Maggie Reyes:
Hello, everyone. Welcome. I am so excited about today’s episode. I say that for every episode, but it’s just the things we talk about are so juicy. I’m so excited. I have a very special guest with me today, and I’m going to introduce her first, the unofficial Maggie introduction. And then I’m going to ask her to introduce herself with her actual like credentials and like fancy things like that. So today I have a guest, whose name is Amanda Hess and she was on the podcast before, we will link to that episode. It’s called Slowing Down to Speed Up and it was a very powerful episode. And she’s just shared her experience in one-on-one coaching with me and we’ll link to that. But today she’s here to talk about a concept called responsibility hoarding that you are going to walk away from today with a completely new point of view on something that you may not have heard of but I think so many of us do like all the time.
Maggie Reyes:
So I want to give you guys a little bit of a behind the scenes. So Amanda and I have worked together one-on-one for many months. It was back when I was changing my packages and how everything was structured so we ended up working like eight months together which was like amazing. And she went on to become a life coach at the Life Coach School, which is the school where I trained. And she’s that person that I’m just endlessly proud. Every time I see her out in the world, knowing that we coached together, she had such an amazing experience in her marriage and her life. And so many things she’s going to share about today. And now she teaches other women how to do the same things she’s done in her own life. And she’s been on her own journey with her health, with her relationships, with her family, with so many different things.
Maggie Reyes:
She’s such a walking example of doing your internal work and then sharing that with the world with so much generosity and so much wisdom. It’s just amazing. So I was traveling to attend my own coaching because we have to fill ourselves up right to give to others, something’s that’s so important. And I wanted someone to teach as a guest coach in The Marriage MBA. And it was really important to me to have any guest teacher that comes into my space be aligned with what I’m teaching. As you know, if you listen to this podcast for any length of time, the way I approach marriage and relationships, isn’t the traditional way. There’s a lot about emotional leadership and a lot about just all the different things that we do together that is just sort of I follow the beat of my own drummer, so to speak.
Maggie Reyes:
So it was very important for me to be in integrity with that. And I listened to Amanda’s podcast episode on responsibility hoarding, and I knew every single one of my students would resonate with that. And I knew that every single one of you, would resonate with that. And what happened was she came and she taught this class and basically everyone was raving about her when I came back and it was the most beautiful experience. And I’m so proud of that experience. Like my highest intention was that if I for some reason am not personally delivering the class, it’s going to be either equal or better to what I would have done. And I am so proud to say, I listened to the class and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that is genius.” I got so excited. It was so amazing. So I asked Amanda, if she’d come on and talk about a little bit about what she shared in the class and her whole philosophy around responsibility hoarding.
Maggie Reyes:
And she said, “Yes.” And so, number one, it’s going to be amazing. Number two, these are the kinds of things we talk about in The Marriage MBA. So if you ever wonder, like what happens in coaching? What are the things you talk about? Today is really one of those days where we’re not holding anything back. This is exactly what we would say if we were teaching the class live. And I just think in a group setting or in a coaching setting… If you work with Amanda, she does one-on-one right now. If you’re listening to this 10 years from now, listen, Amanda will probably not be doing one-on-one then, but right now in 2021, she’s doing one-on-one. And if you work with us in a group or one on one you have our support, you have our guidance, you have our coaching, but the concepts that we’re teaching, whether it’s on her podcast or my podcast, this is the same. These are the things we need to learn because they work. Okay. So that’s my introduction. Welcome Amanda Hess.
Amanda Hess:
Oh my gosh. Maggie, I’m so excited to be here. You are legitimately one of my very favorite people in the world, and I just feel so honored to be able to come back on your podcast and to be here today with you and with your listeners. And I just think, how is this my life? It’s so great.
