0:00

What you’re about to hear is an unscripted one time counseling session focused on work for the purposes of maintaining confidentiality names, employers and other identifiable characteristics have been removed, but their voices and their stories are real.

0:18

Very nice to meet you.

I’m glad I’m sad.

I didn’t necessarily think it would be us on the couch.

But but that works, she’s roped you into.

Yeah, I was like, oh, what did you think?

0:33

When I said it?

My thought was, I don’t know if I want anybody to know how I’d Health this relationship.

Is it work?

And I like a, I think she tried to get me out of this job.

In this session.

We meet two women who don’t work together, but they have known each other for more than 40 years because they grew up in the same household.

0:58

They are sisters.

It is the younger sister who reached out on behalf of the older sister because She was tired of hearing her vent and complain about how stuck she’s in a job where she’s been for more than two decades.

1:15

And the Very younger sister was also tired because the sheer volume of advice that she’s been giving her over.

The years, has just Fallen flat.

And in the end, the two of them are on Parallel process stuck and helpless.

1:35

I just I feel continually undermined.

The job has always been that place where I’ve been needed in.

I feel important a lot of the people that work for me are like an extension of my family.

There’s no doubt that you’re emotional and relational.

1:53

Derek comes with you to work.

Imagine going to work every day, and I’m really busy place and no one will make eye contact with you.

I mean, it feels like a breakup.

It doesn’t So, how’s work?

2:16

And what’s the age difference between years in a day for years and a day?

And a day makes it significant?

You know, what’s funny?

It is significant because I think she felt like I took over her birthday and took over her.

The spotlight on her.

2:33

You’d probably like the fact that you and she was actually supposed to be born on my birthday.

I believe is what they said.

And but she came the day after.

And yeah, I have those moments in but that’s that’s due to your Spotlight person.

So yeah, it’s just seeing a personality.

2:52

Hey, what’s going on?

And I’m just quiet and I sit back and that’s always been like my personality and in in though.

I’m sorry super emotional, and I’ve been like that all week, but people love me.

And I shine but then I get around my sister and my mom and then I just feeling confident and I feel less than and don’t feel good enough and I and and it’s not so recent that I realized.

3:23

Okay, it’s just they want you to be better and it’s not necessarily that they That they’re talking down and belittling, you or think badly of you.

It’s just you could do better.

3:38

So, sometimes the way things come out, don’t always sound that way.

Yeah, so, When you see a lot of people love me, or people love me, or even my sister, and my mother loved me.

And I’m sitting, and I’m thinking, is this a situation where everybody loves you more than you love yourself.

3:58

First of all.

And that thought and feeling is part of the voice that says you can’t do it.

Don’t bother stay where you are.

It’s safer here and you’ve been at the same job for 23 years.

4:21

When I’ve started its the company was smaller.

The mother owned the company.

Her daughter was working there.

And as time grew, you know, because it was smaller the bosses boundaries weren’t always in a professional tact.

4:40

So is that an understatement?

Yes.

So the last five years, she has introduced all of her, her children in as Executives and part owner.

Of the company, you’re the only person on the executive level.

4:55

That is not a family member.

I am not an executive-level.

I’m actually a step below is that because only family members can be exactly executives.

And who does the work?

5:15

I have done a lot of it at Absolute lot of the work.

On very, confident days.

I can say that.

I’m the one that helped keep that company together.

They’re gone on vacations.

The trust was there that I can run the whole thing and and I would and I you properly recognized for that compensated and recognized know.

5:41

Only and convenient moments when they need me to do something else.

We need something from you.

The first prefer sit with the complement, of course.

Yeah.

You know, we need you, you know, you know how to do this.

It isn’t just her lack of self-worth, that is, at the root of her being stuck.

6:07

It is part of a dynamic, with the owner of the company, with the powers, to be to compliment somebody and make them feel unique.

Indispensable Irreplaceable.

Is the lure of power.

6:25

It’s so seductive as a way of saying, only you when you grapple with a chronic, lack of sense of self-worth.

This is irresistible.

And this is part of the hook of her.

Stuckness that I’m beginning to observe from the beginning of the session.

