Pod Insights Podcast Business News Network 14226 Steve Harper Interviews Susan Engel Psychotherapist, Social Worker and Certified EMDR Clinician About this episode https://susanengel-lcsw.com/ Listen to us live on mytuner-radio, onlineradiobox, fmradiofree.com and streema.com (the simpleradio app)https://onlineradiobox.com/search?cs=us.pbnnetwork1&q=podcast%20business%20news%20network&c=ushttps://www.fmradiofree.com/search?q=podcast+business+news+networkhttps://mytuner-radio.com/search/?q=business+news+networkhttps://streema.com/radios/search/?q=podcast+business+news+network
Transcript 0:05 Speaker 00 Broadcasting from the business capital of the world, this is the Podcast Business News Network. Why do we do this? This thing, we've all done it, maybe you even did it today, but why do we feel the need to do this? Prove yourself, prove yourself to others, maybe even prove something to yourself. We're going to talk about that today. What motivates us in that direction? What's actually coming up for us that we don't even realize? Well, she does. She's an amazing psychotherapist, works with basically anybody, individuals, teens, couples, move their life forward, and always love having her on here.
0:49 Speaker 00 She is wonderful when it comes to her advice. Suzy Engel on the program. How are you doing today?
0:54 Speaker 01 I'm great, Steve. How are you?
0:57 Speaker 00 Good, good. This is when you start thinking about it, it could be almost on a daily basis that you feel the need, whether you realize it or not, to prove yourself, right?
1:09 Speaker 01 Yeah, I mean, well, I mean, it may be conscious, it may be unconscious, it may be in our awareness, it may be, we may be unaware of it, but I think it's a really important conversation if we delve into what are the mechanics of proving ourselves to others? Now, there's a difference between saying, "I want to prove myself to myself," that's this intrinsic motivation, which I think is really healthy. "I want to prove myself to myself, I want to set this personal bar for myself," but when it comes to the need to prove myself to others, that's where I think we should
1:54 Speaker 01 have a more...
1:58 Speaker 01 Delicate conversation about it because it seems to me that it's a either it's a need for external approval.
2:07 Speaker 00 Hmm.
2:08 Speaker 01 Which could be lopsided in people's lives. I mean, maybe we all need a little bit of that at some point. Mostly babies need that and toddlers need that. But once we get past age four, we should be able to start balancing like a seesaw, balancing that out. And it may be also a defense to prove myself to others. I'm on the defense.
2:32 Speaker 00 Yeah, you know, it it does it come from a place of inadequacy when you feel that you need to prove yourself?
2:39 Speaker 01 Yeah, and which is speaking to this in-depth qua um core self-worth. And if I feel inadequate compared to other people and I'm putting myself below other people, that's an unconscious thing, but it happens. It's my negative false belief system about myself. And I'm going to say negative false belief system because there's no healthy baby who is born with that belief system. We are born with a blueprint to feel right about ourselves. That's why people start with symptoms of depression and anxiety because
3:22 Speaker 01 our bodies are saying we're not feeling right about ourselves.
3:25 Speaker 00 So how do you know that you're trying to prove yourself or just do your job or do the right thing? So for example, let's say you've been in your field for 20 years, hypothetical, anything. And let's say you own a business and you're working with clients, but you you find yourself going a little above and beyond all the time, where that's nice, you care about the client. But are you doing it because you feel that you continuously need to prove yourself, prove your worth? You don't want to lose the client. So you overcompensate. You probably don't need to. They've been with you for a long time. So
4:06 Speaker 00 they probably love you. It's all good. They trust you. They have faith in you. But you're always like, I need a little bit more. Let me like super serve. And I get you really want to keep your client happy. But
4:18 Speaker 01 No, we don't.
4:20 Speaker 00 I'll shut up now.
