I’m having more fun than I imagined that I would with The Baggage Reclaim Sessions, my new podcast. It’s given me a new outlet and platform to connect with BR folk as well as people who didn’t know about BR before, plus it’s also been quite a learning curve.
Thanks to the kids being back at school for a couple of weeks, I picked up one of those annoying low-level bugs that does a number on you. Suddenly I remembered why writing can be so handy as I snuffled and sniffled! I pulled it together though after giving myself a couple of days to reboot.
Here’s what I cover in episode 5:
Why do we find tricky co-workers so stressful?: We spend a significant portion of our time with coworkers which is why it can be all the more taxing when we have to deal with passive-aggressive and aggressive people, or we play it small, or we overload ourselves by over-empathising.
The pitfalls of trying to be liked by everyone: I talk about how this quest impacts our mindset and attitude, how it can make it feel damn near impossible to have good boundaries, why it’s not good for the relationships that we’re afraid of losing, and how to start removing the hidden agenda to improve well-being.
Who pays on the first few dates?: The so-called dating etiquette around this can be super confusing plus we tend to infer something if they allow us to pay or expect us to split the bill. I also talk about ‘the reach’ and how it adds to the confusion and frustration.
Listener Question – What do you think about dating guys who you’re not initially attracted to?: This listener has been asked out by a “very sweet” co-worker but she’s not interested and is also concerned about going after what appears to be a “sure thing” and then getting burned.
What Nat Learned This Week: Instead of continuing to try to understand something, accept what you know at that point instead of rejecting it in search of something else.
You can listen to this podcast below.
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Leave a comment or post on Facebook, and please subscribe. If you know someone who would enjoy it, please help spread the word. It all helps! Listener questions can be emailed to podcast AT baggagereclaim DOT com. If there’s a topic you’d love me to talk about, let me know!
Nat xxx
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I have android not an I phone. I removed sound cloud because it takes up too much space on my drive. Can you make the podcasts easier to play for those of us who don’t use soundcloud or itunes?
Hi Veronica
You will need to use a podcasts app for Android and look up the podcast – best to luck this up through your app store or do a search for podcast aps for Android – I looked on Google and there are copious articles about it. We are still getting familiar with how this works hence the lack of instructions. Stitcher is one such example of where the show is listed and that is on Android as well. http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-baggage-reclaim-sessions
Hi I found this really interesting and the stuff on not everyone having to like you really resonated. Since reading the fallback girl book and the more I confront my past and delve back into my childhood, the more the issue of bullying at school comes up – I was bullied from the ages of 11-16 by both boys and girls the former was verbal insults/teasing about my physical appearance, the latter was more excluding me from friendship groups – I feel like I haven’t really ever confronted how painful this was and how it led to behaviours such as binge eating, intense feelings of self loathing and believing I was unlovable. My parents advice was to ignore them and keep my head down and asking questions like do they do it to anyone else? Which while well meaning just made me believe it was my fault. As an adult I think this has led me to people please and actually fear negative feedback as well as comparing myself unfavourably to every other female who ever lived . I have been disrespected in pretty much every single relationship – the last of which was a 5 year stint with a eum whereby i never felt loved or accepted and tried to turn myself into what I thought he wanted
Nat,
I LOVED what you shared about letting go. That has been tough for me and it is the thing that can keep me STUCK. ACCEPTANCE is what I aim for daily. I am practicing acceptance so that I give myself the chance to move on. I read about acceptance.
The advice you gave about co-workers was helpful. This is just the type of advice I need before I start a new work week. I have a number of different clients I interface with and need these type of reminders about how to deal with people so they don’t weigh me down. These tricky people as you refer to them can cause issues if they are not properly managed. Lately, things that use to consume my energy now seem so trivial to me. I am not worried about the stock market as much. I don’t even let tricky clients bother me. The pain of a failed engagement has helped me in some ways. My focus has been solely on that so other things don’t mean so much anymore. I am quick to dismiss other things or not expend a second on someone acting a fool in the business environment. I cut to the chase with BS quick now. SMILE. That is a 360 for me. I am starting to see some good things that have come from my relationship not working. Work issues no longer consume me and that is a miracle.
You mentioned self care in your podcast. Today, I had time to do SO much for myself. During a moment of silence (just me with me). I thought-all my time is devoted to me. It was actually amazing to have so much time to care for myself. Feels good. I do my feelings diary in the morning and at night. It is like having a place to dump off my excess baggage (smile).
Question for thought- How do you regain joy in things you once loved after a relationship painfully ends? (example-places I use to love to travel to and have fun-I have no interest in going again now)
Also,loving your artwork with each post. Creative. I hope you have a booklet of all your work compiled. Thanks for this podcast.
