Bye.
I'm Tiffany,
And welcome to Life Unedited Sanctuary.
Where reality happens.
Life Unedited is the practice of radical acceptance through the lens of reality therapy.
Today's listen is a gentle reminder to use your words.
I have another theory here on Insight Timer that is from my book,
Life Unedited,
The Power of Radical Acceptance,
28 Theories of Living in Reality.
It's called Asking for What You Want.
It talks about the importance of using your words.
Sounds easy enough,
Yet how many times do we stop ourselves from asking because we are afraid of the response?
In this theory,
I am going to use the word want and need interchangeably.
Asking for what we want is a way of asking for help getting our needs met.
We have to let people know what we want or how can they decide to fulfill it.
Not asking,
Then being disappointed when we don't get it,
Is setting the other person up to fail.
Not many people are mind readers.
The caveat is that the person we ask does have a choice of fulfilling that want.
We have to be prepared to give ourselves what we need or go without.
In the case of relationships,
We also have to be prepared to make a choice about whether or not to stay in the relationship if our person consistently chooses not to fulfill our needs.
Asking for what we want is also a way of defining and occupying our individual space in the world by making ourselves heard.
Using our voice to establish boundaries.
What we need and what we don't need.
What we accept and what we won't accept.
I felt it was necessary to come back to this theory because while I was driving to work the other day,
I was listening to a radio show where a caller was sharing about her experience with a new dating interest.
The collar,
A woman.
Really wanted the dating interest,
A man,
To continue to pursue her after she had clearly told him that she didn't have time to fit dating into her schedule.
Already that was a rather mixed message.
To his credit,
The man kept trying to set up dates,
Coming up with different options for them to get together,
Even offering to come by her work,
To which,
She said,
She literally replied,
Ew.
After that interaction,
He seemed to back off a bit.
All of this was via text,
Mind you.
So she reached out again with one word.
Well.
Dot,
Dot,
Dot.
And felt like that was an acceptable hint to encourage him to figure out,
First of all,
What she meant by that,
And secondly,
To come up with another suggestion for them to finally meet in person.
She also openly stated that she has a right to feel pursued and that she is worth pursuing.
And if he wants to date her,
Then he had to demonstrate his desire by really working for it.
I was really surprised at my bodily response to that whole explanation.
And here we are.
Use your words,
People.
Allow me to tease apart that interaction through the lens of reality therapy,
Based on what the gal shared on the radio show.
The first red flag is that she repeatedly tells him she cannot fit dating into her schedule.
I give her credit by saying that.
It could genuinely be true.
The flag becomes red because why are you trying to date if your schedule does not allow?
The second red flag is that she did not share any instances of offering compromises to get together.
Admittedly,
Her responses were a single word or a couple of words.
For example,
You.
And well dot dot dot.
One could receive those short,
Abrupt responses as passive-aggressive or even gamey.
The woman consistently set the man up to fail by not giving him anything to work with.
It feels like playing a game of stringing him along.
Another red flag is how she hints at or alludes to things,
Rather than just using her words to say what she wants.
The radio host asked her about that,
And she came back with,
Well,
He should know.
What?
On what planet should another person know what we want if we don't tell them?
Whenever the word should appears in a sentence,
We are arguing with reality.
The reality that the man should not know what she was thinking or alluding to.
How could he?
She didn't tell him.
A fourth red flag is the fact that she clearly expects the man to continue to pursue her because she believes she has a right to feel pursued because she is worth it.
We do not have any business putting expectations on other people and then being disappointed or upset when they don't give us what we expect,
Especially when those expectations are not verbalized.
And going out on kind of an unpopular limb here.
What gives us the right for anything?
The fifth red flag is that she is controlling the narrative here by insisting the man prove his worth to her by chasing her.
No one needs to prove anything to anyone.
By projecting this expectation onto the man,
She is demonstrating how she is really trying to prove her own worth to herself by way of stringing this man along.
As a reality therapist and the author of the book I mentioned at the beginning,
28 Theories of Living in Reality is in the title.
This interaction clashed with so many theories of reality.
One,
She is not asking for what she wants.
Two,
She's putting expectations on someone.
Three,
Making him prove his worth.
For trying to maintain control.
Arguing with reality,
And six,
Projecting her insecurity of not feeling good enough.
You know the best way to avoid such a clear conflict with reality?
Use your words.
Clearly,
Authentically,
With kindness and compassion.
Why don't we do that?
I mentioned earlier that I believe it has to do with our fear of the response or rejection.
That has roots in our belief that we are good enough or worthy.
We don't deserve what we want.
As part of my intentions for 2025,
I began a practice where I reach out to a person if they happen to come to my mind.
I just say something like,
Hey,
You came to my mind recently,
And I hope all is well.
In the same fashion.
If I think of something I want to ask someone.
I ask.
I don't have any expectations around either of those practices.
If I get a response,
That's cool.
Sometimes it turns out to be a lunch date or a phone call.
If I don't get a response,
Then that's cool too.
It wasn't meant to be.
As humans,
We talk all the time,
Yet how often are we communicating effectively?
The number one reason people come to me for counseling is for communication related issues.
Like I did with the example,
We tease apart scenarios in the client's lives and pinpoint all the ineffective ways they have learned to communicate.
Then begin building a new,
Authentic,
Effective style of communication that first and foremost begins with the client radically accepting that they are good enough to use their words and ask for what they want in life.
