September 26, 2025 • 26 mins
Talk to us, Shero! Talk to us!
What happens when we constantly make decisions from a place of fear rather than love? How do we recognize when we're being manipulated by political rhetoric, media narratives, or even family expectations? This thought-provoking conversation examines the courage required to think for ourselves in a world designed to keep us anxious and divided.
At the heart of this discussion lies a powerful distinction: the difference between external responsibility and self-accountability. While responsibilities are often assigned to us by others (although we do assigned them to ourselves as well), true accountability comes from within. Here we offer practical wisdom for recognizing when we're abandoning our authentic needs to please others, sharing personal stories of choosing difficult truths over comfortable conformity.
One particularly valuable insight emerges as we explore our bodily reactions to information and demands. When something feels "restrictive" rather than "expansive," that's our inner wisdom signaling misalignment with our truth. This physical feedback system can guide us toward choices that honor our authentic selves rather than simply appeasing external expectations.
The conversation doesn't shy away from acknowledging how our universal need for belonging can lead us to compromise our values. Yet it also illuminates how developing deeper self-knowledge creates the foundation for living with integrity. When we understand what it truly means to love ourselves, we become immune to manipulation and capable of navigating life's complexities with grace.
Whether you're struggling with family dynamics, feeling overwhelmed by political discourse, or simply seeking greater alignment between your actions and values, this episode offers compassionate guidance for becoming "the captain of your own ship." Subscribe to join us on this journey of spreading love and self-care in a world that desperately needs both.
Thank you so much for the likes, love, and comments you leave. Not only does it mean the world to us, it helps other women who need to hear it be able to find it.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Debbie (00:02):
okay, what were you?
Tell me what you were gettingready to talk about.
So I was actually getting readyto talk about politics, okay,
okay.
Deborah (00:11):
So what I was, what I was talking about is now they're
going.
You know, he's talking aboutseptember 11th and he is going
to now give this person, thiskirk person, a medal of honor or
something like that, right?
yeah, a medal of freedom, whenit is absolutely not freedom
that he was espousing.
(00:32):
And you know, and so then he,all of these other people, that
that really deserved it.
They're not even, they're noteven heard about they.
They spent time during the timewhen we needed to be honoring
these other people on thisperson, you know, and and and
then, who sowed hate anddivision, go ahead, right, who
(00:55):
sowed hate and division, andthey're going to reward him and
then, really, they're doing thatonly to keep his followers
because he was so in in, youknow, instrumental in getting
him elected.
And you know that the uh, theambassador to england, they
fired him.
No, the uk ambassador to theunited states, they fired him
(01:19):
because he had a personalrelationship with Epstein.
Yeah, so they're just, it's allsmoke and mirrors, it is.
So what I'm thinking, that Iwant to talk about is forget,
you know, just know that there'sso much smoke and mirrors out
(01:42):
there and just find a way to getwith yourself to look past the
smoke.
Debbie (01:51):
You know the question is how does somebody do that?
It's like if somebody is likecaught up in, like, oh my god,
this one said that and I trustthis person, like, say, a media
personality, and I trust them,and they said this, and I'm so
scared and I don't know what todo.
Right, like my.
I feel like my world is fallingapart.
Fear, right, like, what do I doto me?
(02:14):
To somebody tells me, find away to rise above it, or
something like I don't know howI mean I do now, but that would
be my thought, like, like, how,how does a person rise above it?
What do they do?
What do they look for?
Where can they go?
And it's like, well, you wantto give me a clue.
(02:42):
Like, I'm one individual,you're in Congress, like you
were in DC, you have the powerto do something.
I'm one teeny, tiny littleperson.
Now, I know every little bithelps, but give me a clue.
I've never been a politicalperson so apolitical, because I
(03:03):
think politics is cray cray, butI feel like I can't be
apolitical anymore and I don'treally know what to do.
Call your congressman, ok.
So I call my congressman'soffice, which is the opposite
political affiliation than I am.
