Episode 15 Shownotes - When People Say the Wrong Things

Hey, my best lifers, and welcome back! I missed this! I feel like 2 weeks is so long between episodes – I may have to rethink this! So – a few housekeeping things first. If you haven’t had a chance to leave a review if you listen on Apple podcasts, that would be awesome. A written review there is worth more than just a rating, so scroll down to the bottom, and leave a written review. That would really be helpful! Second, I have started doing FB lives teaching some of these concepts on the Best Life After Cancer MD FB page, so feel free to come and check it out. It is a place where you can ask questions real time. Love it. At this point, we are wrapping up summer here. We are starting to get the kids ready for school, pushing them to get done their reading, reminding them to finish their math packets. We are lucky – all of our guys are going back at least part time, so that is great. I worry about their mental states, not seeing their friends, not really leaving the house much over almost 6 months. I know for many people, this is taking a toll. If you live alone, and work from home, you are in my thoughts. I worry about all of my patients whose only contact with people is at their treatments. So hard. It seems like the pandemic is also straining lots of relationships. If you are home full time with someone, that is a strain. If you aren’t seeing them at all, that is a strain, too. I am hearing more about people’s relationships recently, and a lot of it is not so great.

So today, I have been thinking a lot about one of the things I hear a LOT from patients, and it is something I think we can dive into that can REALLY help. I hear all the time that patients feel like a loved one or friend just “always says the wrong thing” about their cancer. They aren’t supportive, or what they do say just really seems hurtful. Things like, “I thought you would be feeling better by now” or “Why are you so worried? They said the cancer was gone”. These types of comments, made by people we love and respect, can have a profound impact. I have seen the same thing when people loose someone. They get comments like “well, at least they are not suffering” or “they are in a better place”. It is people wanting to be helpful, but the wrong thing just comes out of their mouths. I am sure many people can relate to this. You think that your situation is dire, and your friends and family shouldn’t make it worse by opening their mouths and saying things that make you feel worse. Ok – and here is the really bad news. We have no power to change what someone else thinks or says. Complaining, whining, making demands or threats, none of these things are effective in the long run unless the person really and truly WANTS to change their behavior. We have all experienced that at some point in life, right? A boyfriend who we just wanted him to be different. We tried everything we could think of. He’d change for a bit and then go back. Why? Because changing other people doesn’t work, and when we spend our energy wishing they were different, we get nowhere. We still feel bad, other people still say and think what they do, and we are just stuck with it. If I could do a podcast where I could teach you how to control other people, FOR SURE, I would be all in. I keep wishing that was the answer. It would be so much easier if other people just all said and did what we thought they should, right? Well, if you find that podcast, I would LOVE if you could send it my way. Unfortunately, I don’t have that magic wand for you, so we are going to work on evaluating what people say, and making decisions to best support ourselves. One of the things we have to all really understand is that all of our power is in OUR OWN minds. We can’t change what other people think and say, but we CAN change what we think, and through that, how we feel. Remember, our thoughts create our feelings.

So, I think for starters, when you have someone who constantly says or does the wrong thing, we have to evaluate first. Is it someone that you really want to keep in your life? Is it a parent or spouse, who you love wholeheartedly and just want to feel better about your interactions? Or is it a friend that you used to hang out with a lot, but haven’t seen in person once since you were diagnosed. If a friend, once you have a cancer, totally ditches you, or still wants you to go out for drinks the day after chemo, and doesn’t want to do anything else that is more appropriate for you in the moment, you have to sit down and really decide if they were a true friend, or if you were just a good wingman. I think sometimes the really bad times in life show us who the people are who really love us, and who the people are who were just there for the party, or the drinks, or the fun. Personally, I think that the people who are just there for the fun should be delegated to that role in our lives. If we want to just have fun, that is when we call them. We don’t get upset when they aren’t there for the tough stuff. That isn’t the type of friend they are. But first, take a minute to honestly evaluate the relationship. See it for what it actually IS, not what you WANT it to be. Then you can decide, do you want to keep it as it is? If you do, great. See the friend for what they are and let them be that. Problem solved. If you decide you do not want to keep it as it is, just let the friendship be what it is, then we have to decide how we want to address it. Remember, it is hard to impossible to change other people, so if you want to keep a relationship, but don’t like how it is currently, the majority of the work will be on you. I have to tell you, I have lots of friends that fill lots of different roles in life. I have an artistic friend, and we do awesome outings, just the two of us. I have a few friends I know I can call if I am in a bind, and they will do everything they can to help me. I may not see them all the time, but they are the ones I can call if the nanny called out, kids are in school and dog needs to be let out, or if I need a ride to the hospital for a procedure. When you guys listen, you know who you are! I also have friends that are just for girls’ lunches. I know they love me, but they are not the type to call every day, and that is ok too. I have friends that I chat with at work. Don’t see them much outside of work, but still love them, for sure. I have found it is much easier for me, personally, to let the friendships be what they are then try to force them into a mold that I think they should be in.

