Why We Self Sabotage

I had to go to Europe for a really big work conference and when I tell you traveling, pregnant is getting harder and harder and harder.

We have got the compression socks going on, very sexy. I brought my own pillow to help with the back support on the airplane. I'm having to get up and stretch my hips and my joints throughout the flight. My bladder, girl, my bladder. I have to go to the bathroom every single five seconds. Not that my bladder is already compressed, but my child's head.

“Every time I go to the doctor, my doctor's like, oh, the head is right on your bladder right now. So I'm like, oh, perfect. That's why I can't sleep.”

And I have to go to the bathroom every five seconds. Lovely. And then you guys, when I got to the conference in Europe, every single person that I came in contact with was like, why are you here? Like, everyone's like, you need to go lay down, which I do love. I was like loving the support and just everyone being so nice to me. I was like, oh my god, thank you. But I was like, I got to work. I got to work, babe. Okay. What I will say is something that I kind of never have done in my life is listen to my body and slow down when I know my body is telling me it needs it.

Having been an athlete playing a division when sport, like I would literally have blood seeping out of my white cleats from my blisters that were like five inches deep in my coach would just say like, no keep running and you would keep running. So I feel like in a way I have trained myself to ignore my body to a capacity and just kind of like push through pain and push through discomfort. And I will say that pregnancy has really changed that for me. And I am extremely grateful for that. Honestly, I think pregnancy is making me in a way take care of myself and a way that I never have, which obviously I should be doing. I'm literally growing a human being.

“But back in the day, I just never would have, I don't know, like I never would have slowed down or pushed a meeting or rescheduled something because my body was telling me that's what it needed.”

And now that is literally at the forefront of my brain these days. So as busy as I am, I have been really cognizant of taking care of myself, which we love. And it is making me realize that that should not just pertain to when you are pregnant, okay, what a concept. Which kind of I feel like is a nice little segue into the topic that I want to address today, which is the toxic relationship that you literally cannot block on Instagram. You can try to ignore, but it only works for so long. I want to talk about the relationship you have with yourself.

I'm turning this off. This is too deep for a Sunday. So many of you guys wrote in and asked me to talk about this topic today. Actually, this is actually on you guys. This is nothing to do with me. I asked you, topically what you would want me to discuss. And this is one of those topics that everyone, every other DM was like hit this topic. And so I ended up having a lot of really long, interesting conversations with my friends about it. The multiple coffee dates, dinners, and I feel prepared to tackle this one. So I want to start by all of us being really honest with ourselves today. Okay, this is a safe space. No one's judging us.

To the single or non single girlies, I want you to think if you have ever finally met a stable, amazing person who actually text you back in your immediate responses.

Well, okay, this is like kind of boring. I kind of miss the chase. And then you ghost that person for a toxic narcissist, whether that be your ex or just like a new piece of shit you met.

“You've done that, right? I've done that. Another one. Have you ever gotten a massive career opportunity only to procrastinate until the absolute last second hand in mediocre work?”

And be like, see, I knew I couldn't do it. Like I knew it wasn't for me. I'm going to hit you with the hard truth. Daddy gang, that is not called bad luck. That is called self sabotage. And today, we are going to be talking about self sabotage because you all wanted me to talk about it.

And I basically want to expose the psychological war we wage on ourselves when it comes to this issue.

And then, obviously, we're not going to just say what it is. We're going to actually try to figure out how we get out of our own way and solve this extremely large problem.

So, when I was talking about this with my friends, something I realized that was quite sobering in my opinion, is that the sneakiest thing about self sabotage is it doesn't really feel like you're ruining your life at the moment.

It actually feels like you're protecting yourself, right? Like it almost feels like a defense mechanism disguised as intuition.

“And so, my friends and I were talking about some examples of self sabotaging, you know, what is the ruining your own life playbook look like?”

Like, what does that look like? And I think a classic example that really embodies this that comes to mind is picking a fight, the picking a fight ritual.

It was such a classic of Alex is back in the day. I used to do this so much in my 20s. I relate so heavily to this. So I am judging no one if this relates to you and pertains to you, the fighting.

Things are going perfectly in your relationship. It's been three months, maybe three weeks, maybe even three days. And it's just like peer bliss. Things are going right. So what do you do? You bring up something that they're exposted in 2021 at 2 a.m. just to create a problem. And why do we do this? It's because we almost are like preemptively leaving before we can get too close or hurt. You're so terrified of being rejected or broken up with or being vulnerable and rejected one day that you pull away, you act cold or you try to end things first. And you cause the issue basically before they can. You just throw the relationships so they can't get a chance to just throw a you.

