Feeling Safe To Express Needs

Hello. Happy Friday. I know that it has been a week for myself. I hope that you 're having a good week. I feel like my energy is down today, but I was super excited to hop on here regardless. I just love coming on here. I feel like it feeds me and fuels me and I hope that it does for you too, but I definitely, I feel like this is like a little messed up. There we go. Hey, Rick. I definitely have been feeling a little of exhaustion with the transition, and so taking some deep breaths. I literally took a nap yesterday.

Hey, Nikki. And so I hope you all are feeling energized, or if you're feeling more tired and exhausted, I hope you're taking some time and appreciation for rest. So either way, we have to meet ourselves where we're at, and it's a great segue into expressing our feelings and our needs to others and feeling safe to do so. It's not always easy, but there's a question that I ask myself sometimes, and it's like, "Am I being honest with myself about what I need?" Sometimes it's when we're reaching out to somebody, or there's inner monologue about, "I need to say something," or, "This is bothering me," or, "Why can't I be this way?"

or, "Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh." Sometimes it's a good time to reflect and ask ourselves, "Okay, what do I need right now? What is this telling me right now?" Safety about that doesn't just appear. I feel as though it has to be built. We have to build our ability to recognize we have these needs that might not be being met. We have to be honest with ourselves that, "Okay, I've probably been letting this go a little too long, and now is my time to speak up." The first way that I know that I need to say something is my body.

I feel it in my body. I know myself well enough now that I will get this urge, and then sometimes I don't say anything, and sometimes I do. I think it goes back to who do I feel safe with, and what topic am I bringing up? Sometimes I can feel safe with anybody in the world, but it's an uncomfortable conversation that has to happen. It's always interesting to ask ourselves a question first. So often it's easy to project out onto somebody else, like our partner, our family members, our really close people that, "Well, they should just know.

Why don't they understand that I need this? Or why aren't they asking me?" Nobody's a mind reader. Maybe there are some out there for sure, but it's our job. I'm wondering if you all have this segue or your body tells you, gives you this feedback as to, "Okay, I need to say something," or something's bothering me, and I'm feeling it in my body, or I'm not feeling safe. I'm wondering if anybody has any body cues that they just know, that A, it's time to say something, or B, this is now I have to reflect and think about what I need to say.

It's tricky. Asking for our needs is very difficult, especially as a woman that was not modeled that, or in general, a lot of women don't feel like they can speak up, and I have been working on that myself. I know a lot of my friends have too. It's difficult, especially working in the male-dominated industry for so many years. I know that it's been tough, but I feel it in my body when I know I should have said something, or need to say something, and when I feel that, because the body's very intuitive, we just have to be quiet enough to listen.

When we feel that, it's okay to not say something in the moment. You can always go back, and oft entimes, that is what I do, because I'm a little too afraid. At the time, I didn't quite, you know, something kind of triggered me, and then I'm not quite safe for where I want to be. I'm not as grounded in my body, so then I'll wait, and then bring it up later and say, "Hey, about this situation." I actually wasn't feeling super grounded in my body at the time, and I didn't really feel like I could speak up, but do you have some time and capacity to listen to this now?

And I've had great responses with that. It's not like, "Oh, the moment passed, it doesn't have to happen." There's still opportunity, and it's a great way to build intimacy, and I know with my mother, it's setting a boundary, too, where asking without just dumping, and vice versa. When somebody starts dumping on you, just because you're the safe space for you, it doesn't mean that you have the capacity that day or willingness to hear something, and so there is this inner knowing your body will tell you, and the more we tune into it, the more it will be known, and the more comfortable we can feel moving towards it and with it, and creating more space for ourselves and within our relationships.

And it's a tough time to build that muscle, right? Build that capacity to always bring things up that might be uncomfortable, and I don't mean always, like, you don't want to always be that person, but maybe sometimes that season of the relationship you're in needs it more than others, and so there's no reason that you can't just, "Okay, what am I feeling right now? Let 's invest on the inside. What is going on? Did I not set a boundary? Did I not communicate my needs? Is there some? Am I just extra stressed in my life right now to where my needs are a little more, for a lack of a better word, needy?"

There's all sorts of different situations that life's going to put us through, and I think having a good support system is huge. You know, the safe people in your life are there for a reason, and hey, Christine, and so it's great to build out that community, because sometimes the people that were once safe in a period or chapter of your life, then they end up, you know, moving on or going through other life situations that they cannot be that person anymore, or you just move on or split ways, and your paths aren't crossing anymore, so being a safe space for someone else can provide you with more opportunity to have safe people in your environment to connect with.

I have found that being said, again, life people are coming to your life for reasons, seasons, and all sorts of lessons and things, so keep those safe people around, and Rick says that the stress shows up in my throat and in my voice and sometimes in my shoulders. Yeah, yes, that's a beautiful way. Well, I know it's not fun to feel that, but that is your body's language of telling you, hey, this, something isn't right here, I may have to express a need, I may have to bring this up so that I'm not holding on to it, right?

We don't want to hold on, like that's from personal experience holding on to like grudges or misdoings, or just like I can't believe that person thinks that way, all that stuff literally does no good, but bother me, right? The old saying goes like it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die or something, like very more red, I'm sorry, but that's the one that came to mind. It's just tough, so we have to let that go and listen to our body when it comes up. So listening to our body, having a strong community, just like cadre, we try to create the safest space possible for everybody to communicate what they're going through, what they might need to get support.

It's really a beautiful thing that we have here, and so I hope that there's more of a expansion in growing safe people, safe coaches, just general safety, given the state of the world right now, of course, in just situations, but expanding your network can really help so that you have people, even if it's just a therapist or a coach, that's great. At least having one person that is a safe space to talk to about your stuff is very beneficial in releasing it out of your body, because what doesn't pass through stays stuck inside, and I often journal it, talk it out, move it out.