6:48

If we had a productive session.

Do you think we would land on the side of, how do you make, what you have better?

We would land on the side of how do I extricate myself?

7:09

Do you have an idea of where you want to be?

My fear is that we land on the side of how do I make it better?

My ultimate want?

It’s a free myself and just really be okay to be happy.

7:31

But It’s always the job has always been that place where I’ve been needed in.

And I feel important, so I stick do it.

7:48

But then there’s a part of me.

That’s like, I might just be happy working at Nordstrom’s, if they better than the stress.

I’m getting here and not that there’s anything wrong with working in a department store.

It’s just I know I have potential to be so much better, but then there’s a fear of not and just failing and just failing.

8:17

And I’m scared to fail.

But then you never know if you will succeed.

Either.

Yeah, so many things are sorting through my head.

As I listened to her, including the emphasis about being needed and it is the experience that often people have when they don’t feel lovable.

8:47

I won’t be loved but I will be needed instead and that will give me a sense of relevance.

So when she starts to talk about, I could be better or I could be happier.

These are actually words that for her, take her out of the narrow track of being needed and more into a language that involves a sense of self love and I don’t usually put such emphasis on those words because they’re so Overused is this, but for her, they actually mean something very unique.

9:24

I hear you loud and clear.

We will make sure that we do not land on the side of how do you make better?

What you have partly because I’m sure everybody else is already helped you.

With that.

You must be getting advice all the time because you often are upset and complain a lot.

9:45

And so people must be giving you all kinds of advice and it’s not helpful.

So I’m going to try not to give you advice.

The fact is that you are sharp and you know everything and here you have a job that tells you what they need from you, they articulated.

10:02

And there is something that has been really good and safe for you, but it has turned.

And at this point, it becomes.

Every time you look at it.

You’re not seeing all what you’re doing, you’re saying, or what you’re not doing, right?

And so, you can’t even say, I like, where I am.

10:21

I love the work I do.

Do which by the way you could go do somewhere else and make twice as much tomorrow morning because you’re good is the family, black know what is their cultural and religious ethnic backgrounds?

Yeah, just what why family and it’s like, you know, as if you know something about things like, you know something, I don’t know much of anything, but what I’m saying is you’re the only person not in the family.

10:53

You’re not from the same community and they leave you the entire institution.

So you’re good.

Can we establish that not just, I do what they need me to do you good.

11:09

Great, right.

You run an entire institution.

So is that the baseline from which we’re going to start?

Yeah, it’s fine.

It satisfies.

It is it’s true.

11:26

And I and that’s another part two is that I I’ve stopped trying.

Which is actually slowly killing me.

My creativity is down.

My thoughts are down.

My, I have a bake cookies and everyone loves the cookies.

11:45

So I have a business idea.

But there’s this whole thing and dynamic, that happens when it comes to like, self-esteem feeling like, I can do it, not feeling like I am capable and then when I, but time I get off work, I just want to crash and my brain shuts down my Body just starts to like we’re done and before, you know it, I’m I’m knocked out or I just, I just don’t want to move.

12:15

So the part of you that says, I’m done.

How does it speak to you?

Don’t even bother.

You can’t do it.

It’s it’s negative.

You know, I’m like your sister is younger than you and she’s doing way better than you.

So all of that is that’s where I’m saying.

12:32

Like, I really lost motivation.

I just sit with it.

It.

You going to get depressed, right?

It’s not just that.

You’re going to be not motivated.

You’re going to get the prime minister, right?

Okay, so to me, that’s a piece of what we want to address and send see how you continue that at home, but you’re being dragged down.

12:57

So you’re not acting here.

You’re not working.

You can understand still, but you’re not moving into your own Passions.

Because you’re afraid and then you become immobilized.

Then your sister tries to move the rock, but it’s like Sisyphus, you know, she pulls to see pushes and pushes and then when it arrives at the tub, it goes down.

13:19

And then she gets frustrated with you and then you feel you can’t talk to her and then you think there’s nobody.

I can talk to, and then you go and you close up even more and then she feels like, you know, she starts to have kind of Survivor guilt of sorts.

She feels like, she can’t be really successful because she feels guilty.

