← This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil
Grown-Up Goals: The 5 Pillars Of Being A Healthy Adult with Michelle Chalfant | 317
00:35:24
Michelle Chalfant breaks down the five pillars of emotional maturity and healthy adulting—helping you heal old patterns, set boundaries, and reclaim your personal power.
Loading summary
Transcript53 lines
- [00:00]
A
I am hot. I mean I've always run hot, but throw in perimenopause, hot flashes and summer and friend, I am super hot. Which is one of the many reasons I am obsessed with Cozy Earth's bamboo sheets. They're temperature regulating, moisture wicking and actually help me to sleep cooler even when it's 85 degrees at night or 185 degrees inside my body. And you can try them during the hottest nights of the year risk free with Cozy Earth's 100 Night Sleep Trial. And if you're not in love you can send them back, but trust me, you won't want to. So go to cozyearth.com and use code TIWW for 40% off. That's a decade of cool quality sleep. Literally because they have a 10 year warranty. That's tiww for 40% off sheets and everything else. Sleep cooler, lounge lighter and stay cozy. This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. From streaming to shopping, prime helps you get more out of your so whether you're a fan of true crime or prefer a nail biting novel from time to time with services like Prime Video, Amazon Music and fast free delivery, prime makes it easy to get more out of whatever you're into or getting into. Visit Amazon.comprime to learn more. I am Nicole Khalil and you're listening to the this Is womanswork podcast and today. Well, today we're going to talk about being an adult. Because friend, I say this with love, but I am not sure that we're doing or demonstrating it all that well, let's face it, we're taught how to solve for X in math class, but not how to speak up in a toxic relationship. We memorized the periodic table but never learned how to feel our feelings without shame or judgment and without giving away responsibility. And most of us were raised by adults who are just like us wildly imperfect humans in grown up bodies, figuring it out or not as we go. So no surprise that being an adult often feels more like improvising than arriving. And that's why I'm going to keep this intro really brief because I want to make sure we have time to talk about all of the five pillars of being a healthy adult with our guest. Michelle Chiffon is a licensed therapist turned holistic life coach, the creator of the Adult Chair Model and and the author of the brand new book the Adult Get Unstuck, Claim youm Power and Transform youm Life. She's helped millions through her top ranked podcast, her coaching certification program and her retreats and trainings. And she's here to walk us through the five pillars of a healthy adult self. Michelle, thank you for being here and for writing this book that I hope will be taught in high school and college and all of the places. And I'd love to, if you could start us off with the first pillar. And if you're okay with it, I'll just jump in with questions along the way. Does that work?
- [03:03]
B
Yeah. Nicole, I love it. Thank you. Awesome. Thanks for having me.
- [03:06]
A
Oh, my gosh. My pleasure. I'm so excited.
- [03:08]
B
Okay, so let's jump in. If I may just explain where the pillars even came from, that'd be great. It's a good kind of. And by the way, I want to. Even before I say that, I have said for years that we need to get the adult chair in school. So we're working on it. Because we don't even know. We don't know how to feel our emotions. We don't know what to do if we have anxiety. Like all these things, it's necessary. So I just want to say that.
- [03:32]
A
If you need a champion or an endorser, I'm your girl.
- [03:35]
B
Yes.
- [03:35]
A
Yes.
- [03:36]
B
I'll be talking to you after the show about that for sure.
- [03:38]
A
Good.
