Walking on Eggshells
Well, hello there. I'm so glad you decided to stop in today. Today on takeout therapy, I'm going to be talking about the idea of walking on egg shells, which is something that comes up so much in the therapy office. But before I get to my content today, I just have a couple of quick announcements for you.
One is that I have session openings for this holiday season. Yes, I do, friend. You can just come on along and book yourself a nice one hour mental health coaching session with me and see if you can get a major prospective shift, maybe gain some new skills But overall, just make a little improvement in your life. In one hour flat, whatever you might be going through. I can help you find yourself in the mess of things.
So you can book yourself on my schedule by going to takeout therapy dot com and just follow the links and I have some extra availability. So I thought I would offer it to people that enjoy the podcast. If you enjoy the podcast, you might enjoy working with me for an hour. I take people on a session by session basis too, so there's no need to, like, you know, enter a therapy in an extended way. That's not really how I work with people.
So get in touch, ask questions if you have them. And then my second announcement is I wanted to let you know that this month in Takeout Therapy Club, which is my monthly mental health membership, we are exploring emotional mastery. Which I'm really excited about. What is emotional mastery? What does it take to gain awareness?
And control of your emotional life. If you're interested in digging in, learning some new skills, and figuring out where you are in terms of emotional mastery, come join us and take out therapy dot com, you can find the club and sign up right there. It's a very low monthly fee for getting to spend some extra time learning about personal growth from me. So those are my announcements. And now I want to talk to you about walking on egg else.
Here's the deal. So many people are really afraid to upset the people that they care about in their lives. And when we're really afraid to piss people off or upset them or tell them what is up, it's kinda hard to navigate relationships authentically, right, while trying not to step on anyone's toes. Because the fact of the matter is healthy relationships involve a little bit of conflict, a little bit of conversation, a little bit of disagreement. So this episode, is gonna help you see where you are walking on egg shells and stop doing that.
Okay? So if you're one of these people who's like, waiting for permission from people to live authentically, I'm gonna give you permission today. If you're a conflict of waitr or an anxious people pleaser, this episode is really gonna help you out. Okay? So let's stop walking on egg shells.
Here's the deal. Before you can utilize any increase of mental health skills, you have to know what's happening. You have to know how you feel. You have to take a little bit of time and a little bit of attention to figure out what the heck you've been going on. That's why I created a handy visual guide that you can download for free on takeout therapy dot com.
It'll learn it'll help you learn to be a little bit more present in your life so that then you can figure out and see, like, what's happening? Why is that happening? And you can start to make some necessary changes that are going to lead you to more of a billing and authentic life. If you're interested in learning these skills of being present so that you can do your personal growth work and you're really not sure how to get started. Go to my website.
It's a free resource, takeouttherapy dot com and download my visual guide that I made for you. Okay. So that being said, walking on egg shells is a huge problem. It brings people into therapy all the time. And do you know what I'm talking about when I say walking on egg shells?
It means like we're navigating so carefully with the people in our lives, so as not to create a kerfuffle. Where we've predicted how people are going to respond. Right? If we don't walk on egg shells and it keeps us really stiff and stuck, in this, like, inauthentic way of being in relationship. We're filtering our experience of another person to help them not be uncomfortable.
And to be honest, it's really stressful. And it creates a lot of mental health issues when we're avoiding, pissing people off, basically. When you can't express yourself fully, it causes problems for you and in relationships. And here's the deal. It's totally unnecessary.
Managing other people's experience of you, experience of life or emotional state is not your job. Right? Your job is to present yourself as you are to the people that you have chosen to be in their lives and to have them in your life. You know? I think a lot of people grew up in environments where conflict wasn't really a thing.
It it was either, like, overly a thing or it wasn't a thing at all. And so we'd make conflict out to be this, like, dangerous thing, this undesirable thing based on our history a lot of the time, when actually Conflict is such a good way to get to know someone. Right? And it brings both people into the relationship. Because when we're walking on egg shows, we're having like a totally isolated experience over in the corner all by ourselves.
Right? When we avoid disturbing the existence of another person, We're not taking up our fair share of space in the relationship. We're allowing them to control our experience and they don't even usually know it. Right? So not acknowledging your feelings And walking on egg shells is a direct assault on your mental health.