Maggie Reyes:
Right. And is this thing where just someone is listening to us right now and for someone your the example of what’s possible, and for someone else that feels so far away, could I have a life that feels that amazing? And what I want to tell that person is you put one foot in front of the other and you keep going. That’s it, right.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. It’s so true. I look at my life now and it’s so amazing and it’s still hard.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. That’s completely normalized. That like, it can be amazing and hard. Some things get easier and some things actually don’t get easier we just manage them better.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. That’s a huge point. And like I think about where I started and I remember when I reached out to you when I was really struggling in my marriage and I knew that there was a disconnect and it was inside of me. Because I knew that I wasn’t happy in my marriage, but I also knew I wanted to stay married. And so I just couldn’t align those two things. I couldn’t make that work. So I didn’t really want to get divorced, but I also didn’t want to stay in a marriage that made me feel like that. And of course when we talk about this, what you’ll realize is the whole idea is that your marriage doesn’t make you feel like anything. You get to take some ownership of that and you get to create what you want to create and learning how to do that without needing to make another person different.
Amanda Hess:
That is a real skill. And it’s really not something that anybody ever teaches us. We are actually taught the opposite growing up. That other people should make us happy and that if your spouse or partner or mother or daughter doesn’t show you love that’s on them and that we should be mad at them. And that’s how I lived my life for so long. That’s how my mom was. It’s how my grandma was. I mean, like this was generational, this belief that’s how life should work. But it was making my marriage and my life so difficult and it was making me so unhappy. And I just cannot believe, like when I started coaching with you, Maggie, what I learned was I can totally have a different approach to this and be happy and nothing about it needs to be different and it’s not voodoo.
Amanda Hess:
I remember, like when I heard about like the book, The Secret, I have to tell you, I was like, no, that book is ridiculous. Like, what are you talking about?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Maggie knows I am a realist.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Like I want to see hard facts. I’m not an easy person to coach. I definitely have my own ideas. I’m pretty resistant. And yet what I learned was you don’t have to believe in the whole energy side of it. Although I definitely believe in that a lot more than I used to, but there’s a factual side to it and there’s a reality side to it. And when you can align with reality, that’s when life gets a lot better and you’re a lot more empowered. And what I would say is back then, I was such a victim and I didn’t even know it. I was an angry victim.
Maggie Reyes:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda Hess:
And now I’m empowered. And the difference is everything.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that so much. So much of what I talk about on the podcast all the time and the way that I coach is based in cognitive behavioral psychology, right. How our thoughts impact our feelings, our actions, and the results that we create in our life. And what’s really interesting is if you made a circle, imagine a circle on a piece of paper, and you went from the science of cognitive behavioral psychology on one side of the circle, and then the ideas behind the law of attraction on the other side of the circle, there’s a point at which they meet in the middle. And we know that cognitive behavioral psychology has been studied. It’s a very effective for many different interventions, for many different things in our lives. And we have now science that says, wait, our perspective, our mindsets, our thoughts, impact the experiences we have in our lives.
Maggie Reyes:
Are there other things that impact also? Do we also need to come into the body, notice our sensations, understand stress cycles and how to resolve them? A hundred percent, which is why we talk about that on the podcast too. But it’s so important to just whether you like the Wu and you enter through that door, or you like the science and you enter through that door there’s a place where I call it truth with a capital T where when it’s truth with a capital T you will see different experts and different coaches and different thought leaders talking about things with different words and different approaches and at the end, they get to the same place because that’s the stuff that works.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay. So tell us about responsibility hoarding, tell us what it is and just walk us through because I am just so… I do a lot of personal development on myself and I read a lot to help my clients. And the way that you explain this… There was a couple of things that you explained, particularly being a collector versus being a hoarder that… Listen, all of you, just imagine this I’m getting dressed for the day. I have this thing on, I’m hearing Amanda teach, and I am just like, “Oh my God, this is so good. Oh my God, this is so good.” And then I just had to like pause and take a deep breath to just take it all in. So that was my level of excitement about just hearing it said in a new way, that landed in a different place for me. So tell us what is responsibility hoarding.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. I love that. Okay. So for me, sometimes I have these thoughts and they just come to me and I’m like, oh, this makes it make way more sense. And when I thought of it like this, I was like, oh, this is so much more clear for me. So anytime I share something like that, it’s because in my brain it’s like the gears are off and then all of a sudden they come together and it’s like click and then it works. So it’s so fun to be able to think about things in different ways. So when I think about responsibility and I think about being responsible, and I think about the women that I know, and a lot of the women that I coach we are very responsible, right. So we don’t leave anything to chance. We are in control all of the time.