- [03:38]
B
Okay. So as a therapist and a coach for over 20 years, you know, like you said, I've worked with individual clients. I don't see individual clients anymore, but I've worked. You know, I have a coaching business and a membership and all the things. When I was writing the book, I literally looked back over 20 years and I said to myself, what is it that I have taught more than anything over the course of 20 some years? And I reflected on it and these are the five pillars and these are the things that clients or people, if I'm doing a live event up on stage, like it didn't matter. That's what was interesting to me. Whether I was on a stage and I'd pull people out of the audience, come work with me, or I'm in my private office one on one, it's the same thing. And what I realized is that as humans, we all have this stuff. Like we've all got these issues. Not that they're issues, but we need to strengthen these pillars in order to be healthy adults, in order to have the healthiest relationship with ourselves and healthy self worth and then with others. Exactly like, like you just said. So here we go. Number one, I own my reality. So again, when I. When I was working with people in my office, I would find these People would just sort of, like, dance around the elephant in the room. Let me. Let me give you some examples of what the elephant in the room might be. Things like this. I'm drinking too much. That's owning your reality. It's like, I'm coming home. I had so many people that would come in and say, okay, okay, Michelle, I got to tell you this. I got to tell you. I don't want to say this to anybody else, but it's quite obvious I'm coming home from work, and I realized by the time I go to bed and I put the kids to bed, I've had a whole bottle of wine, Something's not right. And I've been doing this for about a year. Can you help me? So it's that. It's. I think something might be going on with my child. Maybe their adhd, maybe there's something else, but I don't want to look at it, but I know I need to. So this is what I mean by owning your reality. Or another example would be, I think I'm in a relationship with my partner that I don't love or that I don't want to be in. And again, it's.
- [05:43]
A
It's.
- [05:44]
B
It's the things that are right in front of our face. And we live with these things every single day, and we want them to change, but we don't know how. So we ignore. One of the things that I realize happens when we own our reality. It's not inviting in blame or judgment. It is to say, okay, this is part of my life. This is something I'm struggling with. Whether it's, I'm drinking too much, I don't want to be in this relationship, or whatever the heck is going on. And then here's what's fascinating, Nicole. The next thing that happens is everything starts to change. It's when we resist owning that creates the stuckness. So when people say, I'm stuck, I don't know why I'm stuck. I'm like, well, what are you not owning? You gotta. You gotta look at your life and say, what? What's not? And it's not to say, if you're in a relationship that's not working, you have to end it. But it is to say, I think we're having problems, and I don't wanna tell anybody. I'm not inviting anyone to put it on Social. This is for yourself. You've gotta own it. Say, okay, you know what? I think I'm struggling with love addiction. Or I think I'm. I Think I've got a lot of codependency tendencies that might be what's going on. And I also say to people, we are the common denominator in every single relationship in our lives. Like it's us. So if your life isn't working out, we've got to look inside and ask, what the heck is going on here? What do might I need to change?
- [07:05]
A
The word responsibility keeps popping into my head. And I think, I think we all do this, but maybe more so as women, when we hear the word responsible, we think more along the lines of burden or even blame, as opposed to, I'm 100% responsible for my life and my relationships and what's in it. And that doesn't change that someone else is 100% responsible and all of that. Well, I guess, let me ask how important you think it is that we put words on it. Like you said, it doesn't need to be public, it doesn't need to be on social media. But how important is it that we speak these truths? Because I've found every time I say something out loud, even if it's just with one other person, it loses some of its power.
- [07:48]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It, it almost when we speak it. This is why go find a coach, go find a therapist, go find a best friend, Go find somebody that can just listen without correcting, without fixing. It starts the process of change. It gets the energy moving. You know, this is about, this is how we get unstuck. People say, I'm stuck. I'm stuck. Well, what aren't you saying? What's, what's really happening here? What aren't you owning, what aren't you? And the other way I say it is, you have to take responsibility for your life without blaming anybody.
- [08:17]
A
Yeah. As you were talking and this topic is about being and becoming an adult, I always try to tell myself, because, you know, it's hard sometimes to not point the finger to is. It's like my parents, my childhood, my experience. They explain a lot of things, but being an adult is no longer allowing those experiences and those to excuse a lot of things. It's part of my story. But at some point in time, being an adult is being responsible and almost parenting yourself at a certain point.