13:36

T about the fact that things go well for her and not for you.

That a bit of the story.

It’s accurate for me.

Accurate for me.

The reason that the advice that people keep giving her all the time is not helpful, is not because it’s bad advice.

14:01

It’s because there is a dynamic and the dynamic is the power of the helpless.

The power of the helpless is the person who is down the Press despondent, stuck, that enlists and activates everybody around him, to tell them what to do in order to improve the situation.

14:21

And then Their power is the one that defeats such great ideas that everybody else has come with.

And in the end.

They managed to make the other people feel as helpless with them as they feel vis-à-vis their own situation, that classic parallel process.

14:38

I can’t emphasize it enough and anyone here who has had members in their families who were depressed went down.

Who were frozen immobilized stuck.

And who have tried to swirl around them for years telling?

Them what to do.

Have you tried these?

If you’re done that, in the end, the people who are supposedly the combatant resourceful ones, end up feeling just as flat.

15:01

And just as helpless as the person that they’re trying to lift.

And that is a real perverse, reversal of power.

That’s what I’m imagining happens.

It’s like, instead of this unit that can be so resourceful and where you could just generate so much energy together.

15:25

It becomes the four years in one day.

It’s a combination of competition and envy and guilt and all the different Dynamic.

I don’t even know where Mom fits in because there’s three women.

I imagine is Mama part of the triangle.

15:41

Mostly her triangle, not so much mine.

Okay, where do we put Mom in this story?

Give me her lines.

They’re hiring over here.

They’re hiring over there.

The county tiring.

They’re doing this.

15:58

We’re always talking about the latest diet, how to lose weight.

So I feel like I’m always in this pattern of just not feeling good enough and when you would your sister the same and when you as far as feeling like not good enough and where are the places at work?

16:19

You do have moments when you feel I own this.

Yeah, I’m imagining because you are so good at what you do that.

There must be many situations at work where you actually experience the confidence.

16:36

Well, everyone comes to me for everything and that feels good, but the odd thing is that before.

There was never a promise to keep my job and it felt like it was ready to slip away.

And I think I felt like I had a fight and then this time she pretty much told me you’re a value.

16:56

I want to keep you.

So I’m not going to let you go.

Other people might have to go but you’re not going.

And that might be where part of me where I’m just like, I you tell me where you want me then because I don’t get it.

And if it’s horrible enough and I don’t like it, you know, then.

17:14

I’m going to have to make some decisions.

And you know, this is where I felt like this is perfect timing though.

We’re going to make decisions.

Yes, on your own.

I right.

I mean that it is really what you want.

You want to feel like you drive this.

17:36

And there’s no way you won’t be scared.

And there’s no way that she hasn’t been scared or me.

Or anybody, this idea that you have to be confident.

17:57

First, so that you can start something or try something next.

I think the confidence comes from trying it shaking getting help, trying a little more and that’s the way it’s going to happen.

18:15

So I think instead of fighting your fear, we’re going to invite it in first and foremost.

First of all, that fear may have some good side to it.

It makes you more cautious.

We’re not going to just think the whole fear is one- drill.

But we not going to imagine that this is going to happen when it becomes so intolerable.

18:38

Because what will make you ill is if you don’t do anything?

Already starting, right?

Is this is that sense of despondency?

It’s I’m giving up.

I don’t want to do anything.

18:54

I have no motivation of my own I’m surviving, but I’m not living.

That’s it.

Tell me.

I agree.

19:15

I agree.

I think it just kind of hit me.

I always told myself I could never do like a suicide or anything crazy because I know that I have a purpose.

But when you just said that, I just realized.

19:36

That is a type of suicide to my soul my spirit.

I’m so glad there’s not mirrors in here, so I can sit with his face.

Looks like my goodness.

19:56

Sorry, there’s nothing to be sorry about.

Is the thing. if you’ve been walking with a cane, Today, you don’t have the can you realize how much weight was put on it?

20:26

And how much you got used to having the cane?

Your job is the cane.

But also how much it prevented you from actually holding your own Pride.

You posture is your pride.

I have never met somebody who left a place after thinking about it for years.

