We often say yes to things that we don't want to do, and then what happens, We get resentful, right, and we do it, but grudgingly.

We do it resentfully, and that's not a good vibe, that's not a good energy.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you say yes, your whole body is quietly screaming no.

It might be at work, with your kids, or even in your closest relationships, and while it seems small in the moment, those choices can leave you drained, resentful, and wondering why you feel out of alignment with your own life.

In today's episode, I'm joined again by Laelstone, educator and author of the brilliant book Own Your Story, to unpack the hidden patterns that shape our decisions.

You'll learn how to recognize when you're running on old scripts, the surprising role family dynamics play in your leadership, and practical shifts that can help you step back into your power.

If you've ever felt torn between what you should do and what you actually want to do, I can promise you you will love this conversation.

Oh and if you didn't listen to part one last week, you might want to go back and listen to that one too.

Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for optimizing your date.

I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber.

I love what you said about if there's a should involved, it should be a no.

Can you tell me more about that?

Yeah, for sure.

So this for me was something that I really got when I worked with teenagers.

So I spent about five years teaching sex education to teenagers in secondary schools, which was a very fun job or for some people, their idea of the worst.

Job in the world.

But I absolutely loved it because I love teenagers have that's just sweet spot for them, and I think there's so much to teach it, you know, to learn And a big part of what we would talk about in this education I would do is about consent, right, and how do we know what consent is?

And how do we know if we want to do something?

And so I used to talk about that we've kind of got four different brains in our bodies, right, and we want them to all be aligned to say, is this a full body?

Yes?

Right?

So it's probably going to be quite different content than what I'll go here right now.

So what I would say to the teenagers is like, you've got a brain in your head, You've got like your heart, which you know has a voice, You've got your gut feeling, and then your genitals has a voice.

Right, So I would say i'd give them an example of let's just say there's a boy that really likes you and he wants to kiss you right now.

Your head might be like, oh my god, I can't believe he likes me.

This is so exciting.

I want to kiss this guy.

And your heart's like, oh my god, we're going to fall in love.

This is going to be amazing, right, And your genitals are like, yes, yes, yes, let's do it.

But your gut, your gut's going I don't know if it's a good idea to kiss my best friend's boyfriend, right, So there's something in you that's like this is probably not a good idea.

And so what I used to say to these teenagers is if you are in situations where you want to do something, you want to check is this a full body yes for me?

Right?

And when I explained it that way, they'd be like, oh, yeah, I get that.

And so we would talk about if it's a maybe it's a no until it's a full yes, right.

And so that was in the context of relationships, exploring sexuality, all that kind of stuff, but I think you can apply it to a lot of things.

We want it to be a full body yes.

Now there's times where we don't have a full body yes.

You know, especially if your boss walks up to you and says, can you please finish this report in three hours?

That might be like that is not a full body yes for me, But you have to do it right.

It's part of your job.

And sometimes what we want to do is go, well, how can I make this enjoyable at least?

What if I shift my mindset to go, I'll put on some music, I'll do it, smash it out.

All these times as a parent where you're like, I do not have a full body yes to make dinner right, I mean there's things we have to do sometimes right.

But where there is an opportunity for choice, I think it's really important that we pause, and I think that question I should do that is the invitation to pause.

It is the moment where we get to stop and actually go what is happening for me here?

Is that a real yes to me?

Am I about to say yes to this because I have in the past and that's what they expect or does that really serve me?

And again, you know, there's a lot of wiggle room around this, but I think we often say yes to things that we don't want to do, and then what happens We get resentful, right, and we do it but grudgingly, we do it resentfully, and that's not a good five, that's not a good energy.

So I think, you know, part of this is learning to work with trusting our boundaries of what is a yes to me, what is a no for me, and what we can work with in a way that feels, you know, empowering for us but also really honoring for other people.

I love the.

Idea of a full body yes and probably at work minus the general tools.

And it's probably the first time that we've talked about general tools.

On how I work, So yay, layout.