MJ
When I broke up with my ex-EUM (my god it was almost 5 years ago!!!) I was determined to date guys I wasn’t initially attracted to. I was so attracted to my EUM and felt like that kept me in the relationship despite him hitching major red flags up on the tallest pole right off the bat. I no longer trusted chemistry or ‘attraction’ and hoped I could get to know a guy slowly and eventually find myself attracted to him. Well, I find the dating context doesn’t really allow for this kind of slow burn. Most men want to get down to the business of being a couple – or at least getting sex – within a few dates, which ads up to about 6 hours. I think this works better when you’re in an environment like work or school where you can get to know someone over time with no pressure. I’ve never met a soul at work (the kind of job I have has very little men) and I’m no longer in school. I also found that if I didn’t have a small spark of attraction right off the bat, my attraction LESSENED over time, not increased. By the third date with some of these guys, I’d be restless and wanting to run for the hills. I wish that kind of thing had worked out for me…
Dianne,
There’s no guarantee that the gradual attraction route provides a better outcome, it’s just a different mode of becoming attracted, and a riskier one — if my own experience is anything to go by. I am rarely initially attracted to guys, and I usually find my attraction for a guy creeps up on me over time, as I get to know a guy’s personality. So, a guy who I initially thought was not attractive in the slightest, will come to seem very attractive to me after getting to know him well.
In these situations I usually become aware of my own attraction when a guy *friend* starts to express a non platonic interest in me and I realise that by this point I feel very comfortable with him and already know how much we have in common, etc, when I wouldn’t have been interested if he had made his interest known right off the bat.
However, being prone to forming this type of attraction is a recipe for having your head messed up and getting your heart broken. I have had misplaced trust in these situations: once a guy *friend* expresses romantic/sexual attraction in me, I assume that as I already know them and because they are my *friend* they wouldn’t enter into something with me lightly, and they must care about me, etc. However, after having been burned by getting involved with guy friends several times, I realise that these are all COMPLETELY misplaced assumptions to make — along with the assumption that the guy in question was ever truly a *friend* in the first place. With hindsight I recognise that these guys had sexual interest in me from the outset, and becoming my *friend* was a simply a long game strategy for getting me into bed.
I had silly romantic notions that these guys had become attracted to my personality over time, like I had to theirs. This made their predictable coldness after they finally got sex from me –usually after a year or more of *friendship* before the sex — especially hard to deal with. Instead of simply getting over a guy not being interested, I end up also mourning the loss of an imaginary friendship, that was only ever driven by the guy’s unspoken sexual attraction.
The result is that, for the time being, I have resolved not to enter into any new *friendships* with men and, sadly, I am highly suspicious of any man who wants to initiate a *friendship* with me.
However, as I find it very hard to be initially attracted to someone, without knowing them well, I am dealing with the opposite of your problem: I want to date men based on initial attraction, but I find this hard to cultivate. I want to switch to dating people from the outset – so that I can deal with men who are upfront about their sexual interest from the start, and not get tricked into a false sense of a security by being *friends* before they pounce.
@E – wow. Well I guess there is no one size fits all solution!
I’m back to needing to have some basic physical attraction for me to try to date someone. He doesn’t have to be an Adonis, but I need just a little bit of ‘okay, I could see getting naked with that guy.’ And I ain’t gonna apologize for it anymore! haha. Now I just need to find him LOL
Finally got a chance to sit down and listen to a couple podcasts Friday evening, and these are awesome! Speaking of “hangry”, I began a “feelings journal” Saturday and among other useful things, made the amazing discovery that my mood and temper get much more volatile when my blood sugar crashes, so I’m combining mine as a “food and feelings diary”. As luck would have it, I encountered a nice array of incidences that would normally trigger me into a day-derailing meltdown, but this time managed to rein in my reaction and remain calm and sort out various workarounds. I am really happy to have this new tool that I can just pull up and write “No, I will not get triggered by ___ throwing me a screwball. I will defuse this calmly and with boundaries.” when the ex just sent one of *those* texts.
This is great fun — thanks!
Another great Pod cast Natalie!
I don’t think I could date a guy I wasn’t initially attracted to.. For me there has to be a physical attraction. Could it grow? I’m not sure, maybe if you started out as friends it could possibly grow into something special.
I’ve learnt in life you can’t be liked be everyone.. I use to try and please everyone and wanted to be liked by everybody but now I think well if you don’t like me then thats your choice.. This is me.. take it or leave it.. 🙂
That is something I need to remind myself: I don’t like some people so how can I be expected to be liked by everyone?!
Having my first ever relationship blow up in my face, earlier this year, has forced me to confront my people-pleasing behaviour.
Added to that, it has dawned on me that I don’t even like myself.
So many past rejections that I’ve gotta sort through instead of pushing them down till they surface like the titanic iceberg.
It’s been awhile since I’ve been to your website but the visit is always worthwhile 🙂
Nat, this was so great! I totally loved how you talked about the unsent letter for someone in one of these situations….I’m gonna write one for my last boss, who I know never really liked me and (i felt) secretly wished me to fail. I was in so muc h pain working for this guy b/c I felt…why does he not like me? All my other bosses in the last 15 years have liked me…why am I not good enough….EGAD! You are right…NO ONE is liked by everyone and I am proud of my authentic self and that I did not morph my personality for him.
Thank you–you are the best! more work-related issue podcasts will be super!!
Hullo
I am a fan of yours. Your articles got me through a rough patch following my break up with my ex. I gained my self respect and self worth. Have you done something on bullying in work places and how employees should cope especially when it’s mixed with work politics.