Amanda Hess:
We make sure that everybody’s got shoes on and coats on. We make sure that the house is clean. We make sure that the bills are paid. We make sure that work is being done. That our moms being taken care of, like all of the things. That the vacation is planned. I mean, we take responsibility for all of these things, right. And we’re taught to be responsible, like to be a woman in this world and to be one that’s valuable and worthy, we should be responsible. And that is really a lot of the messaging. Right.
Maggie Reyes:
Let’s pause there. The cultural narratives that we received growing up is part of the patriarchal culture in which we currently live. So Amanda’s in Canada, I’m in the U.S. If you’re in any sort of colonialized country there are these cultural narratives about what a good woman or a good wife or a good mom should do, should be, should show up. Right. And so some of it is cultural and then we internalize those cultural messages and then they become ours, right. And then we have to deal with them. And in The Marriage MBA, one of the things that we do is this internalized patriarchy relationship inventory. What are the ways that these internalized messages are now effecting our satisfaction, our joy, our ability to connect in our relationship? And this idea of responsibility hoarding goes so well with that analysis. It’s like, if things don’t feel like they’re working, let’s have a little bit of a critical analysis of why, so that we can troubleshoot it.
Maggie Reyes:
So we get these narratives, we internalize them. Then here we are and I want to say compassion for wherever we are, right. We may be frustrated and resentful, or we may feel overwhelmed or burnt out. And it’s like, then we want to beat ourselves up because I call it like the unwinnable game. We’re thrust into this unwinnable game. I was talking about this actually in The Marriage MBA this week, where imagine when humans began we were tribal in nature. And when kids came, there were five aunties, six grandmothers, six grandfathers, 12 uncles, all the things. Now we have this unit like this industrialized society that made us these units of one and two people trying to raise children.
Maggie Reyes:
And this thing that used to take 15 people to do is now all on one often woman’s shoulders. And then we’re frustrated and tired. And then we beat ourselves up for being frustrated and tired. So it’s like when we just look at that cultural narrative, what I want to offer everyone is like, if you’re in that situation, compassion for we got here from a variety of forces including our own decisions, but also including what we were told were the wise decisions to make. Right. And now we come to this idea of responsibility hoarding with, “Okay, I think I’m doing that. And what do I do moving forward?” So responsibility hoarding is?
Amanda Hess:
Responsibility hoarding is taking responsibility for everything because you feel this need and this compulsion to do so. I really believe that a lot of it is that we attribute our worth towards it.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
I don’t know if I said that, right. But we really connect those two things. Like my worthiness is attached to how responsible I am and that means that I need to be responsible for everything and so I have this need, I have this compulsion. So when Maggie was sharing about like what I was talking about being a hoarder versus being a collector, I really want you to think about that.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Because when you’re a collector… And I gave the example in the class, how my mom used to collect these Royal Dalton figurines, and there are these China hand painted figurines. They’re beautiful. And my mom has this like China cabinet and all of these were in there and she loved it. And she would like go and check out the different she called them the ladies. So she’d go like, look, and she’d be like, “Oh, this one, I love this one’s face. It’s so pretty. I really want to add it. It’s so nice.” And there’s joy and a want that goes with it. There’s a wanting energy that goes with collecting. And then I want you to think about hoarding. Now we’ve all watched hoarding shows I’m thinking.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
That we’ve probably all seen the show Hoarders, or at least seen it advertised, or maybe we saw a commercial.
Maggie Reyes:
Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Amanda Hess:
We know what hoarding is, right. Hoarding is I’m collecting all of these things because I have to.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
I need to do this to be okay.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
It’s not even about having it. It’s about doing it. And there is just this drive behind it that is so different and energy behind hoarding that it’s not joy. Right. It’s not pleasure. It’s need. It’s half to. And just looking at how one creates a life that you love and that you enjoy. And one creates a life that you’re resentful of and that you really don’t like.