I love that I want to talk about imprints around success and happiness, which I found really interesting, and that as humans, a lot of us have the tendency to ask how bad could it be?

And you invite people to ask a different question, can you tell me more about that?

So I think, again, our default is to always troubleshoot, to go what could go wrong?

Right?

Especially when we're going to do something new, we're often like, this could happen.

That could happen, people might judge me, I might lose a whole lot of money.

Like all the things right, and we are hardwired to look for all the problems because we're coming from protection.

We're always coming from protection.

We're always trying to keep ourselves safe.

But the other question that the flip of that is well how good could it get?

Right?

And I think when we flip that thinking a little bit to being like, well what could go right?

What could be possible?

Here?

Again we open ourselves up to the potential of the possibility.

So I have found that again just purely through safety, right in trying to keep ourselves safe, when we're thinking about doing something new, when we're taking a leap forward, we have this really limited way of thinking, this might happen, and we go into all the logistics.

But when you ask something like well how good could it get what you're doing is you're opening yourself up to possibilities you didn't even know that exists.

And so when we are looking or whenever I'm looking at doing something new, taking a leap, all that kind of stuff.

I go, yeah, I usually have the wobbles of like, oh, that's a great idea, and these things may go wrong, and there's nothing wrong with thinking about that.

We have to be smart, we need to troubleshoot, right, But I think the overriding feeling, which can be really powerful, is well, how good could this be if I didn't care what people thought, if it wasn't about money, what could be possible here?

And success is one of those tricky things where I think can be very layered for a lot of people.

And again depending on the imprints that you have.

Right, if you grew up in a family where your worth was really only about how successful you were, then you are probably going to work really, really hard because your fundamental need is I need to be seen by my family of origin.

So I'll create this business, I'll end this much money.

And then often what happens is we're still looking to go yeah, do you see how successful I am?

Do you see me?

Do you love me?

Off and doesn't give us the feeling that we're looking for, Because that longing to be seen or that needing to be recognized is something can only come from within.

It's not about everybody else's recognition.

And there's enough evidence that we know that people who are top athletes or musicians or billionaires, whatever it is, you know, they can be some of the loneliest people on earth.

Right.

I also see with success is that if we grew up in a family of origin where people weren't what we would consider really successful, we can often sabotage our own success because we can often feel like we're being disloyal to our family if we were to be successful.

So I've seen this a bit with families where perhaps it's been a struggle either financially or we've had to work really hard.

And part of what becomes that narrative in our families is we work really really hard, you know, or we struggle and that's what we do.

And then if someone steps out of that and there's a lot of flow in their life, or perhaps there's a lot of success, what can sometimes happen over here is that family of origin can be quite judgmental of what you're doing.

They can and make fun of what it is, you know, and then we can be having this feeling of like, well, they ain't see me and you know, maybe I don't belong anymore.

So we actually can sabotage ourselves just to belong in that family of origin.

And the work is often realizing, hey, it's safe for me to be success.

You know, I belong in my family just because I'm part of that family.

Right, I don't need to behave in a certain way.

I will always belong.

But part of that movement towards growth is actually just changing those belief systems and stories.

It says it is safe for me to be successful, because I've seen a lot of people sabotage themselves in their greatness, usually because they feel disloyal to their family that they've come from.

And it's often a deep, unconscious story.

They don't even realize it until we get to the kind of deeper levels and then they're like, oh, oh, there's a story I write in the book about a man I worked with, had amazing possibilities happening in his business, but he kept sabotaging or playing small, And when we got to the bottom of it, really what it was about is he'd grown up with an older sister who was really often very jealous of you, and whenever he had any form of his success.

You know, she tried to up one on him and just there was a lot of tension that often happened because she had a lot of insecurities and needed to be the best.

And that was from when they were kids, and he was still playing it out now, right, he was still in a place where I asked him to imagine how good could it be?

How good could it get?

Tell me the dream, imagine what it looks like.

And he's dreaming about all the beautiful things.

