If you're ready to reflect, laugh a little bit, and see what you're really made of, you're in the right place. Let's dive in. Do you think that intruders like jam on their toast along with butter, or just plain butter?
I mean, I don't think you could go wrong with jam, but some people are picky. Sometimes all I want is butter on my toast, too, so I don't blame them. But it's always nice to ask, right?
I know, I know, it sounds absurd to want to make the criminal comfortable, especially while they're literally breaking into your home. But that criminal isn't just a criminal. There's a person behind that black ski mask.
We gotta make sure that they're feeling comfortable while committing crimes. Still not following me? Okay.
Imagine that you're at home chilling. The morning sun is streaming in through the windows. Air smells of freshly brewed coffee and bacon.
You're wearing your favorite fuzzy slippers and silk pajamas. It's the type of morning that main characters in movies have.
You're sitting at your kitchen island, going through your Pinterest board, collecting inspiring and aesthetic photos when you hear glass shattering from the living room. You instinctively duck behind the island.
While you're hiding, you hear what sounds like a person walking through the living room, and whoever it is, is heading straight for the kitchen. To try to get a better view of who it is, you crawl around the island and take a peek.
As you look around the island, you glance upwards, but as you do, you lock eyes with a man in a black ski mask. He jumps and yells, What the hell are you doing in here? To which you reply, Shoot, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you.
Would you like me to leave so you can do your thing, or is it okay if I just stay here and finish my coffee? Mr. Ski Mask tells you that he doesn't care, and that you should just shut up so that he can do what he came here for.
Reasonable request, right? You make the motion that you're zipping your mouth shut and locking it, and then you open your mouth back up to swallow the key.
As the masked man is starting to destroy your home, smashing glasses, tearing open drawers, the works, he pauses, takes a minute to look around.
While he's taking his sweet time, you hear a weird gurgling noise and realize that it's coming from the guy's stomach. You put two and two together and realize that this man is hungry.
The poor guy probably didn't even get to eat breakfast on his way to your place. That means that this man broke in on an empty stomach. How did he even muster enough energy for that?
Hopefully he has enough to continue with what he's doing. You realize that you're literally standing in the kitchen and can solve this guy's problem, at least the hunger problem.
He probably has a lot of other problems considering that he's breaking in and destroying and stealing things.
You speak up and say, hey, I noticed that your stomach growled, and I know you told me to stay quiet, but I can't bear to think that you're doing all of this on an empty stomach. If you have any allergies, definitely let me know.
But I can make you some pancakes or scrambled eggs or bacon or toast. Do you like toast? I have some homemade jam, and I also have butter.
Whatever you would like. I'd be happy to get it for you. Oh, I also have apple juice and orange juice and milk, or if you just want water, I can get that too.
The man in the mask looks at you like you're a complete idiot for a second before going, you know what? Toast and homemade jam doesn't sound half bad right now. Thank goodness that this man is letting you take care of him.
He deserves it after all of his hard work. You whip up some toast, spread some butter and jam on it, and put it on a plate before sliding it over to him, where he is now sitting at the island.
After he finishes his toast, he smashes the plate on the floor and goes back to his bad guy business.
Which it may have seemed rude that he smashed the plate on the floor, but maybe he didn't know where the sink was, and it's a lot better than throwing it at you, right? Either way, Mr.
Ski Mask walks back into the living room and exclaims that you have a very nice TV. He then proceeds to pick the TV up, which is a difficult task because it is pretty big, but he's doing a great job.
Even though he's doing a great job, you know how much that TV costs, so you tell him, hey, I know that's a great TV and all, but it was really expensive, and I worked really hard to have enough money to buy it, so if you could take whatever you want besides that. Again, he looks at you like you're a complete idiot. He walks into the kitchen and grabs a knife from the knife block before walking back over to where you're standing in the living room.
He goes up behind you and puts one arm around you, and with the other arm, he wraps it around you so that he's holding the knife to your throat. You start to feel guilty because, come on, look how frustrated you're making him.
You tell him, look, I'm sorry, it's just that the TV was really expensive, and I really don't want to have to buy another one, and I'm not trying to inconvenience you at all, but like the TV was expensive.