Maggie Reyes:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So when I think of hoarding, I think about it as a coping mechanism for some kind of trauma and we’ll link to the episode on trauma and resourcing in the show notes. And I think of it as, oh, something deeper is going on here.
Amanda Hess:
Yes.
Maggie Reyes:
So when I think about responsibility hoarding I look at it through that same lens, it’s like, “Oh, am I desiring to feel safe? Do I think that if I take my responsibility and my cousins and my sisters and my brothers and all these peoples, then I will feel better? Like, what is it I’m solving for when I take all these things on? And one of the questions that I just ask on repeat, I should take record myself… I’m recording myself now. I’m going to record myself saying it. Is what is mine and what is yours? Especially in an intimate relationship, especially when our lives are completely entangled with somebody else’s. Just that from an unhealthy point of view, but like our lives are so intimately connected what is mine and what is yours sometimes becomes unclear. Especially if we have any tendency whatsoever towards hoarding, “Well, I’ll take it. It’s mine. I’ll take it. I’ll take it, I’ll take it.” Then we’re exhausted and not enjoying our lives. And we’re like, “Why? Oh, because you scheduled 54 things on your to do list today.”
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. And I think it’s important to add that one of the things that we take responsibility for is how other people feel.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes, yes.
Amanda Hess:
Right. Because we really do that, especially in our partner relationships and with our kids.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Is what I see happening a lot, because we are of the mindset and honestly, we’ve sort of been taught it’s up to us to make other people happy. And when we walk into a relationship and we’re thinking, I need to ensure that this person is happy and noticing that when you’re hoarding that responsibility, which is everything I do needs to make sure this person’s happy so that I can feel safe and okay. That’s what’s really going on.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
Go ahead.
Maggie Reyes:
So many of our partners didn’t get that memo. They are not showing up, making us happy necessarily. Not always, but like, there’s just notice like that resentfulness that comes up and it’s like, “I twisted myself into a pretzel so that you could be happy and then you’re not happy.” First of all, that one. And then second of all, “I twisted myself into a pretzel. So you could be happy and now you’re out being happy doing something, but you’re not twisting yourself into a pretzel to do the same for me.” Right. We just want to notice we’ve all done that. I for sure have done that. Right. Like I teach this stuff and I still have to show up for this stuff. Right. And it’s just noticing with loving compassion what if there’s a different way? What if there was another approach? So if we notice like a responsibility hoarding behavior or tendency, what is one antidote to that? What is one lens we can look through?
Amanda Hess:
One of the things that I think is really important is when we turn our gaze inward, it’s what you talked about before doing it with a lot of empathy and compassion.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Because what we tend to do is we want to do it with like a lot of judgment and that, “Well, I’m responsible for my own feelings so what the hell is the matter with me?” Like, that’s kind of the conversation we have with ourselves, which is it’s all level of responsibility hoarding. Honestly.
Maggie Reyes:
Right. Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
And I think part of it is, is being okay with not being okay.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
Do you know what I mean? Because what ends up happening is a lot of times we don’t feel okay, we don’t feel safe, we don’t feel heard, we don’t feel loved. Those are the feelings that are coming through. And then when we are going and we’re dealing with another person and we want them to be a certain way so that we can be a certain way it really is just going inward from the standpoint of… You can ask yourself questions, like, what do I really need right now?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
And then you can ask yourself why? Like, “I need him to say he loves me, or I need him to say, I appreciate you.” Why? Why do I need that?
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. And also what I find challenging, and sometimes it’s confronting it doesn’t feel fun. And Amanda can attest to this. Sometimes coaching was not fun, particularly is, am I listening to myself? Am I saying, I love you to myself? Am I demonstrating actions that would indicate that I love myself? Or am I just berating myself all the time?
