The Tell Them Method - How To Stop Holding On To Emotional Baggage and Regret
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People underestimate the time. I think it's so interesting. So many of us, we choose the worst times to have the best conversations. A lot of people in their relationships will choose the moment their partner walks through the door to have the most difficult conversations. Now that person maybe just had a stressful journey home back from work. And you're thinking to yourself, so did I. Well, guess what? You're not in the right position either. Not only is the timing wrong for them, it's the wrong timing for you. No.

The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. He won the only Jay Shetty. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn, and grow. I am so grateful to have you here. My name's Jay Shetty. Thank you for joining me for the next 20 to 30 minutes as we talk about the tell them method. Now, I promise you this method is going to transform your life.

I believe it will change the way you work with your colleagues. It will change the way you talk to your parents, your partners. It will change everything about your life because more often than not, we do the opposite. Instead of the tell them method, we practice the tell everyone but them method. Now, let me give you a quick overview as to what the tell them method is. If you don't want to go on a date with someone, tell them.

If you want to cancel plans tonight because you're exhausted, tell them. If something feels off to you and you don't want to see someone again, tell them. If you're anxious about a project you're taking on at work and you're not sure what to do with your boss, tell them. If you don't like to watch sports with your partner, tell them. If you usually wait till the last minute to tell people you're not coming, don't do that. Just tell them.

More often than not, we don't tell them. We don't tell people. We hold on to emotional information. We hold on to our feelings. We hold on to words. We hold on to energy that we're being compelled to share, to give, to pass on. But we hold back and we hold onto it.

There's a famous Zen saying that says, "Letting go is hard, but holding on is harder." Just imagine yourself holding on to a piece of rope that's being dragged from your hand. If you're holding on tightly, gripping tighter and tighter and tighter, it's going to leave a burn in your hand. And so often our emotions that we want to share with others, that we want to exchange, that we want to set free,

are the ones that we're holding onto so tightly. It's so important that we actually tell people how we feel. And this applies to both challenging and encouraging emotions. The other day, I was talking to someone and I said to them, "You know what? I'm just going to tell you how I feel." And I opened my heart to them. I told them how much I appreciated them, how much I admired them, how much they meant to me. And I meant every word.

And they were so shocked and taken aback because they were just surprised that someone would actually open up in that way and wear their heart on their sleeve. And I said to them, I like living that way because I'd rather say everything that matters to me and be seen as foolish, stupid, weak, than to hold it all back and miss out on an opportunity for a beautiful relationship. Because what am I really losing by sharing how I feel?

I don't lose my dignity. I don't lose my self-worth because I can only give that to myself. I don't lose my self-esteem because I don't give the keys to that to someone else in my life. I don't lose anything. When we think that opening our heart in a positive way to someone else makes us the loser, it means we believe that they have the power over us. When actually, I know for a fact that I believe

opening up my heart to someone, telling them how I feel, telling them how much they mean to me, I'm protecting my future self. I'm protecting my future self because, hey, guess what? If they react positively, there's a beautiful relationship here. If they reject it, then I still know in the future that I did everything within my capacity. I did everything I could possibly think of. Now, sharing positive or vulnerable emotions is hard, but

Sharing a negative feeling towards someone is even harder. Telling someone you don't want to go out on a second date, telling your family that you don't want to come over for the holidays, telling a friend that you no longer want to hang out with them. These can be much more challenging conversation and they rarely are going to go how we want them to go. And therefore we avoid them. We avoid tough conversations

because we don't want to deal with the consequences of what comes from them. But the reason why we should tell people how we feel is because if we don't tell them, we'll probably tell someone else. If you don't tell someone how you feel, you'll probably tell someone else how you feel about them. We gossip about that person to another person. And sometimes they find out even in the most indirect of ways.

When we gossip or take energy from a relationship into another conversation, what we're doing is diluting two relationships. You're diluting the relationship you have with the person you're scared to tell because now you don't have a deep relationship. And you're diluting the relationship with the person you are telling because you're boiling down the quality and depth of your relationship to be about gossip.

to be about discrediting someone else, to be about bitterness. Instead of building a relationship on positive emotions, we're actually falsely bonding over negative emotion. So let's say I want to tell someone that I don't think that what they're expecting of me is in line with my boundaries. Now, instead of telling them my boundaries,

my expectations, I start talking about them to someone else and saying, can you believe that person? They're always just, you know, they're always just like disrespecting my boundaries. They're always disrespecting me. I don't just don't know what goes through their head. Now, if I'm saying it in order to figure out how to have a conversation with them, that's healthy. But if I'm saying it just to get it out there, then I'm not actually getting anywhere with it.