Before you could even finish your sentence, he growls in your ear, I thought I told you to shut up.
To which you reply, I know, and I'm sorry, but the TV, you can't get any more words out because he has started to press the knife down harder on your throat. Go to the kitchen and wait there until I'm done. Don't say another word, the man tells you.
Well, now you've done it, look how stressed out this guy is. You don't want to stress him out anymore, so you go to the kitchen and sit down like you were told.
After a couple more hours of this man breaking things and taking whatever he wants, he finally leaves. And you know what? Some people would lock the door to make sure that he didn't come back again.
Not you though. No, you leave the door unlocked because what if that man gets hungry again? Later on that day, your partner comes home from their work day and asks what in the world happened to the house?
You tell them, bad news, we got robbed today. Good news, he loved the new jam that I made. Your partner stares at you, mouth gaping open, absolutely dumbfounded.
Why in the hell did you allow that to happen? They ask you. Because that person obviously needed food, and he's probably going to get more use out of the TV than we ever would.
I was trying to be nice, you tell them. Your partner looks at you and goes, okay, you do understand that he could have gotten those things on his own, right? You didn't have to just hand them over to be nice?
But now you're just confused because you did the right thing. You helped someone that very clearly needed it. So why is your partner getting frustrated with you?
You did the right thing, right?
But here's a different question that I want you to truly think about. You can pause the episode if you need to, write it out, sing it, put it in Morse code, do whatever you gotta do. The question is this.
Why are you trying to keep others comfortable when you yourself are uncomfortable? Why is it that when you're struggling, you need to make sure that everyone else is okay before you check in with yourself? You don't have to answer out loud.
I won't dog points if you don't, but definitely think about it. And yeah, I may have made you sound a little silly in the story that I told at the start of this episode, but if it makes you feel any better, I'm a retired people pleaser.
And not to flex or anything, but I was one of the pros, to the point where if I would trip on a chair, I would apologize to the chair.
This might have to do with the fact that if I ever ran into furniture, like for instance stubbed my toe on a bed frame, the people that I grew up with would immediately go, is the bed frame okay? And I was like, you know what? I never thought to ask.
That's my bad. Crazy how that works. When we go through things that harmfully impact us, sometimes our first instinct is to make sure that everything and everyone besides us is okay.
It's like getting in a bad car wreck. That's not your fault. And when you are barely hanging on to consciousness and going, is the car okay?
Is everyone else in the other car okay? I get that you want to make sure that everyone else is okay, and that your car is okay. That's great and very considerate of you.
But are you okay? Within all of the wreckage throughout your life, have you ever stopped and truly asked yourself, am I okay? What do I need?
What is going to help me right now? Because when the airbags go off and the glass goes flying, someone needs to make sure that you are okay. And sometimes the best person to do that is you.
Because you are the best source to figure out what you need. Yes, there will be people around you that can see what you need based off of just seeing the way that you're acting in your mannerisms, but this isn't always the case.
Self-awareness comes first more times than not. As cool as it would be, worse exposing as it would be, I guess, people cannot read your mind. This is both lame and great.
I am definitely the type of person to make sure that everyone else is okay before I am.
It feels selfish when I take care of myself first, which you might relate to, so let me put it in a different light, so that you can see it in a different way than some rando on a podcast telling you, you're your most important project.
If you're on a plane cruising through the sky and a window or door sill fails, the pressurized air will escape into the thin cutting outside air, letting that thin air into the cabin. But who doesn't love some fresh air, right?
As great as fresh air is, if the outside air is leaked into the cabin while you're on the plane, the human body cannot handle that type of air. Not because the human body is weak, though, well, kind of.
They just aren't made to withstand certain things. But it's because when pressurized air leaves the plane, the plane is usually cruising at altitudes of 30,000 to 40,000 feet.
Because the atmospheric pressure is so low, your lungs cannot physically pull oxygen into your bloodstream. Your brain will then begin to starve of oxygen within seconds.
This causes hypoxia, a very not-so-fun thing that causes confusion, dizziness, rapid loss of consciousness, and eventually death if oxygen is not restored quickly. As scary as that sounds, that's not all that happens. There is also the extreme cold.