And I literally then ask him, okay, and who's here?

And he goes, Oh, my sister's just walked in.

And I go and what she doing?

And she's like, she's mad because I have all this success.

And I was like, ah, and this is the complexities and the intricacies of families, right, Like, my god, they can be so messy.

But it actually filters into work like it does often it filters into many things.

You know, when you think about the people you work with, often people who you know we sometimes butt heads against or or have challenges within work are often have got similar traits to family members.

I Mean, I'll often say if I'm working with someone who've got this colleague of mine I'm like, who do they remind you of?

Yeah, my younger brother, right, or my mom or my dad, you know, And I'm like, we have an opportunity to work through some of the stories and patterns that we've got, because relationships is where we do the work.

I want to ask you more about something you shared at your book launch last Friday night, and you said you woke up last Tuesday, which was publication day or your book you let us book, and it just wanted to crawl into bed and stay under the doner, which I thought, Wow, that's really interesting.

I want to know how did you work through that?

Yeah?

Yeah, well my husband kept coming in and going, you're right about you.

It's such an interesting thing too, because I know all this stuff.

I'll talk about it.

The humanness of us always fascinates me.

Right, So for me that Tuesday, I mean, this is a day I've been waiting for forever.

You know how hard it is to bring a book into the world, right, so when it arrives you're like, oh here.

Yeah.

What was surfacing for me was oh God, okay, now it's really out in the world.

Are people gonna like it?

Is it going to do well?

Just all the normal natural pieces that sat there, and I know enough about myself now where I was like, I kept trying to turn away from that and just be like it's fine, as fine as fine.

I was like, no, actually, just have to feel this.

And so I did go to bed and I put the dinner off my head and I just sat there, going, I feel vulnerable, I feel exposed.

I'm putting some art out into the world and that takes courage, so of course you feel vulnerable, right, And I just let myself feel it.

I gave myself permission to be in it, and I don't know, I maybe sat in it for a few hours, message a few friends, spoke to someone, just let myself be in it.

And then I think after just letting myself feel it, something shifted and I was like, okay, I actually can step forward and actually just allow this to drop in.

What I realized again in doing that, is that we are so much often more comfortable giving than we are receiving.

Many of us weren't taught how to when we were kids.

Well, and it's something if I can tell a little story that I have found that I really wanted to change with my own children who are adults now.

But because I've danced around this story for a while of we're very good, particularly if you're an entrepreneur or a business person, you create something okay, done next, you just kind of move on pretty quickly.

You don't actually allow yourself to take it in.

And I think, again, a lot of that's got to do with yes, we can just keep moving and being, you know, instead of actually the feeling part.

And I really wanted to change that for my children, and so we made a point that whenever it's one of our kids' birthdays and we have a birthday dinner and maybe extended family come, what we do is every time it's a child's birthday, we all go around the table and we say to that person whose birthday is what we love about them and what we admire about them.

And we've done this since our kids are like four and five years of age, and my audience is like twenty five now, right, So for twenty years, every birthday he receives words of acknowledgment and being seen and the magic that we see in him.

What I have witnessing my children is their ability to sit there and just receive it, take it in and hear it as a truth right of the people who love you the most, You're really seeing you, And I'm like, this is a powerful imprint here, an ability to receive to know your worth, especially from the people who care the most for you.

I can see that my stickiness with it was probably because I didn't necessarily have that growing up, but also because I think there is a vulnerability in sitting in the receiving praise or just acknowledgment all those kind of things.

We're really good at brushing it off and not everybody, but I think, you know, there's also a bit of an edge to that that for me sometimes has been Oh, I don't want to seem arrogant, or I'm really grateful that I get to do this work, and so there's been a humility thing that's kind of coming there.

But I'm still trying to find my place of just being able to sit with it.

And I feel like having a book launch is a big thing, you know, and all those people are there, and I really did make a point of take this in, like this is a moment, and you know, next week got to be gone and something else will be happening, you know, so just take it in and actually acknowledge the work that you've done, and I think when we create things, we don't do that enough.