4:22 Speaker 01 We do not want to keep our clients happy. I mean, that is not the goal, right? But, but if, if I were in some other profession and I go above and beyond. But even if it is this profession, personally, I'm required to take continuing education. I go above and beyond the amount of continuing education for myself, for my own professional growth, because there's unlimited knowledge and more and more knowledge coming up in our profession. So I do go above and beyond. But is it to keep a client happy? Absolutely not.
5:07 Speaker 01 Is it to prove something to the clients? Absolutely not.
5:12 Speaker 00 But, but what if it, okay, you know, I mean-
5:16 Speaker 01 I know myself well enough.
5:17 Speaker 00 You're, you're not doing that, but what about if somebody is? And now we're talking about this and then they're seeing this through a different lens and they're thinking to themselves, maybe I am doing that. Do I really need to? I mean, I take care of them. I do a fine job. They've been happy with me for years, but I always like a little bit extra. Let me get a little bit extra. And maybe you are trying to prove yourself because it comes from a place of lack in terms of your feelings about yourself and, and all of that from back in the day.
5:48 Speaker 01 Yeah. And then, and so we're talking about the foundation of attachment and have I internalized inadequacy, nothing is enough, not good enough? Or in general, we could just speak about insecurity. If I feel insecure about myself unconsciously, I might be driven in that direction, but it's not in a helpful way. The helpful way is to identify that I'm fear-based and I'm worried that these customers, or if it's a clientele, or if it's a following.
6:31 Speaker 01 I'm fear based that they'll abandon me or fire me or find somebody better. And that's coming from a fear based place.
6:43 Speaker 00 Yeah.
6:43 Speaker 01 And if if people are listening to this conversation right now, they can reflect on their own situation. And am I doing something to prove to others? Or am I just letting myself flourish and be as professional as I can be?
7:02 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
7:02 Speaker 01 And be at good service to others as I can be because I have a strong foundation.
7:08 Speaker 00 Right, right. Just do a good job, which is what we're all gonna do. But not go the extra mile every. I can see every occasionally. Hey, you know what? I took care of that for you. Um, I I saw I needed to and it's all good. Or hey, am I gonna charge you for that, whatever it is? But if you find yourself continually, you know, going extra, going extra, going extra, maybe you might want to take a look at that.
7:30 Speaker 01 Yes, and I like the way you're wording that because it brings some clarity to a fundamental clinical theme, being overly responsible at your own expense.
7:44 Speaker 00 Hmm.
7:45 Speaker 01 So I might, so if I were in the service business, I remember because I'm a chef as well. So I had a food business for twenty two years.
7:53 Speaker 00 Oh, wow.
7:54 Speaker 01 And and my food shop was phenomenal. Everything I made homemade. Everything was on display. I had a regular small menu, a little glass top tables, beautiful, beautiful decor. Just one of a kind because I cooked everything and every baked everything.
8:14 Speaker 01 I remember a salesperson came in and he was selling some sort of beverage at the time that was really up and coming and popular. And on his way out, after I had ordered from him, he grabbed a brownie and a drink and walked out. And I had a line of customers, so I couldn't say, yo, I'm charging for that. Because just because I put in an order didn't mean I was gonna give and give and give.
8:47 Speaker 01 To prove myself as a chef or as a business owner.
8:51 Speaker 00 I can't even like just he picked up things and just walked out like, hey, thanks. Have a great day.
8:57 Speaker 01 Yeah, he said, oh, thanks for the order. And then he grabs a drink from my open beverage thing, grabs a wrapped homemade brownie and took off. And I was just insulted and disgusted.
9:11 Speaker 00 I have no words for that. It's almost the the level of entitlement in that situation.
9:17 Speaker 01 Yeah. And so when he came back, like four months later for a reorder or two months later for a reorder, guess what? I charged him. I charged him for it. I said, before we do anything, you walked out with a drink and a brownie. And that's $7.99 right there.
9:39 Speaker 00 I I I can't I'm like.
9:43 Speaker 01 But but if you reverse the situation and I was a fear-based business owner, placed an order with the salesperson and said, hey, let me let me give you a treat today and have at it. Grab a drink, grab a dessert. That's a different scenario. I would be coming from inadequacy and insecurity.