“And if you've been in a situation like this, the worst I feel is when you look back and you remember so clearly the guy or the woman that you were in the relationship with being like, in the moment, they're like, what are you doing?”

Like why are you doing this? And at the time it felt necessary. It was like this intuition feeling right that you're like, I have to do this. But in hindsight, no babe, that was self sabotage. That was self sabotaging. Another example of my friends and I were talking about is like, and I think this one's really sadly relatable is using procrastination as a shield. And what I mean by that is like, you don't start that passion project or you don't apply for that dream job because if you try your absolute hardest and fail.

It's devastating that hurts. But if you don't try at all, you have an excuse of like, oh, I just didn't have the time we're like, it just wasn't the right time to do it. So I just haven't done it yet.

And I think the hardest reality of that is like, when you get underneath it, guys, because we're going to do a lot of that today is like, if you do this, it really is because you subconsciously don't want to be let down. You don't want to fail. The unknown of not taking the chance, you convince yourself is actually better than the potential of failing. And so you make up a million excuses to like, of why, of course, I can't do that thing that I love or that I've always wanted to do. I can't do that.

Or you're like, I'm not right now. Not right now. It's not the right time. And most of the time it's like, no, no guys, you can do it. It just requires you to look in the mirror and confront your fears. And that can be so scary. Because what the truth is is when you do confront it, there's no pointing fingers at the toxic X. There's no blaming anyone. No blaming the people that have ghosted you, no overanalyzing, you know, oh my, well, it's their birth chart. It didn't align with mine. That's no blaming retrograde like, no, no, it's on you.

And you have the power to hold yourself back from the life that you want. How terrifying is that? It's no one else's fault, but your own, oh my God, then it just comes down to accountability, right? And some of us don't want that or don't even want to hear that, which I get, but you're going to hear today.

“Also, here's the thing, when it comes to self-sabotaging, I think the reality for a lot of people is, and this one hit home, my friends and I were like, oh, this one kind of hurts.”

We crave familiarity over happiness. If you grew up around chaos, stability actually feels unsafe, and you mistake peace for boredom, and you mistake anxiety for passion.

We know the layout of the trenches. You know how to handle heartbreak, you know how to handle failure, chaos like easy. You have survived it a million plus times, but you know what's actually terrifying success.

Staying happy, being loved properly, because when things are good, you actually have something to lose.

When you're constantly miserable, when you're constantly heartbroken, it's like you're looking up. You're like, there's got to be a bit, but when you actually achieve that for yourself.

“Now you're looking down of like, oh my god, what is there to lose? And the voice in the back of your head starts whispering to you, oh my god, when is the other shoe going to drop?”

So instead of like waiting for the other shoe to drop you guys, we literally just like throw the other shoe off the window. I'm like, oh my god, it's never going to happen. So I'm just kidding, nor it. It's so humbling when when I was breaking it down for myself before this, I was like, oh, this is like a gut punch because basically what I'm saying is you create the disaster yourself because at least you're the one in control of it. No one else is doing it too, right? So now I'm like, okay, you're probably all like, okay, Alex, again, it's Sunday, babe, like we got a, we got to raise the roof. We got it. What do we do, right? What do we do? How do we stop?

How do we stop essentially blowing up our own lives? How do we stop the madness of this cycle? How do we actually sit in a happy, healthy situation without trying to subconsciously or consciously set it on fire?

And I know what I'm about to say probably seems really, really simple and maybe even like sounds a little bit corny, but just please hear me out.

“I believe that you have to build a tolerance for peace.”

We're all like that, babe, that obvious. No, no, no, I like essentially, I believe the survival guide for when the self sabotage it starts ticking. It's like, oh, you know, let's do it. No, no, no, no, you need to sit in the discomfort of good. The next time someone treats you right or you get a win at work and you have this wave of anxiety, you need to stop, you need to take a breath and you need to say to yourself, I am feeling anxious right now because this is new and safe, not because something is wrong.

We cannot act on the anxiety. I would also say sometimes it literally helps to write it down as again corny as that sounds like it's helpful to write down of like, what is the reality of what is actually happening, first what it is making you feel.