- [08:51]
B
Oh, not almost 100%. And that's a big part of what I talk about in the adult chair model itself, but in the book specifically. I mean that this is what people have told me for years in practicing this model, is there's an actual re parenting that does happen. Like I teach people how do you connect to your inner child? How do you work with the inner critic and all the voices in your head in the ego part? Yeah, so you definitely do. It's like, it's sort of like the parts that we might have missed when we were growing up. We're able to fill in now and, and reprogram ourselves because let's face it, we're almost like computers. What we learn when, when we're growing up becomes programs that we live off of. It's just is, it's just as how, that's how the brain and, and the con, our consciousness works. So yeah, so we, we're able to update all that programming.
- [09:38]
A
So you mentioned the inner critic. I call it head trash because I want it to sound as dirty and disgusting as it actually is. These things that run through my, my brain and I bring it up because I know the second pillar is practicing self compassion. Let's talk about that.
- [09:53]
B
Yeah. I was someone in my teens and twenties that was very hard on myself. I hated myself. I felt like I was damaged. I, I had a very, very, very loud inner critic. And, and what I came up with in my early 20s, that was the antidote for that was to love myself. What I found with self compassion. And again, and then when I started seeing clients and working with others, I'm like, oh, I guess I'm not alone in this, you know, and, and some people have a louder inner critic and blamer and judger and all those parts. And some people it's not so loud or some people, it gets loud when you make a mistake or we have a louder perfectionist or a louder control or whatever it might be. Or we have all, we really have all those parts. Some of them are louder than others. We all need healthier self worth. Who can't use more of that, who can't use more self love. And that's not to say I'm better than anybody. It's just, it's a private thing almost. And self compassion, when we create that voice, which again comes from our adult chair, that's what it's about. Our healthy adult self actually is self compassionate. It's got a compassionate voice toward other and self. And when I learned how to create and cultivate and grow that inner voice, my anxiety started to go down, my depression started to fade. And take a step back, my self love started. It's like my bucket of self love, if you will, started to get fuller and fuller and I was like, oh, this is pretty cool. But it was the conscious voice, you know, I had to develop that conscious voice versus the unconscious voice, which was the automatic just programming in it. I was in this rut of like beating up on myself constantly.
- [11:30]
A
I would adventure guess most people can wrap their head around that logically. Like, it makes more sense to love ourselves than it is does to hate ourselves. Any tips on the how? Like, how do we reprogram or change the narrative that runs in our head? Any tips on, like, the how to part of it?
- [11:51]
B
I'm so glad you said that. For those interested in the adult chair book, it does. It takes you on this transform, transformational journey. I wrote it in a way. There are examples and exercises and it is the how to. So you will walk through and go, oh, this is how I do it. But to give you an example of what that would be like with self compassion, passion, think about, you can know this person or not. It can be a grandmother, it can be a mother, it can be a father. Who, what figure? What would they say to you right when you make a mistake? Like that loving grandmother picture, Jesus, Buddha, it doesn't matter. Pick a voice. And if they loved you unconditionally and had so much compassion for you, when you make that next mistake, what would they say? So in the beginning, you can adopt someone else's voice and you have to consciously reach for and go, okay, what would Jennifer Aniston say? Or what would so and so say to me right now? What would Michelle Obama say? Okay, she'd say this. Pick a voice, it doesn't matter. And start reaching for that voice to come in and speak to you when you're having a bad day, when you're beating up on yourself. That's one beautiful way to start doing this work. And you will find it's like as you know, like when we in the brain, we have these ruts and these ruts form the neural pathways. Form. We have to create new pathways. This is one way to do that. This is one way to bring in that self compassion.
- [13:18]
A
I love that I often one of the things I do is I think, what would I say to my daughter in this situation? Or if my daughter made this mistake or is experiencing this thing, what would I say to her? Because I find we are so much more gracious and generous and compassionate with the people we love, especially the younger people that we love, and then try to turn that back on me. But I'm telling you, if Michelle Obama was in my head all the time, I would have a much happier world. So I love this idea. Okay, so pillar number one is I own my reality. Pillar number two is I practice self compassion. Talk to us about pillar number three.