10:08 Speaker 00 Well, isn't it also, um, in a way, people pleasing? If you did that, you would be trying to please them above and beyond. All right, you're buying from them. But it's almost as if like in your mind, I'm all hypothetical here. In your mind, you might be saying, well, you know what? I always want to keep them in my corner. You know, they're a good vendor. Um, and and and I want them to be on my side. So, yeah, you know, grab a brownie and a drink on the way out on me.
10:37 Speaker 01 Do you really? People. So people pleasing. So this goes back to the beginning of our conversation. People pleasing is a defense as well.
10:49 Speaker 01 So if I have a need to prove myself to others, whether I'm scrambling as a student and want to prove my level of intelligence, so I try to, you know, embellish how I express myself, or whether I'm a business owner, of course, I want to have good relationships, both with my customers, with my vendors, but I don't need to pay them for that. My being a good customer to them is being a good person,
11:26 Speaker 00 Right.
11:26 Speaker 01 first of all, and paying my bill on time.
11:29 Speaker 00 I was gonna say the same exact thing.
11:32 Speaker 01 That is a good relationship.
11:34 Speaker 00 Your job, they're doing their job, and there's nothing wrong with saying, "Hey, insert name of vendor, I have a new recipe for these brownies.
11:45 Speaker 01 Yes.
11:45 Speaker 00 Give it a try. Love you to try it."
11:47 Speaker 01 That's different. That's different. Right.
11:49 Speaker 00 But how do you know what you're doing? Is it really keep tabs on the frequency? If you find yourself, you know, giving things away, overdoing it, working more attention to people than you really need to? Is it really just come down to frequency? If you're doing more of that than you really should?
12:09 Speaker 01 Well, I think it comes down to a lot of things, you know. So let's shift from giving perks to, if somebody asks me a s- well, let's, I don't really want to use myself, but if we think of just a general hypothetical,
12:31 Speaker 00 Sure.
12:31 Speaker 01 where, you know, a group of friends are meeting new groups of friends or new friends.
12:40 Speaker 01 And the conversation doesn't feel organic. It doesn't feel natural, like, hey, you're not gonna believe what happened this morning. On my way to work, da-da-da-da-da, or on my way to the gym, da-da-da-da-da. That's an organic conversation in a social si- setting, or in any setting, as far as I'm concerned. But if the friends are all uncomfortable, they might start saying so. They might start asking questions in an interrogating way. And so then it's like, the person on the receiving end may not notice that they're defensive and they're just answering to all these questions from this new friend,
13:25 Speaker 01 instead of there being some sort of back-and-forth conversation, getting to know each other. It's more like, what's your name, where did you go to college? What's your profession, what's this, what's that, like, proving yourself. And if I'm quick on that, I might shift and say something personal about my day, just to get off of that, uh, type of conversation. I don't know if this is landing with you, or with the audience right now, but I, I think people are, there are types of people who are very good at asking certain questions,
14:08 Speaker 01 and the other person falling into the defense of answering to them and explaining themselves. And it's not fun.
14:20 Speaker 00 It's not, it's, it's, it's almost as if you're re-proving yourself in every situation, even though you may have the relationship with that person for quite some time. But, it's, you know, I'm seeing a lot here, over-explaining, um.
14:36 Speaker 01 People-pleasing.
14:37 Speaker 00 The people-pleasing, uh, prove-yourself connection. I didn't even connect that here, but that's, that's big right there.
14:44 Speaker 01 Huge. And the, when you asked, is it just frequency, like, how do we measure it? What I ask my clients, I mean, not my social, not friends, not family, I'm not their therapist, but clients, I might say.
15:03 Speaker 01 When they're describing an awkward situation and they're just uncomfortable about it and they're not sure if they want to pursue this relationship or this friendship or whatever it is. I ask them, go back to that situation and notice what your body felt like. And they start describing, instead of just saying, I felt very weird, da, da, da, da, da. They start saying, oh, I, I felt tension. I feel tension in my chest or my shoulders or in my gut. I feel tension. That means the defenses are getting riled up.
