You Need to Hear This with Nedra TawwabEvery problem we overcome in life and relationships starts with the thought that we want things to change, but what do we do when it is our own mental space that is causing unrest in our lives? This week, Nedra tackles two messages from callers who are having issues with mental chaos, rumination, and other thoughts they can't escape.
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Hi, listeners, I'm Nadra Towab and you need to hear this. I have two messages I want to share with you all today, But before we get to those messages, I want to talk about our consuming thoughts when we have difficult conversations and say really hard things. That is the first part. Well, actually, let me go back a bit. The first part is working yourself up to those conversations, and the second part is actually saying it. And I think the third part of that is really dealing with the aftermath of what has been said. Sometimes it's you replaying the conversation. You having these conversations with yourself around I can't believe they make me feel this way? Are the feelings that I'm having? Okay, it's this like unsettled phase you may begin. But it's normal. It's normal to not immediately let things go. I think we live in a culture that makes it sound very easy to just let it go, as if we're just dropping something. But a lot of these things that we're going through are really big. When we think about relationship issues, lots of them are long standing. There are issues even if not in that relationship, it has been a long standing issue for you to be able to talk about some of these things. So it takes time to get to the space of releasing. It's not an overnight process. I remember a few years ago I had a friendship breakup and we had like that I guess, final or closing conversation, and it took me a while to stop going over what she said, what I said, what I meant, what she meant. It was a process and now I feel better, But sometimes those things still up and it's okay. I don't beat myself up for that. Because we can't erase the memories. What we can do is figure out a way to experience them without feeling bad, without becoming overwhelmed, and hopefully without having an emotional reaction to them in the moment. We have to remember that what happened is not what's happening right now, and that's really what helps me get through when I'm having an uncomfortable memory of something or a thought about something that happened in the past, whether it's a conversation, something from childhood, that that is a situation that it occurred in the past and it still has some impact on what I'm thinking or you know, what I'm experiencing but I certainly don't want it to disrupt my feelings for the day or to change my behavior towards others. So let's move away from letting it go quickly to maybe embracing things for a little bit longer and letting things go away on their own. Here's our letter from D. I have been having random memories come up this past year, and more so recently. At the root of them are limiting beliefs that I have carried with me all these years. Unworthiness, shame, unwarranted responsibilities. I recognize these are not me, not beneficial to my survival, and yet I am having trouble letting them go. How do I go about reckoning and releasing It's interesting that we carry messages with us that may have been told to us, may have been informed by things we did earlier on in life, And I think the first step is wondering where this came from. It can be really helpful to attach a direct memory to the feelings and thoughts that we're having. When you say unworthiness, where did that come from exactly? Perhaps there was a promotion that you did not receive that you thought you should have received. Shame, Perhaps there was something that you did and maybe didn't know that you shouldn't have done unwarranted responsibilities. Perhaps you were tasked with taking care of others when you were unable to take care of yourself. Well, what are the exact things, Because when we are vague and what we say, it's very hard to tackle the issue because unworthiness, we can almost apply that to any area of our life. And it's really important that we put our experiences almost into a box because we want to be detailed. We want to be able to say that experience then made me feel unworthy, So it's not showing up in our current situations as unworthiness or shame or some sort of unwarranted responsibility. The things that are placed in us very early on, it can be carried with us for sure when we do not have the language to describe those situations. I think about so many of my childhood experiences and I didn't have the language. Y'all I had was I felt confused, I felt upset. But when we can add a more dynamic view to that experience, why we may have been given certain responsibilities, why it may have been to the advantage of you know, maybe an adult to shame you, or why this situation made you feel unworthy, Maybe we can start to rewrite some of the narrative around what happened. When we are still looking at the issue as this thing happened, and this is how I felt, or this is how I was made to feel, it can be very hard to move away from that situation. So we need to add dynamic detail to the