Hey y'all. Hey, it's your girl Jessica Lauren, and I am coming to you with this week's quick tip. Now, today, I'm going to encourage you to do something that might feel a little bit uncomfortable, okay?
Especially if you're like me, and g rew up or learned a little bit about people pleasing, like if you're a recovering people pleaser today might be a hard one. Or if you grew up in an environment where people was like, stay out of grown folks business, don't speak your man and nobody talking to you, you know, like you've been silenced. Today might be a little bit uncomfortable. If you don't like confrontation, if you are afraid that speaking your voice will make people abandon you today might be a tough one. But it can be done
Today, I'm inviting you to say what needs to be said. Now this one used to be a tough one for me. Because like I said, there's a big part of me that is always trying to people, please, I don't want to step on anybody's toes or hurt anybody's feelings. So for years, I've always swallowed what I needed to say, because I was so afraid that using my voice will make people be like-- "well screw you, Eff you! I'm out! You know, I have some abandonment issues that you know, that are healing, and I'm processing and all of those things. So I used to just be be silent, you could treat me Oh, any kind of way to talk to me, oh, any old kind of way, do what you need it to do to me any old kind of way. And I would just take it, I would journal about it, I would get it out that way. I would, you know, talk to my friends about it,.Vent about it. But I would never confront the person that I feel uncomfortable with or that you know, I felt wronged me or whatever the case may be, I just wouldn't do it. And y'all when I tell you that broke down my confidence, my self esteem, my sense of self worth. And I had to work really hard with my therapist to ulearn that. That I can be loved and still speak my mind. I could be a good Christian is still speak my mind, I could be a good friend and steel say, hey, that doesn't work for me. No, I don't like that. That makes me feel uncomfortable. Right. And again, I had to learn how to do that, because I've been taught that it's wrong, or people leave you. But it wasn't until I started to make it a habit to say what needed to be said that, you know, I had a complete breakthrough.
So what do I mean by saying what what needs to be said, you know, a lot of our stress and mental anguish comes from us, just being quiet and letting stuff roll off, you know, our, our backside or turning the other cheek? Mums the word right? What happens when you harbor all of that in you, you begin to build up resentment, bitterness, anger, you know, like you just just start to shut down and get where on your confidence and your self esteem and all of that jazz, right. And so in order to rebuild your self esteem and self worth and all that stuff, you have to start having some tough conversations, right? And some of these conversations when I say tough are the conversations where it's like, Hey, I don't feel like you've been a good friend these past couple years. Hey, I want to break up. But tough conversations for recovering people pleasers can be as simple as, hey, I haven't had a day off in 10 days. I would like to take a day off. Like that's a tough conversation for somebody. Hey, I've been noticing that I've been doing all the chores in the house. Like you play the video games. I need some help asking for help. It's tough for people because some of us grew up, you know, being taught that you got to be independent. You can't depend on nobody. You got to be self sufficient. Having tough conversations is asking for more money, you know, me asking me to be paid properly and equally, right? Having tough conversations can be as simple as, hey, I know you were joking, but that actually hurt my feelings. So when I say tough conversations and saying what needs to be said I'm not talking about necessarily, you know, ending a friendship ending a relationship or you know, going up for a huge promotion, those are well within your rights. If those are the conversations you need to have, please, by all means have them but what I want you to do is to start getting into the habit of speaking up it could be as simple as when you go to Starbucks and then get your order wrong. Instead of sitting in and taking it that chai tea when you wanted a mocha frappuccino that you you know, pull back and draft through as to Hey, y'all. Good job. I love your work. I love I love what I do here. But this is the wrong drink. Right?
And that begins to build up your confidence that begins to build up your self esteem your self worth, and it helps you recognize I have a voice I have a right it is my birthright to use my voice to get the things that I want and like and love and to share boundaries with people and enforced You know, just live my best life, I can use my voice a tough conversation, like I said, could be, hey, you know, I love that you guys love the work that I do at work, I just feel a little bit burdened by the workload. You know, I noticed that everyone else doesn't have as much as I have. Is there a way I get some, some support? Or, you know, can I push the project and out another three weeks? Because this too much? You know, what I'm saying? What are the conversations that you've been harboring? Right? That you know, you need to have that a make your mental load lighter, that will make your physical load lighter?
Hey, canyou help out? Can you pick up the kids this one time? You take them to the football guy? I'm tired of it always being me, right? Hey, that joke. You said that's not funny to me. Right? What are those conversations that you've been playing over in your head that you've been about in the group chat? Yeah, I know the ones I'm talking about today, I want to invite you to start having them. Now, how do you start having tough conversations when you've always been silent, or you know, always people pleased, or you have this fear that perhaps if I speak up, it'll make people flee? Well, you know, our first thought when we think about speaking up is saying it with your chest and standing up for yourself is that you have to be super aggressive, and you got to cuss people out and wave your hands and all of that, you know, like, that's, that's not true. You can say what you need to say, from a place of kindness, and love, and still assert yourself, right?
