Sister
Appearances
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
It's so wild. It reminds me of this article I was reading recently where they said how many women die every year from choking on food because when they're choking in a restaurant, their first instinct is to not make a scene, just to run to the bathroom or outside and then they can't get help and then they die. So we literally die of politeness by the not wanting to stay in the room to get help.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And I think that happens a thousand times in emotional ways. And, you know, we excuse our needs from the scene, don't get the help, and then... It just, for me, I was like, that's a life analogy right there.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
That didn't work out so well. No. That selflessness ended up not being a good look for everyone involved. That's right. Here's something else I've realized that just in the past few months that I've been trying to work on it. I believe that we think if we don't take that time to identify our needs and to meet them, that we can just opt out of that part of life.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
We're being selfless, but we're just we've decided that's not a big priority for us. We're just going to do without that for the season of life, this whole life, whatever it is. But the thing about needs is that they demand to get met. So they will get themselves met, whether you're doing the work or not.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And so it will either be through a way that benefits your life or destroys your life to some extent. So I think that if we come to the place where we really realize there's no opting out of this process.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
So I think, I mean, in the sobriety episode, we just did, that you'll either get your higher need met to, you know, set a boundary in your life that you need to meet, or you will just compulsively numb and accept that as your life. Or you will, you know, really work to identify what you need to,
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
from your worthiness or belonging need, or you'll overspend your life into chaos and you'll actually end up with much, many more problems. And actually that this, uh,
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
I read recently that psychologists are starting to identify this relatively new epidemic that is happening that is called revenge bedtime procrastination, which to me, I'm completely one of the people who are involved in this, but it describes the way that people who are starved for any free time or leisure time in their life are
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
They make up for it at nighttime by scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, looking at their phones just for hours on some kind of activity online when they should be sleeping. So they're sacrificing sleeping. And we're doing this in mass because a deep part of us knows that we deserve this. and need some time just for ourselves.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
But we're accepting the shitty consolation prize of the scrolling for hours at night when we should be sleeping. And instead, we are actually getting less of what we actually need.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
For me, self-care is meeting your needs. And the problem is that many of us don't really know what our needs are, much less how to meet them. So we're just throwing darts at the wall based on what the marketplace offers us as self-care. and performing triage when things get really bad. And there is plenty on offer since the self-care industry is currently like a $450 billion industry.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Right? You just have to bury it. Just bury it and show something more palatable to the world. That's right.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
I mean, I think it's just a missed opportunity if the effort is to know yourself and lead a peaceful, productive life full of joy. If you...
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
if you understood early that resentment and jealousy were in fact just very helpful for you to data points to say, oh, when I'm feeling resentful and jealous, even though it comes out as I don't like that person, actually, I'm just super annoyed that they're always posting their Fri-yay, you know, pictures of date night, right?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
I think I don't like them, but actually I just know that I need, I would like to have a fryer in my ear. Yes, just what fryer? Just a fryer. Helpful, helpful information.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And so we do this instead of taking the time to know ourselves enough to know our needs and making the incremental life adjustments that actually meet them. Or maybe that's just me.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And that's a self-care thing. If we're able to see why is this emotion rising up in me, what is it telling me about me as opposed to what is it telling me about that person that happens to be on the other end of it?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
I want to know this. If you're starting from zero, because again, see aforementioned level one, how do you start building your tool chest of go-to self-care?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Well, for people who are like, I do think that this higher level stuff is very important because I don't think you're ever going to meet a need if you don't identify what your need is. That's huge. But I think for, you know, my self-care is occasionally... I'm going to need to run away from home because I don't have this arsenal.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
It's a terrible word to use, but I don't have this tool chest of self-care tools that I can turn to in the interstitial moments where things are not good. Yes. Okay.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Right. And when you think about it in, in any need that you have, if you look to the, ideally you should be able to look to the proposed solution and be able to draw a direct line back to the need. But I don't think that Many of us are doing that. I think we're just kind of looking at what the world offers as self-care, thinking if we add enough of that, we should feel taken care of.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And I think things too that we don't think about as self-care are having the hard discussions, setting a boundary, RSVPing, no. We don't think of those things as self-care, but I think that they are. And I think that those are a lot of the self-care because that goes back to the, what kind of life do, will I not need to escape from?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
It goes back to what kind of week will I not need to escape from? What kind of day will I not need to escape from? And what kind of relationship will I not need to escape from? And by making those boundaries, making those decisions in advance, you actually will have less to escape from. And that's setting yourself up for. Yeah.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And just before we go, I just want to, on the other part that you talked about with the, the girls and the couch, and here's the feelings you're allowed to feel. We do the exact same thing to boys. Oh, I mean, we do all, we, we give them a range of emotion. That's about an inch wide and and say, here's all the emotions you're allowed to have.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Anything else is deeply uncomfortable to the world, deeply inconvenient to the world. Now, good luck with your self-care. So I just want to say that that is actually, if you think about it in the reverse, how that kind of selfishness, I mean, that kind of selflessness is selfish in us,
