Feeling Seen/Shamed

Circumstance: I have just seen a post on a parenting group that I’m in, asking for advice about something that I have personal experience of. I typed my reply and gave a lot of thought to it.

Thoughts: I nearly didn’t post the reply publicly and went to send it privately, but I stopped myself because I thought if anyone else is in the situation, maybe some of what I have typed could be useful for them too? I thought, I could have found my answer useful when we went through the experience ourselves.

Feelings: I posted the reply and felt worried.

More thoughts: What if someone thought I was a know-it-all? What if someone thought I was trying to tell them how to be a parent? What if someone in my family or town saw it and thought ‘who do you think you are giving this advice, you only have 1 child?’ I can see these could all be thought errors.

Action: I wanted to delete the reply. I read through it a few times, made some edits, but decided to keep the post. From the work I have done with the FC, I see my worth, I see I have lived experience, the person was asking for any advice no matter how big or small, so I offered what I have to offer.

But I feel very seen and exposed. I don’t like social media for this reason and very rarely engage with posts.

As I write this to you, I am realising that at school I was always seen as a ‘know it all’. I have always loved detail. I am a ‘working on it’ a perfectionist, and care to quite extreme levels about other people. So whenever I have tried to help someone, or answered a question in class, I have given a thorough answer. But then I have been shamed for it by peers. At school, this led to me never putting my hand up. As an adult, I have grown in confidence and would ‘put my hand up now’ but have also been teased for being the teacher’s pet/doing everything right.

I also have a sibling who has autism/ADHD that doesn’t have a good relationship with our parents, and they have relied on me throughout their life to support them with accommodation/finances/social skills/family relationships. I recognise I have spent a lot of my life in a ‘rescuer’ role. I struggle finding the balance of helping them without helping them too much, because sometimes they want so much help from me and then I give too much and they say they feel like I control their life. I have found knowing how to support them when I was a child/teenager myself, quite hard.

Result: The person who posted the parenting reply thanked me for giving my time, and said what I wrote really helped them, and they asked further questions.

So there is some evidence that maybe I do have useful things to share? But I am wondering how to work through these feelings I have internally for being shamed for offering advice and information?

Thank you.

 

Answer:

 

There is fabulous self-awareness in your submission – both about what happened in this circumstance and perhaps some insight into the history behind why you have developed this response.

For starters, to make a model really pack a punch, keep it concise. Factual C line, one thought about the C in your T line (not a question), one feeling in the F line, then go buck wild in the S and A lines (while checking in on whether these actions are inspired by this feeling), and an R line that ties back to your T line and only has YOU in it (because we can’t control other people). Here’s what I can see might be an unintentional model…

C: Posted response about parenting on Facebook
T: Someone might think I’m being a know-it-all
F: Worried
S: Did the worry have any physical manifestations? Where? What does it feel like? For example, “Knit brow, hear racing, tight chest.” (That’s how worry shows up for me).
A: Went down a mental spiral about all the things people might think when they see this post, obsessed about the post after posting it, thought about deleting it, thought about my past of being called a know-it-all in school and how it affects me now
R: Stay stuck trying to figure out what other people might thin of me and stay in this model

This is just one unintentional model that I created from your submission – there are several other thoughts to explore and I encourage you to do that!

Here’s the intentional model that I see:

C: Posted response about parenting on Facebook
T: I would have found my answer useful when we were going through this experience
F: How does thinking this thought make you feel?
S: Where and how does this show up in your body?
A: Drafted post with care, posted it, did not delete it from the post
R: I did my best to make myself and my experience useful for someone else

What do you notice about these two models? Secondly…what other people think of us is none of our business. We can’t control it either. If you were able to let other people have their thoughts (and be in their own models about you) what would that be like for you? Notice what burbles up and bring it back here so we can continue coaching.