Well, it was the governor ofthe state or whatever, and I
(03:24):
felt like they were just rollingtheir eyes at me the whole time
and just let me talk Now.
Did they tally my call?
Maybe Did they tally itcorrectly, who knows, but I did
not feel like I made any impactwhatsoever.
And so people say, well, whatgroup do?
(03:45):
Well, what group you want me toget with?
I mean, how do you findpolitical groups?
I'm not an activist.
I'm not somebody that has everfelt comfortable.
I have done it, and I didn'tlike it.
I was like, oh, this is badenergy.
I don't like the energy, andI'm with the people that I'm on
(04:05):
the side of.
It was about gun control.
I think we should have guncontrol, smart sense gun control
.
I don't know why they fight sohard about it.
I have a theory, though,because if Trump has tons of
people on the street with tonsof guns on the street, he can
call his people up Like they gotwebsites.
Now you want to help ice, justsign up on this website.
(04:27):
Yeah, they're putting that outthere.
It's like part of the thingmight you got to bring your own
gun?
I got me 42 guns, mr president,like whatever you know.
Yeah, and so it's very.
They're more organizedorganized in the craziness and
(04:48):
we're just peaceful people.
I just want to be peaceful.
I want there to be love.
I'm not talking about utopia,but I'm talking about being
accountable to your own actions.
Stop making other peopleresponsible for what showed up
in your life.
Deborah (05:13):
Right, and really the one thing that I'm also thinking
a lot about is showing up foryourself, not leaning into the
fear, just looking, you know,just going, just being informed,
you know, because a lot ofthings that we're doing is like
someone saying you've got to beafraid of this, and then you're
like, oh man, because a lot ofthings that we're doing is like
someone's saying you've got tobe afraid of this, and then
you're like, oh man, I'm afraidof this, or you got to be afraid
of this, and I'm going, oh myGod, I got to be afraid of this.
But then you don't ask yourselfis this real, right?
(05:37):
Smoke and mirrors, yeah, and soyou're actually not caring for
yourself, you're not lovingyourself by not doing that due
diligence and allowing that fearto rule your decisions.
So what you can do is you canstay with yourself.
Debbie (05:56):
Yeah, you can feel it.
You can really feel your body.
If you stop long enough andtake a moment and you could say
I just heard somebody whateversay xyz, and you sit with it for
a moment, you can actuallybegin to sense does that feel
restrictive or does that feelexpansive?
(06:16):
The restrictive, obviously, islike a resistant, it's a push
away from, and so honor that youfeel pushed away from something
.
If it feels expansive, it'slike like you want more of that,
right, right.
Deborah (06:35):
And then having the understanding that there is a
payoff for people to have yousitting around in fear.
Debbie (06:42):
Oh, so much so so much so yeah, oh okay, I got it.
Deborah (06:50):
Yeah, and and and.
So, knowing that, that thatthere's a payoff for you to be
sitting around in fear, who'sgoing to benefit from my fear?
You know asking yourself thatquestion and what would their
benefit be?
I have seen so many people andI will you, you know, not just
in politics, but in severalareas, even in self-care that
(07:15):
make decisions that are againstyour individual best interest,
totally, you know.
Debbie (07:23):
So let's take a look for a moment at why that might be,
because understanding whysomebody might make a decision,
thinking it's 100% the rightdecision, that it doesn't
benefit you, and why it's okayto step back a little bit.
If somebody has a particularneed, maybe to be accepted, to
(07:44):
belong, and they know if they godirection A they're not going
to get that, but if they godirection B they're going to get
that.
But if they go direction bthey're going to get it from who
I don't know.
I don't have all the littlepieces, parts figured out, but
they know if they go direction bthey're going to get it, but
their need to be accepted andbelong is super strong because
(08:05):
it's the human conditionuniversally we need to be to
belong, um, so they go in aparticular direction.
But at that point, if they'regoing in direction b and you
have a moment, that's where therestrictive feeling, the
resistance to me comes in andI'm like, oh, that does not feel
(08:27):
like the right direction for me.
You may trust the person goingin direction, but does it mean
you have to follow them blindly?