Those are two completely different things a lot of the times.

And that I think helps you separate the familiar of what we're used to from what's actually healthy. If you start asking yourself, okay, do I actually dislike this person or am I just freaked out that they haven't made me cry, that they aren't making me wonder and feel insecure. And my nervous system is not constantly going up and down and up and down and freaking out. Like if a healthy relationship feels boring, all I ask of you guys, because they actually may be boring, but what I ask of you is at least give it three more dates.

Like rewire your brain to realize that. Guys, peace is everything. Like it is hot and it is attractive. Your mental health thriving on peace and not instability and anxiousness, that is the goal. I know that may not feel like groundbreaking news, but if you look at a lot of the decisions we're all making, we're so regulated for this up and down. You just need to re-regulate our systems and that is going to take time and giving yourself a lot of grace.

“You have to essentially change the complete narrative that you've been telling yourself. You need to stop telling yourself.”

I'm just such a disaster or everyone else can have their happy ending, but just not me. I'm a failure. You're a human being. We are all healing from old patterns, but you need to start to force yourself to get really comfortable to own your worth. And that is so sad to me that that is so hard for so many of us, understandably that, right? I also think my friends and I were laughing. We were like, oh, like, I wish someone told me this in my early 20s, even my teens.

Just never going to be me. If we are able to do that and convince ourselves of that, then I feel like we can redirect that energy and force ourselves to accept that you are allowed to have good things without there being a catch. If not, I think the scariest part of all of this, and this is like where I'm going to hit you with maybe some hard facts, but I need you guys to listen up, it is the domino effect of self sabotage. The domino effect that this has on your life, I don't want to say I was excited to talk about this day because it is again very sobering and it's hard to think about, but we need to acknowledge it.

Sabotage is rarely a single event. It's not like this one thing, and then you're like, okay, I never thought again, it is a very slow burn with massive repercussions dotting.

Like these little consistent decisions will slowly one by one have you looking back realizing that you compromised so much of your life. It affected the entire foundation of who you are and what you accept and what I don't want for any of us is to realize that slowly you actually kind of let it dictate the trajectory of your health, your wealth and essentially your sanity.

“Like we, I think I've seen online, right? You do with your friends. We can joke about, oh my god, I'm such I always self sabotage. I'm the worst at it, but it's like, no, no, it eventually will actually take an extreme psychological toll on you.”

Because every single time you set a goal, like, okay, I'm going to eat better. I'm going to go for that job that I've always wanted. I'm going to leave this toxic relationship and then you deliberately fail to follow through.

You are essentially teaching your brain, which is really dangerous. This lesson, which is my word means nothing.

When my friends and I start talking about that, we were all like, let's take a beat.

“Well, take a beat on that one because my word means nothing. Again, accountability with that one, you're like, huh.”

Like, that is what completely destroys self efficacy, aka your belief in your capability to succeed, like you're just like ruining your self esteem.

And so this little word of like self sabotage, the long term impact of that. Here we go. Okay, you no longer trust yourself.

And you become entirely dependent on external validation. My therapist has been like, are you needing this help or is this also for like all the daddy gang? I'm like both. I'm like taking notes in my therapy session. She's like, honestly, I'm happy I can help more than just one in this Alex. Yeah, you start looking for external validation. You lose your intuition. You become so highly susceptible to gaslighting and essentially you develop a chronic imposter syndrome. Okay, I know this is really scary guys, but like we got to go down the rabbit hole because it is the effects or crazy. You stop making decisions altogether, right?

“You're kind of just like letting life happen to you rather than being in control of your own life. Also to women, I think it's really important to note this, like when it comes to your career.”

This is so important to emphasize with self sabotage. Again, it can be really slow. So it doesn't usually look like, oh my god, you did this insane fucking thing. And then you got fired for this massive blow up. No, no, no. It looks more like quiet procrastination. It looks like, you know, turning down opportunities for visibility and being seen for your worth and your value. It looks like maybe you're avoiding risks. You get trapped staying in your comfort zone. So you stay at the job that undervalues you because the anxiety of interviewing somewhere new feels worse than the daily misery of being underpaid and undervalued.

And then over a lifetime, you have avoided negotiations. And so you've missed promotions. You've missed opportunities to take yourself to that next level. Like self sabotage in the moment looks like a tiny little decision. But it directly translate ladies to money in your pocket. Thousands of dollars could be left on the table. Your retirement plan, babe. And I know I always say this, but it is important to say like, I know it is easier said than done. I know I am like laying this out and it's like, okay, okay, okay, this is I'm saying what's obvious, but it's really fucking hard to change it, right?

