Live with Dr.Charryse 🧠 : “How Giving A Hint Of Hope (H.O.H.) can Impact Your Mental Health”

Kaidra Sphere. Welcome to another opportunity for us to be together. I'm so glad that you chose to come and show up today. How are you really? I want you to think about that in two ways. How are you physically? If you could rate your physical health 1 to 5, 1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest, where would you rate yourself? How are you mentally? Right. Same rating, one being the lowest, five being the highest. I always want us to find these very quick and simple ways to check in and really take inventory here in the middle of the week.

As you can see, I'm not in my normal spot. I'm in the incredible and amazing city of Philly. And for all those that live nearby and are like, you didn't tell me you were coming. Sorry, but I'll only be here for a quick overnight, getting ready to do a training with an organization here downtown. And what a view. Can I just tell you that I'm going to stay on track, but I want to turn my camera and let you see the view from the top of the city. That being said, if this is your first time here, I'm so glad that you're here.

I'm Dr. Charisse Johnson. I'm a licensed clinical mental health therapist, a mindfulness practitioner and author, and I come here twice a week for us to engage conversation around our truth, around our traumas and around life so that we're cultivating both peace and harmony in our life as long as we're willing to take action in our life. For our focus of today. I want to talk about a hint of hope. And you might think I'm going to say something that is a hint of hope, meaning stay hopeful and have gratitude.

Thank you for those that are giving hearts to let me know that you're here. But this is a little spin on it that came from a conversation that I had with a dear friend who's actually usually on here on Cadre Caine 1906. Right. So this person mentioned something and they were talking about being in connection with someone and being careful not to give the wrong people a hint of hope. Hoh. And I was like, wait a minute now. There wasn't a concept in as I thought about it that like I'd never heard of.

But the way it was put, like, I need you to write that down. Hoh. Hint of hope. Here's the spin that I want to take on it or how I want to elaborate on our conversation. We often give people a hint of hope at our own expense. So giving the wrong people a hint of hope is actually a form of emotional avoidance. It usually happens when we're in situations where we don't feel comfortable, where we want to avoid conflict, where we fear what might happen if we don't make the situation safe for us. So I want you to consider a few things before I give you six ways that we give people a hint of hope and talk about how it impacts our mental health.

First, give me a heart or some emoji if you've ever been in a situation where you know, yes, I gave someone hope around a situation that I knew I wanted to be different because I just didn't want to handle the moment. I've done it. The other thing I want you to consider is what kind of people influence you to do something like that. And what I mean by that is, typically, if we give people a hint of hope because we're trying to brace for something or make sure something doesn't happen, it's because there's some level of fear there.

There's something about you and that person or that system that you're a part of that makes you feel unsafe. So we emotionally avoid. We say things and we do things that aren't truly representative of who we are. And then we find ourselves in a really difficult situation. Here's another way it can happen. You can have a friend circle and be giving off hints of hope, and you're with them. And while you're with them, you also kind of know, these are not my people. Something about them doesn't sit well with me.

We're really different. I don't enjoy us the way I used to. I've changed, I've healed, I've moved on. But you continue to be in contact with them because you just don't want to be the person to create that space which gives them hope for a future relationship with you, even though you're slowly backing away. Here's how it impacts us a few different ways. One, giving people a hint of hope and it coming at your own expense can make you feel physically unwell. Have you ever had that happen where you're in connection with someone and you know, just your conversation with them, your interaction with them, it starts to make your stomach turn, might get a little sweaty, your heart is starting to beat fast because you're bracing for what you feel like you're going to need to do in order to get out of that moment.

So there's a physical aspect that can cause stress to your body when you give the wrong people a hint of hope. It also can create what we Call cognitive dissonance. So think dissonance, distance. When we give people a hint of hope, we are in relationships giving false hope in order to keep ourselves safe. We then distance cognitively, dissonance ourselves away from our truth. So the more false hope you give, the less you are honoring what is really happening for you and what your true needs are.

You may even find yourself in a situation where you're around someone and you realize, I'm not myself when I'm with them. You're a version of yourself, right? But you realize that you filter, you dial down, you play small, you withhold parts of yourself because you don't feel like it's going to be accepted. That is a part of cognitive dissonance. And then it makes you trying to write that situation feel even worse and even bigger. That also then leads to a level of self deception. And that is so real and so hard.

What's extremely hard about it is the moment that you stop deceiving yourself and then you feel a lot of guilt and a lot of shame around ways that you put blinders on or put a mask over your face and didn't allow yourself to be honest about what was going on for you. And self deception leads to the third kind of dynamic for us, internal conflict. So you're in your head, you're in your thoughts, you're constantly second guessing yourself, you are replaying every single thing that you've said and you don't feel good or confident about who you are.

An internal conflict. If we take it from mental to physical impacts, our appetite impacts, our eating patterns. Consider this. Let's say there's a situation where you're getting ready to engage with someone that you love, right? Someone that you love could be a family member, could be a partner or a spouse, but you don't want to be honest about how you feel. And so you get into conversation with them. Your stomach hurts, your heart is beating out of your chest, you're pretending to be more calm than you actually are.