It means everybody.
Everybody has the choice, theoption, the right to choose for
themselves.
Deborah (08:47):
And that's one of the things go ahead.
But I have a note here.
I'll come in in just the lastpiece.
Debbie (08:53):
It's like um, we have the right to follow what's right
for us because just we maytrust that other person, but
just because it's right for them, for whatever reason, even if
we may disagree with it, and wedon't have to follow that person
if we are following thembecause we don't want to hurt
(09:14):
their feelings.
Hurting their feelings or ourfear of hurting their feelings
may be the bigger point for usto look at.
As opposed to that, they'regoing in a different direction.
It's like what is it about methat would follow somebody in a
direction I don't want to go in,just because I don't want to
(09:35):
hurt their feelings or rock theboat or upset, because that
means something else is going on.
Deborah (09:42):
And it will benefit us most.
Debbie (09:44):
To look at that so we can choose what is actually in
our best interest and in whatserves us.
Deborah (09:54):
Yeah, and one of the things that you know, you hear
me talk about a lot, is whenDeepak Chopra told me you know,
you're the captain of your ownship, you are the one that makes
choices in your life, and Ifeel that some of us are not
kind of checked into that, thatyou abdicate your
(10:17):
self-responsibility, theresponsibility for yourself and
for your choices, to someonebecause it's easier, because
that's what you've always done.
Mama and Dem said this is theway it should be done in the
future.
And you're like you know, okay,I want to be invited to
Christmas, so I better do it,but so there's, there's, you
(10:40):
know, like you were talkingabout that belonging.
So, yeah, there's thatbelonging part of it, and
there's that habit of you knowof letting somebody else make
your decisions and making thedecision happen outside of
yourself.
When you are getting thatfeeling oh, this doesn't feel
(11:01):
good, you ignore that or damnthat down because it needs to.
You need to be able torelinquish that responsibility
to continue to belong.
Debbie (11:13):
Yeah, and I want to address the word responsibility
that you used and I want to adda word to it accountability.
If the way that I see it andlet me know if you feel this way
as well the way that I seeresponsibility is often not
every single time, but oftenthat's a job someone gives us,
(11:37):
or a task or a concept, and wefeel quote responsible to follow
that, and if we don't, thensomehow we're bad or wrong or
whatever.
But when we're accountable,accountability is just ourselves
.
I mean, we can be accountableto other people, but in the case
of you're talking about goingto Christmas dinner or whatever,
(11:59):
if we follow theresponsibilities we were given,
we'll be invited back to familydinner because we did all the
right things.
If we're accountable toourselves and we don't
necessarily follow thoseresponsible things
responsibilities I'm not talkingabout not communicating,
(12:20):
definitely communicate but if wereally choose something else,
we might find that, yeah, it'sgoing to be a little bit of a
strain at Christmas time, butI'm being true, really genuine,
and true to what's right for me,and I'm saying it this way
because I ended up having to dosomething where I chose to not
(12:46):
follow the what I'm going tocall the family responsibility
rules of participating in acertain way and I, I wasn't
uninvited, I just wasn't invitedand it was hard but it was also
peaceful.
(13:06):
It was.
There was a, a recognition thatneeding to belong kept putting
me in a place of greatdiscomfort and even there, yeah,
I was in their presence but Ididn't really belong.
Very, very different, differentright and so to to recognize
(13:31):
that I wasn't in the chaosanymore and I wasn't in pretense
.
You know, oh hi, how are youwhen I really we just did not
get along, but it was one ofthose things.
So it was about I was.
That's my story about thatparticular.
Just because you said Christmasdinner and it like sparked that
(13:53):
.
And you're like yeah, yeah, letme tell you about this one, but
in reality I think there is adifference between the weight
within us of the wordresponsibility, especially when
someone else decides what ourresponsibilities are, and then
(14:14):
self-accountability.
Deborah (14:16):
Well, no, I mean, I hear you, I hear what you're
saying.
