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In this episode, you'll discover why constantly focusing on others might keep you from growing and how self focus can move you from emotional chaos to real clarity pretty darn quick. Welcome to Takeout Therapy, the podcast for empathic high achievers who are done with overworking, overthinking and overwhelm. I'm Rebecca Hunter, an anxiety expert and therapist helping busy, big hearted people like you learn practical skills to quiet your rac mind, overcome self doubt and actually be present in your life. If that sounds good to you, you're in the right place. Visit takeouttherapy.com for helpful resources and classes. Thanks for listening. Let's get to work. Well, hello there friend. I'm so happy you're able to stop in for today's session. This might be a really important episode for you to begin a deeper piece of work. Actually. So lucky you. Today I'll teach you why waiting on others to change keeps you stuck and emotionally trapped. How learning to focus on yourself helps us show up more deeply in life so we can keep on learning and growing. And of course, I'll give you a lesson on how to be more self focused in general and when things get hard in relationships. You know, when we're having issues in life, we tend to look outward for the reason that things suck, don't we? Maybe it's our partner's behavior that is driving us up a wall and making us unhappy in our lives. Maybe it's an annoying coworker or micromanaging boss. Perhaps it's the systems that we have to deal with on a daily basis. You know, like the dmv. Heck, we're even looking at strangers as to the reason why we're feeling and behaving the way that we are. We go through life wishing that other people could just be different. Like hopefully less annoying and show up differently. Right? It's really, really frustrating, but it's also totally disempowering. It's really helpful when you deeply understand that you have the power, you and you alone, my friend, to shift the entire dynamic. All you gotta do is start with you. I'm gonna talk about what happens when we lose our power to the wasteful train of blaming and looking to other people as to how life is going for us. I'll help you understand how to gently get your power back and change the dynamic. I think we all struggle with this. I know I do because it's natural. It's the husband who's upset with his wife to the point where it feels like she's responsible for his Unhappiness, vice versa, right? It's that employee who's constantly stressed and upset about work, but they have no boundaries with their boss. And it's the parent who sometimes blames the child's behavior for our own poor response, which I think we've all done in the act of parenting. But we know it's really silly and we shouldn't because kids are wild and undeveloped and we're supposed to be their guides. But it's hard because people are difficult, right? When we get really focused there when things happen, and all we can really focus on is the behavior of others instead of ourselves. The experience that others are causing for us instead of our own experience. That's where we get stuck. We get stuck waiting for other people to apologize, to change, to freakin. Validate us, right? Or behave differently or better. We get stuck in spirals of blame and rumination and resentment for how we feel with no resolution. This is like, we're up all night. Ugh, I can't stand this. When we're stuck in this mode of focusing on other people, we just start to get a real chronic disappointment in relationships. And there tends to be a lot of conflict, right? Because when the underlying thing going on is resentment and anger and loneliness and, like, this feeling of not being seen, there's just a lot of bitter disagreement that starts to happen. And then there's the constant analysis that goes on in the brain because it loves this action, right? The more thinking, the better. This constant analysis of what is wrong. And I'm sure you've come across people and I've been this person, but it's like we spend all of our time thinking about what's wrong, what's wrong with society, what's wrong with politics, what's wrong with men, what's wrong with women, what's wrong with our parenting, what's wrong with our boss, what's wrong with those dog owners, right? It's constant. When we get in this mode, when we're, like, looking to other people as the reason for how we're experiencing life, we experience a lot of powerlessness, which, may I mention, is probably the number one trigger, the deepest, darkest trigger that we all have. And it's emotionally exhaust. And we start getting this kind of, I'll call it learned helplessness of, like, what? I guess this is how things are. This is how people are. Guess I'm just gonna have to work here forever. Or try to make you happy or whatever it might be. I guess this is just how things are. It feels really overwhelming. When things never change, right? Like life becomes this Groundhog Day in which we're just sort of waiting for something to change outside of ourselves. And I'll tell you, it causes anxiety. Because when we're trying to manage things that are outside of our control, that's the word we use for that friend. When we're always looking to other people as opposed to looking inside, relationships get really hard because when we don't know what's going on with ourself, we can't say what we need. We can't own our own stuff, right? Like, we can't engage in that way. We're just stuck in what Tara Brock might call othering. We're just othering. And it's so destructive. So now I'll tell you that this is a completely changeable pattern. Being self focused in your life and changing this dynamic will absolutely help you. It will help you gain a sense of, like a sense of sturdy, some emotional resilience, right? Like regardless of what other people are doing, you'll have clearer boundaries and a more stable sense of an emotional life. Because when you know what you need and you can communicate that in a way that is more functional and less reactive, a little more grounded and centered, as they say, oh man, things just start working a lot better when you start looking to yourself in the situations that come up and in the dynamics of your life, you start feeling like you have some choices that you can make, you can kind of pivot, you can change things rather than just watching other people in their chaos. So being self focused will help you have more agency, actually, and more peace. And it will help you get to know and be in relationship with yourself better. I've had so many clients that come to see me because they're really struggling in their relationship. And what we find when we look underneath the surface of things is that they're trying to fix their partner's behavior by doing all this stuff behind the scenes. And when they start to make real progress is when they stop doing that and look to their own feelings and behavior in the moments that were important, right? So many people have this experience. In all my classes and my workshops and stuff I make, I have this drawing and it's of a bus. And it's basically this kind of metaphor about, like, this bus is your life. Why are you sitting in the back seat complaining about the route but refusing to take the wheel? So now I'll help you to quickly move from bystander to driver, from blame and resentment and stress and powerlessness to owning your Part