Rachel (00:01):
You're listening to relationship coaching with Rachel. This is where you learn how to ditch the drama with your mama.
Rachel (00:19):
Do you describe yourself as somebody who avoids conflict with your mama? Maybe that's you, are you uncomfortable having difficult conversations? I think we all are not comfortable having difficult conversations, but if you are like, that's me, that's me. That's me. Then I have some good news for you. I'm going to teach you five steps and give you some really good tips on how to effectively have those difficult conversations. So just remember if you avoid these things, these difficult conversations at all costs, you've probably just have never been taught the skill of having difficult conversations. But in this episode, I'm gonna teach you how now, if you prepare yourself and use these tips that I'm handing over to you, then no matter what the outcome of the conversation that you need to have, you're gonna feel good. And you're gonna change the way that you show up for yourself and in your relationships by getting really, really good at this skill.
Rachel (01:30):
If you just look at it as a skill, it kind of takes the emotional sting out of it. You just have to practice it. And this is the best, the best work that you can do for yourself. But if you avoid it, which is the opposite of practicing it, you're going to get good at that. You're going to get really good at avoiding. Now. I also want you to keep in mind that you can apply these skills to any person or any hard conversation. It could be at work. It could be with another family member. It could be with a difficult person that you've just been needing to have a conversation with for a really long time. Well, I just wanna say that you're doing a great job showing up here to the podcast, and maybe you've signed up for those little notes of wisdom that are delivered into your inbox.
Rachel (02:22):
And a lot of you are taking the action necessary to make big changes. So you've told me what you're doing. You are keeping a journal yay for you, because that is part of the process. I'm gonna help you find some helpful thoughts throughout this podcast and my vision for helping you deal with difficult relationships, especially if you wanna ditch the drama with your mama. My vision is that I'm showing you how to up level your normal, like your baseline. Okay? So maybe your baseline is way, way down. And you're like that's not really where, where I wanna be, but let's, we're gonna try to bring this skill of having difficult conversations into just like your normal. Now on the outside, we all look totally fine. We probably got the houses and the outfits and the we're doing the workouts or all the things we're checking the box.
Rachel (03:16):
All the things that somebody out there they say is gonna make you feel better. Those things that we might spend money on doing or having or acquiring. And I will tell you from experience none of that stuff is what you need to make you feel better. That's buffering, which is like looking for an outside source to make us feel better immediately. And that will work very quickly. And it might not last very long, because we might just keep looking for that thing. So I want you to ask yourself, is that where you want to be focusing your attention like looking for outside things? My guess is no, but I might be wrong, but my guess is that's probably not why you're here now. When we get control over our emotional lives and our emotions just come from our thoughts, it trickles down into our relationships and then our relationships start to get better.
Rachel (04:14):
Our desire to people please is, and maybe we have stepped out of that. Need to be a perfectionist. So we've started to give ourselves permission to show up and step into who we really wanna be without making apologies or listen. Asking for permission is kind of one of the big things. Like somebody's not gonna approve AKA your mama. So what she doesn't have to approve now the difficult conversation with your mama. So I coached someone the other day and she said, I don't like having these types of conversations with my mother. She said, I don't like confrontation. She said that she didn't like having difficult conversations ever. Now, listen, I don't think any of us like that, but it's a necessary path sometimes to help us move forward. You know, I'm really glad that she shared that with me because so many of us feel the same way. Most of us say I don't like conflict and I avoid conflict. Okay. That's that's really normal. So remember the brain is just wants to keep us safe. It wants to go towards pleasure and it wants to run away from paint and it likes it likes routine consistency. And maybe this is the routine that we've gotten ourselves into. Like I just don't wanna have a conversation. It's better that way way, but there's still something going on. There's still some kind of something unsettling.
Rachel (06:04):
It will tell you if we want a more connected relationship with ourself and with other people and we wanna maintain relationships. We really, really need to do this work. I've done it. I've fought it for a long time. I did all the other things. I bought the things I did the activities to, you know, distract myself so to speak. But once I kind of had to step into a little bit of bravery I was in my forties when I did that. So there's hope for everybody. It it's so amazing. And you can have a better relationship with yourself. You could possibly have a better relationship with your mother. I've got a question to ask you? And I had to ask myself this in the past. Whose job is it to make me not resent them? Think about that for a second. Well, yeah, it's my job to make me not resent them.
Rachel (07:01):
I'm the only person that can do this work. I am the only person willing to do this work right now. Not anybody else. It's mine. It's my work that I have to do because what I feel about them comes from my own thoughts, wanting to hang onto that. If you wanna write that down, I think that's a great idea how I feel about them comes from my thoughts, no matter what has gone on in the past, my thoughts are going to create my feelings now. And we may have to have a difficult conversation with our mama or that person from time to time. And what we do typically is we put, we put it off. We put off having the conversation and then the result is that the problem goes away for a little while, but then it comes back and it might get stronger.