I think that they're both Itake responsibility for things
that I want to do, or that Itake responsibility for things
that I want to do, or that Itake response.
So I think that responsibilityisn't always assigned from the
(14:36):
outside.
I think I assign myselfresponsibility a lot of times.
Oh, absolutely, I think they'reboth in play.
I think that you know, there'sself-accountability and there's
my deciding that this is myresponsibility to myself.
You know accountability tomyself.
(14:57):
So both of them are in play,and the point that I want to
make with that is when you takeresponsibility for yourself,
when you take responsibility fortaking care of yourself, when
you are accountable to yourself,that's where you end up being
in peace, even when it's painful, even when it's hard, that's
(15:19):
when the peace comes, and that'swhat I think that so many of us
are missing, because we'restaying in that frenetic fear
and the outside is just bouncingus around in different
directions.
Instead, we need to go inwithin, connect with our own
(15:40):
wisdom and start thinking forourselves and maybe do some
research and some things youknow and maybe you know say,
okay, you know what.
This feels kind of funny.
This feels like I'm being putin a situation of fear.
Let me look at what's real,just like you do with the.
(16:01):
You know the potential spamthat you see, or those emails
that you get.
You're like, well, that soundsfunny, let me go in here and do
some research to see if that'sreally what's going on.
Or and so that is the kind ofresponsibility that I'm talking
about is just taking that extrastep to to protect yourself, to
(16:24):
get right information and notsitting in fear, but take that
extra step to bring yourself towholeness.
Debbie (16:33):
Absolutely, and I'm glad you brought it back to the
responsibility thing, because Ithink that maybe I didn't say it
in such a way that made itclear enough.
There is a responsibility iskind of like more of the task
oriented thing, the thing thatmaybe you assign to yourself,
(16:53):
like I got to go check that outor I got to be responsible to
myself.
What I was referring to wasother people have also given us
responsibilities, you know,typically family members or the
businesses we're in.
It's like this is what you willdo, and in order to participate
and be part of that, that iswhat you will do.
(17:15):
Right, if I'm going to keep myjob, I may have to do these 15
responsibilities, or'm nottalking about your
responsibility is to bring acasserole.
I'm talking about your place inthe family, the expectations of
you, right, and so it wastalking about when other people
(17:37):
assign us responsibility.
That's when we have to look andsee is this what I want in my
life?
It is awesome when we assignour own self responsibility,
yeah, okay, and then to beaccountable to ourselves for the
responsibilities that we acceptfor ourselves.
That's like the beautiful,that's like the Venn diagram,
(17:59):
where they come together, andthat's that middle where it's
beautiful.
So that's what I was sayingbefore the responsibilities that
other people assign us, what wedo, yeah.
Deborah (18:10):
So so asking yourself is this, whenever someone is is
assigning a responsibility toyou, whether it is well, I won't
say that, but you know askingyourself is this mine to do?
Debbie (18:24):
Exactly, and sometimes it's an authority figure in our
life that's insisting, demanding, requesting, pushing, wanting
us to do something, and it'slike I'm not willing to do that
behavior anymore, I'm notwilling to participate there,
(18:45):
and then there's a whole bigblow up.
And then that's where we haveto be accountable to ourselves.
I have to look at those things,just like that spam email.
I got to go check this out.
I got to take a look and see isthat really what I want in my
life now?
Right, we also have to beprepared.
There may be consequences to ouraction, yep, and am I willing
(19:16):
to accept what thoseconsequences are?
And if the answer is yes, thenyou get to move forward and your
life is way more free.
If the answer is no, no, no,I'm just going to do what they
tell me to do.
You're welcome to do that.
It's your life is way more free.
If the answer is no, no, no,I'm just going to do what they
they tell me to do.
You're welcome to do that.
It's your life.
You choose, because maybethat's the most appropriate
thing for you right now.
Um, but the beauty is gettingto the part where you're
(19:40):
actually choosing for yourselfright, and you know that it's
your choice.
And that brings us back to whatwe started with, with not
allowing the news media, thesepodcasters that we may listen to
.