And I think that's what I love talking about here. It's like, what can we actually control? You can control how you treat yourself because I truly believe and I'm sure there are literal studies out there, but I didn't look them up so someone else do it. There's no way that self sabotage and doing that heavily isn't manifesting in how we treat our bodies. There's just no way. There has to be correlation. Someone look it up and DM it to me. Like procrastinating on work or avoiding hard conversations.

I'm going to create chronic stress. Like I just want to emphasize self sabotage, guys, this isn't just like a buzz word online of like, I self sabotage like, no, no, no, no. If you are in it, it is all encompassing.

“What I think is really very applicable to our generation right now is like, then you start to numb if you're constantly self sabotaging. You cope with the anxiety of your own self sabotage by coping mechanism.”

It's doom scrolling 24/7 and then you're actually making yourself feel worse all the time. Substance abuse issues binge eating, reckless spending ruining relationships like the list goes on.

It has this trickle down effect essentially. And so I know it's a lot, but if you go all the way back to how I started this conversation, what essentially started as a defense mechanism or what feels like a defense mechanism can manifest into so much more. And the amount of people who wrote into me and asked me to talk about self sabotaging, I really appreciated it because I was like, okay, this is clearly very pertinent to the conversation for the daddy gang and myself. And it's also really important that we have the conversation so we can adjust something. I remember when I was doing research on this, I read a quote that I thought was so applicable to this topic. If I butcher this, just you'll get the gist, but it basically said, we must all suffer one of two things. The pain of discipline or the pain of regret, which one do you want to be?

Do you want to live your life with regret or do you want to be like, God, that was really, really hard that I held myself to this standard and it wasn't easy. It wasn't even fun sometimes, but I got through it and I did it.

“At the end of the day, I think the most tragic way self sabotage ruins a life is that it literally robs you of your own potential. I don't want anyone listening to this show.”

I definitely don't want myself also at 40, 50 or 60 years old. We all look back being like, oh my God, the only thing standing between the life that you wanted and the life that you got was just like your own refusal to tolerate the discomfort of growth. Good night. We're all like, no, but it's like, I swear to God, guys, this is so, so real and it is all encompassing and I just urge the daddy game, like the next time that you feel the urge to self sabotage.

And you know, you want to text your toxic ex. You want to pick a fight with your partner or you want to blow off an important meeting. Please remember this.

“You have survived all of your worst days so far. You have your hair, right?”

So you don't need to create new ones just to prove you can survive those two. You don't let yourself be happy, let yourself win. You genuinely deserve it because at what point do you say enough is enough. I'm done. I'm done hurting myself. I demand more for myself. But I get it's really scary because when you start to do that, it's you have to take accountability of your own life. You cannot say it was this person's fault or this person did this to me. You have to actually start to be like, okay, I'm in control. People can do things to you.

But how do you react? How do you get up every morning and say, no, I'm not going to let that affect me or yeah, that affected me, but I'm going to turn it into this. Like, at some point our victim mentality needs to shift to be like, for sure, shit can happen to you. How are you going to react and how are you going to adjust and how are you going to change from it?

Because if you keep letting others completely dictate your entire life, then you are.

And let's be real. Most people are just thinking about themselves. So no one's really thinking about you.

“Belize you could do is think about yourself first.”

No one's putting you first, but you. So like, let's start with that. What a concept. Um, okay, I think that's enough on that topic for today. I just, I hope that that hit home and I hope that maybe this could be used as a little reset to anyone who has found themselves in any capacity self sabotaging. I love you. Again, I know that this is a very difficult thing to change. This isn't going to happen overnight, but at least acknowledging if you're doing it and if this felt like it was applicable to your life.

Let's start Monday. Okay. Tomorrow's Monday. It's a fresh new start. Let's stop self sabotaging. Okay. Let's answer some questions. The first question someone wrote in and said, Hey, Daddy, first of all, congrats on becoming a mommy, too.

I recently started therapy and it has been such a game changer, but I feel like I run out of things to talk about when nothing crazy is happening in my life.

