I put up those three symbols the equal the greater than, and the less than and talks about the importance of using those symbols as a mental trigger to assess how we're making decisions.

Okay, so when you say a trigger, you mean a mental prompt? Yes, that's more fitting word. So it jogs your memory that you need to basically figure out what's going on internally.

Yep. And as we have been working on this project, we've learned how to focus on not only the mind, which is more Ivan focusing on, but also to consider the way our body responds to things. In fact, one of our mentors, Joe Dispenza, talks about how the body becomes the mind, and learning how to pay attention to what happens in our body, when we're presented with an issue or a circumstance can be informative. And then we can understand that if we are in a reactive place, we're not going to be able to use math of the soul to figure out how to make our best decision, not just for our higher good, but for other people's higher good.

And when we say mentor, we mean we wish Joe Dispenza was our mentor.

Yes, I wasn't sure how to describe how we look at his work,

we read his work on to his retreats. He does not know who we are. It's kind of like a best friend who's famous. He just doesn't know are besties. Yeah, that's right.

Let's talk a little bit about what to do when we've had trauma that has set up this difficulty in understanding or appreciating our value. one skill that we can use is the concept of problem ownership. And this is really valuable when you're trying to sort through something that seems urgent to somebody else. The idea behind that is that we identify what the problem is. And it takes practice to be really clear about that, too. What would that look like? Oftentimes, when we're in a personal situation, or even a business situation, we can ask for a few minutes before we settle into a conversation. One way of doing this is to say, I can tell this is really important to you. And I want to be able to listen, give me just a few minutes to wrap up a few things, and then I'll be with you. And we can figure this out. And with problem ownership, what we're doing is we're trying to figure out what is the problem, the way we figure that out is by stating clearly without adjectives or interpretations or subjective language, what's happening. In order for us to be able to use math of the soul, we have to be in a place that our limbic system is more calm, so that when somebody comes to us with a problem, or we have a problem, we are able to evaluate our own part in resolving the problem from a place of wisdom and accurate perception, and that sort of thing. As we

were prepping for the podcast, one of my eight year olds came to me and said, Mom, there's a lot of toilet paper in the toilet, it sounds odd. But I have trauma around poop. And everyone that knows me, well knows this. And so my instant reaction was, oh, I

can't do this. I can't deal with this. Because extra toilet paper means there is some sort of mess. And so I quickly assessed that I was not the person for the job. And I asked her to go find her father. Now that seems like a silly example, by evaluating this is way out of my ability to stay calm and work on the podcast, as well as be a mom, I was able to say, I think you have another parent, and I think he is dying to take care of that toilet problem. That is a great example. And it is a little silly, but it illustrates so well how we respond to people coming to us with urgency. And if we understand that the person who brought up the problem and the person who has feelings about the problem is likely either the person responsible for solving the problem, and particularly with adults, or if its child is responsible for helping to figure out how to solve the problem unless it's an issue of safety.

So what you're really talking about is almost an intrinsic self value that I've had to work on for years and years. And so it's a skill set. that you build over time recognizing, despite trauma, you have inherent worth and inherent value that you are able to basically set boundaries. And a

lot of people will have a reaction to the word boundaries, particularly if they are the people that you are drawing boundaries with, they find them very inconvenient, I have found that the best way to have a satisfying healthy way of relating to people is to be clear about what I can and cannot do or what I can and cannot tolerate, and then to behave in a way that indicates that so that there's not this incidental resentment being built up.

So if you're in a personal relationship, I think that's really easy. I shouldn't say easy, it is attainable to set those boundaries. And those expectations. I'm wondering how we do that in professional relationships,

it can be really tricky. The advantage of the personal relationship is that we have a long history with somebody. However, that can also be the double edged sword because we tend to be more impatient in a professional setting, I found the most helpful way to do that is to be very calm, and do what I call the broken record approach. If a staff member comes to me and says, I have this huge problem on my project, and I've given ownership of that project to the staff member, then instead of immediately jumping in with oh my gosh, what's happening? What do you need? What can I do, I want to be able to calmly say, tell me what's going on. And oftentimes, even in the verbalizing of the problem or the issue, it brings clarity to the person who's looking for you to solve it, or to help them allowing them to verbalize it and walk themselves through it can bring more clarification to them, it can help you have a few seconds to assess whether or not this is your problem. And if the person who comes to you is the one that has upset feelings about it, then as an adult is most likely their problem to solve with some support and assistance from you.

How do we build intrinsic value? I mean, I think that's the core of this issue is if there may be trauma and trauma, as we know, can be one event, it can be a series of events, it can be mild, it can be severe. But how do we build intrinsic value when we've had some experience with trauma to where our value has been diminished?

I think it starts with our thoughts. And with understanding that automatic negative thoughts are so prevalent, and they happen without our conscious awareness. If we talk about these symbols and math of the soul, it's a conscious way of slowing down and evaluating what we own. What we're responsible for, and how to make a decision based on my time is as valuable is this person's my interests are as valuable as this other person's instead of my interest or time being less than or greater than. And so

if changing your thoughts and having intrinsic value comes from your thoughts, what is a skill set we can give people to help them with their thought process,

what we want to be able to do is we want to be able to help people continue to notice what's happening in their thinking and in their body, the body will oftentimes sound the first alarm, because the thoughts that will happen are so subconscious checking in with your body, learning how to do some deep breathing, sometimes you have to learn how to do it at obtrusively. Or you may want to say to that person what I suggested before, which is give me a few minutes, I want to be able to concentrate on what you're bringing to me. And in that few minutes you do whatever regulation that you need to do so that you have a decision and assessment so that you can make a decision from your prefrontal cortex, which is where your wise mind is, instead of from your limbic brain or your emotional brain, which is where the reactivity is, I believe

that one of the best things we can do to build intrinsic self worth over time is to keep our commitments to ourselves. And so by making small commitments, and then keeping them with ourselves, I believe it builds confidence, as well as an idea that we can that we do have value. And we're proving it by keeping our commitments to ourselves.

That's a really great way of looking at it. That is something that we're going to talk more about in a future podcast, but being able to make a commitment to ourselves and evaluate that when faced with challenges to that the best way we're going to be able to evaluate it is from our prefrontal cortex. And so learning how to calm the body and the mind leads us to make more wise decisions and gives us the time and mental space to decide from a place of wisdom instead of a place of reactivity.

I think also, I really like using gratitude lists and I use them in the mornings and when I start each day with a small you know three to five things I'm grateful for often one or two Two of those things are something that I find valuable about myself or my life. And so when I'm building on that every day and I'm starting each day with gratitude, I feel as if it's been beneficial for me to build up my self worth over time. What an excellent

intervention, what you're doing is you're training your brain to overcome the negativity bias that all brains have by including in your gratitude list something that is about you and yourself, and about the worthiness or value or the character or the behavior that you appreciate about yourself.

All right, well, thank you so much. Thank you for listening to the universe's your therapist this week. If you have any questions or looking for more information, you can find us at mending trauma on Instagram, as well as mending trauma.com Our website and if you're enjoying our content, we'd love it if you could rate review and subscribe to the show. We'll see you all next week.