I mean, like the bro culture,if that's what it's called.
I call it different thingswhere there's these big name
(20:01):
males typically white males havelots and lots of followers.
You know I'm talking about okayand okay and, and they're like
scooping in all these thousandsand thousands of other men about
how to be a man, or what youshould let your wife do, or
(20:21):
bringing people on and notreally vetting the people or or
not even fact-checking themwhile they're sitting in the
chair.
So when you trust this say I'mjust going to use one particular
podcaster, I won't say his nameyou trust this podcaster and he
brings in I don't know what dothey call a guest and he doesn't
fact-check that guest.
(20:42):
You, the people listening, havea tendency to believe.
You, the people listening, havea tendency to believe.
Well, if this podcaster didn'tfact check the guest, then the
guest must be right.
Instead of the listener sayingI don't know, maybe I should
check it out myself.
(21:02):
We get lazy, we let him do thework for us and it's like well,
I trust him.
That's not good enough, not inthis day and age.
That is not good enough.
People, people we don't knowwhat goes on behind the scenes.
I'm not accusing anybody ofanything, but it is possible
that people are gettingpodcasters are getting paid to
(21:26):
to slant something a particularway.
News organizations do it all thetime.
All the time, in fact, theytalk about I'm not really sure
what the difference betweenmainstream media and legacy
media, I don't know.
And then there's independentmedia.
(21:46):
I go for independent mediabecause I want some information,
but I want to make my owndecision, but nobody wants to do
that.
Some people I say lazy.
I don't know if that's theright words.
Maybe I'm accusing somebody ofsomething I shouldn't, and I
believe that we just we have tobe.
We have to be diligent in thisworld we're in right now,
(22:09):
especially america, because Ithink it's going to be too easy
to be swayed one way or theother and get caught up in
something that we may not wantto get caught up in, only to
find out later we're on thewrong side, or that you don't
even have any control over, findout later we're on the wrong
side, or that you don't evenhave any control over, you know.
Deborah (22:30):
I mean you can get caught up in something that's
taking over your life, your mind, your body, your spirit and you
have no control over it.
Debbie (22:44):
I'm challenged with that one.
I'm challenged with thatconcept.
Deborah (22:47):
What do you mean?
You have no control over it.
You have no control over theoutcome of some of these things
that we're spending so much timewith, like the political
dialogue, the political.
You know you can't go up there,you know, tomorrow and say,
okay, this is what I want, y'alldo it, you know.
I mean there's a process, butyou're fretting over something
(23:10):
that you don't have control over.
So then we're coming to the endof our time today, but you know
, debbie, I'd like to ask youthis conversation that we're
having, how do you relate all ofthese things that we're talking
to to self-love, slash,self-care?
I mean, what, what?
(23:31):
One thing kind of, and I won'tsay one thing.
But what comes to mind when youbring these, all this stuff
together with self-love andself-care?
What, what can you share withour audience?
Debbie (23:45):
For me it would probably be pretty much a one-liner.
We either live in fear or welive in love, and almost every
single action I say almost, Ithink every, even if it's a
little innocuous every singleaction either comes from a place
of love or a place of fear, andthat is the feeling we can feel
(24:07):
, that is the restrictiveness orthe expansiveness.
And, if you know, we do thingsbecause we want love, we want to
receive some sort of love,maybe not just self-love, but
love from another person, orsome love, belonging, acceptance
(24:28):
, whatever.
And sometimes we will dosomething that we hope to get
love, but it's not really a goodoption, but maybe we just don't
know anything different,anything different.
(24:53):
And so my thought, my offer, myinvitation is learn more about
what it means to love yourself,because once you know how to
love yourself and you are notjust self aware but you have a
self knowing, nobody will beable to pull you off your course
.
Nobody will be able to pull youoff your course.
Deborah (25:07):
Pull you off.
I love that.
I love that.
Debbie, Thank you so much.
I want to thank everybody somuch for joining us today and I
invite you to please click thatlike button and subscribe to the
Shero Cafe so that you can stayinformed and help us on our
(25:28):
mission.
