Employing Differences, Episode 138: Do I have to?

Karen: 0:08

Welcome to Employing Differences, conversation about exploring the collaborative space between individuals.

Paul: 0:14

I'm Paul Tevis.

Karen: 0:16

And I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 0:17

Each episode, we start with a question and we'll see where it takes us. This week's question is, "Do I have to?"

Karen: 0:27

So there's a thing that we think happens a lot – we think this is a thing humans do– where we tell ourselves a story about "If I don't do this thing, or if I do this thing that I want to do, that somebody else will be unhappy with me. And therefore I don't have a choice, I have to do it." And we are proposing that it's helpful to get conscious about when we're in that pattern. And to ask ourselves, "Do I have to?" I think I'll illustrate with an example from my life. My kids were little, and I made a new friend who also had little kids. She had just moved into the neighborhood. And for whatever reason, I visited her house pretty early on. And having just moved, her house was spotless. Everything was in its place, everything was perfectly arranged. If children lived there, there was very little evidence – and children did live there. Which was not at all how my house looked. And I thought,"I can't have her over until I clean my house. This will be a disaster. She will think poorly of me. She will never want to be my friend again. This will be terrible." And, so I didn't invite her over because I was busy raising kids and didn't get my house clean. And you know, a day or two later, we were meeting in my driveway – she was picking us up when we were gonna go somewhere together – and she said, "I need to use your bathroom." I was like, "Oh well, I guess it's all over. The secret's out." And what ended up being true was that she had absolutely her own reasons to compulsively keep her house spotless. And it did, in fact, bother her when they were Cheerios all over the floor in my dining room. And the solution to that was for her to get out the broom and clean up the Cheerios, which she was totally happy with. And I was totally happy. I got over whatever sort of guilt/shame stuff I had going on over "I'm not a very good housekeeper." And she got to do what felt good to her in the moment. And we could hang out together in her house or in my house, and it all worked. But this is one of these examples where, if I had not been forced out of the story I was telling myself, I could have stayed for a long time in a guilt, shame, don't invite her over space, because I thought I can't possibly have her in my house until I've cleaned up.

Paul: 3:01

So this type of thing, as you said, I think is super common. And often the challenge is that we don't recognize it. You recognized in there at least, "Oh, I have this feeling of 'I don't want to have this person over until I can meet this standard that I'm setting for myself.'" You may or may not have played through in your head a little bit of what might happen if that does. "Oh, she'll think I'm a terrible person." And I think it's important for us to recognize a few things about that. One, this is often deeply patterned behavior. This comes from somewhere. We learned things like this. These judgments about people's character is usually where these things are rooted. We learned these from somewhere, and they probably were useful to us in some way, at some time. And we're over applying that pattern, as is often the case. Because as you've demonstrated in that story, she didn't think you were a terrible person. But the only way to the only way to learn that was to actually have the horrible experience that you were going to avoid at all costs. Because if you were right, there is no way that that you would recover from that. So I think recognizing where that happens and that we're in some patterned behavior is important. And I think it's important, and I don't think we just need to go, "Well, we shouldn't care what other people think about us." What other people think about us and being aware of that is a valuable survival skill for mammals. I mean that is part of our our heritage as social creatures. We survive by being part of a group, and we are very attuned to what are things that can get us excluded. Because in our evolutionary history, being aware of that, and not doing those things is something that kept us alive. So we shouldn't just say, "Well, you shouldn't care what other people think about you." Because you should and also just saying it doesn't mean that it's going to go away. But I think it is important to notice this sort of compulsion that we have to do this thing. The thing that we feel we have to do, what is it costing us to do it, but also to feel that we have to, because those are two different things.