Moving forward. Let’s talk about the easiest scenario first of people saying something you don’t like. You have someone you really love who normally says the right thing, but today they say something that hits you the wrong way. OK. This might piss you off, but we really need to look at WHY something pisses us off. What are we making it mean? If they say, “I thought you’d be feeling better by now”, are you making it mean that they think that you complain too much? That they are tired of hearing that you are still not feeling well? Do you think it means that they feel like you aren’t trying to get better, or you are somehow faking things? I think it is pretty likely if I was thinking those things, I would feel put out by the comment. Look at your thoughts about what they said and take responsibility for your thoughts. In a relationship, you have the responsibility for controlling your brain. If you are looking for things to be pissed about, you will find them. If you are looking for insults, you will find them as well. Evaluate first and foremost what role you have in this. This is really hard to do at the start. We really want to think that the other person is entirely the problem, not us. We want to think we are justified in being pissed off. I am not saying you can’t feel upset and hurt. I am just staying, we need to look at what thought we had in the moment about what they said that led to our feeling. If you think the thought was valid, keep it! If you realize it was not, then maybe you want to change it. If you realize the thought was complete BS, well, that is one that it is really good to know is floating around in your brain. The next thing to consider if something hurts your feelings is whether you secretly think what they say is true. If you on some level believe the same thing they said, and it isn’t something you want to believe, you may be angry at them and not taking responsibility for that. You are afraid it might be true, they say it, and your brain says, oh look, they think it is true, too, so it must be true. Try to brainstorm about other ways they could have meant what they said. In the example of them saying “I thought you would’ve been feeling better by now”, what if you decide to think it means they are worried, and want you to feel better as soon as possible? What if you think it means that they were hoping, too, that you would be better by now. What if you just decide that they are confused, and think there is a timeline cancer patients follow, but they have it wrong? That might allow you to just let it slide. Not making it mean they are critical, just making it mean they are confused. I think for many people, when it is a one time comment, we can take responsibility and admit we play a role in how we interpret things, and just decide that we aren’t going to let one comment ruin our day or our week.

It gets a bit more challenging when it is someone you really want to keep in your life that keeps saying things you don’t like. Here you have one of three choices. I actually think the most effective choice is honesty and vulnerability. Have a conversation. Open up and tell them how you feel. Right now, I bet your brain is saying you shouldn’t have to have a conversation. They should just know what to say. They should read your body language and see that what they are saying isn’t sitting well. I have to tell you. A lot of people are really blind to the body language and signals of others. I never realized how much, but I have a family member who has some learning differences, and it is amazing, he really just does not get it when you don’t just come out and SAY what you are thinking. It made me aware of how many other people are just in the same boat. So have a conversation. Don’t let your brain tell you that you shouldn’t have to, it’s not your job, they should know better, blah blah blah. First, tell your brain to chill for 5 minutes. Then, at a time when you are both calm and have a little quiet to talk, tell them, hey, there is something I have been wanting to talk to you about. It is one of the ways you talk about my cancer, and it makes me feel sad or bad or alone (or however it makes you feel). Ask them what they are trying to say when they ask the question or make the statement. This may make all the difference. It may make you think about it so differently when they tell you why they say it. There may be a really loving reason why they do, and once you know, it may no longer bother you. If they say, “ I say I thought you’d be feeling better by now because I just miss our old life so much, and can’t wait for you to feel better so we can have a bit of normal back and do some of the things we always loved to do together”, you may say, wow, I feel the exact same way. I want to get back to our normal too. If it is your parent, and they say, it just kills me to see you this way, and I just want for you to be ok and feel good, that may give you a feeling of love (and some sympathy for them as the parent). If they tell you the reason, and it still doesn’t sit well, then calmly and lovingly tell them how what they say makes you feel and what it makes you think about the relationship (for instance, if they say “I thought you’d be better by now”. When you ask them, they say, “it just seems like other people on facebook feel better quicker”, then let them know, “I really want to feel better, and am really looking forward to it. I am doing everything the doctors tell me, in hopes of speeding it up as much as I can. When you say that, it makes me feel like maybe you think I am not really trying, and that makes me really sad”. Ask them if they would be willing to say something different. You can’t control what they say, but you OF COURSE have the option to ask for what you want. 9 out of 10 times, they will be sad that what they said hurt your feelings, and they will really try to do better.