What happens is the next time I see that person, I now get more confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is where I get more information to prove how I felt. I then go back to my other friend and talk about it all over again. And all of a sudden, I still have this person in my life who disrespects my boundaries. And now I have someone else in my life who I could be building a healthy exchange with, but we only talk about bitterness, pain, and negativity.

So instead of telling someone else tell them it completely sets you free You let go of the baggage of holding on to it. You're now no longer holding on to the Multiple conversations you'll have about this scenario, which means you've made space for other things it also allows for you to get a reason and this is the difference between

I think so often when we want to share something hard or harsh or negative with each other, we don't realize that it can be done in a beautiful and powerful way, right? It's so important to recognize that it's about how you say something, not what you say. We think it's all about what we say, when really it's about what we are meaning to say, how we say it, the intention with which we share it.

And often I find a question is far better than an accusation. If you want to tell someone how you feel, it's better to tell them with a question as a way to check. So to say, hey, you know, whenever I say that I don't like it when you talk about me like that in front of this other person, I wanted to ask you why you still continue to do it. Where does it come from? Now, this allows you to check

in a way that doesn't put the other person on the defensive, hopefully doesn't make them feel like they have to be critical. And now you're actually asking them a question where they get to explain themselves. I think we underestimate the value of how something's said. We have forgotten how to communicate in a non-violent, non-confrontational way. It's interesting, right? We think that if we're right, no matter what the other person's reason is, we're going to confront them. And so because we're trying to avoid confrontation,

We avoid communication, but actually healthy communication can help us avoid confrontation for no reason. Often, if I think someone's behaving with me in a certain way, I'll check in with them and say, hey, you know, I noticed this. I just wanted to know if you notice it or where does it come from?

All of a sudden now, we're on the same page. We're on the same level. I'm not calling that person out. I'm not making them look bad. I'm not, you know, assuming that they're acting a certain way. And I get the opportunity to get an explanation. I'm not asking for a defense. I'm asking for their insight.

And I think this is so important because so often we've watched so many courtroom dramas where all we know how to do is put someone in their place, and then that person kind of has to defend themselves and stand up for themselves, and now we're not getting anywhere because now we're doing the same thing back. It's so important to tell people through a question, tell people in a non-confrontational, non-violent way. It's also brave to tell people how we feel.

Because when we don't, we feel self-righteous, but we automatically assume that that person is unaware or wrong. I found that when I tell people how they feel, they get a chance to tell me how they feel. And often I realize we're far, far closer than we think. So I'll give you another example. The other day I was pitching an idea. The idea got rejected.

And I didn't really get any feedback. So I said to the team, I said, hey, I didn't get any feedback that I felt was valuable or insightful. We got feedback, but the feedback felt pretty vanilla. It felt pretty, you know, standard feedback. And it was hard for me to say, hey, I don't think we got any insightful or reflective feedback. But I thought it was healthy to say that because I was acknowledging we did get feedback, but it wasn't to the degree that would help me. And I want to learn and I want to grow.

All of a sudden, I got some amazing feedback. And actually, when I listened to it and took accountability, I could totally understand why the idea got rejected. I could actually reflect and comprehend why we didn't get a yes. And when I communicated that and communicated the heart of the pitch, it actually led to a much more powerful, positive conversation. Again, it was a hard conversation for me to have because I didn't want to look desperate.

I didn't want to look needy. I didn't want to look like I was forcing things over. And what I realized is I could explain all of that, right? Sometimes I think we think, well, I don't want someone to think I'm X, Y, Z. And so I'm not going to say it at all. Rather than saying to them, hey, I'm not trying to be X, Y, Z, but this is how I'm feeling.

Let's figure this out. Notice how it makes such a difference. We have to tell people why we think what we think, not just what we think. We have to explain to people why we're feeling the way we're feeling, not just what we're feeling. So often we just tell people our emotions. We don't explain our emotions. And when we explain our emotions, we give them an opportunity to explain theirs.

When we tell people how we feel, and more importantly, as I'm saying here, we tell people how we feel and why we feel that way, and we recognize that we can take some accountability for it, it gives us a sense of closure. We've realized that we've done everything within our power.