I love that ritual that you described with your family and your kids.

It reminds me of something I did.

It was a year and a half ago now.

It was my husband's birthday, not the most recent one, but the one in twenty twenty four.

And he's very, very humble and feels awkward with compliments and those sorts of things.

And I organized a surprise birthday dinner with family members, so there I think about like twelve of us or something like that.

And the one piece of homework I gave everyone if I said, we're going to go around the table and everyone's going to say what they love about my husband, and I videoed the whole thing.

It was so beautiful.

I think I's probably not presumptuous to say it was one of the most memorable things that happened to him last year.

And now it makes me go, well, why does that have to be a once in a lifetime thing?

Why could that not be?

And every year things?

Do you know that story about the birthday stuff I took in to the school that I created, and really one of the big things we want to do at our school is to really help the team feel acknowledged and seen.

They do incredible work, you know, working with these children, and that was one of the rituals that they've brought into the team.

So when it is someone's birthday at school, we all get together before the children arrive and stuff like that, and the team acknowledges that person whose birthday it is.

And again, for some people, they've never ever had that in their life.

I mean there's some people on staff who're like, I'm not coming to work that day, Like you know, that feels too much, and that's okay.

You can kind of opt out of it.

And like even if they were not opt out of it, we're like, well, we'll probably write you love notes instead or something.

But I think we all need to be acknowledged.

It's a fundamental part of who we are to be seen.

And I think it's not just something in families and birthdays, but it's a beautiful thing to be able to acknowledge our staff, our work, the people that are part of our lives.

I think we all need to hear it.

We all need to hear I really see you, and I love that this is what you bring to our organization.

And I love that this is your magic that you bring to what we do, and we if you weren't here, you know, we would really notice that.

And I think we all have this fundamental need to belong and to be seen, and I think, and there's such beautiful little things that we can do to make that happen.

I love the idea of taking that into the workplace, like I think about what we do at Inventium and this probably like this in many workplaces.

We've got a shared WhatsApp group that the whole team are on, and when it's someone's birthday, we say happy birthday and a few nice words.

But it just, I don't know, it just always feels very sort of perfunctory.

It's like, oh, you just get your standard birthday messages, And I kind of make me think.

I think I'm going to put that challenge.

Out there to the team.

Let's start a new Rachel around this.

Yeah, think about the last time someone came to you with a problem.

Did you jump in with advice straight away.

L All makes the case that most of us don't actually listen.

We rush to fix, and when we do that, people shut down.

So coming up after the break.

Lael unpacks why this habit shows up so strongly at work and at home, and how we can swap fixing for truly listening.

It's a simple shift for one.

That is very very powerful.

If you're looking for more tips to improve the way you work can live.

I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've discovered that have helped me personally.

You can sign up for that at Amantha dot com.

That's Amantha dot com.

You say that a lot of us when it comes to listening to other people is that we listen to fix rather than listen to here.

Why is that?

Yeah, I think fundamentally it's because we want to make ourselves feel better.

Because think about it this way, when someone you care about, whether that's a family member, whether it's a friend, it could be a work, college, whatever, when they're sitting there saying, oh this is going on and this is really hard, you know, because we care about that person, we want to help them.

We don't want them to be in pain.

And so I think what we often do is we come in with a fix of well you could try this, and you could do that, and you could speak to your boss and you know, we come in with all these suggestions.

Yet I often like to flip it and say to everybody, let's just say that you've had a really hard day, things are really heavy on your heart and you come to someone that you care about and you're like, oh, this happened, and that happened.

As soon as they start jumping in with a fix, what happens we actually start to pull back, we don't share as much, or we try and talk over the top of them.

It actually doesn't often feel good because our fundamental need as humans is to be heard, right, it is not to be fixed.

And so I think when we are the ones that are listening, we often jump into fix because a we like to feel like we're being productive and we're helping.