I'm telling you, this is a big issue. And I think people really minimize the impact of it. But the thing is, is that when one person is controlling the experience of another person in relationship by being demanding or being bossy or like not like being able to have conflict? Or by walking on egg shells, the relationship really suffers. And then we get stuck in all these relationships in which we don't get to take up space.
So we're like, what am I even doing here? Right? Some people are really difficult when given feedback or approached about things, and that that has to be okay. Like, we can't kind of meter our response to people based on their response to us. Do you know what I mean by that?
So if you wanna kind of start making some little changes, do you see yourself in this thing? Do you see some places where you kinda walk on egg shells. A lot of people walk on egg shells at work. It's a good example. Because work is like really important.
It's how we make our money. It is our livelihood. We generally don't wanna upset the Apple cart. And so we don't talk about things like, hey, so I have actually more work on my plate than I could ever get done. We don't talk about things like, Hey.
So my coworker is actually giving me their work as well as mine. We don't talk about things like people are not behaving well. Maybe they're being rude or unprofessional. We just walk on egg shells. We just choose to be silent.
And the thing is, is we're contributing to an unhealthy dynamic when we do that. So pick an area of your life where you know darn well that you're walking on egg shells. You know, personal growth it requires us to show up and be honest about what we're actually contributing to instead of Personal growth is not like this process where we make a list of all crazy and rude things that people are doing to us. Personal growth is like saying, hey, here's where I'm contributing to this dynamic. I haven't said everything I need to say.
Right? Because I have ideas about conflict that might not be true. So the other thing is it's like pick an area of your life where you're walking on egg shells and then learn how to have safe conflict. This is an area where we all need to develop myself included. I am like literally the most defensive person.
In my close relationships. The people of my life have told me one million times that I don't need to be so defensive, but it is my first response. So we want and I'm working on it. Like, I'm really, really working on it. And actually, to be honest with you, it's getting better.
I'm being a little bit less defensive. I'm being like, oh, I really wanna say this thing right now, but that's a defensive statement. I'm just gonna be open. I'm just gonna be open. We all have to learn how to have safe conflict, both emotional Right?
And physical safety. Because sometimes we get up and leave or sometimes we, you know, throw things or sometimes like we we can border on abusive behavior at times. In conflict, can't we? And really, I want to go back to, like, the history lesson of, like, you grew up in a house where conflict is was pretty unsafe, either emotionally or physically. Then you're carrying that with you through your life.
You're making your life duplicate your history. And when we stop walking on egg shells, we heal those wounds. Okay? So it's really important. When we're learning how to have save conflict, to always use an eye lens.
Like, this situation makes me feel this way. This behavior makes me think this thought. Right? Like, the experience that I'm having right now the story that I'm telling myself right now, you hear all those eyes. The eyes are just the way that you show up and take up space and be authentic in your relationship.
If you're not taking up space in relationship, what do you even do in there? You know? So here's the deal. You have to when you're showing up in relationships, it's really scary. It's really vulnerable.
There's a lot of fear involved for a lot of people. And my motto for you is to be brave. Say what you mean. Mean what you say and don't be mean when you say it. If you follow these rules, you cannot go wrong.
You can allow people to be imperfect in conflict and do their emotions and do their little dance that they do. Right? Because I gotta dance and the people in my life know that I have a dance. And once I get done with that dance, I'm open. I'm curious.
I'm loving. I'm willing to be brave. I'm willing to be vulnerable and accept feedback. I don't want people walking on egg shells around me. Do you?
Do you want people walking on egg shells because you respond badly to feedback or to input? No. Adult to adult relationships demand emotional maturity. And walking on egg shells is nothing but disempowering. It just erases our power in relationships.
So I'm hoping that us having this little conversation will open your eyes to the places where you're walking on egg shells. And I want you to shore yourself up, get a little bit more brave and empowered and get in there. Create the kind of healthy relationships that you are longing for in your life. Because I gotta tell you it feels so good. And healthy relationships are how we heal the pain of the past.
So let's keep trucking you and me. Let's stop walking on egg shells and making other people walk on egg shells with us so that we can be closer and have better connection and healthier relationships. Okay. I'll see you next time.