We've done everything within our means. We've taken control. We've focused on everything we can control and we don't have to be distracted by what we can't control. And that creates such a powerful sense of self-respect. We get an understanding that we have the ability to really stand up for ourselves. We have the ability to

to really recognize how we're feeling. And I think this hits very closely to why I partnered up with Match. And what I really found was I wanted to create a space where people could connect based on their values. And this was really, really important to me because I feel that everything I'm saying here is because we don't realize that our core values

have such a big impact in terms of long-term success. If you ignore core values, you're thinking in the next five months. If you take on core values, you're living in the next five years. And for anyone who's interested and invested in building a long-term, long-lasting, powerful relationship, this mindset is huge. 93% of Match members say that shared core values are a crucial indicator of relationship success.

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What's up, y'all? This is Questlove, and you know, at QLS, I get to hang out with my friends. Sugar Steve, Laia, Von Tegelow, Unpaid Bill, and we, you know, at Questlove Supreme, like to nerd out and do deep dives with musicians and actors and politicians and

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Now, another reason why it's important to tell people is because of what's actually happening inside of us. According to a researcher named Nelson, three things happen when an emotion is experienced. The first is we develop an emotional vibration. The second is we feel the emotion and any thoughts or physical sensations associated with it. This is where the mind and body's interconnectedness come into play.

And number three, we move on from the emotion by processing it. But here's the interesting thing. According to Nelson, when the second or third step mentioned above gets interrupted, the energy of the emotion becomes trapped in the body. As a result, you might experience muscle tension, pain, or other ailments. Express your emotions to yourself. Explain them to others.

Don't express your emotions to others, explain them to others so that they have the opportunity to understand them. When we do that, we release it from being stored in the body.

Nelson says the phrase trapped emotions usually means that you want to say something, but you're blocking it from yourself. And then that repressed negative emotional energy comes out as resentment, being passive aggressive. It can come out as an overreaction. It can come out as depression and stress, of course. And mind-body therapist Kelly Vinson comes

compares trapped emotions to carrying around a large backpack. It weighs us down, it impacts our mood and it drains our energy. So now that you're not saying how you feel to someone else, you're now carrying this backpack of emotions into every interaction you go to. And what we're really saying is, I don't want to put in the effort

To unpack this backpack, right? Think about it when you've gone on vacation and you don't want to unpack a suitcase. So now you'll pack it again for the next trip and you're now carrying everything from the first trip for the second trip as well. So what you've done is you've just made it harder and heavier for yourself. You've just made it more and more challenging for yourself when it doesn't need to be. That's why it's so important to tell them.

Now, I was reading an amazing medically reviewed article by Jennifer Littner on Healthline. And it was talking about how trapped emotions in extreme cases can actually create trauma.

She talks about how according to a 2015 survey of almost 69,000 adults across six continents, over 70% of respondents reported exposure to a traumatic event, while 30.5% were exposed to four or more. This could be a breakup or a divorce, she says. It could be a major illness. It could be losing your job. And what ends up happening is that when we don't share or express that emotion on how we feel,

that can end up being stored in the body. And if you've not read this brilliant book called The Body Keeps the Score, I highly recommend it. And when we're carrying around these emotions and we don't tell people how we feel, we don't tell people how we feel about them, we don't tell people how they've made us feel, we end up blaming ourselves. We end up blaming them rather than engaging with them.

we can end up taking that stress out on loved ones. And so a lot of negative energy gets trapped in the body when it's not released in that way. And so I want to ask you, when's the last time you've been feeling a headache? Because there's something on your mind and your heart that you've been wanting to say. And here's what I'd recommend you do. Tell them. Because if you don't tell them, you'll spiral. If you don't tell them, you'll regret it later. And the reason why we're not telling them is we don't think about this. I want to help you come up with ideas

a five-step formula for how to understand how to tell them. The first thing is, they're not in front of you. What would you say if there were no edits, right? If you didn't have to filter it, if you said it with all the anger, if you expressed it with all the pain, all the tension, what would it sound like? Write it out, audio it out, say it out loud.

How would you express your pain, stress, tension towards someone without thinking about how they digest it? Let it out without them there. I ideally would say write this down. If you can, journal it. Because the next step is focus on what you actually are trying to say as you now edit this. You're now extracting the explanation from the expression. It's not that you're taking the emotion out of it.

But you're taking the accusatory, the blaming, the judgment out of it so that you can truly explain how you feel over expressing what you think of them. So you're editing now in order to make it make sense to someone else.