Karen: 5:39

Yeah, and I think that division is so important, to just notice that. Because doing the thing may or may not be necessary. I mean, in my case, I wasn't resentful about she was making me clean my house, but that totally can come up. Like,"I have to waste my time making the coffee before other people come into the office." Whatever it is, and we can get really resentful about doing things we don't want to do because we"have to." And this is the question. Do I have to? Is it actually real? You know, I'm doing this thing because I think I have to. And then the other piece is that feeling that I'm carrying the weight of it, and whatever comes with that. That there are feelings about it. And it impacts the relationship. It impacts the way I connect and engage with the people around me, which in turn impacts the work that we're trying to do together, whatever that is. And so I love that distinction of"How do I feel about doing the thing?" and "How do I feel about thinking I have to do the thing?" And it may be that if I just go, "You know what I don't. Nobody else is making me. This rule that I have to do it? It's in me. I am creating it with my own expectations, my own assumptions, my own beliefs. I don't have to. You know what? I'm perfectly happy to." As soon as I don't feel compelled, as soon as I don't feel forced... This is a thing in psychology, that by compelling thing you make it less desirable. If we remove the compulsion, if we remove the pressure and the feeling about it, we may be totally happy to do the thing. Or it may be that we even feel okay about the fact that we are supposed to do the thing, but we hate doing it, or it's getting in the way of something else, or it doesn't actually work well for the project or for the team for us to be doing it. So I think thinking through both of those is super important.

Paul: 7:54

To piggyback a little bit on the idea of the compulsion. and the psychological effect of that... It's very different energy to have to do something and to choose to do something. Oftentimes, if we're holding on to that energy of obligation – because that's often what it really feels like, is "I'm obligated to do this, and I don't want to. I wouldn't choose to do this. I'm not choosing to do it, but I'm obligated to do it" That takes a lot of energy. And being able to shift from, "I am obligated to do this" to "I'm choosing to do this." And I really am. We've talked before about this idea of willingness. Willingness is that I'm actually willing to do the thing, I'm gonna put the energy into it, even though it's something that I might not necessarily have preferred to do. But I'm not gonna build resentment from doing it. It's like, okay, if I am actually going to do this thing, can I come to it in such a way that I'm not resenting having to do it" Because if I can do that, I have way more way more energy to do everything else, because I'm not having to live with the energy of obligation. But also it means that I'm way more likely to actually show up in the relationship with the other person – that I am in theory doing this for, because I want them to think well of me – I'm way more likely to show up in a way that is personable and connective. If this thing is sitting between us, if that obligation sits between us, and I'm holding on to that, it doesn't matter whether I did the thing that I think they expected of me or not. I'm still not going to show up in the best way to be in relationship.

Karen: 9:51

Yeah, yeah. And then I think you're pointing toward the next piece, which is, "And we can talk to them about it." If can notice that this is what's going on, then I can say to that person – and this is a phrase that's come up in the podcast before – "The story I'm telling myself." "I'm telling myself the story that it's important to you that da-da-da-da-da-da, and I am not liking doing that thing. And where is that?" And then it can turn into either them saying,"Well, that's an interesting story. Nope, don't need that. Please stop doing that." Or even, "I really wish you wouldn't do that thing" can happen. Or the other possibility, which is that it becomes a request. That becomes a clear, conscious, "You're absolutely right, that is a thing that I would really appreciate it if you would do for me." And then it's more in that relational space. It's cleaner. It's less than obligation or a compulsion, and it's more a, "This is the thing you've asked for, that I have agreed to willingly do for you." So both the internal conversation, which is where we think probably start with the"Do I have to?" question and then the the joint conversation with whomever else is affected by this to see what actually works. Get the effect on them on the table and also the impact on me on the table, and have it be that collaborative thing that happens in the space between.