- [13:57]
B
I feel my emotions. If I had a dollar for every person that I worked with, when I said, okay, how does that make you feel? And they go, what? I don't do emotions. You know, it was shocking. It was really shocking to me over the years to hear that response from people or I don't know. And I was one of those people, so I'm not excluding myself at all. And I had to learn. It's like a muscle. When you go to the gym and you start working out, starting to flex that muscle of, how do I feel my emotions? When we learn how to feel our emotions, I found it, again, as an antidote to so many things. Specifically, one of them is anxiety. So the way that I define anxiety is it's the physical manifestation of unfelt emotions. Think about what anxiety is. How do you know you have anxiety? I always would ask my clients that. Or again, people I'm working with, I'd say, how do you know you have anxiety? Oh, shortness of breath, I can't breathe. Knots in my stomach, my throat's tight, my shoulders are tight, yada, yada, yada, all the things. And I realized, God, these are all physical symptoms. Like, these are all physical. And I'd sit with people in my office and I'd say, all right, let's. Let's go there. I want you to turn toward that thing inside of you that feels so uncomfortable. And they would turn toward, I have knots on my stomach. Go be with those knots. Like, draw your attention. Bring your awareness down to your knots. What's in there? What's going on? And then they'd start and let's breathe slowly and really get in touch with that. People would be in shock over what would happen when we would do this together. And they would say, oh, my God, I feel sadness. I didn't know I felt sad. Oh, my God, my anxiety starting to melt. What's going on? I'm like, yeah. Or if they don't feel the sadness, go be with the knots in your stomach. Be with them, be with them. It's just like holding them or just being. Taking your awareness into those knots. Even if you don't know, oh, it's sadness, or it's I hate myself or whatever it might be. Just being with the physical sensation starts to melt the physical sensation. So feeling your emotions again, that's. Gosh, that's such a root to so many different things. It's why we're emotionally Dysregulated. It's has so much to do with depression and anxiety and love addiction. Love, avoid. I mean, codependency. We don't know how to feel our emotions. We're not good at it. We weren't trained how to do it. Yeah, most of our parents, I mean, they. That's why I don't blame anybody. Who the heck taught us how to do this stuff? Nobody.
- [16:21]
A
Well, if anything, I think we've been programmed away from it. We've been either consciously or unconsciously taught that some emotions are bad or should be avoided or, you know, reflect negatively on us, whereas others. You know, I often think as a parent we say things like I only want you to be happy. And I often worry if that's an unconsciously dangerous message to send. A, because it's not an available option for any of us, nobody's ever going to only feel happy. And B, are we unconsciously telling our children or the people that we love that any other emotion doesn't fit or isn't good?
- [17:02]
B
Pro paint days are back at Lowe's and Mylo's Pro Rewards members can save even more with limited time deals right now. Buy one, get one half off Select HGTV Home by Sherwin Williams Primer and and ceiling paint. Plus get free same day delivery to your job site when you order by 2pm Offer valid through 6 13. Delivery by 8pm Subject to driver availability. Additional terms apply. C lose.com SameDay Delivery for details I think you're on mute. Workday Starting to sound the same.
- [17:36]
A
I think you're on mute.
- [17:38]
B
Find something that sounds better for your career on LinkedIn. With LinkedIn job collections, you can browse curated collections by relevant industries and benefits like Flexpto or hybrid workplaces so you can find the right job for you. Get started@LinkedIn.com jobs finding where you fit.
- [17:59]
A
LinkedIn knows how. Close your eyes, exhale, feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're carrying today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800-contacts. Oh my gosh, they're so fast. And breathe. Oh, sorry.
- [18:19]
B
I almost couldn't breathe when I saw.
- [18:21]
A
The discount they gave me on my first order. Oh, sorry. Namaste.
- [18:26]
B
Visit 1-800-contacts.com today to save on your first order. 1-800-contacts.
- [18:32]
A
My question is how do we. I don't know if acknowledging the programming of that certain emotions are bad. How do we deal with emotions We've shoved aside for so long, like, any tips for recognizing and sitting with our emotion. But then my second part of the question is, I'm a big proponent. All of our emotions matter. But I also am a big proponent of. It doesn't seem like mature adulthood to be run by your emotions.