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. And when I think about what do I want to be responsible for, I think that you can really frame that however you want. And if you want to frame it as I’m responsible for how I’m feeling all the time, and I’m going to be mad at myself if I don’t feel good all the time, or if I’m not perfect all the time. If you frame it in that way, it creates so much pain for you. And then when you create that pain for you, it comes out of you. Like it just does, it comes out of you and it comes out of you at all the people around you.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
And then the more out of control you feel because of that, because you feel like you’re not in control of all of this pain, then it just gets worse and worse and worse. And you enter this vortex of wanting to control the other person more and more and more. And it’s all about bringing it inward and deciding what do I want to be responsible for? Or even… You know what? If you’re listening and maybe you don’t know, it’s understanding what you are responsible for. Because what you’re responsible for yes, is your own thoughts and feelings 100%, but we can weaponize that against ourselves. And it’s really important that we look at it through a compassionate and loving lens. And the first part of that I think is recognizing that I’m actually not supposed to feel good all the time. And that’s okay.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Something I really loved that you shared in the training, the collector versus the hoarder, I think is such a really awesome way to really locate where are we right now. Like am I collecting? Am I hoarding? And when I think about even responsibilities that we take on that are optional, but I want that one. I want that one. Like, I want a real Dalton plate. Like I want that one like, I love the finest China they have available at the department store. Like I want it. Right. It was very different. So I think that’s great. And the other one that really popped out at me was internal evaluation versus external evaluation. So would you share a little bit… You had said when I want the other person to do all the things, when I evaluate how I’m feeling, I’m looking at it externally and then wait, what am I doing internally? And if we just do that one shift… Because I always like to think of this podcast, like what can I listen today and apply tomorrow?
Maggie Reyes:
This you can listen today and apply this tomorrow. You can look at the way you’re evaluating a date, a day, a feeling whatever’s going on in your relationship right now, and you can say, am I doing an external evaluation or an internal evaluation? So tell us a little bit about those distinctions between those two.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. Well, I think when we’re externally evaluating things, what we’re doing is we’re looking out in the world and we’re looking at it from the standpoint of what is being created for me. So when we are evaluating, let’s say we had a disagreement with our partner. Right. And we’re evaluating that disagreement. What we tend to do is we evaluate it from what they did, what they said, how they said it, how they showed up, and then how we feel because of how they did that. That’s how we like to evaluate. And it seems right. Like obviously it’s the other person. I think that all the time, I’m like, “What? What do you mean it’s me?”
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
But you can evaluate it differently from the standpoint of how did I speak? How did I show up? How was I feeling? Why was I feeling that way? Where was that coming from? How do I want to be in this relationship? How do I want to show up no matter what he’s doing or she’s doing? Like, it doesn’t matter.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
Right. I’m going to evaluate it from the standpoint of, do I like the person that I brought?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. To this. Yes. And here’s a very important distinction because this is the Marriage Life Coach podcast and in intimate relationships, there are things like domestic violence. There are things like what I would call objectifiable abuse. Like we could record it on a camera and we can say that is abusive thing. This conversation is in the context of personal responsibility. And even when we’re doing that internal evaluation, it is am I willing to allow that? Is this what I want? Right. So there are some extreme examples. Most of you are probably not in those extreme examples, but there might be some of you who are. And I want to speak to you right now, that is when you do that internal evaluation, this is not to excuse the behavior of someone who is actively hurting you in a way that requires immediate action.
Maggie Reyes:
Right.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
This is to say, am I willing to allow this? And when I talk about is thriving, does this match with thriving? If I put this on the balance sheet and I say a thriving relationship includes friendship and connection and laughter and humor, and having each other’s back, how does this thing that’s happening match with my concept of whatever thriving is or whatever your concept of thriving is? And they just always want to add that nuance, like that layer of nuance that we’re talking about, personal responsibility and ownership not blame. And we’re also talking about… Because we can use our mind management tools, right. Sometimes we joke behind the scenes I can talk myself into anything because I can just think this is a great idea and this is not the goal, right. Like it’s not the goal to talk yourself into something that completely, whether it violates your values or it endangers your safety. This is not what we’re talking about. And I just want to be really explicit about that.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. I think of it more from the standpoint of, instead of like atoning for the other person’s behavior… Or it’s not even about judging the other person’s behavior, it’s more about internal referencing from the standpoint… When you’re doing that evaluation do I like how I showed up, do I want to put myself in a position where somebody is treating me like that?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. Say that again.