events to be able to conceptualize the bigger picture of what happened. I find that sometimes writing things down instead of just thinking about them, because with our thoughts, I mean, we can do that all day. Many of us are not going to write for ten hours, but we'll certainly think for ten hours. So what if there was an opportunity for you to give yourself time to work through this as a writing practice, to maybe even start with, you know, I felt unworthy, when I felt shame, when I felt unwarranted responsibilities when and really just allowing yourself to write until you're tired. After you finish that writing process, maybe that's not the day that you go back and review it. Perhaps that's another day you go back and review it and you start to dig a little deeper. You start to not just talk about the experience, but talk about your feelings in those experiences, talk about the other details that maybe you have more information about now that you didn't know at the time. Remember, it's not about quickly letting things go. It's about processing things. And often when we're going through stuff, especially when you're in an unhealthy environment, the goal is just to survive it, to keep going, to get through it, and you know, just to keep moving. But we need to slow down when we have time. And it sounds like right now you have the time to do that because it's coming back, it's being invited in in some sort of way. So I wonder, how can you make the time for this issue to really figure out what's going on. Perhaps this is something that doesn't need to be a guest daily, but something that needs to be work through for an amount of time, and I don't know what that time is. Sometimes we think, oh, my gosh, I've been thinking about this for years, or I've been struggling with this for a really long time. You're saying the past year. I wonder if you allowed yourself to really work through it and not try to ignore it, would it be more beneficial than just saying, oh, I want to be over it. I don't want to have these thoughts. Intentionally thinking about something can be very helpful, And I think this is a situation that's calling you to be more intentional in your thoughts and more intentional in your healing around these thoughts, because there's not a lot of information in the word unworthiness when we don't have that attached to a particular situation, and that's the information we need to pull out and maybe have feelings towards just that situation and not all situations. When you're dealing with old, uncomfortable feelings, uncomfortable situations, think about how you're making space for these things to continue to be true. How is the shame manifesting currently? How are you taking on shame currently? How are you taking on responsibilities currently? How are you causing yourself to feel unworthy? Because when we have these deep seated thoughts about who we are, even when we over archingly believe I am a good person, you know, a good person can not exist with core of unworthiness, shame, and being hyper responsible for things. So I wonder, how are you allowing space for you to be well along with being these other things? I think about how we, you know, maybe make decisions around our ability to help others, how we may lend ourselves in ways that are not always healthy for us. How we may invite people into our lives to create this feeling of unworthiness. Sometimes when we have left unfortunate situations, we keep them going in our behaviors. Most of that is unconscious because it's what we're used to. But it's really important to work through those those things because if you do not, they will continue to show up until you start to do the work around them. And then they may still show up, but guess what, You've done the work and you can quickly recognize them and say, ah, this is unworthiness. Nope, nope, nope, not today, this is shame. You can better identify those things, but in this state of I don't know what's going on, you won't even be able to see where they're continuing to manifest in your life. Thank you so much for that thoughtful message. I'm sure it will help a ton of people. I think we all carry stuff and we do look to quickly let go, and I want you to know that releasing is a process. We'll be back shortly with our next message. This next message is about the aftermath of setting healthy boundaries with a family member.
Hello, Needra, I would love to learn more about quieting the voice in my head that replays the difficult relationships in my life, in particular my elderly mother who needs my help but just isn't nice to be around. I have stated my boundaries with love, created a schedule that allows me to care for her health needs and finances, but I simply can't do everything that she wants me to do. The less I see her, the better we get along. And it's always been that way, well for at least the less fifty years. It seems that I have her in my head so much now because of her disability, that it makes me crazy miserable. I have conversations with her in my mind that I would never have with her in reality. It seems I can stop myself from becoming enmessed physically, but not mentally. What do I do with this preoccupation. I'll look forward to hearing what you suggest, Thanks, Leslie.