And it is our mission to spreadlove, to move us to that place
of love instead of fear andself-care.
And, as always, we invite youto love and care for the Shero
in you.
Bye everyone.
okay, what were you?
Tell me what you were gettingready to talk about.
So I was actually getting readyto talk about politics, okay,
okay.
Deborah (00:11):
So what I was, what I was talking about is now they're
going.
You know, he's talking aboutseptember 11th and he is going
to now give this person, thiskirk person, a medal of honor or
something like that, right?
yeah, a medal of freedom, whenit is absolutely not freedom
that he was espousing.
(00:32):
And you know, and so then he,all of these other people, that
that really deserved it.
They're not even, they're noteven heard about they.
They spent time during the timewhen we needed to be honoring
these other people on thisperson, you know, and and and
then, who sowed hate anddivision, go ahead, right, who
(00:55):
sowed hate and division, andthey're going to reward him and
then, really, they're doing thatonly to keep his followers
because he was so in in, youknow, instrumental in getting
him elected.
And you know that the uh, theambassador to england, they
fired him.
No, the uk ambassador to theunited states, they fired him
(01:19):
because he had a personalrelationship with Epstein.
Yeah, so they're just, it's allsmoke and mirrors, it is.
So what I'm thinking, that Iwant to talk about is forget,
you know, just know that there'sso much smoke and mirrors out
(01:42):
there and just find a way to getwith yourself to look past the
smoke.
Debbie (01:51):
You know the question is how does somebody do that?
It's like if somebody is likecaught up in, like, oh my god,
this one said that and I trustthis person, like, say, a media
personality, and I trust them,and they said this, and I'm so
scared and I don't know what todo.
Right, like my.
I feel like my world is fallingapart.
Fear, right, like, what do I doto me?
(02:14):
To somebody tells me, find away to rise above it, or
something like I don't know howI mean I do now, but that would
be my thought, like, like, how,how does a person rise above it?
What do they do?
What do they look for?
Where can they go?
And it's like, well, you wantto give me a clue.
(02:42):
Like, I'm one individual,you're in Congress, like you
were in DC, you have the powerto do something.
I'm one teeny, tiny littleperson.
Now, I know every little bithelps, but give me a clue.
I've never been a politicalperson so apolitical, because I
(03:03):
think politics is cray cray, butI feel like I can't be
apolitical anymore and I don'treally know what to do.
Call your congressman, ok.
So I call my congressman'soffice, which is the opposite
political affiliation than I am.
Well, it was the governor ofthe state or whatever, and I
(03:24):
felt like they were just rollingtheir eyes at me the whole time
and just let me talk Now.
Did they tally my call?
Maybe Did they tally itcorrectly, who knows, but I did
not feel like I made any impactwhatsoever.
And so people say, well, whatgroup do?
(03:45):
Well, what group you want me toget with?
I mean, how do you findpolitical groups?
I'm not an activist.
I'm not somebody that has everfelt comfortable.
I have done it, and I didn'tlike it.
I was like, oh, this is badenergy.
I don't like the energy, andI'm with the people that I'm on
(04:05):
the side of.
It was about gun control.
I think we should have guncontrol, smart sense gun control
.
I don't know why they fight sohard about it.
I have a theory, though,because if Trump has tons of
people on the street with tonsof guns on the street, he can
call his people up Like they gotwebsites.
Now you want to help ice, justsign up on this website.
(04:27):
Yeah, they're putting that outthere.
It's like part of the thingmight you got to bring your own
gun?
I got me 42 guns, mr president,like whatever you know.
Yeah, and so it's very.
They're more organizedorganized in the craziness and
(04:48):
we're just peaceful people.
I just want to be peaceful.
I want there to be love.
I'm not talking about utopia,but I'm talking about being
accountable to your own actions.
Stop making other peopleresponsible for what showed up
in your life.