- [19:07]
B
Yep.
- [19:07]
A
My coach, Lisa Kalman, that I worked with for many years, she said, it's okay to have your emotions. Your emotions just can't have you. It's sort of this, like, my emotions don't give me a license to behave in any way that I want. So how do we navigate through this? My emotions are all good, and yet they can't all be demonstrated without some sort of filtering or dealing with. Is my question making any sense at all?
- [19:33]
B
No. No, it does. Emotions are our superpower. They really are. And again, we weren't trained how to. How to. We weren't modeled is a better way of saying that. But we weren't modeled how to feel them well. So when we have an emotion, we want to fix it. In fact, if you look at little kids, if they fall down and they get hurt or their goldfish dies, what do we do? We go, oh, come on over here. Let's have some chocolate cake, or, let's have some candy, or, let me distract you from that. It's like, no, I'm in grief. Sit with me. I am in grief. And I reference this in the book. Motions are felt for 90 seconds when we let them go through without building a story around why I'm having the emotion. So in the deeper we can go into. I don't even like to call them emotions, good or bad, but they're more of a spectrum. Think about a ruler. Right? A long ruler. Over here we have love, and over here we have fear. So everything in between are all of the different emotions that we can have. Well, the further down into the fear end of the spectrum, we can go and feel and let them flow through. Just like you process food, you process emotions. They metabolize through you in 90 seconds. The further I can step into my shame, guess what? The further I can stretch myself into love. In bliss and excitement, enthusiasm and passion and all those things. But we have very. We're very narrow with our emotions. We want to feel love, joy, happiness. That's it. It's too narrow. We're meant to feel everything. We're energy beings. Like, then we're energy beings in human suits, basically, is what we're doing. So the emotions come through. So it's just an energy. I can't hold an emotion in my hand. It's an energy. So I understand your question about we don't want our emotions to rule us. And that's someone that doesn't have a container around their emotions. I'm exploding. That was me in my teens and twenties. I would just have high emotions or low emotions. They're all over everybody else. And it's like, that's not healthy. Healthy emotions are. It gives. When someone is healthy with their emotions, they have the ability to sit in the uncomfortableness of their emotions and breathe and allow them through and recognize, wow, I'm sad. Oh, I'm in grief. I've broken up with my partner. I'm really sad. That's healthy. That's not bad. And the other problem is we have other humans that don't know how to sit with us when we are sad. What do we. What do people typically say? We need to go out for a drink. Let's go. Let's go have something to eat. Let's go do this. Let's go dancing. No.
- [22:04]
A
Or even like, you're so strong. You're going to get through this. We tend to muscle through it. Exactly. Yep.
- [22:11]
B
No. What we need to do for other humans is to be with them in their emotions, whatever those emotions are. Not say a word. But be fully present. Not take on someone else's emotions, but just be really present and grounded while you're having your emotion. That's the greatest healing gift we can give to anybody. It feels so good to feel witnessed and not judged, not fixed. Just be with me. And that gives that other person permission to feel. And they can drop vulnerably inside of the body fully and let that emotion flow through. That's what we want to practice. Practice doing it for others and then practice doing it within ourselves too. Sometimes journaling is a great way to feel emotions. Journal it out. Just get it. Get. It's an energy. We want to get it moving through you. And I give you all kinds of examples in the book on how to do that. But those are two ways. But the first step is curiosity. Get really curious. Like, why do I. Why have I had a knot in my stomach? Why am I anxious for the last two days, I want to sit and go inside and ask myself, what is this about? And then quiet and listen and feel and notice what happens next. We've got. Every human has the ability to feel their emotions.
- [23:19]
A
Yeah.
- [23:20]
B
Everyone does. Well.
- [23:21]
A
And noticing if you're resisting or fighting it. Right?