20:49

The way you do and stood to regret it.

Never and I suddenly feel like they’re moving, their body opens up air comes in.

Lightness dread as well on occasion, but at least dread and fear is part of taking risks, but it’s not like they’re frozen stuck deadened or what you call the suicide of the Soul.

21:24

It’s important for me to normalize her fear.

She’s about to do something that she’s never done before.

She’s being employed and the transition from being employed to becoming freelance is a very big transition, but I’m also trying to tell her what is being stuck, being stuck or being.

21:47

Frozen is being in a state of contraction.

That’s what happens when, fear grips us, your shoulders, go up.

You just tightens, you get the nut in the stomach and that contraction doesn’t allow you to think or to open up or to breathe.

22:02

So I’m giving it to her in the physical translation.

A body that opens up that the shoulders, open up the chest opens up.

And that is what I’m talking to her about the breathing metaphor that she can experience physically and that you will experience emotionally and mentally.

22:23

So now we need to think who is going to be your resource pool because she can’t do it alone.

It certainly can’t be your mom.

The shaking again, says it all to shaking heads, erection, who are the resources?

22:48

For five people who are going to become your witnesses to whom you say, I’m going to go on this.

Can I count on you?

Whatever to give me advice to help me find resources to went to if I need to to cry too.

23:05

If I need to, I just need a few people who are going to accompany me on this road.

And they don’t have to be your closest people.

They can be people at church that you think that person just accountabilibuddy.

Yeah, what did you call them?

23:20

Accountable.

A buddies?

Let me try to say that in English accountabilibuddy.

Yes, like accountability, but yes, yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

I am.

I just couldn’t get that.

You got that.

23:40

You know what they stand for.

No, I And I have like three or four.

Okay, what other names?

Just first names Phyllis?

Mhm, CJ.

Mhm.

PJ I want to say Diana and Yvonne.

24:00

Great.

Imagine they’re here.

You’ve gathered them.

Sunday afternoon.

And you’re going to make them an announcement.

And an invitation.

What would you say?

24:18

Do me a favor stand up.

You too.

Stay right here and you will just stand right?

Literally behind her as the backup.

Okay.

So this is the force that you’re going to get from behind you.

24:36

And they will hear you little Resource Group.

There just isn’t a theater because you’re making a big declaration.

Well, I think the first thing I would say is over how excited I was when I was telling you what’s Vision, I was going to make and all of you guys have always said, do it scared, do it with fear.

25:04

So I’ve decided to jump and I am stepping out and I need your support, whether I run if I’m quiet too quiet.

I I’m asking for your help to call me on it.

Because I understand it’s going to be hard.

25:24

I understand.

I’m going to feel like my whole support and everything that I have has been shaken, but I’m asking for you to be my strength.

And I want to move out of the way and in the right way now going to good going to the more detail.

25:49

What do you want specifically from them?

Do you wanna meet them once a week?

Do you want to have a cool?

And you can always turn to your secret Force here called sister.

When you want to get more idea.

She may have plenty, because she did this, by the way, remember she did what you had.

26:09

Doing you only see her now.

She wants was shaking like you.

Is that correct what I’m saying?

Yeah.

Yeah, every I’m always afraid.

I’m always afraid and this is not like you making a statement.

26:25

You have to hold yourself to know what I meant.

No, I mean, I would ask probably Phyllis for support when it came to sticking to my, my budgeting PJ is well because PJ is amazing with budgets seat.

26:46

I would focus on just helping be that good spiritual eye and keeping me really grounded and focused.

She’s good encourage or very sweet and calm with it and it just you just fill lifted when I’m speaking with her.

So I would ask for that support.

27:07

I’d also want to set a timeline.

So there’s no backing out of it.

What do you want from Diana?

She’s a straight shooter and I should just call bullshit immediately come slept around a little bit and put you back together and you’re like, come on now, you know who you are.

27:29

Let’s go.

And Yvonne was another person I named but Yvonne has already left the company.

So Yvonne would be the encourager of knowing it’s so good over here on this other side.

It’s okay.

So we have a whole choir.

27:46

Yeah, that’s where I threw ideal date would be when I have said a six-month plan to be out of there by the end of the year.