Deborah (05:13):
Right, and really the one thing that I'm also thinking
a lot about is showing up foryourself, not leaning into the
fear, just looking, you know,just going, just being informed,
you know, because a lot ofthings that we're doing is like
someone saying you've got to beafraid of this, and then you're
like, oh man, because a lot ofthings that we're doing is like
someone's saying you've got tobe afraid of this, and then
you're like, oh man, I'm afraidof this, or you got to be afraid
of this, and I'm going, oh myGod, I got to be afraid of this.
But then you don't ask yourselfis this real, right?
(05:37):
Smoke and mirrors, yeah, and soyou're actually not caring for
yourself, you're not lovingyourself by not doing that due
diligence and allowing that fearto rule your decisions.
So what you can do is you canstay with yourself.
Debbie (05:56):
Yeah, you can feel it.
You can really feel your body.
If you stop long enough andtake a moment and you could say
I just heard somebody whateversay xyz, and you sit with it for
a moment, you can actuallybegin to sense does that feel
restrictive or does that feelexpansive?
(06:16):
The restrictive, obviously, islike a resistant, it's a push
away from, and so honor that youfeel pushed away from something
.
If it feels expansive, it'slike like you want more of that,
right, right.
Deborah (06:35):
And then having the understanding that there is a
payoff for people to have yousitting around in fear.
Debbie (06:42):
Oh, so much so so much so yeah, oh okay, I got it.
Deborah (06:50):
Yeah, and and and.
So, knowing that, that thatthere's a payoff for you to be
sitting around in fear, who'sgoing to benefit from my fear?
You know asking yourself thatquestion and what would their
benefit be?
I have seen so many people andI will you, you know, not just
in politics, but in severalareas, even in self-care that
(07:15):
make decisions that are againstyour individual best interest,
totally, you know.
Debbie (07:23):
So let's take a look for a moment at why that might be,
because understanding whysomebody might make a decision,
thinking it's 100% the rightdecision, that it doesn't
benefit you, and why it's okayto step back a little bit.
If somebody has a particularneed, maybe to be accepted, to
(07:44):
belong, and they know if they godirection A they're not going
to get that, but if they godirection B they're going to get
that.
But if they go direction bthey're going to get it from who
I don't know.
I don't have all the littlepieces, parts figured out, but
they know if they go direction bthey're going to get it, but
their need to be accepted andbelong is super strong because
(08:05):
it's the human conditionuniversally we need to be to
belong, um, so they go in aparticular direction.
But at that point, if they'regoing in direction b and you
have a moment, that's where therestrictive feeling, the
resistance to me comes in andI'm like, oh, that does not feel
(08:27):
like the right direction for me.
You may trust the person goingin direction, but does it mean
you have to follow them blindly?
It means everybody.
Everybody has the choice, theoption, the right to choose for
themselves.
Deborah (08:47):
And that's one of the things go ahead.
But I have a note here.
I'll come in in just the lastpiece.
Debbie (08:53):
It's like um, we have the right to follow what's right
for us because just we maytrust that other person, but
just because it's right for them, for whatever reason, even if
we may disagree with it, and wedon't have to follow that person
if we are following thembecause we don't want to hurt
(09:14):
their feelings.
Hurting their feelings or ourfear of hurting their feelings
may be the bigger point for usto look at.
As opposed to that, they'regoing in a different direction.
It's like what is it about methat would follow somebody in a
direction I don't want to go in,just because I don't want to
(09:35):
hurt their feelings or rock theboat or upset, because that
means something else is going on.
Deborah (09:42):
And it will benefit us most.
Debbie (09:44):
To look at that so we can choose what is actually in
our best interest and in whatserves us.
Deborah (09:54):
Yeah, and one of the things that you know, you hear
me talk about a lot, is whenDeepak Chopra told me you know,
you're the captain of your ownship, you are the one that makes
choices in your life, and Ifeel that some of us are not
kind of checked into that, thatyou abdicate your
(10:17):
self-responsibility, theresponsibility for yourself and
for your choices, to someonebecause it's easier, because
that's what you've always done.
Mama and Dem said this is theway it should be done in the
future.