Paul: 11:25

I think this connects back to something we talked about a few episodes ago when we were talking about "reasonableness." Because a lot of this is about expectations that are never communicated. It's about cultural assumptions we have. It's almost like we're recording these things around the holidays in the winter, where where lots of these things come up. And yeah, I think the degree to which we can do that inner work to become aware of them, to become aware of what it's costing us. And also, I there's just a degree of self compassion. Because these are deeply patterned behaviors, we may not be able to move beyond it. I know that there are some of these things for me, where it's like, "I know I'm telling myself a story about what this person expects," and it's still difficult and scary to have the external conversation with them. And for whatever reason, I'm not in a place where I'm ready to do that right now. Being able to have some compassion for yourself, and say, "Yep, I'm playing out one of my patterns again. Okay. I do I wish this were different? Yeah. Is it? not this time." And I think to celebrate the recognition. "Oh, I recognize this as a pattern," that is still progress and growth. Even if we still go,"Okay, I'm going to try not to resent it. I'm going to try to choose to do this rather than feeling obligated to do it." And then coming out the other side, going, "Nope, still felt obligated." We can't change these things overnight. Awareness isn't the only thing that's required. Conscious choice isn't the only thing that's required. Sometimes you just need the person to come into your house when it's dirty and have the world not end. And have them not think you're a terrible person. The phrase that I end up using a lot is "not die, painfully and alone." Because oftentimes, these are connected to stories we tell ourselves about what will happen if we don't do this thing or if they think about us that way. That stuff is deeply embedded in our experience and our psyches. Cutting ourselves some slack around that and not expecting – because it's very easy to beat ourselves up about not being perfect and not letting go of that story and not letting go of that pattern. I think it's important to celebrate that we recognize that there's a pattern even when we're still caught up in it.

Karen: 13:59

Yeah. I think even that recognition creates a little more sense of agency and a little less sense of victimhood."I am stuck with this." I think part of where the pattern gets most toxic is "I am stuck. I don't have any way out. It's being done to me externally somehow. There's nothing I can do about it." And even just recognizing, "This is a thing I do to myself. I'm doing it to myself, again," is enough to shift that agency piece just a little bit. And I think it is cumulative. The other thing I want to make sure we touch on is how that awareness might begin. Because you and I are talking about this from the other side of the mirror, where it's all perfectly clear and we can see all of it. But I think what really happens in life is not that we go along knowing this. But very often I think this shows up first in "I'm feeling resentful. I'm feeling angry. I'm exhausted. I'm pushed around." I think those feelings and experiences can come from a lot of places, but this thing that we're talking about today is one of them. And so as we're noticing that level of frustration or resentment, if we can just get curious – that word we talk about so often – "Where is that coming from?" that can begin to give us the view into this pattern. And we can recognize that that's what we're in, and then take the steps that we're talking about to do something about it.

Paul: 15:30

So to track where we've been here today, we're really digging into this question of"Do we have to?" When we feel this sense of obligation, when we feel that that we don't have agency about something, that somebody else is making us do a thing, getting curious about that. Noticing in that, are we doing it because of something that we think the other person will think about us if we do or don't do the thing? Are we really concerned with the impact on the relationship, on the sense of belonging, on us socially? Is there social pressure to do this behavior or not? And in particular, when we start to notice this idea of resentment, this discomfort around this, being able to go,"Is that real?" Has the person actually wanted us to do that? Or are we living out one of our usual patterns of what we believe we need to do in order to be a good person or to stay included in the community? Is that a real request that has been made or is it a story that we're telling ourselves about what this person thinks or will think about us if we do this thing? Because that can start to point us in the direction of giving us a little bit more agency. That agency may be around, choosing to actually do the thing or not, and doing the thing or not, but also recognizing the energy of obligation versus choice. We might actually still do the thing. But if we can come to it from that place of "Actually, I'm choosing to do this, I want to do this." I'm not doing it in a way that it is building resentment, in a way such that then that's actually getting in the way of the connection that we say we want with this other person with this group of people. Or that causes us to show up in a way that isn't how we want to be when we are with them or around them. Being able to recognize that and actually make a choice to move out of the space of obligation and into that space of willingness can be really valuable. And recognizing that we're not always going to be able to do that. We can get stuck in these patterns. Celebrating even just recognizing that we're in it is a way of starting to shift the energy around it. And again, if we can move out of that spot of telling ourselves that we're a victim in this situation, that we have no power here at all, and instead recognizing, "Okay, there is a degree to which I'm doing this to myself," that can help reduce the resentment we have against other people. We need to be careful not to fall into a shame spiral around that and go, "Oh, I shouldn't feel that I have this obligation" because then we've just replaced one horrible feeling with another. Having a little compassion for ourselves around that can go a long way. And so we think it's important to really think about when we feel this compulsion or this obligation to do something to get really curious about the question of whether or not we have to.

Karen: 18:42

And that's gonna do it for us today. Until next time, I'm Karen Gimnig.

Paul: 18:46

And I'm Paul Tevis. And this has been Employing Differences.