And you give them a hint of hope that you're on board for whatever they're talking about. And then you feel awful because you know there's going to be a point where you're going to have to come back to them and say, I don't really want to do this, I don't really think this is a good idea. And you're afraid to hurt their feelings. And that can happen for a couple reasons. Maybe you just knew and recognized they were so excited and that's okay. But you don't want to honor someone's excitement while invalidating yourself.

We often mean well. We really do a lot of times mean well. But we also hope that the situation will work itself out without us having to do anything. So I'm going to give you your reflection question before I give you the six ways that you may be giving a hint of hope to the wrong people. I want you to reflect over the next week and ask yourself, are there any situations where I'm giving a hint of hope that is causing me conflict, internal conflict? To yourself, it's not a conflict yet because you're just saying what people want and showing up the way that they want.

But as a result of that, you are exhausting yourself. You are overwhelmed. You are having an extremely difficult time. Where do you notice you are giving a hint of hope that is causing internal conflict and making it emotionally challenging for yourself? Just want you to reflect on that. This will be a part two we're going to talk about the what and how it impacts us. And then when I come back next Wednesday, I'll give you some strategies on how you can move away from giving false hope and moving to being more direct and communicative despite the circumstances and despite the fears of how things will turn out.

So six ways that you may be giving a hint of hope to the wrong people at your own expense. Number one not communicating your needs. You have needs. Even if you don't want to have needs, you have them. We all have them. It's important for us to not only be able to identify our needs, but it's also important for us to make sure that we're communicating those needs, especially to the people that are involved in helping us meet them or or the people that could get in the way of us not being able to meet our needs.

Even as simple as a need for space or a need for attention, which is not a wrong need, let me say. A need to be talked to kindly, a need to be respected, a need to feel valued. Reflection Question number one where or what needs are you not communicating? What needs are you not communicating? And then if you're really brave, you can ask yourself and answer why. Number two Telling someone what they want of here is given hoh a hint of hope. You are coming into a conversation saying what you know someone wants to hear, even though you know, let's be real, that you don't fully align with what you're saying.

It's not terrible, but you have different thoughts. Maybe you're in a work situation where you're like, they don't listen to us anyway, so I just tell people what they want to hear. I get it. I really do get it. In theory. However, it also enables the system to continue and the system got there because people refuse or aren't honest about what they feel. And then you end up leaving or finding yourself in a really awful situation where you feel like you can't stay. Number three, Pretending things are fine.

Someone is reaching out to you and asking you what's going on. You seem different and you are self protecting and pretending things are fine. If you've done that, heart me because I know you have. I've done it. I have done it. Now. I do think that there are moments where you may choose to go for now, I am fine. And it can be appropriate as long as you come back to it as soon as possible. Right? Because timing does matter. Someone asks you that question, you're in the middle of somewhere where you're like this isn't the time or the place to get into this conversation, but appropriate.

But then the minute you get into a place where it is appropriate, it is your personal responsibility to go, hey, you asked me a question. It wasn't the right time to get into it and I felt like it needed more time than what we could give it at the moment. So now I want to come back to it. Pretending you are fine. I could do a whole live on that and how destructive that can be to your emotional well being because it is rooted in self deception. It is rooted in cognitive dissonance. You're also giving yourself hope that you're going to be fine about situations you know that you're not and then that festers and it builds up and it will impact your relationship with yourself and it'll impact your relationship with other people.

Number four Delaying the truth to avoid conflict. So pretending you're fine and delaying the truth to avoid conflict are similar, but the difference is delaying the truth to avoid conflict will typically last longer. So it's here. Number four. A pattern of behavior where you wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait until you absolutely have no choice. Because you are terrified of being in any situation that will cause conflict that you don't want to experience. Number five. Refusing not to talk about your feelings.

So again, you know exactly how you feel, you know exactly what you think, you know exactly what you need, but you just flat out refuse, shut down, overcompensate in other areas and won't productively come into a conversation if that's you, depending upon who it's with or the dynamic, have another person there that you trust. Can, you know, kind of play mediator. Whether that means you go to counseling, whether that means you pull in an executive or another professional, somebody that you feel like can be objective to try to help you both translate.

But it is extremely important to make sure that you don't refuse, because problems can't be solved or addressed if you're unwilling to talk about them. And number six, allowing yourself to be manipulated by the demands of others. So people say things to you, oh, well, I wish you would do that for me. And so then you go do things for them that you don't really want to do and they're capable of doing themselves. I want you to think on number six, allowing yourself to be impacted or influenced by passive aggressive people.

You fully recognize their passive aggressive ways, and you give them a hint of hope by following through with what they want. And it gives them hope because then they're like, cool, I now know what to do in order to get this person to do what I want. But then you're left with all the feelings that come from that passive aggressive behavior, and then they escalate if you ever try to step out of that pattern. All right, so for today, all I want you to do is replay this as necessary. Have you noticed that you can now rewind and fast forward the lives?

So excited about that. So if you want to replay a portion or you want to pause it and then go forward as you're taking notes, you can do that now. Thank you, Cadre. Replay this as necessary and really look for where you see yourself in some of these behaviors and patterns. Take some time to reflect on, where am I giving the wrong people a hint of hope? And instead, where do you need to be giving that hope to yourself? Right? And then come back. Come back next week and we will talk about if you recognize and see yourself in this.

Now what do you do? I'm gonna tell you, but not today. All right, have a great day and I will see you on Friday.