- [23:25]
B
Yes. We need to see. Think of. We need to think of ourselves like rivers, A very slow moving river. And sometimes when we get upset, it's like a current, the current gets faster. We are energy beings first. And this is not woo woo. It's quantum physics has proven this. So the emotions that are coming through us are moving. It's like a log trying to move down your river. Are you creating a log jam or are you letting the log come through? I just had anxiety the other day. I'm human. I still have anxiety sometimes. And I sat with it. It's like, what is this? It was in my heart. It felt like something was suffocating me and I let myself breathe. I put. I did what? I just sat there and said, body, what do you want? Put my hand on my ch. On my chest, on my heart. And I closed my eyes. I started rocking to the left and the right. What do you know? In four minutes it was move through. I don't, I didn't. I don't even know what it was. It was gone. I didn't name it. It was tight and then it wasn't and I was fine. That's what happens now. But you've got to be willing to turn towards self and get curious.
- [24:26]
A
Okay, then. I know the fourth pillar is owning your triggers. Give us an example of what you mean by triggers and how it might be different or tied to emotions and then owning them.
- [24:38]
B
Yeah, this is definitely tied to emotions. Tied to all of them, honestly. But let's just tie it to. The biggest one, of course, would be emotions. So let's talk about what a trigger is when I am Trigger when someone is triggered. Okay. Again, it's a physical response to something happening inside the body when I'm triggered. So let's just say, Nicole, you say something to me and I am so furious at what you say. Like, Michelle, your hair looks horrible today. I don't know why you got it colored or cut like that. Whatever. Let's just pretend you make a comment like that to me and I hear that and I feel knots in my stomach and I am angry. Immediately. I'm angry and I hang up the phone on you. I tell you off, whatever I do, there's like a knee jerk reaction, right? That's a trigger. There's a physical sensation and then I want to lash out or I want to. Here's. There's the thing though, with people that are triggered, we either want to lash, we push our energy out, or what do we do? We shrink down and we get tight and small. We do one or the other. Either way, we're triggered. But what's actually happening is an unconscious buried, if you will, emotion. Here's what's crazy that was created when you were before the age of six, okay. Is rising up within you. So it's a belief or an emotion. Same kind of thing. I'm not lovable. I'm not wanted. I hate myself. You're bad, I'm bad. Fill in the blank. We all have. Every human has these. Some have deeper ones than others, but every human has these. And they don't feel good. So we, they. We shove them down when we're little kids, down into the unconscious mind. But when we're triggered, what's happening is you out there outside of me are doing or saying something, or I could be watching a movie or I'm watching something on social or whatever it might be brings up that belief actually about myself. That's what's so beautiful about triggers. This is why I say triggers are a gift, because they help us to not to transform these old programs slash beliefs that we've had since we were 0 to 6. Like, we literally make a roadmap that we live off of that we created from zero to six years old. Everybody, like, think about what year it was when you were six and then think about grabbing a paper roadmap and trying to drive around based on that year. Whatever that map was, it's like, it's so outdated. So that's why I love triggers, because when we're triggered, it's an opportunity. These beliefs rise up on a silver platter. They're right in front of me. The question is, am I going to go ahead and look at that belief or I'm going to lash out and blame you for making me feel that way. So here's the thing, though, Nicole. Nobody can make us feel anything that we don't already feel about ourselves, right? You can't make me feel something that's not inside of me. If you were to say to me, for example, today, Michelle, your hair looks so stupid, it's blue. I look at you and go, it's not like it doesn't trigger me. Nothing at all, right? Nothing. Because it's not true. So unless you're saying something that is true, nothing's going to rise up and make me upset with you. So what we want to do, though, when we're triggered, instead of calling other people, your mother, your sister, your friends, your whomever, and go, can you believe so and so said this to me? They're such a. I can't believe it. But what happens when we do that again, the trigger, the belief tucks back down into the unconscious instead. What we want to ask ourselves is, I'm curious what's happening here. For me, could this be an old program or belief? And if so, I'm curious what it is again. In the book, I go through the six or seven stages of how we work with triggers. It's so simple. It's the how to. Like you were saying, like, how do you work through triggers? I've got you. Like, it's like, you do this, you do this, you do this, you do this, and then becomes automatic, and it starts moving through you very quickly. But we've got to be willing to start pointing the finger. And I don't like to point the finger out, actually, or in. Instead, it's like getting curious. I wonder why this is coming up. There must be something inside of me. So we might say, I hate you, or Nicole's such a. I'm so angry at her. And then I ask if you're my client, I'd say, okay, great. Thank you. I love anger. What's under it? Well, you made me feel like I'm not wanted. Great. What's under that? And you just keep going under, under, under. You will find that root belief that then says something like, I'm not valuable. Nobody cares about me. Oh, feel that? And then that's. That's where we tie in. I feel my emotions, which would be. Ah. Feel that? When you feel the root of that belief, it just transforms it. And then you put a new belief in on top of it. It's just like updating your phone. Everybody updates their phones. We have to have an updated program or app inside of our heads, because that's what. What's running the show for us as adults.