Amanda Hess:
Do I want to put myself in a position where somebody else is treating me like that?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. I just feel like these are the simple questions that are so deep and so profound. Right. And how do I want to be treating the person that I say that I love also? So something I give for homework very often, people will tell me all these things that are going on and I’ll say, “Well, how about for this week you talk to each other as if you love each other and you go first.”
Maggie Reyes:
Amanda’s like having memories.
Amanda Hess:
Flashbacks, flashbacks.
Maggie Reyes:
Flashbacks. If you could see her face, she was like, “Yeah, that was kind of annoying.” Hahaha.
Amanda Hess:
I’m not lying. I was not easy to coach. Maggie can attest that I would come to calls and she would be talking to me and my face was like resting bitch face, no.
Maggie Reyes:
I’m really amused that you have that memory because I just always was just so excited to coach you. And I just had such a different experience of that, which is just so fascinating. I was like, “Let me find another way to say it. Maybe this way is better.” Right. That was like my experience of that. Just a little behind the scenes on the coaching. But yeah, sometimes it’s like, how did I show up? Right. Am I acting the way I value, whatever it is? With always this idea that people love us the best they can not always the way we want to be loved. And this goes for us too. So I’ve said this on the podcast before, but I’m going to just say it again as an example, which is my love language is definitely words. Before we even started recording, I just told Amanda like an avalanche of words that I had for her of praise and love. Right. It’s definitely my love language.
Maggie Reyes:
And my husband’s love language is definitely actions. And he does all these beautiful actions and I say all these beautiful words and I love him the best I am capable of loving him within what I am capable of doing. And that doesn’t mean I don’t do actions too, but it’s not my primary muscle. And it doesn’t mean he doesn’t say kind to me too, but it’s not his primary muscle. We’ve just decided that’s okay. That’s fine. And every time we love each other the ways we love each other… I told him the other day he did something for me. I think he picked up something at the store or something and I said, “I received that like a sonnet.” Right. I thank you for that bottle of milk. It’s a sonnet.” Or whatever it was. Right. And we joke around about it and we just make it fine that we love each other the best we can, even if it’s not the most idealized way that we think that we want to.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. I think one of the biggest things that I learned and that I continue to learn and that I teach my clients is this is a path.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
There is no magical destination where it’s all perfect and I do this perfectly and it’s always the greatest.
Maggie Reyes:
No.
Amanda Hess:
It’s just really just putting, like you said earlier I think when we were talking about putting one foot right in front of the other and just committing to that next step.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
And sometimes like, when I think about responsibility hoarding, the reason why I created that episode is because it’s something that I work on a lot.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
This is not something that I’ve solved. And I’m like, I am now an expert and I do this all the time. I’m like, no I don’t. And that’s why I think that when I coach somebody on this, I can really understand and feel it because I’m like, I know this. I know this inside out, upside down, sideways, all the ways. I know this whole thing.
Maggie Reyes:
I can attest to that. Having been your coach, she’s telling the truth.
Amanda Hess:
But the beauty of that is that I also, I can see you and I know you. And what I know for sure when we are doing anything like that is there is some deep, deep stuff under there. It’s really deep. And when I know I’ve hit it for you. And I know when somebody has hit it for me is when the emotion comes up and it’s the real emotion. It’s not the frustration.
Maggie Reyes:
Right.
Amanda Hess:
It’s not the irritation. It’s the like deep hurt and sadness, the craving for like, understanding.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Like I could actually get emotional about talking about it because it’s so true for everyone.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes. That’s so beautiful. So the last thing to talk about with responsibility hoarding for today is the bowling balls. So I thought that was such a vivid image. Will you tell us the bowling ball concept?
Amanda Hess:
Maybe I forget the bowling ball concept.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay. This is so fun.
Amanda Hess:
I don’t know.
Maggie Reyes:
Okay. This is so fun. Okay. First of all, it happens to me too. Like I have different tools that I teach and there’s like seven steps or whatever and I’m like, “Ooh, what was that fifth step? I don’t remember.” So, okay. So in the bowling balls, this is what I remember you feel free to chime in, is that imagine that you’re walking around the world and you have two bowling balls in your hand and they are all the responsibilities you have taken from everyone else.