But also it's usually because we're uncomfortable with their uncomfortableness.

And this is so pate with parents and children, family members, even our partners all the time.

And my invitation amongst all that is we have to learn to be comfortable in the uncomfortable, because what is one of the most respectful things we can do when somebody's talking about how hard something is and they're pouring their heart out to us, to sit there and say I hear you and I see you, and this sounds big, and that's it is such a beautiful gift to another person because often when someone actually feels heard, what happens is once they've got it all out, then they open up the window for possibility to go what's the next steps here?

And it was actually working through the teenagers that I really learned about this because when I worked with those teenagers for five years, I asked them all the same question, which was, if there's one thing you could change about your parents, what would it be, or one thing you wish they'd do?

And eighty five percent of them said, I just wish they would listen.

And they wanted three things of the listening.

The first thing they wanted was they wanted their parents to listen without judging.

So it was really firstly about if they were bringing something to them, they didn't want their parents to be all judge around the thing they were sharing.

The second thing was listening without fixing, So they really wanted their parents just to do a lot of nodding and a lot of listening.

And I used to say to parents all the time, if your child is sitting there with you, saying all this big stuff.

At the end of it, you can just say did you want me to listen?

Or would you like a suggestion?

And if your child's like, I just want you to listen, then you do not say okay, but here's what I think you should do.

Right.

But we have such a need to fix as humans, and part of the trickiness is sitting biting our tongue.

Right, somebody wants helped, they'll often ask for it, So it's listening without fixing.

And the third thing was they wanted their parents to listen without getting into the drama with them, so that we weren't going, oh my god, that's outrageous, and I'm going to call the school and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that.

And the same tools apply actually in the workplace and also to our intimate partners.

Right when they're coming to us with big stuff.

We want to listen without judging, Like we want to sit back and just hear ah and hear what's going on.

But we're so quick to jump into the judge of others or them all that kind of stuff.

But there's always two sides to every story, you know.

We want to listen without bringing our two cents worth in.

And then the third part is really holding a container of trust.

I trust that you'll be able to navigate your way through this.

I trust that you're going to be able to find a solution.

I'm happy to give you you know, bounce some ideas around if you want, but really I'm here to hold that space for you in the speaking what's on our minds, what's on our hearts.

You know, when we get it out and we can take it to a safe place, then we can actually begin to see what we need to work with to shift it the leaders.

Like I wonder about this for leaders because sometimes they do need to get in and they need to fix, or they need to mentor or they need to quite proactively coach.

Yes, how do you know when they need to shift?

Yeah?

Yeah, So my first thing is always we firstly start by just hearing what the stories and the problems are within it, and then I think it is you know, for me, I'm often what I have found too in a leadership place is just putting it back to the person going what do you think might need to happen here?

So seeing if they can get some buy into what they think needs to happen and where that can be.

But then I also think there's the skill of a leader to be able to say, look, thank you, I'm going to take all that on board and this is what I feel what we need to do next as the steps forward in what we need to do.

And I think that is a real intuitive thing.

I think there's a dance in being a good leader of knowing when to lean in, knowing when to lean out, and also knowing the people you are working with, and so I think that is a beautiful thing as we build relationship and connection with people.

There are some people who are always going to need scaffolding, and there are some people that are always going to need some handholding for things, and then there's others can leave it with them and they're like, YEH, got it, I'm going to move on with it.

And that all comes back to relationship and connection, right.

It all comes back to who are these people who are working with me?

What do I know about them?

What are their strengths?

You know, how do I get the best out of them?

And I think that quality of relationship as a leader is so vital because then we begin to know when we need to move and when we don't.

I love that.

Like, ultimately, everything we've been talking about, I guess relates back to, you knowtional intelligence in how we navigate life.

And I guess for someone listening, I mean, I feel like we've covered so many really interesting and practical ideas and strategies, Like what would you say, Like if someone is just going to take one step after listening to this discussion, what should they do?

Yeah, I think the first step and I'm going to use this word and it's so cliche, but it's true.