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Think about the trauma and pain in the world that has resulted from the toxic masculinity that has resulted from men being selfless in only being allowed an inch worth range of emotions.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And I feel like so much of what people... For people to truly believe that it's a leap for a lot of people. My selflessness is what makes my world go round. My selflessness is what makes my family function and my community function. But... And they may have a hard time stepping in to your truth that it's actually better for those around us.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
But just for a second, think about, I think there are people universally accept that toxic masculinity, which is men only being able to express this very narrow range of emotion, has resulted in very terrible things for the world. If that is true for men... then isn't it quite possible that it is also true for women?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
That allowing us this toxic femininity, which is this one inch range of emotion, actually has had and is having very negative effects on our world.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
But we're not taking the time to identify the need and then actually to figure out what exactly that would be and see if it's working.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Right. Right. And then you feel doubly worse because this, I already had all the solutions and I still have a problem. So there must be something super wrong with me.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Thank you. Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Thank you. Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Right, the peace, the real self-care is making a life that you don't have to escape from on an emergency basis all of the time. Yes. I think that, I mean, I'm so interested in this episode because I feel like on a scale of one to 10, historically, I have been a solid one at self-care and you, to my view, are right about a 10 in terms of how you take care of yourself.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And if people need help with the first one, reconnecting with your soul, we have gotten a lot of... incredible feedback that people have been able to reconnect with the playlist for our fun episode. So go back and listen to that. People are having all kinds of people who have been unable to connect with their fun self or their self at all are finding a lot there that they're
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
remembering the reconnecting. So that might be a place to start if you don't know where to begin.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
So how do you explain how you arrived there?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Being a martyr. Being selfless. It's the epitome of what, I mean, look at all the Mother's Day cards and all of the compliments to women. She's so selfless. She's so selfless.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Mm-hmm.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
We're perpetuating what always has been if we're not bringing ourselves to the table.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
And when you put it that way, it's actually selflessness is selfishness.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Because it's, you don't want to... you're actually not paying the small price of what it costs to release yourself into the world and to make the world around you better through that, or truer at least, at least it'll be truer if it's not better. And instead of just like quietly going around serving the needs of others.
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
I feel like the... I want you to tell a story from Unattamed about the kids on the couch because I feel like when we... since the ultimate compliment for a woman is that she's selfless, I feel like girls are conditioned. They see that and they're conditioned very early to start looking everywhere else other than inside of them for what their needs are. So can you just quickly tell that story?
We Can Do Hard Things
SELF CARE: How do we identify our real needs and finally get them met? (Best Of)
Because I feel like it's kind of a microcosm of everything.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
It goes to me to your original point of like you had worked your ass off to get to a place where you'd be insulated from this. Then you show up through no fault of your own. You are on the receiving end of this terrible behavior. If someone's in that position and it's so egregious that then they have to leave and
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
That's the part that makes me even more angry because it's like everything that you have done that you have worked for. I didn't report my workplace harassment because I could read a room. I knew that my career would not be remembered by like hard work or accomplishment or sacrifice or wins, but it would be...
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
After enduring excruciating, humiliating, quote unquote, investigations and ridicule with very little possible upside, my career would be remembered at best with a headline of, oh, that woman who had that horrible thing happened to her.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And more likely that I was a sensitive, attention-seeking lady who caused a big scandal.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And they lose money because they get demoted and they have to leave their jobs.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Exactly. So I said nothing at the time. And now I'm wondering about this whole thing of, Did you hear about the shitty media men phenomenon in 2017? This woman in the media world, after hearing about her colleagues who had been harassed and abused in publishing, she started this Google Doc because she was like, we have no way of knowing this.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
It's so injurious for people to report things that they're not, but we're walking around. We don't know who we need to avoid. She started this Google Doc and 12 hours later, it had 70 men on it in the media industry, just from people sending it to friends with folks who had raped people, harassed people, unwanted advances, all of that. It was so interesting to me because I'm like, is there some...
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Third way. Yes, this third way situation. I mean, granted, that got leaked out. It forced some employers to investigate, which led to firings and investigations. But no one was prosecuted. No one was sued, except for the woman. Except for the woman.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
It takes like what Sarah was saying. When you're growing up in a male-dominated industry, I was at a law firm. That's pretty extreme too. And your job is to make it. Your job is to get through those interactions and laugh it off and brush it off. Just as you were talking, I had a realization for the first time. I was recruiting at a law school. So like these people were theoretically...
