335. SOUND BITE — Self-Trust: What If I Get It Wrong?

[00:00:07] [SPEAKER_00] Welcome to a soundbite, a reflection inspired by a recent conversation on Girl, Take the Lead. And I'm your host, Yolanda Canny. In episode 332, I spoke with Tayyaba Jordan, founder of Lead Like a Human about belonging, authenticity and self-trust. One of the things Tayaba said that stayed with me was how closely intuition and instinct are connected to self-trust.

[00:00:35] [SPEAKER_00] She talked about how we can spend so much time looking outside ourselves for answers, for reassurance, for validation, that we stop listening to what we already know. And that got me thinking. What happens when we don't trust ourselves? Not because we don't know what we think or feel, but because we're afraid of getting it wrong.

[00:01:01] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe we'll say the wrong thing. Maybe someone will get angry with us. Maybe someone will be disappointed. And sometimes that fear can be enough to keep us from saying anything at all. And that's what I'd like to explore today with you. I've been thinking about where some of my own fear of getting things wrong began. As a child, I learned that someone's anger could have physical consequences.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00] And I suspect some of those early experiences taught me that disagreement wasn't particularly safe. That keeping the peace was important. That sometimes the best thing to do was say nothing. And I became pretty good at it. If something bothered me, I could stuff it down. Ignore it. Hope it would go away.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe if I didn't bring it up, it wouldn't become a problem. And I think for a long time, I confused avoiding conflict with handling conflict. And here's what I've learned. Just because we're not talking about something doesn't mean it isn't affecting us. Those feelings I stepped down didn't necessarily disappear.

[00:02:24] [SPEAKER_00] They accumulated a little resentment here, some hurt here, a disappointment I didn't express, a boundary I didn't know how to set. And eventually something would happen. Maybe it wasn't even a particularly big thing, but the timing would be wrong. Or I'd already be in a highly emotional state and suddenly everything I'd been holding back

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00] would come pouring out. Not necessarily with much emotional regulation, I'll say. And certainly not always in a way that reflected what I really wanted to communicate. Okay. I'm going to guess that some of you have experienced that. You avoid a difficult conversation because you don't want conflict.

[00:03:17] [SPEAKER_00] And then, when the feelings finally come out, the conflict becomes bigger than it might have been if you'd addressed it earlier. I can look back now and see that I was trying to protect myself. But sometimes the very strategy I used to avoid an outcome I feared helped create an outcome I didn't want.

[00:03:42] [SPEAKER_00] And afterwards, I might think, see, I knew I shouldn't have said anything. And then, when we're afraid to speak up, is it always because we don't trust ourselves? Or is it sometimes because we don't trust the other person?

[00:04:10] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe we don't trust that they'll listen. Maybe we don't trust that they'll respond kindly. Maybe we're afraid they'll become angry, dismiss us, or misunderstand what we're trying to say. Maybe we don't trust the relationship to withstand a disagreement. I think all of those possibilities matter because we don't have to trust everyone equally.

[00:04:39] [SPEAKER_00] Some people have shown us they can hear difficult things and stay connected. Others haven't. And sometimes our fear comes from an earlier experience rather than what's actually happening in the present moment. I find that distinction really important because someone's disappointment isn't necessarily dangerous.

[00:05:06] [SPEAKER_00] Someone disagreeing with me doesn't automatically mean I've done something wrong. And someone getting angry doesn't necessarily mean I'm responsible for their anger. Of course, I still need to take responsibility for what I say and how I say it. But I don't have to take responsibility for every feeling someone else has in response.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00] And that's a big learning for me. So what changed? I've been thinking about the conversations I've had where I didn't stuff things down, where I didn't explode, where I was actually able to engage in a way that felt grounded and true to myself. And I realized something. I came from compassionate curiosity.

[00:06:03] [SPEAKER_00] Instead of entering the conversation with a judgment about the other person, I began with questions. I want to understand. What was happening for them? What were they experiencing? Was there something I wasn't seeing? I wasn't asking those questions as a strategy to get them to agree with me. I was genuinely curious.

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_00] That changed the energy of the conversation. I wasn't preparing my defense. I wasn't rehearsing the perfect response. I wasn't trying to control what they would say. I was listening. And here's the part that really stands out to me now. I trusted myself to handle whatever I was told. I didn't need to know the outcome in advance.

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_00] I didn't need the other person to respond perfectly. I wasn't preparing my accountability. I didn't need to make every word right. I could simply be present. Now, compassionate curiosity doesn't mean I have to agree with everything someone tells me. It doesn't mean I abandoned my own feelings or needs. And it certainly doesn't mean I have to stay in a conversation that feels unsafe.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00] It means I'm willing to make room for another perspective without losing my own. And that feels like a very different kind of self-trust, which brings me back to the question in today's title. What if I get it wrong? Well, what if I do? What if I say something that doesn't land the way I intended? What if I misunderstand somebody?

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00] What if I become emotional? What if I make a decision and later wish I'd made a different one? Those things can happen. And maybe the goal isn't to eliminate them. Maybe the goal is to learn that we can navigate them. We can pause. We can ask another question. We can say, I don't think I expressed myself very well. Can I try again?

[00:08:33] [SPEAKER_00] We can apologize when we've hurt someone. We can hold a boundary when someone is disappointed. And we can decide to come back to a conversation when we're better able to have it. I think there's a kind of freedom in recognizing that we have more than one move available to us. I talked about this recently in my soundbite on being diminished.

[00:09:04] [SPEAKER_00] For a long time, I thought that when someone said something hurtful, I needed to come up with a perfect response right there in the moment. And if I couldn't, I'd somehow failed. But I've come to realize that I can respond in a moment. I can ask a question. I can say I need more time to think. I can decide not to engage. Or I can come back later.

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_00] There isn't necessarily one right move. And that realization has helped me trust myself. I think sometimes we imagine self-trust as a kind of confidence. We picture somebody who knows exactly what to say. Someone who makes decisions quickly. Someone who doesn't second-guess themselves. But I'm beginning to see self-trust differently.

[00:10:03] [SPEAKER_00] Maybe it's not certainty. Maybe it's flexibility. The ability to stay connected to ourselves while remaining open to what we might learn. The ability to recognize when an old fear is showing up without automatically letting that fear make the decision. The ability to listen to someone else's perspective without immediately deciding we are wrong.

[00:10:34] [SPEAKER_00] And the ability to acknowledge when we actually are wrong without making that mean something terrible about who we are. The last one feels very, very important. Because if getting something wrong means I'm going to lose someone's approval, disappoint them, or be rejected, then of course I'll be afraid to act.

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_00] But if getting something wrong means I have an opportunity to learn, repair, or choose differently, now that's a different experience. And perhaps that's where self-trust begins to grow. Not in always getting things right, but in discovering that we can stay with ourselves, even when things don't go as planned.

[00:11:25] [SPEAKER_00] For me, this has been a journey from trying to avoid conflict to discovering that I can participate in difficult conversations without losing myself. And I'm still learning. And here's what I want to remember. I don't have to get everything right to trust myself. I can be curious. I can be imperfect. And I can handle more than I once believed.

[00:11:58] [SPEAKER_00] In our next episode, I'll be talking with Australian author and coach Alfina LaFaro about her book, Love Deliberately. And a question I think connects beautifully with today's reflection. Can our differences actually bring us closer? Until next time, remember, listen inward and lead out.