And you know, within that that means also having some goals of being having some things laid out that I am consistently doing towards building the cookie company as well.

28:11

Probably have an idea.

Yes.

Imagine you do meet with all of them and Say I need us to sit together a couple hours today.

Can you help me make a plan?

They would okay.

Can we establish that you would do that within the next two weeks?

28:31

Yes.

Yes, when you’re done there will give you my personal email.

Me.

Die.

You done done?

That’s all.

If you want to send me more.

I’m happy.

But you know, it’s just I did it.

28:51

I said we made the plan and the plan involves the accountability with the bodies so that every week you show them.

I’ve done this.

I’ve done this at work.

You see nothing you basically will tell them at some point.

29:09

This has been an amazing experience and I have decided that I want to try something else at this stage of my life.

That is all.

You don’t tell them a word about whatever thoughts you have about the company.

It’s irrelevant.

Yeah, no need exactly.

29:26

See.

I like that, that that’s a whole other face, you know, that’s the face.

That is beginning to breed.

We can see it.

Tell me that really floored me.

29:51

When you said about that, the suicide of the Soul because I wouldn’t have said it just in those words, but that’s really what I’ve been feeling for you for a while and I it makes it makes me relieved to know that you recognize it even if it’s, you know, just in this moment because you can’t act without knowing.

30:17

I think you’re going to be great.

I know you’re going to be great.

And if you need any help with your plan and just let me know and I’m in the background and I’m in the background, but I’m happy to help you.

I just want you to mean it and be committed to yourself and committed to being better in this way.

30:37

I’ll do whatever I can to help you.

Yeah, I know I believe that saving something.

I’m told Diana when she’s asked me about it.

Like what, what’s going on?

Will you say your sister does certain things?

I was like I wouldn’t dare approach her until I’ve had some stability because I’m so Consistent.

30:56

She needs to know that I’m consistent before she starts putting her name on stuff.

That’s just how she works family or not, you know, she’ll be there to support as much as possible.

But I know how she works when it comes to business and so forth.

31:13

And things will move when they need to move.

Well, I’m here when you’re ready.

I’m here if you need me, but I do appreciate you acknowledging.

And understanding that from a business perspective.

It’s better for me to have boundaries because what I don’t want us to be frustrated with you because I feel like my time has been mismanaged or because you so I appreciate you acknowledging that.

31:42

I’m also thinking, you know, there’s a bit of energy that’s been released right now, but we want to make sure it doesn’t like a balloon that you don’t put a nut and so I do think that connecting beyond your friends, also with various organizations that help women, who start companies, and that’s where you may be able to be helpful.

32:12

Yeah.

There’s a lot of resources.

She’s right there.

So many resources, I think also too.

That’s a great way to start.

Kind of focusing your energy and your time on that kind of stuff, because it keeps you in that kind of Vortex moving forward in the vortex of excelling in the vortex of what’s next.

32:30

What’s next, what’s next?

Because that’s the whole thing about being an entrepreneur, you have to keep moving, even if you hit a block, you have to Pivot and move to the next place.

So I think I think she’s absolutely right.

So I’ll connect you.

If six months, you’re going to steal the work and you’re going to enjoy the fact that work gives you a stability.

32:54

And that at this point, we don’t have to do too much.

But do you experience it as a betrayal if you stay while you’re thinking about something else?

No, are we clear on that?

Very clear.

33:09

You are allowed to say after 20-something years in a company.

I would like to try something else.

They don’t have to reject you for you to reject them or correct.

You can have a simple healthy sense of entitlement that you’ve always wanted to try something else.

33:35

It, you know, that you have a knack for the cookies and that you get tremendous, joy in giving people something that makes them feel Joy, as well.

Cookies are Joy.

That’s how I mean, magining, right?

33:53

And you may want a small little shop doesn’t To be a mega thing.

You will keep it at the level that suits.

You don’t know the word entrepreneur.

Always means you have to go and scale big know.

But it will be yours.

34:12

And it will be about something that that you like.

Look, you don’t change the world with cookies.

But you make the day sweeter for many people.

Literally speaking.