I think the first step is mindfulness in the sense of being able to ask myself a question or what's going on for me right now?

We know when we're in our center, right, we know when we're being our best adult self.

But I kind of joke, and I say this in the book.

We are mostly children running around in adult bodies, bumping up against each other, have childlike reactions.

That's most of the time what we do right and when we are able to attune enough to ourselves to know when we're being the adult, and the adult usually will pause, it will listen to what someone else has got to say.

It doesn't have to jump in and prove a point.

It's able to go.

I'm going to take that on board.

It's able to reflect.

You know, we're grounded, we're centered.

That's when the adult, we know the adult is in the room when that's happening.

But when we are reactive, when we're making someone else wrong, when we're yelling, or when we're perhaps collapsing into ourselves, when we've got all the shame and negative talk stuff going on, then that usually to me is a bit of an indication that there's a child part of you that's turning up here right, and there's something to be addressed.

But we need to firstly start with the awareness to be able to catch that right.

And so for me, the first step is always this is just like, well, where am I right?

Wife's going on?

Who's here right?

What's going on in this moment?

To be able to know when we've lost our center and we're not.

And I think so much of the first steps is just being able to catch that as a starting place.

And then when we do feel the uneasiness and we do notice that there's something going on, to ideally not react in that moment, to just try and navigate whatever's present.

And then come back and pick it up later.

What was happening for me in that meeting there, and what was happening when my colleague said that thing, And all of a sudden I got really really defensive, like what was that about?

I mean, ultimately, in doing this work for a long time, I often explain it like this, like everybody in our world is a gift.

They're a great teacher.

Right.

We're going to have people that come into our life and we're going to flow with them, and it's going to feel great, we're gonna laugh, we're gonna feel connected.

And then there's going to be other people that come into our world that we're going to bump up against, where we're going to feel irritated by them, where we're going to judge them, where they're going to be one of our greatest teachers.

And it's our job in those moments to figure out what it is that they're here to teach us, right, I mean, they don't know they're teaching us, right, obviously, they're just doing their do But it's our job to be curious as to what does this person bring up in me?

What is this about?

Do they make me feel like I'm not good?

Enough, right, and that's on me.

Do they remind me of my relationship with my brother where it was all about competition?

Is this about oh gosh, I'm having feelings of jealousy because what that person's doing.

Well, Actually, what that's wakening in me is that's what I really want.

So what a gift?

Right, They're just showing me what I'm desiring, what I want to move towards.

Everybody's a beautiful teacher for us if we're willing to look through that lens, and it's our job to be able to be aware enough to be able to catch that.

That for me is emotional intelligence, and it starts firstly by being aware enough to go, oh, there's something off here, right, and what do I need to do now.

For some people, that can just be journaling, it can be having a listening partner, it can be therapy, it can be different places we need to take it.

But I think if you are brave enough to lean in, if you are brave enough to own the pieces that turn up for you, well, that is the first steps towards living a really powerful life of freedom, right, Because we're now no longer at the mercy of everyone else, you know, we get to be aware, and we get to stand in our own power, working through our stuff and creating the life that we want.

I love that, and it's definitely not as easy as that, but I might.

Let's go with the bigger picture, he lo it Leelle.

Thank you so much for your time.

I could talk and listen to you for so many more hours, but we're going to.

Get kicked out in the studio.

We have to wrap up.

Thank you so much.

Thanks you for having me gosh.

I just adore Layel.

What I'm taking with me is her invitation to ask where am I right now?

Am I responding as my grounded adult self or am I reacting from an old childhood pattern?

That awareness is the first step to shifting how we show up.

So next time you feel defensive in a meeting, maybe pause and get curious about what's really being stirred up.

And if you want to know more about how our inner lives shape our work, I recommend listening to part one of my chat with Layel if you haven't already, and there's a link to that in the show notes.

And if this episode gave you something useful, share it with someone who you think will love it.

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How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of the Warringery people, part of the Coulan nation.