“What should I do? Do you have any suggestions? Oh, girl. Do I have a very, very, very good suggestion for you? I will never forget when I said to my therapist. It was like years ago where I was like,”

Oh, like, I don't like really think we need like a full session. She was like, Oh, why is that? And I was like, everything's going really well. I don't really have much to talk about. And she was like, Oh, amazing. These make for the best sessions. I believe that therapy is so helpful when you are in a crisis. That is absolutely true. Like this person is specialized in this. They can help you. They can guide you through it. But I think the most progress you actually make is when you're not in crisis. So you can actually get underneath the things that are a part of your DNA, a part of who you are that are little triggers that you just feel like, well,

I don't need to talk about my childhood right now because the issue is my mother and law or the issue is my,

You know, my boyfriend and I have been fighting or my husband and I have been doing this or at work. This is happening like when you're handling a direct in the moment issue,

“There's of course moments in therapy. You're going to be able to lightly get into the weeds of like, Why is this triggering? And what is this bringing up for you?”

But for the most part, you're not actually able to like get into childhood and previous wounds and who you are to the core and the way that a full session just being like, Let's just talk. Let's just talk. I think my advice because I had someone close to me recently do this was like, You can say to your therapist, I'm feeling, acknowledge it to her. Like, I'm feeling like I don't really have anything to say and that makes me want you to kind of push me of like, Let's explore. Let's explore. Like, what should we talk about today? Put it a little bit on your therapist to then guide you through because the minute you give her the opening,

She will go. I used to do this with my therapist, which is such a bad habit and maybe this is just because I literally can't shut the fuck up for living. I would just like keep talking and just like make not like make stuff up, but I would just like kind of like fill the room with air and I would just keep going. And I would never allow for silence. So I don't think my therapist ever actually fucking knew that I actually felt like I didn't have anything to talk about because I would just literally keep talking.

And what I needed to do was shut the fuck up and be like, I've got nothing. And then she could have filled the void to be like, great. So let's go back to when four months ago, when you brought up the eight brought up a lot of insecurity when XYZ happened, I want to go back. Let's explore that more. Now that we've had time away from it, like so much of therapy is not actually dealing with the direct issue at hand. That's half of life, more than half of life. It's like, there's something in front of you that's triggering you and it actually is nothing to do with what's actually in front of you

and what's triggering you. It actually has everything to do with what happened way back when and how it's bringing it back up for you. So let yourself explore and don't be afraid to kind of like go on a little journey with your therapist. But give her the permission to allow it and don't be like me and like just make up fake stories to just fill the 50 minutes. Not me like literally being in people, please are being like, I don't want her to feel awkward and like whatever's like, I'm just going to kind of like bring up a random story that like I completely have clarity on, but like this will fill the void.

You're paying this person. You're paying this person you guys use them. Okay.

Hi, Daddy. I would like your current perspective on sharing locations with a partner.

When in a relationship do you ask, how do you ask? Do you think it's ever healthy or is it always toxic? What does it mean if you're in a great relationship?

But they say no and do you believe in sharing locations with friends? This is really. It's such a good question because I feel like recently just socially everyone kind of shares locations with each other, right? Like, I mean, for God's sake on Instagram, there's like a feature where you can share where your location is. I feel like so many people want to find my friends, just like share their locations.

Some of my friends have like 40 people on their share their locations.

So, Matt and I do share locations with each other, but we didn't always share locations.

I remember in the beginning of our relationship that wasn't even a thought of mine or his. And I think it was more like, I think we, I think it was when we changed when we were living together. Nothing happened that made Matt and I shared it and ended up just like naturally happening one day of like, oh, when are you going to be home or something? And then it was like the other one was like here and then we just shared our location and then we never stopped sharing the location. And now when I check it, you want to know when I check Matt's location, guys.

It's when he says, I'm leaving the office and I'm trying to like get our dinner together. And I check it and he still hasn't left the office and I'm like, you haven't left though and he's like, fuck. So like that's what I use it for. So now I'm trying to backtrack because I know I'm now talking my own situation. So I'm like, okay, I think it's toxic if it is coming from a place where you genuinely are wanting it because you are trying to find out where this person is.

If it's coming from insecurity, if it's coming from distrust at all, that is a problem because then you don't need the the location you need a new relationship.

“You need to build trust in the relationship and just sharing a location is not going to knock off all the distrust that you have with this person.”

