← On Purpose with Jay Shetty
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
The Tell Them Method - How To Stop Holding On To Emotional Baggage and Regret
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Jay Shetty
Sometimes life can seem hard and tough.
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To navigate, but what may seem like.
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The smallest tasks, such as getting out.
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Of bed or even brushing your teeth, should be celebrated as a win. And State Farm is here to help you celebrate all your wins. The State Farm Personal Price Plan helps you create an affordable price just for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the Personal Price Plan.
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Eligibility vary by state.
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Jay Shetty
Wow.
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Unknown
What is this place? Welcome to Cloud 9.
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Jay Shetty
How exactly did I get here?
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Unknown
You're a Toyota Crown driver and only Crown drivers ever reach this level of pure bliss. The refined but elegant design makes you sit up a little straighter. It gives you a rush of confidence as soon as you're behind the wheel and a feeling of all eyes on you. That's how the Crown transports you here. It's pretty awesome, right?
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Jay Shetty
The captivating Toyota Crown Family Toyota Let's Go Places. I've done a lot of things in the last 10 years. I created this podcast, started businesses, hosted a world tour and even wrote multiple best selling books. But one of my favorite things I've.
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Accomplished is my newsletter.
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It's called Weekly Wisdom. For the last four years, I've sent out a newsletter every single Thursday. I write about spirituality, love, life's challenges, and the practical things we can all do every day to get closer to healing and well being. Over 700,000 people subscribe, which is still so wild to me. I'm grateful to every person who takes time out of their day to read it.
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This newsletter gives me a chance to really channel to express myself and share.
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My thoughts in a candid way with you.
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No matter what I do, whether it's.
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Podcasting or entrepreneurship, the craft I love perfecting the most is my writing.
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I write for myself for others and for the world. If you'd like to start receiving my.
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Newsletter in your inbox every Thursday, just go to jshettynewsletter.com that's jshetty newsletter.com the newsletter is 100% free and you can unsubscribe at any time. I hope you'll join me and I can't wait for you to read it on Thursday. 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 number one health and wellness podcast, Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.
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Hey everyone.
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Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to listen, learn and grow. I am so grateful to have you here. My name is 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 on to 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 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 conversations 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 emotions. 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 onto 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, 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 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.
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Often if I think someone's behaving with.
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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, nonviolent 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 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'd got feedback, but the feedback felt pretty vanilla. It felt pretty 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 xyz. And so I'm not going to say it at all. Rather than saying to them, hey, I'm not trying to be xyz, 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 this. 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 realize that we've done everything within our power, we've done everything within our means, we've taken control, we 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 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. Sometimes life can seem challenging and overcoming problems can seem impossible. But when you focus on your problems, it can keep you from seeing the good in your life. One thing that helps me when I need a change in perspective is acknowledging the small wins in life.
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I encourage my team to pay attention.
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To small wins because it helps them see positive outcomes and the steps that.
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They'Re achieving on the road to a bigger goal.
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Use the power of small wins to shift your outlook and you will start to see positive changes.
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State Farm is also there to help.
- [18:15]
You find personal wins and celebrate the small things in life.
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The State Farm Personal Price Plan helps.
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You create an affordable price just for you. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and.
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Save with the Personal Price Plan.
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Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
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Prices are based on rating plans that vary by state.
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Coverage options are selected by the customer, availability, amount of discounts, and savings and eligibility vary by state.
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This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Take a moment to reflect on someone you're grateful for. Maybe a friend, a mentor, or even your therapist.
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There are people who show up for.
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Us in big and small ways and it's important to acknowledge that. But let's not forget to thank ourselves too. Life can be chaotic and some days just getting through is a win. So be kind to yourself. You've overcome so much already. And remember, gratitude can also empower you to grow. Therapy, for example, isn't just for those who have faced major trauma. It helps us build coping skills, set boundaries, and become our best selves it's about understanding our emotions and learning to.
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Show up fully for ourselves.
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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 Vincent 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 Litner 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. Right. 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 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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Use the code on purpose. The third thing which I think is really important 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, that 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. 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 conversations. 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, but 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.
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I hope this helps you.
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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.
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Hey, everyone, if you love that conversation, go and check out my episode with the world's leading therapist, Lori Gottlieb, where she answers the biggest questions that people ask in therapy when it comes to love, relationships, heartbreak and dating. If you're trying to figure out that space right now, you won't want to miss this conversation.
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Alicia Keys
If it's a romantic relationship. 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.
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Try clinically proven Skincare from Alicia Keys with 25% off your first purchase at keyssoulcare.com using code GLOW on air hey, come on in.
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Unknown
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Jay Shetty
Thanks so much. See you soon.
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Unknown
Shop on small business Saturday, November 30th. That's the powerful backing of American Express.
- [34:29]
Alicia Keys
This podcast is supported by BetterHelp, offering licensed therapists you can connect with via video phone or chat. Here's BetterHelp head of clinical operations. Hes Yoo Jo discussing who can benefit from therapy.
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Hes Yoo Jo
I think a lot of people think that you're supposed to be going to therapy once you're like having panic attacks every day. But before you get to that point, I think once you start even noticing that you feel a little bit off and you can't maintain this harmony that you once had in relationships. That could be a sign that maybe you want to go talk to somebody. There's always a benefit in talking to someone because we can all benefit from improved insight about ourselves and who we are and how we behave with other people. So if you're human, that's like a good indicator that you could benefit from talking to somebody.
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Alicia Keys
Find out if therapy is right for you. Visit betterhelp.com today. That's betterhelp.com.