in situations so that you can continue to grow as a person. I love the ACT framework for this. That's a therapeutic approach called acceptance and commitment therapy, which is a super weird name, but it means that you know what you want and you're willing to go after it and you accept how life can be. This is not a linear process. Just be aware that it's a process and start down the road, my friend. Because when we're trying to break pattern, we gotta work with what we've got. Meaning that the first step is always going to be a little bit of mindfulness, noticing when it is happening. That's what I mean by mindfulness. All mindfulness really means is like, are you able to show up and see what's going on from a more objective opinion, as though you're looking in the window and you have to describe what's happening in your life. Can you notice when you get into this mode of blaming other people or being more focused on other people than you are on yourself? Just catch yourself right there. Catch yourself looking outside of yourself for what you need. Catch yourself. I would say a little flag would be just generally talking about someone else as the reason for your feelings or your behavior. Look for another person's name coming up a lot, right? And the rule in mindfulness, in noticing, is that there's no judgment allowed. It doesn't matter what your opinion is. All you're trying to do is just see when this happens for you and then just ask yourself some questions, turn to yourself and say, self, what's going on for me in this situation right now? How am I feeling both on a physical level or emotional level? Just get to know the experience that you're having and just build awareness without a bunch of judgment or shame or whatever, whatever. Like, whoa, this is what's going on for me right now. That's the first step. And like I said, it's not a linear process. So be patient because it's hard to notice our own patterns. The next step would be just accept that you're a human being. And this is an idea from Kristin Neff's self compassion research. You know, we are human beings, and human beings scan the outside world for safety. Uh, we've had to do this since the beginning of time, and it's very adaptive behavior and normal. But when we do that all the time in our relationships, then it keeps us focused on things that we can't control, right? On other people's behavior or their emotions more than our own. And honestly, it kind of keeps us from standing in our own two feet. So a good way to do this is just to see a situation for what it is. Again, like you're looking in the window and just move forward differently immediately. So when you see that you're like, maybe in another rant about your boss, just stop. As soon as you notice, just accept your humanity and pivot, my friend. This is how we rewire the brain. What really helps in this process is just to know what you care about. So at some point, write your values down. This is your internal compass. Your values are your why, like, why do I behave the way that I behave? Why do I want to behave? How do I want to behave? What's important to me in my relationships? These values can serve as a guide. You know, we don't remember our values in high stress or elevating situation. And we most certainly do not act according to our values when our nervous system is jacked. So write them down, they'll stick in your head better and they'll guide your behavior, especially if you call upon them when you're struggling. I've done a workshop on this in my program that I have linked in the show notes. So if this is something that interests you, that's a really fun place to go with your personal growth work. But the most important thing is take a different action when you get stuck in like othering looking to other people. Find something that you can do yourself to change the situation. Something that aligns with your values. You know, the ones you just wrote down. Like, maybe you need to set a boundary, kind, firm and true. Maybe just pause a conversation and say, you know, I need to give this more thought about what? How I'm feeling about this. Maybe instead of expressing your feelings and your thoughts on the behavior and the annoyances of others, you journal instead of vent. You know, when something comes out of your mouth, it becomes so true and it becomes thematic, doesn't it? Like, here's the theme today I'm kind of pissed off at everybody. It's totally appropriate for you to say what you feel or give someone an idea about like a new way to interact with you. Like you can say to somebody when you do this, I find myself responding this way. What would be helpful is if you could do it this way, right? Maybe it's your boss like you. The way you give me instructions isn't easy for me to line my actions up with. There's so many options of how you can communicate with people differently. Then just let them sort of have so much power over your happiness and Your joy and probably your mental health. Right? Been there. People are annoying. This isn't about blaming yourself for doing it wrong. It's really about just grabbing your power back and being more emotionally mature and self focused. It puts you in charge of the situations that you find yourself in. It puts you in charge of yourself, your emotions, your behavior. Right. And it puts you in charge of your part in relationships instead of like, you know, we've all used others as an excuse for our behavior. Well, he did this, so I did this right? Instead of using others as an excuse or just feeling like you don't know how to look deeper inside yourself. Self focus and doing a little of this insight work is the start of healing. It's the beginning of boundaries. It's where presence comes in and really the backbone of your relationship with yourself, which is a pretty important thing. How's that going? We'll talk about that later. Take it one step at a time, friend. Just try noticing your pardon things, your role, your feelings, your position, gently, with curiosity. And if you want some help doing this kind of deep, compassionate self work. This is what I'm trained in, friend. I'm happy to teach you what I know. Schedule a consult at the link in the show notes and we'll have a chat and see if we're a good fit to work together. I'm hoping in this episode you learned why focusing on others leaves you emotionally stuck. How self focus brings in peace, a lot of clarity, and way more agency. And I gave you a simple way to begin that shift without shame. I forgot to tell you if you want to get a jump start on learning mindfulness, I actually have a free class on my website and the link is in the show notes. You can get started right now. Learning to be present in your life. You are the starting point to figuring things out, which is great news because you know how it feels to wait for others to change. And that, my friend, is definitely a topic for another day. Thank you so much for spending your time with me today. I really appreciate you being here to do this work. New sessions are released on Fridays and don't forget your mini session on Monday mornings. Be sure to subscribe and do a quick review so more people can get this kind of help. Remember, takeout therapy is a great educational resource, but always get the level of support that you need for your situation. Head to takeouttherapy.com to stay in the loop until next time. Take good care of yourself, friend.