34:32

So now I want you to imagine something.

We tree years later.

And I happened to run into you.

And I see you in the street and I’m going, hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you all these years.

34:54

What happened?

At that time when we met the last time you were quite stuck and wondering how you were going to extricate yourself and talking about this very powerful image, that That Shook you even when you talked about the suicide of the soul and that this was really a rescue mission for your own soul.

35:16

What happened?

What did you do?

So as we begin to breathe and to open her body physically, I also want her to open and expand her Horizons, but not by imagining herself in the future.

35:32

But by actually meeting her in the future, in this kind of future projection.

I meet the person at their arrival at their destination, what they wanted to do.

They have actually done and now we’re going to go backwards.

35:48

And see what were the different building blocks?

That led them to that place.

I locate them in that place, you know, they’re living in a different city.

They’ve cut their hair.

They look different, she’s rage, and she’s ready, and because she’s living the life, she wants to live.

36:05

And now, tell me, how did you do this?

Who was there for you?

And what we do important turning points.

And do you remember when you told me back then that you never thought you could do it?

Is, this is amazing.

Look at you.

And you create the ability to look on the inside between one card of me and the other part of me, but from the place of the arrival Point, rather than from the place where you feel contracted and stuck.

36:35

That’s the kind of future projection that I like to work with a lot.

What happened?

What did you do?

Did you ever meet with us game?

Ever the accountability.

Yeah, we actually sat down and set up a meeting.

37:01

Had some very good supportive, intelligent people around me.

What did you create?

Actually?

How did it?

What did you actually?

We created a full?

Plan an Exit Plan.

Basically, I’d like to point.

Did you start the company?

37:17

Literally when you left or I said, I started 3 months in before I left.

I started going to the different Market nights.

I started going to different companies.

37:32

I actually got more active with putting the name out there with lots of friends and family and people just being excited about it.

There’s a lot.

Of word of mouth.

So people knew where to find me on the various Market nights.

And so you began by selling in markets.

37:49

Hmm.

Yeah, every single week it just the line started getting bigger for the cookies.

Finally.

We got to a point where I needed a place to actually make the cookies.

So became a small storefront and as we’re moving forward, our next goal here is we’re getting ready to actually look into franchising because there’s people that are wanting to have it as well.

38:12

Incredible, do you remember the moment when you knew this is actually going to happen.

That you said, this is really this is real now.

But I walked out with that last box and put it in the back of my Prius.

38:47

And drove home.

I know there’s no turning back.

What kind of moment was it for you?

It was like reading off of a cliff and parasailing.

39:07

Scary, but it’s so free filling out here.

Trustee the wind.

Not sure how it’s going to land.

39:28

A will land.

I will have to trust the process.

39:47

Take another deep breath.

What are some of the other things that you have to let go of and things have really moved?

When you think about, and I don’t know if it has to do with how you grow up, but I after think that we, we do bring a certain history with us.

40:16

You know.

What happened to you?

Or what?

Did you experience?

Growing up that made thinking of you?

So much more fraud.

The, the relationship between my mom has been a constant.

40:34

I believe, I feel like I had Revelation that she, she was just young.

She was 19.

So she was not ready for kids.

My father had already been a father and she resented, and there’s somewhat having a child and being trapped.

40:53

She will not admit that.

I know I’m not just said it does bluntly as one can.

Yeah, she will not say that and that is what I feel.

That’s that was my Revelation for myself.

Can I ask you something, sir?

41:08

How similar is your relationship with your mother to your relationship with your boss?

The similar because I’m always looking to please them instead.

And that’s the part where I like, I’m just realize like it’s just it’s not healthy.

41:26

I’m trapped in this thing.

And how similar is the boss to the mother?

I watched the boss and her daughter’s Dynamic and it’s constant and I get trapped in that as well.

So, the two mothers are not that different.

41:45

And you end up acting not too differently to your mother and to your boss.

Why I get scholar stuck in that same kind of relationship.

Okay.

Okay.

She just quiet won’t speak.

42:00

I mean, it wasn’t until I don’t know, the last maybe eight years or so that I’ve decided to have someone of a voice and oh, she couldn’t, she did not like that at all.