Do you know what I mean? Like you have to look at it from a standpoint of is this helping fuel anxiety and you think it's going to give you less anxiety because now you'll know where he is. And even though he says he's at work, you don't actually believe he's at work, so having his location would actually make you feel just a little bit better about it. That's unhealthy. That's like you're trying to have this little stop gap thing to help you fill a void in the relationship that's actually just a glaring issue that like this isn't actually going to solve it.

I definitely would love to know like if you're married or if you're like living with this person like I think when you're at a really serious place in your relationship, I don't personally care about sharing my location because I have nothing to fucking hide and Matt has something to hide, so we're both like here. But if someone is actively saying no to you and that's like your husband or your boyfriend that you're living with, I guess I would just love to know why I'm not someone that needs it. I would just love to know like, oh, what why? You know what I mean?

Like I get it can come off a lot if you're dating and it's kind of like because I don't like I want you to trust me and like I don't need you to be like tracking my whereabouts that's weird. I feel like that's more of like an early relationship thing.

“I think there should be no problem if you're married sharing your location. I literally like life happens, right?”

You have kids you're trying to figure out your schedule. Where is this person? If you can't get a hold of them and you're trying to set up something and then you're checking like oh they're still at work or oh they're still at grandma's house. I'm going to like that's logistics, right? But I know people have a lot of feelings on sharing location and I think that anyone that is extremely defensive about it when it comes to a relationship. I think there just needs to be an overarching conversation and a look at the relationship and not just like why is sharing a location triggering.

Is there other should in your relationship that's making this issue more pronounced?

You know, because I just feel like everyone that's written into me about locations always like well he won't share it with me and like I always on Saturday night.

Like I just feel like when he says he's out with his boys that maybe you don't need his location. Again, you need a new boyfriend. You're so insecure because he makes you feel so insecure because he's being shady. Getting his location actually you're just going to be like oh he is at that woman's house. Like it's just going to confirm that he's cheating on you.

“You know what I mean? So I think you have to look at your relationship and what you want it for and if they're being really shady about it, that is weird.”

That's weird. No, I don't know, internet tell me. I'm not saying that it should be like you have to share your location immediately, but I don't really care. Again, I'm not sharing it with everyone but like I'm sharing it with my husband. Why wouldn't I? He should know where I am. God forbid, I'm at the supermarket and someone takes me, Matt's got to come to the rescue or God forbid, God, I don't know.

No, I'm not checking you at all the time. Okay, I don't know. Next, let me know.

“I have a question for you. Have you thought about how you will approach work once your baby is born?”

Will you take time off? Do you think it will shift your perspective overall? Is this such a great question? This is my favorite way to just drum up some anxiety. Do you guys want to have a quick chat? Do you want to hear where my brain's been? Yeah, I think I've been anxious about this because for the past almost decade of doing call her daddy, I have never taken off more than like what looks like through my episodes two weeks for like Christmas and new years, but it really isn't even two weeks because I'm working those weeks to get the episode for January, like the second week ready.

So like, I've never really taken off more than a week for call her daddy.

And that is just the nature of this business, right? Like you need to upload every single week and this is the name of the game. And so I've kind of conditioned myself to be like there are no breaks and that's been amazing and very fruitful for my business.

“But I think when I think about having a child and every woman deserves to have maternity leave, I'm like, I, how is that going to work?”

How is that going to work? Because I can't take three months off of call her daddy, you know, and so what I have been doing for the past few months and I will say it hasn't been the easiest. But so hopefully it will make you guys just appreciate those episodes extra is I have been working double during this pregnancy to bank episodes for the months that I will try to take off during this pregnancy leave. And I just am so looking forward to the minute I have this child, I really, really want to be able to disconnect. I want to be able to turn my phone off, turn the internet off.

And honestly, for myself, like turn call her daddy off for second and be 100% present with my child and my husband and just be in this cocoon of, oh my god, this is my first child I've never done this before and I want to soak it all up in the last thing. I want to be thinking about is work because I shouldn't have to think about that, right? And so I have been banking a lot of episodes.

It's giving me anxiety, but in a beautiful way, I have such an incredible team now where basically you guys will be set.

You're going to have call her daddy episodes rolling out every single week, like nothing has changed and it will just be because I've been working the past few months to get those done. I think that my goal is to also take just like a break from social media. Obviously, I'll post here and there of little things that I feel applicable, but I think I want to do like just like a cleanse of the soul and bringing this child into this world and like, I don't know. I just kind of want to be off the grid. So that is what I'm planning and then to come back, who knows if I'll actually be able to take two months off.