The outside temperatures at commercial cruising altitudes range from negative 40 Fahrenheit to negative 70 Fahrenheit, or in other terms, negative 40 Celsius to negative 56 Celsius.
Once the worm pressurized air leaves the cabin, the temperature of the cabin plummets instantly. This puts passengers at immediate risk of extreme frostbite and hypothermia. Then, there is the rapid decompression sickness to think about too.
Rapid decompression sickness happens because your body isn't used to the heavy weight of air pressing down on the sea level. When that pressure vanishes instantly, gases dissolved in your blood and tissues expand.
This is the same effect that scuba divers deal with, what they call the bends. Nitrogen bubbles form in your joints, lungs, and brain, causing severe pain, stroke-like symptoms, and sometimes even permanent damage.
The pressurized air in the cabin is pretty much a protective shield that keeps the cabin warm, breathable, and safe for humans. When that air leaves, you are instantly exposed to the edge of space, to infinity and beyond, am I right?
So, when the air leaves, sometimes your first instinct is going to be to help everyone around you with their masks and make sure that they are okay first, especially if you want to play with loved ones, which, this is a very normal reaction, and I don't blame you at all for having it. But that should not be the first thing that you do.
The whole protocol for oxygen masks is that when they are needed, because something happened, like a door or window seal failing, the first thing that you should do is put your oxygen mask on first.
Sounds a little selfish at first, but let me ask you something. How are you supposed to help other people if you don't help yourself first? At least in this scenario.
Because at typical cruising altitudes, you only have about 15 to 30 seconds of functional, rational thought before hypoxia sets in. And when that sets in, you lose the fine motor skills needed to adjust a strap or help someone else.
And if you do try to help someone else first, there's the risk of you spending those precious 20 seconds struggling to put a mask on a child or neighbor, and you will likely pass out before finishing. Then you are left unconscious.
When science behind the put your mask on first rule is explained to us, we understand it. It's understandable that we have precious time that needs to be used on helping ourselves before the hypoxia sets in.
But when people tell us that we should take care of ourselves first before we try to save others, we don't listen.
I don't know about those of you that are listening, but I've had several times in my life where I kept trying to put on everybody else's mask but my own, where the hypoxia, hypothermia, and decompression sickness kicked in all at once, leaving me confused, cold, and catatonic on the ground. And a lot of the time, this was because I didn't think I was worth saving. I didn't think that for one second, I was worth the energy that it took to secure the mask. I thought, why even try?
What's the point? I felt so useless that I gave up on helping myself and got frustrated when anyone else would try to help me. I remember that around the age of 17, I had a pretty dark moment where I tried to take my life.
I was almost successful and ended up in the ER room covered in blood, snot, and tears. As I was laying in the ER bed, a guy in ordinary, everyday clothes walked in and told me that he was going to be my surgeon.
I asked him why he was in normal people clothes, and he told me that he was at home with his family when he got the call that he needed to go help someone. After he said that, I completely lost it and started stopping again.
He went, oh, hun, why are you crying? And I told him that I was so sorry for taking him from his family. He told me, kiddo, you need help right now, and I'm here to make sure that you get that help.
But I was at such a dark point in my life that I didn't understand that someone would step away from their family, even if it was to save my life.
That someone would take time out of their day to stitch my wounds back up so that I could have a better chance of surviving.
It took me a very long time and a lot of patience from the people in my life to fully understand that I am worth every single bit of those 20 seconds of effort. That I deserve to have a mask on even when it doesn't feel like I do.
Even though it was definitely a lot more difficult, I spent a long time trying to survive and just kept pushing on without the mask. I know that I'm not the only one that has done this.
We keep pushing and pushing even when we should probably stop for a second to put the mask on. And in society, that's not only understandable, it's expected.
There wasn't a judge that smacked the gavel and declared all people deserve to take care of their needs before pushing onward. There's no law that says make sure that you are taken care of before taking care of others.
There's no science to the rule that you should sometimes stop for a bit to take care of your needs and make sure that you're good. Well, there is science behind the rule, but it's not shoved in our faces the same way that hustle culture is.