Boundaries can be uncomfortable with family, particularly when we would like the person to change. It's much easier to have a boundary, have it respected, not have anyone bump up against it. Maybe change for the better and all of these other things, but it can be quite challenging when we have to place a boundary and we have to continuously place that boundary because the person that we want a relationship with is still very difficult to be around. It sounds like you have given your mother what you can, and that is you taking care of her health and her finances, and that you're still having these issues around. Gosh, she is not the person that I would like her to be. I'm hearing an issue with helping a person who's difficult, that has to be very uncomfortable to be in a situation where you have this relationship issue with her, a long standing issue, and now you are her care provider. It's not like your mother will say, you know, thank you for this wonderful service, become a wonderful person overnight. And I'm sure that that is disappointing. As you're having these conversations in your head, as you're going through these experiences with your mother, I do wonder what are your feelings. I hear a lot about thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, and for us to really feel better when we are choosing to be in relationship with someone, our emotions and our mental must connect. What do I mean there, The mental is saying, my mother is unwill and she is elderly, and I need to take care of her. And the emotions may be saying and I'm saying maybe saying because I don't have enough information and I don't want to put a feeling here, But the emotion seems like I am angry, I am sad, I am hurt. And so if you are operating mentally from this space of I have to help her, I maybe want to help her, but the emotion is anger, there will be a disconnection. How do we get those things a little bit more aligned? I wonder if the truth of this situation is two parts. I have these boundaries as a protection to myself in this relationship, and I will be here because I see it as a loving obligation to be here for my mother. And perhaps you are sad that she isn't what you need her to be. But the expectation that the conversations has to change or there should be something different said, Maybe that goes away when you shift the way that you're mentally thinking about the situation. It's not to say your feelings will change. Your mental and emotional state could be a bit more congruent, and it doesn't mean that the mental state has to be I love doing this. This is a wonderful job, but perhaps it's a bit more honest and direct. There are things that we choose to do in life that we may not be particularly fond of, but those things need to be done. How do we get through those things? We see it as a part of our job. You know, I've had jobs where I haven't always felt, oh my gosh, this is the job of my dreams. I love being here, but I saw certain aspects of that job as a duty that needed to be done to be able to get through the day, or to be able to have this final reward of you know, maybe financial gain or being at peace with this relationship, or being at peace with how you show up in the relationship. So you've already decided the things that you're willing to do in the relationship, and you have to make peace with that. It sounds like she has some different demands, and there's a bit of confusion if you should even be doing those things you're saying. Mentally, I feel like I shouldn't because I do these other things. How do you start to believe that you are doing enough. Not just I think I'm doing enough. I believe that I am doing enough. I remember when certain guilt triggers stop bothering me, for instance, you know, maybe me saying no. I truly started to believe in some capacity that there are certain things that I can't do, and no needs to be said louder, it needs to be said more often, and I need to be more committed to managing my time with other people. So when I said no, guess what will happen? I experience less guilt because I've really started to believe that I could say no. When I was on the fence about it, like uh, I should be able to say no to this That had me in limbo emotionally, I was like, I should be able to say no, But you know, this person has this thing. And now the no's are a bit easier to say when I need to say them, because I truly believe that it is okay for me to say it. So sometimes we have to make that connection between not just what we think, but what we truly believe, and then we will start to see that shift and our energy and how we go about situations, how we think about situations. We have to believe it. We can't simply exist in this state of I think I should be able to do this as much as we need to believe it. You need to hear this. In both of these messages today, I heard a lack of clarity around what we're feeling, and that lack of clarity creates a lot of mental chaos for us because we're unclear. I think a really wonderful thing for us to do is to think about not just what we're thinking, because the thoughts they happen all day. We're with ourselves all day, We're always thinking about something. We really have to tap into what is the exact feeling connected to this thought? Just to throw a few out there that are really common, happy, sad, confused, frustrated, angry, just thinking about Oh, I feel really angry that this person wants me to do more. I feel really angry that this situation happened to me. I'm struggling to let it go. We don't have to do anything with those feelings. It's not like, oh my gosh, I've identified the feeling and now that is the releasing. But the thoughts will continue to come until we have some sort of solution, and that solution sometimes is acknowledging what you're feeling and agreeing with yourself to just feel it. You need to hear this is an iHeart production hosted by Mendra Glover to wib Our executive producer is joe el Bodique. Our senior producer and editor is Mia don Taylor. Send us a voice memo with your questions about boundaries and relationships at you need to Hear This at iHeartMedia dot com. Please be sure to rate our show wherever you listen to it and share this episode with someone who needs to hear this. Talk to you next time