15:43 Speaker 01 And if we notice that first, then we know we don't have to answer to all of this or prove ourselves. We can just backtrack and pause.
15:55 Speaker 00 You need to feel it. I'm getting that too. And I got even a real example. Um, I have a small business, marketing company, couple of decades doing that. And saw a client early this morning, they asked me to come in, they had some tech issues. I was there for about an hour and a half. And first thing in the morning, I'm not charging them for that. But there's a piece in me that says, if this continues to be a challenge for them, I need to start charging for my time. Now, fixing this issue helps me in other areas where I am being compensated. So that's all good. But I am listening to myself saying, if this continues, then I, I don't feel good about just showing up and helping you out.
16:40 Speaker 00 Now it becomes more of my time, so I need to be compensated. But I'm fine today, hour and a half, no, no problem, because it's all part of working together. But I'm listening to myself and hearing it inside saying, mm, let's keep an eye on that right there. It's all good, it's all good, no issues whatsoever.
16:56 Speaker 01 And this is a good example. Because the next time this person calls with the same, you know, it's kind of like a personal relationship. If somebody is acting like they need you, which they very melt, um, very well might need you. But you're talking about a professional, but it could also be a personal situation. Then you might set a boundary and say, hey, you know, I was happy to work this through with you this time. But I do charge, in general, I charge. And this is what the fee would be. You would say that at the get go.
17:38 Speaker 01 Now, a personal relationship is a little tricky because somebody might be repetitive in how they pull you, you or anyone, not you personally, I'm not saying you personally. But how one is pulled into a situation. And that becomes codependence because then the people pleasing defense wants to be helpful and be, you know, come to the rescue, whatever is going on unconsciously. But the issue is, it's not helping the person. If we care about this friend, we might delve into it a different way, instead of just giving solutions.
18:23 Speaker 01 We might say, well, how are you thinking? And we've talked about this. How are you thinking of handling it? What do you think is going on that's similar to the last time we were discussing it? And I'm not saying this in a therapeutic way. I'm saying this in a friendly way.
18:41 Speaker 00 Hmm. I, you know, like, like our parents used to say, and it's a cliche. You give them an inch, they'll take a mile. So it'll, it also turns into that if you don't put up the boundaries, right?
18:54 Speaker 01 Yeah. Well, and I don't, I think of giving an inch and they take a mile more about the parenting and the child. And then you have this 12 year old who doesn't want to do anything with you. And you look back and say, oh, no wonder. Like, I supported it. I gave into it. Oh, you don't want to do what you don't want to do? Which is also on my list of podcast topics for us. That we didn't get to.
19:20 Speaker 00 It's true and it's real. But if, if, if you are the person where somebody relies on you for something.
19:29 Speaker 00 And you help them out with it. Maybe at some point, maybe you overdid it because you want to show your value. Prove yourself. But now they ask again. They ask again for more. They ask again for more. It's not their issue. Isn't it on you?
19:45 Speaker 01 It's my issue if I keep running at their beck and call.
19:48 Speaker 00 Right, right. And why would we be doing that? Because we're trying to prove ourselves.
19:56 Speaker 01 And it's a dependence. So it goes back to this unconscious feeling of insecurity. Because that's all it is. Whether it's inadequacy, whether I'm not good enough. All those things fall into the same bin of some type or flavor of insecurity that starts way early on. Babyhood, toddlerhood and on. And if we become aware of it, then we or I listen to podcasts like this, we start hearing our own solutions. Like, stop.
20:32 Speaker 00 Well, we started talking with people, not people pleasing, with trying to prove yourself. Proving ourselves. But then, in talking here today, I see the connection to the people pleaser. And so many of us have that in us.