Amanda Hess:
Okay. Thank you. Sorry.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
Totally remember it now.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Amanda Hess:
I’m like, “Ah, What was that?”
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
Yes. They’re like suitcases. Like they’re just so heavy.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
They’re just full of this heavy stuff and you carry it everywhere. And like, just think about like you’re walking around and everywhere you go you’re holding this responsibility. I got to make sure that my kids are happy and that my husband’s happy and that my mom’s happy. And I need to make sure that all the dishes are done perfectly and that the laundry is done the way it needs to be done. And that our finances are okay. And like, I need to hold onto this for dear life. And everywhere you go, you walk around holding these very heavy suitcases full of bowling balls basically.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
And it makes you irritable and resentful and frustrated like, think about it. It’s tiring. It’s so exhausting to carry all that.
Maggie Reyes:
I’m having a mental image. It’s like, I could not carry that. Not even for five minutes physically.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
And I’d become pretty snarky, hangry, if I did. And it’s like, imagine when we do that emotionally, and then we do it for years.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. And we do.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
That’s exactly what we do. So what I like to offer is you can choose to put it down.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
You actually can. Now I’m not going to say it’s easy because you’re going to put them down and be like my stuff’s in there.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
I need that stuff.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
What am I going to do about that stuff?
Maggie Reyes:
And who am I without that stuff?
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
If I’m defining myself in relation to other people and suddenly I don’t have that anymore, then I’ll have to figure out what I’m all about. And you guys, that feels hard. And I remember recently I had a client who, every call, we were like, “Oh, that requires me to figure out what I want.” And we would talk about a variety of different things going on in her life and every call it was just a running, laughing thing that we did. She’s like, “Oh, I see now that now I just have to decide what I want.” But when we’re putting everybody ahead of ourselves, it’s very easy to lose touch with what delights us. We don’t even remember. “Oh, that was fun or that was fun. Oh, do I like that?”
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. You have no access to that. Like if you think about that analogy, it is kind of perfect because what are you thinking about if you’re carrying around heavy suitcases of bowling balls, you’re thinking about heavy suitcases of bowling balls.
Maggie Reyes:
All the time. 24/7.
Amanda Hess:
You’re not like, “Oh, look, this train is going over here. I could get on it. That might be fun.”
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
You’re like, “Oh my God, how am I going to get three more steps in?”
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. How am I going to walk through the day with all of this stuff? As opposed to, “Oh, there’s some beautiful Royal Dalton plates. Let me check those out. There’s a new pattern. Maybe I want add to that.” You’re not even thinking about some of those things.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. And I love that you bring that up because I do see that a lot in a lot of women that I coach is that they’re like, “I don’t know me. I don’t know what I want. I don’t know anymore. Like, something’s wrong, something’s broken.” You’re not broken at all. It’s just that you do this and it blocks you from being able to see any of it because you don’t have the energy. It is exhausting. Of course. You’re tired.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah. I love that. Of course, you’re tired. Of course, you’re overwhelmed. Of course, you’re cranky. With compassion and with love, oftentimes the first thing you need is just a freaking nap.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Like literally physical rest for your body.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Right. So important. So tell us, Amanda, if we were going to just do one thing for coaching… If you had to give coaching homework to everybody, what would you give us for homework?
Amanda Hess:
Oh my gosh, what would I give you for homework? I think that if you’re thinking from the standpoint of I’m responsibility hoarding and I know that’s what I’m doing, I think one really great piece of homework could be simply to write down all the things that you think are your responsibility and take a look at them. And like write them all. Like it’s my responsibility to wash the mirror after my kids brush their teeth. Like all of it.
Maggie Reyes:
Yeah.
Amanda Hess:
And just notice all the things on that list and look at them and decide how they make you feel and really consider what are the ones that I’m willing to drop right now.
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
Which ones am I willing to let go of right now that I can just be like, I’m putting that suitcase down.