Rachel (08:01):
And then it grows kind of like that pile of laundry. by five to seven business days on the laundry or mowing the yard. It's not something that just kind of goes away on its own or it's like putting anything off until like it gets so overwhelming that we just have to deal with it. And it might not be, we might not show up the way we want to do it. Think about all of these small things, they just start to pile up and then you're like, now it's a big thing. Now it's this, this thing that we have to deal with. So instead of having these little minor difficult conversations, we end up having the big, difficult conversation. Okay. So, but listen, don't worry if you've never done this before, it's a skill. I'm just looking at it as practice as a skill, just like anything else.
Rachel (08:59):
And so my guess is that you were never taught how to do this. I wasn't. And my guess is also that you maybe mirrored some things from your mother and this was your normal to put it off. Also, my guess is that you don't have the steps or the skills just yet. So I have a question for you. What would your relationships be like? And what would they look like if you got really good at this, what would change in your life? If you were not afraid to have difficult conversations, if you got really good at them, if you can have those difficult conversations and still feel like yourself, what if you were unafraid? Unapologetic? If you do these steps, you can practice this at work with your spouse, with your mama in-laws parents, kids, and then this process will work in any situation.
Rachel (10:08):
So here finally, here are the steps. And one thing before we get started, prepare ahead of time, do not approach this person, do not approach your mother without preparing ahead of time. This is not a step. This is the key to doing it right. And it takes practice and it works. Okay. So number one is you wanna stop and ask yourself? What's my goal. What's my intention for this. What do I ideally want the outcome to be? This might be a good time to write, get out your journal and start writing. What do you want the outcome to be? I'll give you an example. Just say somebody owes you money. This is just a generic example. Well, the goal of that conversation would most likely be you want to get your money back, what they owe you. So in the end, is it likely that you'll get the money.
Rachel (11:06):
But if you go into this conversation with someone who owes you money with the intention of like, I don't want them to be mad at me, then we've gotta back it up just a little bit. So we can't go into it, trying to control the emotions of the other person. We can never do that. Now emotions come from thoughts, our emotions come from our thoughts. Okay? So what happens is when we try to control the emotions of another person, we get manipulative or we start people pleasing. It just doesn't feel good. It feels like it's, we're coming from a not so great place because we really want someone else to feel differently. Now, my guess is that's not how you wanna show up. And we personally I'll tell you, we don't have that kind of power. We just don't we're not powerful enough to change the way someone feels.
Rachel (12:04):
Now, the reason I do it is to be at peace with myself, how I show up, but we can't change how other people feel a hundred percent. They get to feel how they want to. But so do we. Now, if I go into a difficult conversation, mad and defensive, they'll most likely they're gonna mirror our emotions. Probably. Now we might go in and want the other person's behavior to change. And if the behavior is something that you want to talk about, you can make the request and let them know how it's affecting you. You wanna ask yourself, write this down. What is my reason? Your reason can be, I just wanna be peaceful or your reason is maybe love. Like I just wanna come at this from a place of love. Now, if I come into it from a place of love, ask yourself, how would I show up for myself and for the other person, no matter what, now you might already start feeling a shift right now. Just thinking about showing up with compassion or love or some other, just a positive emotion.
Rachel (13:19):
So go into this very clean. Otherwise resentment will build on both sides and then you're kind of starting all over. So that's step one, ask yourself what your goal is with this conversation. So number two is you can coach yourself by kind of writing all this stuff down or get coached until you feel the way you want to feel about her, about this conversation. If you go into the conversation with anger and resentment, it's gonna show up in your energy field. And I talk about the energy field. A lot, our energy field is that kind of steps into the room before we do. Or if you walk into a room and someone's been arguing, you feel it, you can't explain it, but you're like, oh, something's up? That's the energy field. So think about your tone, your body language. If you go into it, feeling how you want to feel, you can't lose no matter what you get to and you can decide to feel good about it ahead of time.
Rachel (14:23):
Stepping into your future self. That is what we're doing here. By planning ahead of time. I want you to kind of go back and if you can remember, I can remember a couple of, of times that I've done this. I always feel a little bit better each time I practice it. So you might need to go back into the archives of your brain and pull those things out. Just a really good conversation was difficult, but you showed up and such a clean space that it worked out for everybody. Number three is get facty. basically prepare so that you can state the facts. Only. Now getting facty facty is not a word. Officially is not a word. How do I know? Auto correct keeps telling me that it's not a word, but I'm gonna use it anyway because it works for me. So we typically get really general and state our opinions.