Bottom line, here's my rule. You are worth every single one of those 20 seconds and the effort that it takes to put that mask on. Plain and simple, no science or backup evidence needed.
Putting that mask on can sometimes look like getting into therapy, letting someone in your life know that you're struggling, learning how to hold your boundaries in relationships, and so on and so forth.
Putting the mask on looks different for everyone. That being said, it's extremely beneficial to stick up for yourself and make sure that your needs are met. And it's not just me, my little stories.
We've got science to back these benefits up.
Moving away from people pleasing and learning to stick up for yourself is not just a social shift, it fundamentally alters your mental well-being and neurobiology.
There are decades of psychological studies in clinical cases that show choosing self-advocacy over constant compliance has major measurable benefits. Psychologically, people pleasing can be understood as a learned coping strategy.
Through conditioning, we can learn that keeping other people happy gets us something, approval, connection, praise, or safety, while saying no may lead to conflict or rejection.
For example, imagine someone who grew up getting lots of positive attention whenever they were helpful, but experienced tension whenever they disagreed. Over time, their brain may start connecting, I make people happy, with I'm safe and accepted.
And there actually are benefits to people pleasing in the short term. It can reduce conflict, strengthen social connections, make cooperation easier, and sometimes help us navigate stressful situations.
The problem is when the coping strategy becomes automatic, and we start sacrificing our own needs just to keep everyone else comfortable.
So the next time that somebody metaphorically invades your home and tries to destroy it and steal from it, remember to stand your ground.
I get that it's so much easier said than done, but there are some things that you can do that will help exercise that muscle in your brain of standing up for yourself.
Because I get it, standing up for yourself can sometimes feel like deadlifting a crazy amount of weight right off the bat after not having any experience with weightlifting.
Of course, it's going to be extremely heavy, but there are ways to prepare to hold that weight. Little exercises that you can do that will give you more mental strength. There are several of these exercises, but I'm going to cover a huge one.
It's called assertiveness training. Assertiveness training is two pretty big words that are smashed together that pretty much just means learning to communicate without always trying to keep the peace.
Because sometimes keeping the peace and keeping your peace can look different depending on the situation.
Let's put it this way, if you're talking with a friend and telling them about a new show that you started to watch and their response is, the show is so stupid, anybody that turns it on should get their brain checked.
Keeping the peace would look like, no, you're so right, I don't even know why I brought that up.
While keeping your peace would look like, we all have different preferences and just because you don't enjoy the show, doesn't mean that I can't enjoy it. That all sounds silly, but hopefully you're picking up what I'm putting down.
To make it make a little more sense, let's rewind to the point where your friend just said that the show is stupid. Right after your friend says that, you hear a little voice coming from right by your ear.
When you look towards that ear, you see a mini angel version of you floating above your shoulder. They go, oh, they must really not like that show.
Shut the conversation down and never mention it again, or maybe anything else you like so that you don't upset them. But then on your other shoulder, there's a little devil version of you that tells you, it's absolute jerk.
They deserve to feel as stupid as they made me feel. Complete opposite reactions to choose from.
Assertive communication is the one that lies between those two, where you're making sure to not hurt the other person, but you're also standing your ground.
To build assertiveness, it's easiest to start in low stress situations, which a lot of the time, everything can feel like it's high stress. But what I mean by low stress is making simple requests or choosing where to eat, things like that.
Assertiveness training is basically learning how to say what you need, want, or feel without being aggressive or apologizing for it existing. It's the middle ground between, I'll do whatever you want, and everyone shut up.
You're learning that you can communicate your boundaries clearly while still respecting the other person. Don't allow someone to invade your home, destroy it, and take things from it just because you want to keep the peace.
I get it if you want to be nice, even to the people that don't do the best things or treat you in the best ways. I think that's a beautiful attribute to have.
But please don't ever forget that it is equally beautiful, if not more, to stand up for yourself. To make sure that your needs and wants are protected. Because we have one life.
Don't let anyone take that from you. Lock the door and secure the mask. You deserve safety and survival.
Politeness should never outrank that.