But we're going to try and I said to my team, like, I'll be down probably to get on zooms after a few weeks. No, and then they could be like, no, I thought we were going to take a little bit more time off than that.

And I'm like, we'll see, but I just, I'm going to be easy on myself and as everyone should like maternity leave is it seems like such a beautiful time where you really will never get that time back.

And I want to enjoy it as all these other women tell me it's so great. So, yeah, you won't know I'm on maternity leave. Except, but I will know not as all the matters, right? You're getting fed and I'm getting fed. Okay. And next, my story is short and sweet. Our bride is asking us to all wear Lily Pulitzer for her Bachelor at. Not only is the brand not everyone's style, but it's also out of some people's price range for a dress/shirt/outfit.

“A color scheme is one thing, but a brand, like, am I out of line for thinking the themes have gone too far?”

I bite my tongue every time, anyone writes in about anything with regard to Bachelor ats because I'm scared. I'm scared of the culture, I'm scared of the women and I'm just scared of everyone is so specific about the way that they viewed this topic. And it's like, you will get crucified if you don't have the right take, but there is no right take because everyone has a different opinion. So I'll just give you my opinion and just know what's coming from a loving place.

If you say guys pick something out from the website, I'm going to get everyone it because on Friday, I want us all to be in this outfit.

“That's the only, I think, acceptable thing to ask of someone. I understand when it's a bride's made dresses where it's like this is the dress or these are the dresses that we're looking at. Before a Bachelor at, you're already spending so much money.”

I'm assuming if you're also doing Lily Pulitzer, this bitch has you guys going somewhere, you know, you're going somewhere, you're spending money on flights and stay and all of it and decorating and so the fact that you're also being asked to purchase a specific, I guess it is kind of weird. Yeah, I think it's like, oh, we're going to do a pink party on Friday night totally fine, but like we're doing the Lily Pulitzer party, like did you get a brand deal and you're going to give us all the dress or like why.

And I also think that's annoying because it's like it's not like you're asking to do like you know a Hawaiian team where everyone gets like cute little lays and all that like this is like a bougie nice brand. So I agree with you. I don't think that that's out of the question and I think that you could just go back and say like, hey, these dresses are like way too expensive. Is there any other brand that looks similar that you would be like that you could recommend that we could get.

“And that will feel right because it's kind of like the new pay for it. I think the bride needs to pay for that if she's going to get that specific zoom me, but sorry.”

Next, okay, hi daddy would love your take on this. I have a coworker who constantly says I'm just being honest, but really they're just mean. Oh my god, that's actually kind of funny not funny for you, but just like funny because like I know people like that is there a professional way to tell someone they're using honesty as an excuse to be rude. Oh my god, that is such an amazing question. Oh my, we all know those people that like I'm just being honest, but like you look like you've gained some weight and you're like what? How did I think what you could say is the next time they say I'm just being honest. I think you can say.

Hey, buddy, I know that in your opinion you are just being honest. I think there's a very big difference between honesty and putting someone down through that honesty. There is no need for the way that you speak a lot of the times to it's it's more jabs through honesty, it's disguised as honesty.

And so every time you go to be honest with me, I would just ask that you remove me from those moments because I every single time you've ever done that it just feels really personal.

And if anything, it's very derogatory and in a way that like I don't feel comfortable and a work setting being spoken to like this none of this has to do with work and if it does, there should be no emotions or anger or rudeness brought with it. You can just tell me honestly what needs to be done with work, not in a way that is is mean and aggressive.

“And I think that once you shut that down and I think you, let me also just tell you this, the calmer you are in conversations like this, the more effective you are going to be and that took me a really really long time in life to figure that out.”

I feel like whenever I would want to confront someone, it was like still the high schooler in me like defending my friends or defending myself like you feel like whether it's the louder you get or the more intense you get like it will hit better actually being so calm and so in control when you are telling someone. Your honesty, you're using honesty to disguise actually like cruel and meanness and I'm not interested in the way that you are presenting it, you're weaponizing fake honesty as a way to get out people.

And I have no interest and this is a work setting, this is in a friendship so I don't need to subject myself to that.