- [29:32]
A
Okay.
- [29:32]
B
Yeah.
- [29:33]
A
So pillar number five. I set healthy boundaries. Ooh, this one feels like a big one.
- [29:38]
B
Oh, my God, it's such a big one. Because God knows who can set healthy boundaries. You know, we didn't grow up, most of us learning how to set. Now, some people, yes, but most of us don't know how to set healthy boundaries. You have to have self worth. I have this whole process of, like, what's going on on the inside of self. And when you build that up, your inner value, your ideas, your beliefs, your morals, you have to get to know that then setting boundaries becomes almost automatic. I can tell you right now, like, my tolerance for other people infringing on my boundaries is very, very low. I don't. I don't. I just. I'm Very quick. Now I can say, hey, that doesn't feel good. Can you stop that, please? Or that's not okay with me or whatever it might be. But I couldn't do that before. People would just walk all over me because I didn't know what to say. I felt guilty, I felt bad. I felt like I was being mean. I didn't. I couldn't come up with the words. That's because I had to do inner. You have to build up your inner world. If you don't feel valuable, you're not going to set a boundary.
- [30:42]
A
Right?
- [30:44]
B
Think about it. The most precious diamonds in the. In the jewelry store, they're in the back. What's around them? An alarm. It's a boundary because they're the most precious. If you don't feel that you're precious and valuable like a diamond, like a precious stone, you ain't gonna set a boundary. You're not gonna do it. Not gonna happen.
- [31:02]
A
I think that's such a good point because I think we often go to wanting to say it and I put in air quotes the right way, but what we really mean is we want to say it in a way that doesn't hurt or offend the other person. And over. And ultimately what we're doing is we're prioritizing their feelings over our boundary. Which goes right back to what you were saying about self worth.
- [31:21]
B
Absolutely. Oh, Michelle, gotta have self worth.
- [31:24]
A
I could ask you 1 million more questions. I know we are out of time, so I just wanna remind the listener to go to theadultshare.com book is where you can find the book. But the adulthair.com has all the things you would wanna know about Michelle and her incredible work. Go get the book, also called the Adult Chair. And Michelle, thank you for an incredible and important conversation. Let's get this out in schools.
- [31:49]
B
Yes. Thank you, Nicole, for having me. I appreciate it.
- [31:53]
A
My absolute pleasure. Okay, friend. So it turns out that being an adult isn't just about having a mortgage, knowing how to cook, or pretending you're fine with things you're absolutely not fine with. It's about owning your reality, feeling your feelings, practicing compassion without letting yourself off the hook, setting boundaries that don't require justification, and. And knowing that your triggers aren't a sign of weakness. They're neon arrows pointing to where the work still gets to be done. None of us had a class in adulting. Most of us learned from people doing their best with what they had, which is both wonderfully human and also not always that helpful. But that's the beauty of what Michelle shared today. It's never too late to do it differently, to become the adult you want and choose to be. So whether you're just beginning this work or deep in the process of understanding, untangling old patterns, keep going. This is the kind of adulting that actually transforms lives. Yours for sure, and everyone else around you. And being a healthy adult also happens to be woman's work.