Now comes the really challenging part. You have a lovely conversation, make them aware, ask for what you want and either they say no, or they agree, but immediately go back to saying what makes you feel badly. OK – this concept is going to feel foreign to some of you, and your brain is immediately going to be saying “no way. She is nuts. That is BS.” Just hear me out for a few. First things first, you have to realize that what they say doesn’t make you feel bad. It is our thoughts about what people say that make us feel bad. Let me give an example that makes this really clear. Someone you’ve never seen before, a complete stranger, stops you on the street and says “I hate your hair”. You just had it cut, highlighted, and blown out by the stylist. You both thought it looked AWESOME. When the person says this, You might be shocked, and you might be a little hurt, but for many of us, we would have the thought, wow, is that person nuts? Are they on drugs? That was bizarre. You probably wouldn’t take it to heart. You might check out your hair in the next store window to make sure it isn’t crazy, but you wouldn’t obsess over it. You probably would call a friend or your husband, and laugh about it. But if your husband says, “I hate your hair”, you would likely feel a lot different. You might make it mean that he doesn’t find you attractive, or doesn’t love you. With one person saying it, our thoughts led to us brushing it off, and the other, our thoughts led to us taking it to heart. So, you have to accept that the words the person says only hurt if you decide to have thoughts to take what they say to heart. You can make the decision to think that they are mistaken, and let them say what they will, and have it roll off your back like water off a duck. So, with continued words from someone you want to keep the relationship with, after you have made a request, you are now down to two choices. Both are hard. Neither are fun. One is to work on your brain to get to a place where they can say what they want, and you do not take it personally. This requires a lot of work. It is a challenge. It requires you to look at your thoughts, and purposefully choose ones that do not create the bad feeling. For me, this is easier with coaching. Who am I kidding. Let me be honest, for me this is only possible with coaching. It involves continually looking at what your thoughts are about what they say, and ultimately, finding other thoughts to think that allow you some peace. Some thoughts I have in the challenging relationships in my life – I think, she does’t know better. In my head – I don’t agree with that opinion, but I don’t have to argue or be right. Another is they can think what they want, all that matters to me is what I think. It is a lot of work. It requires a lot of writing about your thoughts about what they say, and seeing what actions come of those thoughts and feelings, and deciding how you want to feel about them, regardless of what they say.

The second option is to create boundaries with the person. This is not like threats. It is not making the person do anything. It is just telling the person what you will do if they do not follow your request. It would look like telling the person, “when you say these things, it makes me think awful thoughts and feel awful feelings. We have talked about it, but you still do it. From now on, when you do it, I will get up and leave. If we are at home, I will go to a different room. If we are in the car, I will get out and get an uber home, or I will put on headphones and stop talking with you. If we are in a restaurant, I will leave and go home. Then you have to do exactly what you say you will do. Every time. Without a fight. Without drama. Then they get to decide, do they want to continue to say those things and have you leave? Again, you can’t control them, you can only control you. If you have to use a boundary, each time, you get to reassess – do I want to continue in this relationship? If I do, I can’t change them. I can keep it, or let it go. Fighting with them is not useful, so I will either work on my thoughts, or continue with boundaries. This is really quite effective for most adults. They get the picture that you mean business pretty quickly, and often their thought will be “I want to keep this relationship, so I will try not to do what I just did which left me sitting alone in a restaurant.
Both of these options really require you to be in a place of emotional adulthood. What is emotional adulthood, you ask? It is taking full responsibility for our thoughts and feelings. I will tell you – this is SO hard. In coaching, I get coached EVERY WEEK about where I am not taking responsibility and giving someone else the responsibility for my feelings. It is a huge challenge, BUT I will tell you, it feels so much better to decide to feel good regardless what others say and do. I also want to point out, when we feel pissed or sad, we don’t give that feeling to the other person. If we are mad, the person we are mad at doesn’t suffer. Only we suffer! I want to pause here and tell you a quick story. I had an interaction at our little town pharmacy with a new employee. It was long and drawn out, but the end of the discussion was after I signed the pad where you acknowledge getting the med and not needing counselling, I asked for sanitizer, because who knows how many hundreds of sick people touched that pen? He said they didn’t have any. I said, “really? This is a pharmacy”. He replied “it is really hard to come by, you should be carrying your own!”. I got really pissed off. I told him this was not how our pharmacy treated clients, and told him I would be speaking to his boss. All well and good. But then, after I left the store, I continued to grumble in my head with things like “he shouldn’t talk to me that way”. It led to me continuing to be pissed, rehashing it in my head, telling the story to my husband, my coach, and more. Did he feel any of that anger? No. He was back in the pharmacy. Only I felt the anger. Did the spinning and feeling pissed get me anywhere? No. Just got me a yelling match with one of my teens. What did get me somewhere was finding a better thought. The thought was, the pharmacy owner needs to know what goes on when he isn’t there, so he can make things better. This led to me writing and dropping off a letter, and him talking to the employee about how they want things to go. I had to realize my emotional childhood was the problem – I was playing the victim, thinking I shouldn’t be treated this way. I had the option in the moment of shedding that like water, writing an email from my car, and letting it go, instead of having it spin in my head and make me pissed for hours. When I took responsibility, thinking I can be a part of the improvement and safety for everyone, I stopped being pissed and started being useful.

Alright, folks – that is it for this week. I am happy I got a chance to speak with you. Come on over to the Best Life After Cancer Website to post questions. I am working on posting show notes at Best Life After Cancer.com, as well. Under the podcast tab, you can pick the episode, click on it and see the shownotes. Hope you have a lovely week, with everyone saying all the things you’d love to hear!