Rachel (15:21):
And that's what causes the other person, your mama to feel offended. An attack. Now facts are neutral. Remember that? And so it takes the emotional sting out of everything, for example, okay. Just say your mama does this thing. She tells somebody something that I have said in private and she may have interpreted my story and got it all wrong, but told three people or one person, okay. Now maybe I've asked her not to, but she doesn't comply with my request. Okay. Now I'll tell you what not to do. Do not say you don't respect my wishes or something like you disrespected me or something. I mean, really you're just looking for a fight that way. What do you think is gonna happen when you come at it with that kind of energy? You got two things going on. Either the same thing that's probably always happened, or if it's a new type of conversation and this is a new thing for you and you say you're disrespecting me.
Rachel (16:34):
She may very well respond incredibly harsh. I don't know. But that's my guess. It's probably not the result that you want. Now, something thumbs up that you could say, just getting really facty. If I say, Hey, you know, I told you something in confidence and it got back to me that you said something after I asked you not to say that, what do you think would happen? It's a little bit different than you disrespected me. Right? You could also say something like, Hey, we had this conversation. You promised it was just between the two of us. Now I'm confused. Can you help me understand? Or, you know, I did notice that you were doing other things when we had this conversation. And it seemed like you were distracted with other things, maybe something like that. Now listen, when you give the facts only, it's not an attack.
Rachel (17:30):
It takes all the sting out of it. Or maybe it feels less of an attack depending on how the other person typically receives a conversation. You need to give specific examples, not how you're feeling. Just examples of what happened, just the facts so that they know exactly what you mean. And it also gives them the benefit of the doubt. Okay. Number four, finally. Now we can have the conversation, but notice how one through three we're prepping, we're planning ahead of time. Number four is now we have the conversation. We are ready to talk to them. And in fact, I think this is probably the shortest step. So you wanna begin with just reminding them, acknowledging that it's, it's difficult. Like, look, I need to share something with you and it's not gonna be easy, or it's not gonna be easy to hear. And it's not easy to say, but my relationship, I feel like this relationship is important enough to have this conversation.
Rachel (18:29):
This is something along those lines. You wanna state the facts, share what the impact is and share why this is a problem for you or maybe another family member or other people involved. For example, going back to this original story, I asked you to keep this. There have been other instances where I've also asked you to not share things. This is a problem because it makes me wonder if you like, you're just not listening or you just didn't hear me, or it makes me wonder, like, if you are just doing it because you think it's okay or it maybe it's a problem for another person because it impacts the whole relationship. Maybe it's with your husband, like maybe she shared something that was private. Now it can be taken out of context when this is shared and maybe it starts to become a trust issue.
Rachel (19:28):
Now, I just want you to think about how that, that could feel. You could also state the future impact if they choose not. If they continue to do this, then it's gonna make, maybe it's gonna make you question. Whether you can share things with them. Moving forward. Number five is choosing to be confused or concerned. Now I use this a lot in difficult conversations. And what this does for me personally, is it keeps me in more of a neutral place, but I have to decide ahead of time. So it keeps you, it keeps me in fact, in a place of empowerment and love for everybody involved. Now human nature is to mirror people emotionally, especially if you're an empath. So that's why you have to plan ahead of time, respect and love or confused or concerned something a bit neutral. So respect and love might be a little too positive.
Rachel (20:26):
I don't know, but being into a neutral place first works and now they might respond positively. They might respond and say, okay, I get that. I understand that I also wanna resolve this. Sometimes they won't, they might get upset. They might deny what we are, what you're saying. They can, they can do whatever they want. And if they do behave in an upset way and knowing that there's a huge possibility that they will, yes, it's a bummer, but either way, no matter how they respond, you showed up in the most neutral or loving way that you knew how, and you just did the best that you can. And the result is for you. As the person, as the daughter, having the difficult conversation, there's so much peace in that rather than to be angry or the victim that puts him on a defense.
Rachel (21:35):
So those are the five steps I'll go ahead and recap for you. Number one. Well remember the key is to plan ahead of time. Don't approach this person. Don't approach your mama without preparing. So number one, ask yourself what your goal or intention is. Number two is coach yourself or get coach until you feel the way you want to feel about yourself. And her number three is prepare so you can get, facty get all the facts. Okay? Number four, then you can have the conversation you're ready to talk. Number five is choose to be confused or concerned, no matter how they respond. And this is again, a part of planning ahead of time, decide how you're gonna feel no matter how they respond. Okay. I do have some action steps for you. I really want you to write these down somewhere and just get really curious.
New Speaker (22:38):
When we get curious, they're really good thought finders. Like, how would I show up in this situation? Now, if you do this regularly with the little things, you won't have to do it with the big, big, big things as often. It's like that pile of laundry. You're just gonna take care of it right away. Give yourself some practice, write down these steps and prepare. You can have this conversation two weeks down the road, but just prepare. You could have it tomorrow, but just make sure you prepare. Now, if you could use some more coaching on this, you can go to rachelkhudson.Com and click the tab that says work with me and we can schedule a free consultation. Thank you so much for listening today. I will be back next week with more helpful tips, advice and tools so that you can ditch the drama with your mama.