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
trying to impress me because I was going to hire them for our law firm standing there talking to a bunch of students with the HR people from my firm when one of the students that I was going to interview the next day looks at me and says take off your clothes what subtle but like I hadn't thought of it until this moment and I said man if I had a quarter right
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Because I had to get through that moment to not make it awkward for everyone. And everyone's like, ha, ha, ha. So it's this cyclical disaster because it's like, okay, your job is not to make it a big deal. Your job is to make it a little deal. And then the people are like, see, it's a little deal. These people over here making it a big deal are the ones that are the problem.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
But it's a story of my life.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Right, and all of those people who are around me, the HR people, the hiring partners, the whatever, Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
empathy, connectedness, all of these, fragility, all of these are shit. Yes, all of these are shit categories. But it's been, this has been the messaging.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Right, but the messaging from the beginning is these are inferior. The women's qualities are inferior. The men's qualities are- I think we should say masculine and feminine.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Sorry, masculine qualities are superior. feminine qualities are inferior. This has been the messaging from the beginning. This is not debatable. So when I am in the presence of just men, I get to be a hundred percent superior. I get to just use these characteristics. When you come in, you cannot be in my presence and me be a hundred percent this.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
I have to bring some of your inferior qualities to myself or when you are in my presence. And therefore, I don't just hate you. I hate me.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Because in my relation to you, I need to assume some of your inferior qualities. And that makes me hate myself. And therefore, I project that hate on you because I need to be superior and not inferior.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Go absolutely fuck yourself.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
This is the way these men make their dollars.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
How long has that been? And this isn't a fifth grader. This is a man who makes millions and millions of dollars being the face of and the ambassador to us, to our children. Mm-hmm. Of products we're supposed to buy. He has a daughter.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
It's just a very thin line between, for me, that passing of the tampon to the lists that are circulated. There is a path that goes directly from one to another. When you excuse that and you double down and the legions of people that are out here doing their absolute damnedest to excuse that are... are the same ones who set the path for all the other more egregious actions down the road.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And also, can we just for a moment step back and say there's the binary of the perpetrator and then the victim. But there are always, always for me standing in that circle, there are people that see. And so why is it my job? I am the one who has to take the offense and then I am the one who is given the job to do something about it.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
Because it isn't just the offense of like, okay, now I have to humiliate myself by making a joke back to make this asshole comfortable and all the people that are standing with me comfortable. Now I have to go back to my room and say, huh, I thought I was sent here as an example of the excellence of my firm to recruit excellent people. But now I understand myself as something wildly different.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And it's because of the complacency of the people standing around me. Why did not someone standing around me say, listen, jackass, that's not how we talk at this firm. And she is a valued associate.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
So you won't be interviewing tomorrow.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
I admire you deeply, Sarah. Thank you for everything that you're doing.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
That's fascinating to think about the viewing sexism and harassment as... something that is avoidable is almost a self-defense mechanism. Because if you start out with that presumption that you're not going to be able to escape it, that's devastating. You don't want to believe that you are working your ass off in a system where you will inevitably face that.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
So you have to other these people that have experienced it in order to save your hope that you can be immune from it.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
But in a way, is that our only hope? I mean, in a way, that's so devastating. It's devastating to look at your daughters and be like, this will happen to you. But by pretending it won't, we are setting them up for a disaster and then making them feel like it's their fault that it did, as opposed to saying, this is what you will face in life. Here are resources.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
You need to start talking to other women in your industry. You need to establish a network where you can find out Who's safe and who's not? Which one is better?
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And I'll just say it was episode 147. So go back and get the background because it was also the guest herself was very undermining of the situation and passive aggressive. And also none of the people you guessed is who it is. And we're not talking about that. We're talking about how this happens all the time.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
That's so important to say because I feel like we all have anecdotal experiences of things not working out with reporting. But I was fascinated to learn that there was this huge study in 2020 that said that 40% of women are sexually harassed at work. And that number has not changed since the 1980s. That's amazing. It's insane. That's 50 years of alleged progress. And it's the exact same number.
We Can Do Hard Things
Women at Work & The Episode That Wasn’t with Sarah Spain (Best Of)
And of the people that are harassed, only one in five report it. And in the first set of research that we have on all of this, we find out that that's for a very good reason, that the exhaustive studies have found that women who file harassment complaints end up on average in worse jobs, and in poor physical and mental health than women who keep quiet.