So I would really appreciate, I'm setting a boundary, I don't need your honesty actually anymore, your coworker and let's just do work together, thank you very much, but please keep me out of this, the more calm you are, the more the poundage of shit is going to collect in their fucking pants when you approach it that way because they want you to react crazy, they want you to come at them because then guess what happens. Then that person who's being inappropriate is able to flip it of like oh my god, you're being so out of control, you're being so crazy when you keep it right here.

Oh, you keep it right here, you keep it real calm, cool, collected, there is nowhere to go, there's nowhere to go. You just hone in because that listen and then you can go to the bathroom and you can like curse into the fucking, but what don't even give her an inch don't give her an inch works for me every time. And by every time I mean like in the past two years I've learned to this, okay, it's easier said than done, I will say, but hone in on that craft and it's going to get you very, very far in life.

Do you think it's weird? I'm bothered by this. How would you approach this conversation? I feel like this is probably the most relatable issue maybe that friend groups are having nowadays because there's going to be one woman who is way more active on social media.

“Regardless of follower count and then there's going to be people who are more private. I think that's a completely fair feeling to have.”

I think that you can just say that. I think without being a dick, so I think you can approach your friend and be like, hey, I want you to know that I completely support that you post on social media more, I know you know I'm not really doing the same amount and I think like both are great and we both have our opinions on social media and like the way we approach it. And I want you to keep posting. I just don't want to be in the content a lot of the times and I would just appreciate it if you could just kind of like remove me from those moments, but like obviously keep doing your thing. It's just like a me thing and I don't really want to be in it.

I think if your friend is like what the fuck you just have to make sure that your tone is correct because I could see it coming off as judgey to her like, you know you and your social media thing it's cute but like I would never want to be a part of something like that you have to watch your tone. Something I also think is just etiquette at this point where maybe back in the face book days it wasn't like, and obviously I know I'm in a different situation because I have like this public platform but like every single time I'm on a trip.

Most of my girlfriends that are my closest people in my life either don't have social media or have complete private social media and most of the internet doesn't even know who my closest friends are right. And so sometimes you'll see a picture of them and be like who is that but it's like I ask my friends always like are you okay if I post the story and you're in it are you okay did and there are some of sometimes my friends have been like no I don't really want that or yes sometimes they're like oh my god totally post me it's case by case dependent but I ask them and I know again my situation is a little different but I think it is still applicable like.

We are in a time where everything is being filmed and that is so normal for some people and they feel comfortable and then other people want privacy and or just like don't want to have to deal with it. I'm like oh I wanted to go to the dinner and I don't want to worry about like am I in the background of that it's the same thing when people are like oh my god you're going and you're filming the Pilates class and the poor woman in the back is like guys.

Like I literally dragged myself out of bed today I barely got my kids to school I'm at the Pilates class I look like shit and I'm in the back of your.

“TikTok or your incident like please like find but again film yourself in Pilates but you have to be respectful that you're not filming all these other people because they didn't sign up for that I think.”

There is such a shift in the way that social media now it's almost similar to television rights back in the day like if you happen to be in the background at the Jersey Shore they had to blur all of their faces because the the enormity of the platform at this point. There's such a consumption problem where this could be this could reach many many people on TikTok or Instagram same thing goes for even if you only have a certain amount of followers like.

These people deserve discretion and they deserve privacy and so you can post but why should they have to be a part of it.

I think is the name of the game now so I think your friend should be completely understanding and if she's not. I think that's like a really weird dynamic and I think you can just say like I respect that you win a post but I don't see why I need to be in that content and if she's like well sometimes it's just because I'm like going around and you happen to be in the room it's like.

“Well I think there's a way to compromise because the compromise shouldn't be then I don't get to go on the friend dinners and trips like that doesn't feel right so because your Instagram story is so important.”

And you're not willing to just make a concerted effort when you know I'm sitting over there like just don't show it over there instead I now need to remove myself from actual normal life event so that you can get your Instagram story for what.

So cool because you were at catch that night like your social sell validation is more important than our actual friendship got it the new probably don't want to be friends with someone like that.

I mean this and maybe I'll do an episode on this but this goes all the way to posting children on the internet. Like it is a it is a problem and it is it's a whole it's a whole thing we can talk about but maybe it's not for this episode but I'm I will gladly talk about it if people are interested in that topic. Thank you guys so much for tuning in this Sunday. I hope that it was informative it was you know we started down in the dumps but then I hope it got inspirational you know a little bit of a hit to where it hurts and then build us all back up and yeah I have so many exciting episodes coming for you and.