There's all sorts of different ways we can do it, but having a safe relationship with somebody that you can talk it out is huge, and so I encourage you this week to try to listen to somebody. If someone comes up to you and you can just tell that they're off, or they're tired, they had a long week, it's like, tell me what's going on? And practice being that safe space for somebody, I truly believe it will return in your favor when you need it, then because you've had this practice and you've built this ability to provide safety for others, others will, you know, symbiotically offer the same way, offer the same thing to you, and it's not that it's like a transaction type of relationship, let's not get into the conditional relationships, but what I'm saying is just building the ability so that from like an energy perspective, you are a safe space, and so you will hopefully match with people that are a safe space too.

That being said, one quick topic is sharing ourselves on the socials, that can be tough, and you know, there's reasons and seasons to share your family, to share your relationship, to share your blessings and stuff on the interweb, and that's great, and that's your decision. However, notice what it does before you post, think about what's happening in your body. Do you feel safe posting it? And I always go by the principle like, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, I think it was so. Some philosopher said that, but I just adore it, and when we feel safe, we can truly communicate our authentic selves, and if we 're not feeling safe, then it's more of like this performance or this like projection, and a lot of people are projecting, let's just get that out and open, a lot of people are projecting, and as part of human, human development, and our psyche and holding on to stuff, but if we're safe and we ground and we take inventory, if we build our capacity to have more and more safety, as we expand our growth and our comfort zones a little bit bigger, we can slowly let go of the portraying of what we want to be or need to be, and allow our truth to really emerge out into this like creative field that is social media.

The other thing I want to mention is we have boundaries in social media. You can follow whatever you want , and you can mute accounts or black people, anything, anything that doesn't suit you or triggers you, you can do that. The other thing is you can build your algorithm into a whole new algorithm pretty quickly, just within a few days. It can be a beneficial thing, but it's also, do I need this relationship with social media right now? We can take breaks and do things like that, and that would be a practice in expressing needs with yourself, which arguably is one of the most important, because if you don't know your own needs, you can 't expect others to understand or ask you or anything like that.

And expressing our internal needs with ourselves through reflection or a lot of the things I mentioned in therapy and all that, it will put us in a in a aligned place so that our output is good, it's pure, it's helpful, it's not, again, it's kind, it's true, it's there. In my belly is where Nicki feels the stress. Yeah, yeah, that's some people may call that like a gut feeling, like people just have this sensation, and that's always a great thing to follow, unless you have been eating like crap would be my one thing to like maybe question it a little bit, if you haven't, you just haven't been eating well, just because your gut is your second brain, it has the second most neurons in your body, and nine times out of ten, yes, go with your gut, but if there's been, if you've been off kilter, like, you know, you're never your sharpest after you've been on a vacation eating all these random foods, because you want to try everything that they have to offer, there's just a lot going on there.

So sometimes my gut isn't always right, but overall, yeah, trust yourself and trust your gut , I believe in that. And if that proves to be true for you, keep giving the feedback for that, like your body is going to listen. And so that's a great point, Nicki, thank you for bringing that up. So I'll close with this, is that trusting ourselves, taking inventory on where it's showing up in our body, when we feel safe or not, being very familiar with when our body is in this safe state or not safe state, so that we can make better informed decisions.

And when we talk to people, we are trying to be a safe space for them so that we can continue to build our safe space people and community around us. You know, what we send out ripples even farther, so it's just a good practice to be in. And let's always try to incorporate, why are we doing something? Why are we saying this? Why do we feel like we need to express this need to somebody? Like, what is happening here? And hopefully, you know, make sure they're in a good mood or in a good space to receive it because everybody's overstressed right now.

Everybody is, you know, there's just a collective energy of worry and of hopelessness and things like that. And so really tuning into the right time of when you can bring something up like a heavy conversation like that. But if you do, it will not, very often, it will strengthen your relationship. It will strengthen the intimacy. It will enhance trust. It will free you from the mon ologue of you constantly rehearsing it or need to talk about it or be bothered by it. And so when you feel safe and when you feel ready, I just encourage you to speak your needs without shrinking.

Be in your power. You can even do the the Ted Lasso, like get really big. Like, once she goes into the board meeting and stuff, that's one of my favorite scenes. But that is the truth. Like, own it when you have these conversations, go with the open heart and express yourself authentically without needing to shrink down and make excuses or anything. So is there anything else you guys would add when you have these difficult conversations that they just have to kind of be set, right? There's things going on.

There's dynamics. There's family dynamics and people are evolving and changing. And so the dynamics change. And sometimes we have to bring it up so that we can all grow in a trajectory that is mutually satisfying rather than myself and then yourself growing that way. That's an easy way for people to grow apart. So yeah, we'd love to hear your thoughts. If you have any insight as to use types of conversations that are difficult to have, but a time that you did it and it worked out wonderfully, would love to hear it in the comments.

But that's really, hi Adam. That's really the message for today is feel into your body. Notice when you're safe, find your safe people and speak your needs without shrinking. So I hope everybody has a wonderful rest of their afternoon and headed into the weekend. So great to see you all on here. My name is Bree. Would love to connect outside of here if you ever are wanting to join in on some coaching that's available here. Otherwise, I will see you hopefully next week, next Friday. We'll be right back at it.

So enjoy. Yep. And Rick says they're not easy, but we grow through them. Yes, we grow through those uncomfortable conversations, but they do open the pathway for for more expansion and joy and in our lives. I would agree with the growth. So perfect. Well, that is my time. Thank you all so much. Hope everyone has an awesome day. App reciate you. Go give someone some love or a peace sign or love heart.