Now you’re talking about your mom.

42:17

You’re right, my mom.

Once I started speaking up for myself.

She didn’t like that.

And then that’s where I think you started seeing more of my mother kind of guilty me.

Shame me, bullying, verbally in a sense.

42:33

I don’t like to use the word bullying but I understand.

What why does she say?

It’s bullying if she pounces on her, if she knows that if she were to speak to me, I would disengage she and I feel like Only a bully would do that.

Only a bully would attack the perceivably week.

42:49

What you’re saying is that she’s not different.

It’s not that she has a preferential treatment.

It’s that you have basically through your own responses shape, the change of her behavior.

Absolutely, but otherwise, you would both get the same treatment.

43:07

Oh, definitely.

She’s always been the one that’s like, no.

She’s been the kid that like, you know, I want to do this, right?

And she goes and she does.

Is it and you know, no one she probably shouldn’t have or you may say here’s the boundary, but I’m going to push it a little bit and that’s been her me.

43:23

I’m like, oh there’s the boundary, you know, like, oh I see but I won’t I don’t really go that near.

I walk right up and but I will never cross it and that that’s always been my thing.

But to like, get out of my way, people coming through, what a party dress, you got something.

43:45

Like, oh, yeah, so that’s the difference, which is exactly why I said, right.

I don’t want you to just come close to that boundary today and then leave here and lose it.

Right.

44:01

That’s it.

You just gave me the image for this.

You come close to it.

You’d kind of hover, but then you walk back.

Yeah, so that’s the difference.

Clearly.

There’s there’s a lot behind the scenes I think with my mom and myself and then even with their relationship gets in ours.

44:23

This is a few systems here.

Right?

I mean, you’re really a drawing the system between you and your mother, your sister, and your mother, the two of you.

But also how similar is your relationship with the mother of the company, which is your big boss and you And how similar that relationship is to the one that you have with your mother.

44:45

We often bring our family models to work.

You don’t like it, but you just saw it.

Why did you just see?

I also get trapped in a spot to wear.

The boss’s daughter will call her my supervisor instead.

45:07

So she has a tendency to just fight fight fight, fight fight and that it puts me in a situation.

Here’s the correlation and puts me in a situation where I feel, I have to make peace between the two and be the mediator and, and make sense of what was said, or or new bus, and your supervisor.

45:30

Correct, the way that you do between.

Your mother and you see zactly interesting.

Exactly.

And I’m growing exhausted of that as well.

So I’m exhausted and at the same time you, you get seduced because if Mom comes to talk to you about your sister, on the one hand, you don’t like it.

45:53

But on the other end, those are the times when she actually seeks you out.

And for a change, she’s not talking about you and what you’re not doing.

Well.

So it’s a bit of a it’s a seductive trap.

I can imagine the same thing happens with your boss.

46:12

The owner comes to talk to you about her impossible daughter and it elevates you.

In a relationship where you don’t feel valued enough, right?

It gives it bestows value on you importance.

46:32

Is there something of that mean?

I may be, you know II.

Think you make perfect sense, and I actually agree with you.

Everything is so toxic and I I I just realized how negative I had.

46:49

I am in life.

I just this is not what I want anymore.

It’s just I don’t want anything to do with it.

I just, I want to be happy, you know, and and no offense.

I want to get to the point of happy care and care less.

47:06

What you have to think at the same time.

I never, I don’t ever want to be, I always want to care because I just, that’s me.

Who would I be?

If I didn’t care and there I just care about the ship is important.

That’s the difference, right?

Do care.

47:21

I just don’t, I don’t choose to put my energy towards things that only serve to bring me down or other people down if you want help with working through something.

I’m your friend.

I care.

Let’s talk through it in a helpful productive way.

But as soon as it takes a turn right feel like you’re just looking for a way to unload.

47:38

I don’t want to be involved in that because I don’t feel energetically that that that that’s just not the spirit that I want to be engaged in.

You understand what I’m saying?

I do to do.

You feel?

It’s the Thing version or you feel that it’s different.

There is a different quality today.

47:54

Yeah.

Cheer don’t know.

I think this is edifying.