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is figure out the best time to say it. People underestimate the time. I think it's so interesting. So many of us, we choose the worst times to have the best conversations.

A lot of people in their relationships will choose the moment their partner walks through the door to have the most difficult conversations. Now, that person maybe just had a stressful journey home back from work. And you're thinking to yourself, so did I. Well, guess what? You're not in the right position either. Not only is the timing wrong for them, it's the wrong timing for you.

The next thing is you don't know how heavy their day was. So they're already carrying a load and now they don't have the ability to carry your load on top of it. You've now reduced the probability that they have the conscientiousness and the compassion in that moment to be present with you. Do they have any capacity? You're speaking to them at a time where their emotional capacity is so reduced

And it's really funny because we think in this moment, well, they should get it. They should understand it. It's so important to me. They don't have any other time when actually you could have made it a lot easier for yourself to bring it up at a time that they could digest it. The other important thing, not just time, is to figure out the best place to say something. I think sometimes, again, we choose the worst place to have the best conversations because

We do it over dinner when someone's just trying to eat. We do it passive aggressively when someone's friends or family is around them. We do it when the person's trying to disconnect from everything while watching a TV show.

Rather than setting a time and a place, we take up any opportunity because we think it's so important. But anything that's truly important, if you think about in the workplace, you set an appointment, you set a meeting to have important conversation. We've got to do that even with the people we love, right? And the biggest one, which I think we underestimate, is that we're usually quite attached to the result. And really what we need to do

is be detached from the result. Now, how do we do that? We want them to change. We want them to know how we feel. We want them to feel bad about it. We want them to get the point. There may be all these expectations we have. Well, the truth is all of our expectations are not helping us. They're actually setting us up for failure. Instead of sharing all of this in a way that we hope that they go, yeah, I get it. I get it. I'm going to change completely, which is our artificial hope.

we could share it and actually just see where they're coming from. We could actually try and understand what their blocks are. We could actually try and comprehend what their challenges are because guess what? That's going to give us a lot more information, a lot more ability to grow, a lot more insight into what can be solved. Now, this is going back to the simplicity of tell them method. Let's look at that example. If you don't want to go on a date with someone and you go out just because you feel guilty,

Now they think there's a chance they're being strung along. Now you're feeling worse on day four that you keep stringing them along. And now on day eight, you got to tell them anyway, right? You're not going to let it go all the way to them expecting you're going to propose to them. And well, maybe you might. And then now you've got to do even the harder job. Because if you just told them in the first place, you wouldn't have all that later on pain.

Some of you wait till the last minute to tell someone you're not coming to the party. Guess what? That lets them down more than if you told them a month in advance and gave a good explanation. Tell them, tell them, tell them. Because guess what? You don't then have to spiral. You then don't have to think about that emotion, that exchange for the next three weeks. You can actually create space for the life that you want to build. Thank you so much for listening. I hope this helps you. I hope you pass it on to a friend.

And remember, I'm forever in your corner and always rooting for you. And next time you're struggling to express how you feel, just tell them. I promise you, it will make a huge difference and save you so much mental space, so much mental time, and so much mental energy.

Thank you.

Hold hands. It's really hard to argue. It actually calms your nervous systems. Just hold hands as you're having the conversation. It's so lovely.

I'm Dr. Scott Barry Kaufman, host of the Psychology Podcast and founder of the Center for Human Potential. If you like On Purpose with Jay Shetty, I think you'll enjoy the Psychology Podcast, where we explore the depths of human potential. In each episode, I talk with inspiring scientists, thinkers, and other self-actualized individuals who give you a greater understanding of yourself,

others, and the world we live in. Our aim is to help you live a fuller, more meaningful life. Listen to the Psychology Podcast on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I'm Jenny Kaplan, host of Womanica, a daily podcast that introduces you to the fascinating lives of women history has forgotten. We've always been intrigued by stories of disappearances, whether it's a fraudster from the 17th century who kept evading the authorities, or a novelist who taunted the Nazis and faked her own death.

We all want to know, what happened next? To find out, listen to Womanica on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Want to know how to leverage culture to build a successful business? Then Butternomics is the podcast for you. I'm your host, Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter ATL. And on Butternomics, we go deep with today's most influential entrepreneurs, innovators, and business leaders to peel back the layers on how they use culture as a driving force in their business. Butternomics will give you what you need to take your game to the next level. Listen to Butternomics on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.