Maggie Reyes:
Oh, that’s so good. Yeah. And I’ll tell you this, because this is one of the things that comes up a lot is do the easiest thing first.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
So much personal development tells you do the hard thing. It’s a very masculine kind of approach. It’s like do the hardest thing first and then go on with your day. And I’m here to say no, do the easiest thing first. If you have some dynamic with your partner or with a family member or whatever that feels like a mountain you have to climb that’s where there’s coaches like Amanda and programs like The Marriage MBA, like get help with that. But if you’re like washing the mirror and that’s just not a priority, like take that and experience the completion of having letting go of something and the experience of creating momentum that you’re moving forward. What I would add to that homework is when you make that list, do the easiest thing first and then see what the next easiest thing is after that. And some of you listening are going to be so motivated by doing the hardest thing and if that’s you, you have permission, you always have agency.
Maggie Reyes:
Right. We’re a feminist podcast, you can always choose. But for so many of you, you trip yourselves up wanting to do the biggest, most hard, the most difficult conversation with your partner that you’ve ever had. You’re like, “Okay, I listened to this podcast and now we’re going to talk about this thing.” Do not do that. No. Right.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
Just do the easiest thing first is my invitation to you today.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. And I just want to add one more thing to that just because I think that question or that intention is something I really remember from our coaching. What’s the easiest thing you could do? What’s the most fun thing you could do? Like really tapping into easy and fun. And if you’re a responsibility hoarder, chances are you don’t tap into a lot of easy and fun. So that’s probably going to be really challenging for you. So even asking yourself the question like, but if I really loved myself, what would I let go of?
Maggie Reyes:
Yes.
Amanda Hess:
And I think that can be really important too. Like combining all of that and just making it easy, fun, loving, connect those things.
Maggie Reyes:
I love that so much. If I really loved myself, the way I want to be loved, the way I craved to be loved, what would I give myself permission to let go of?
Amanda Hess:
Yeah.
Maggie Reyes:
What a beautiful way to end the episode. I love it. Tell everyone how they can find you. Tell us all the things.
Amanda Hess:
Yeah. So you can find me, I have a podcast. It is called How to Love Yourself No Matter What. I think that’s what it’s called. Why am I having a brain fart right now? That is the worst. Also I am on Instagram at amandahess.ca or if you want, you can just head on over to my website that’s also amandahess.ca. I’d be happy to have you in any of those places. I do offer some times some free trainings and on my Instagram right on there so it’s a great place to be. And if you’re a podcast person go over to my podcast.
Maggie Reyes:
I love it so much. We will link to Amanda’s Instagram and her podcast and her website in the show notes. So if you’re listening to this and you’re driving or walking or not available to go do that right now, we will link to that in the show notes, you will have all the ways to reach her there. Obviously I think she is genius and I highly recommend following her. And if you like this podcast, it’s highly likely you’re going to like that podcast. I love those little recommendations they give you because I’m like, “Oh yeah, that is true. I like this. I do like that. That is correct.” I just want all of you to know.
Maggie Reyes:
Thank you so much first of all, for saying yes to teaching in The Marriage MBA. You have this very special designation as one of my very first guest teachers in the program so thank you for that. And thank you for sharing your wisdom and your humor and being so real and authentic and the ups and the downs of just being alive and being a human. Like we’re life coaches, but we’re human. And I like for this podcast to be a stand for, we’re not perfect, we’re figuring it out. We have to do all this stuff we teach all you to do. And sometimes we get it wrong and sometimes we mess up and then we course correct and we do do overs, right. So thank you for reflecting that and just sharing your brilliance with everyone.
Amanda Hess:
Thank you so much for having me on. Like I say it is really, honestly, my honor. It was my honor to teach in your program. It’s my honor to be on your podcast again. And it’s my honor to be your friend. So thank you.
Maggie Reyes:
I love it. Okay. We will be back next week with more ways to help you make your marriage stronger. In the meantime, if you loved this episode, please review the podcast, go onto apple and give it five stars if you loved it and just tell people whatever your experience has been with the podcast so far. It helps more people find this work. Thank you so much, everyone. Bye.