I think this is growth.

I think this is this is you are trying to grow and I want to be a part of that process.

There are unkind and unfortunate things that have to be said and the process of working through those things that I don’t mind.

48:10

It’s uplifting.

If we ended up here, just talking trash about about her her to bosses.

I wouldn’t I would disengage because that’s there’s no.

No, there’s no resolution in that.

There’s no growth.

I can imagine because you’ve been there, 20, something years that your credibility is thin?

48:32

Just so, you know, I think that’s part of what I’m hearing.

You say, is, I’ve heard this I’ve been there.

You’ve been on the edge of leaving a dozen times.

How will we know?

This one is different on some level.

48:48

You will only know this one is different when it happens. and when you see the steps in between, And you need to be aware of that, is that her radar is between a we in the venting mode or are we in the Venture mode and you have an ally in the Venture mode?

49:09

You don’t have an ally in the venting mode?

And inside of you these to live, when you walked in the venting has been the one that’s occupied.

You in the last few months, more loud and clear to the point of suffocating.

49:33

You leave with the little bit more volume again to the Venture one, but we need to keep that volume up because the other one is ferocious.

And it’s ferocious in part because there is such a strong similarity between you and your supervisor and your boss as there is between you and your sister and your mother.

49:58

These two are mirror relationships, but, and it I’m stuck, I think that’s secondary to the bigger hook.

And a bigger Hook is the mirroring of this triangular dynamic in which I think you and the mother of the company when she comes to you.

50:23

And she elevates you in that triangular way.

It’s it’s very important.

It’s a hard one to walk away from.

It’s an ultimately liberating one to walk away from.

50:39

Yeah, but how it will be for you.

You will tell us.

I think out loud, but I can’t predict for you.

Yeah, you know, I think that that’s the beauty of the surprises that we have about ourselves for that matter.

51:00

How is this is going?

This is a moor.

I’ll say what I’m taking with me is.

Is that moment when I described leaving?

I think that was most powerful.

51:21

I think it was very Vivid.

You know, I have a super I have a fear of heights.

So that’s how like scary it is for me to try to even think about jumping off of anything in this moment.

Like that’s what it feels like.

51:38

But then how freed and cool it is to be able to just see everything from a whole nother perspective.

And know that you have no choice, but to trust at that point.

And that’s the part that then I’m holding on to.

51:59

It’s running over and over my head beautiful.

Okay.

Anchor, that image in your body and take it with you.

When the younger sister first reached out there was both an expression of exasperation.

52:19

I’m tired of constantly trying to help her to push her to give her advice to encourage her and she does nothing with it and frustrated and also an expression of love and generosity.

I want to help her she’s stuck.

And I would like her to be able to leave and do that, which is with wanting to do for so long, but what also emerges here is one of the Deeper questions about relationships is how much do we push, others?

52:47

Encourage them believe in them and how much is accepting their limitation?

Not just a giving in but also an acceptance and that is one of the most difficult interpersonal.

53:03

Dilemmas that many of us are grappling with beat in our own families or B2 as a manager and an employee or between.

Colleagues, what is the limits of the other person and where do we artificially limit them?

53:26

Esther perel is a best-selling author speaker and host of the podcast.

Where should we begin to learn more about Esther?

Perel this world to sign up for our newsletter, or to apply to be on the podcast?

Go to Esther perel.com /.

How’s work?

How’s work is produced by magnificent noise for gimlet and Esther perel Productions.

53:47

Our production staff includes Eric Newsome.

Evil watch over Destry Sibley, Alex Lewis, Kristen Mueller and are coordinating producer is Lindsay rutowski.

Our recording engineer is Noriko acaba, and Damon, Whittemore is our mix engineer.

54:05

The theme song was written by Doug, slavin and the executive producers of how’s work.

Our Esther perel and Jesse Baker.

We would also like to thank nazanin rafsanjani, Matt Lieber, Darien Le Beach.

Courtney Hamilton Kelly Roos, Nick oxen horn, doctor guy, winch Kathryn Minshew and her team at the Muse.

54:29

Paul Schneider Thomas, Curry Shawnee avram and Jack’s all