20:49 Speaker 01 Yes, and their defenses. So if our parents raise us and say, I wasn't really raised like this, like be, you know, be a good. Well, every girl is kind of raised like this, like be a good girl. But if you're raised to be quiet and be good so that you're shining a proper reflection on me, the parent, which is really unhealthy. You know, a lot of parents are unconscious of this. If the child is developing a defense to be people pleasing.
21:33 Speaker 01 And it serves them well because they're satisfying their mothers and fathers or caregivers. And they're societally acceptable. People like this well behaved, obedient, under the radar person.
21:48 Speaker 00 Mm hmm.
21:49 Speaker 01 And eh, but, but you see how it becomes a defense to satisfy or prove myself to somebody outside of myself. And then in adulthood, we're trying to prove ourselves to everybody. And that's not, that's why it's not.
22:06 Speaker 01 Does it make sense?
22:08 Speaker 00 And it goes back to our childhood ultimately, doesn't it? Most times.
22:12 Speaker 01 It's the, it's the paradigm. Our childhood experiences are the schema, are the ways we organize and figure out the key to life. And when it's a little off or not good enough, then we're in therapy for certain symptoms, whether it's depression, anxiety, it doesn't matter. We could be pulling our hair, we could have a needing disorder. All these symptoms speak to.
22:42 Speaker 00 Yes.
22:42 Speaker 01 What started.
22:43 Speaker 00 And isn't it a shame? Isn't it a shame that that stuff from your childhood? And, and again, we've talked about this before. It could be a comment you heard pass in the kitchen, not even for you. You retained it. It impacted you.
22:57 Speaker 01 Internalized.
22:58 Speaker 00 Look at all the time you may have wasted in your life. Proving yourself, being the people pleaser. And if it's, it's feeling that way, therapy, talk about it. This is what you do. Suzie or Susan Engel dash L C S W dot com, right?
23:17 Speaker 01 Yes, yes.
23:18 Speaker 00 And just for, just for everybody, Susan Engel, E N G E L. Um, always great having you on here.
23:25 Speaker 01 Thanks.
23:27 Speaker 00 Like just, I have epiphanies from time to time and, and validation too. Uh, every good, every time we dig into one of these topics and looking forward next time we do.
23:35 Speaker 01 It's good for the public.
23:37 Speaker 00 It's, yeah, it's good. We all figure it out. And it's not, you know, we share some stuff from us, but it's not about us. It's stories that you share that others that.
23:45 Speaker 01 Human life.
23:47 Speaker 00 Commonality.
23:48 Speaker 01 And growing.
23:49 Speaker 00 Yeah, yep.
23:52 Speaker 01 Thank you.
23:53 Speaker 00 I love talking with you.
23:54 Speaker 01 Thank you.
23:55 Speaker 00 They're flagging me like you're out of time. We could just keep going. I mean, because
23:59 Speaker 01 You're going like
24:00 Speaker 00 Getting that. I get, this is what I get. That means you gotta go. So we will, and we'll catch up next time.
24:06 Speaker 01 Thank you.
24:13 Speaker 00 Broadcasting from the business capital of the world. This is the Podcast Business News Network.
24:20 Speaker 02 This is you over 30 years ago.
24:22 Speaker 03 Are we there yet?
24:26 Speaker 03 Are we there yet?
24:31 Speaker 02 And this is your mom when you drive her back from therapy.
24:34 Speaker 04 Are we there yet?
24:37 Speaker 04 Are we there yet?
24:41 Speaker 04 Are we there yet?
24:43 Speaker 02 Roles change without us noticing. And in your new role, we help you help. AARP gives you the information to help care for your mom so that you can have patience with her, just like she did with you. Visit aarp.org/caregiving or call 1-877-333-5885 to get practical health and wellness tips to provide even better care for your loved one.
25:08 Speaker 04 Are we there yet?
25:09 Speaker 02 Remember, visit aarp.org/caregiving. AARP, we help you help. A public service announcement brought to you by AARP and the Ad Council.
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