What I like to do, and I learned this from my time as being a standardized patient. In teaching hospitals here in Chicago, as an actress, they hire actors to portray patients, you can have a wide array of diseases and disorders and you learn about it, you have to portray it, students come in, and we are testing them not only on their bedside manner, but their technique, their medical language, whether or not they diagnose this properly. And then after that, and they recorded, their teachers are in another room watching and after the students leave, we will have to do a write up. And we will always have to give them feedback, right? We cannot just say, hey, when you came in the room and you didn't knock, it didn't shake my hand and introduce yourself, I felt, you know, slighted I didn't feel listened to, we had to always start with a positive, right, we call it the sandwich, you always start with the positive and negative and then another positive, right? Just because people, when you start off with something negative, they can't receive
the rest of the feedback, right. So if again, you're not in the habit of sandwich, a chest tribe, the positive little sandwich, positive, negative positive sandwich, and how you can start off first is by saying, Hey, man, I love when we're spending time together, You crack me up! That's you're positive, you're funny, I like being around you, I appreciate it. And then you know, the next phase is to give them a warning shot. But you know, I kind of want to talk to you about something that happened the other day. And you could preface it by saying like, I'm not trying to start an argument with you, I don't want you you know, to feel like a bad friend or whatever. And then you follow it up with the negative, we when you grab my belly and jiggled in front of everybody and say, Hey, you gain weight, are you pregnant in front of everybody at work. I've had that done to me when I was not pregnant. It hurt my feelings, period. And that, to me, came from a place of love and kindness, right? I didn't say see you always trying to embarrass me in front of people. You ain't being you know, I'm saying like you just said, Hey, I love you. You're funny. I know you love to light up a room. But I got something that's a little bit uncomfortable for me to tell you. And I don't want it to hurt your feelings. But it kind of hurt my feelings. When You embarrassed me the other day, right? If somebody said that, to me, my first reaction would be like, Oh my God, I didn't mean that I was just playing. I'm so sorry. Oh, my goodness. Now you if you got some folks in your life. That'd be like, where did nobody mean? Girl, girls and boys, it might be time to reevaluate that friendship because what the heck? You should be able to go up to your friends, your peers, your co workers or whoever, and have an adult conversation with you. If they don't get fired up and lit up. It might be time to just like reevaluate that and if they do get amped up, you just stay you're calm anchored self. Like listen-- Like I said, I'm not trying to do all of it. But there are my feeling is Hey, y'all been overworking me? I work. Can I get a vacation? Hey, you know what I mean? Like when you didn't show up to my baby shower. We've been best friends for years. I was just, you know, left feeling like, dang, did I do something wrong? Have the tough conversations. Go back and tell McDonald's Hey, y'all, like give me my hashbrowns this morning, say what needs to be said.
And then after that, you'll start to notice a shift in how you move you'll start respecting yourself a little bit more, you'll start trusting yourself a little bit more. You know, listen, people don't have to have my back because I do you know what I'm saying? You'll feel a little bit more confident, right? Say what needs to be said, Say it from a place of love and kindness, use that positive sandwich method method. And if you're up against someone that is, you know, soup that loves to fight, you know, it might be an opportunity for you to figure out how can you say it, like, it doesn't cause an explosion, even when it's not your job. Maybe people receive things better and a little note, right? Or a quick voice memo, texts, right, you have to consider your tone or consider the time of day or what they got going on. And all of that jazz, right? That's a little level two. But if it's somebody that's super level headed, and pretty much for the most part is flexible and can take criticism. Go ahead, you know what I mean, to say what you got to say for those people that you know, you know, how it's just some people that love to fight, that might take a little bit more? Some training, right, there might take a little bit more finessing and figuring it out. And and we could, you know, do that maybe in another episode, actually, I have an episode about having tough conversations, a full length episode, that's about 45 minutes long, I'll link it in the show notes. And it talks about having a tough conversation with somebody aggressive, but for the most part, I invite you today to say what's on your heart, and to know for the most part that people mean well, and they'll receive it with love, and start, you know, trying to to develop that backbone of you know, what would it look like if they don't you know, me, how does that feel? And sometimes, you know, it's okay to be uncomfortable and to realize like, Oh, that feels icky. And to challenge yourself to move past that icky feeling like if they don't receive it, then maybe that wasn't the friend that you need to keep in your corner or a co worker that you need to keep going but at least you did your part and honored your voice. And you said what you needed to say!
So y'all that is it for today's episode. Thankyou so much for tuning in. I really appreciate it if I mentioned anything in today's episode that resonated with you but you didn't get a chance to jot it down just go to the Sunday jumpstart.com and click on Quick Tip #51. Everything that I mentioned in today's episode will be there if you want to hang out with me outside of just the podcast Be sure to follow along over on Instagram the handle is @thesundayjumpstart and if you want to send me a little email go ahead and do that via email the address is hi@thesunday jumpstart.com. Please be so kind to leave a five star rating review in Apple podcast that really does help get our make his happen message out there.
Alright you guys finish the rest of this week strong. I love you and I'm praying for you and I will see you back here this Wednesday for full length episode. Alright, y'all bye