And you're like you know, okay,I want to be invited to
Christmas, so I better do it,but so there's, there's, you
(10:40):
know, like you were talkingabout that belonging.
So, yeah, there's thatbelonging part of it, and
there's that habit of you knowof letting somebody else make
your decisions and making thedecision happen outside of
yourself.
When you are getting thatfeeling oh, this doesn't feel
(11:01):
good, you ignore that or damnthat down because it needs to.
You need to be able torelinquish that responsibility
to continue to belong.
Debbie (11:13):
Yeah, and I want to address the word responsibility
that you used and I want to adda word to it accountability.
If the way that I see it andlet me know if you feel this way
as well the way that I seeresponsibility is often not
every single time, but oftenthat's a job someone gives us,
(11:37):
or a task or a concept, and wefeel quote responsible to follow
that, and if we don't, thensomehow we're bad or wrong or
whatever.
But when we're accountable,accountability is just ourselves
.
I mean, we can be accountableto other people, but in the case
of you're talking about goingto Christmas dinner or whatever,
(11:59):
if we follow theresponsibilities we were given,
we'll be invited back to familydinner because we did all the
right things.
If we're accountable toourselves and we don't
necessarily follow thoseresponsible things
responsibilities I'm not talkingabout not communicating,
(12:20):
definitely communicate but if wereally choose something else,
we might find that, yeah, it'sgoing to be a little bit of a
strain at Christmas time, butI'm being true, really genuine,
and true to what's right for me,and I'm saying it this way
because I ended up having to dosomething where I chose to not
(12:46):
follow the what I'm going tocall the family responsibility
rules of participating in acertain way and I, I wasn't
uninvited, I just wasn't invitedand it was hard but it was also
peaceful.
(13:06):
It was.
There was a, a recognition thatneeding to belong kept putting
me in a place of greatdiscomfort and even there, yeah,
I was in their presence but Ididn't really belong.
Very, very different, differentright and so to to recognize
(13:31):
that I wasn't in the chaosanymore and I wasn't in pretense
.
You know, oh hi, how are youwhen I really we just did not
get along, but it was one ofthose things.
So it was about I was.
That's my story about thatparticular.
Just because you said Christmasdinner and it like sparked that
(13:53):
.
And you're like yeah, yeah, letme tell you about this one, but
in reality I think there is adifference between the weight
within us of the wordresponsibility, especially when
someone else decides what ourresponsibilities are, and then
(14:14):
self-accountability.
Deborah (14:16):
Well, no, I mean, I hear you, I hear what you're
saying.
I think that they're both Itake responsibility for things
that I want to do, or that Itake responsibility for things
that I want to do, or that Itake response.
So I think that responsibilityisn't always assigned from the
(14:36):
outside.
I think I assign myselfresponsibility a lot of times.
Oh, absolutely, I think they'reboth in play.
I think that you know, there'sself-accountability and there's
my deciding that this is myresponsibility to myself.
You know accountability tomyself.
(14:57):
So both of them are in play,and the point that I want to
make with that is when you takeresponsibility for yourself,
when you take responsibility fortaking care of yourself, when
you are accountable to yourself,that's where you end up being
in peace, even when it's painful, even when it's hard, that's
(15:19):
when the peace comes, and that'swhat I think that so many of us
are missing, because we'restaying in that frenetic fear
and the outside is just bouncingus around in different
directions.
Instead, we need to go inwithin, connect with our own
(15:40):
wisdom and start thinking forourselves and maybe do some
research and some things youknow and maybe you know say,
okay, you know what.
This feels kind of funny.
This feels like I'm being putin a situation of fear.
Let me look at what's real,just like you do with the.
(16:01):
You know the potential spamthat you see, or those emails
that you get.
You're like, well, that soundsfunny, let me go in here and do
some research to see if that'sreally what's going on.
Or and so that is the kind ofresponsibility that I'm talking
about is just taking that extrastep to to protect yourself, to
(16:24):
get right information and notsitting in fear, but take that
extra step to bring yourself towholeness.
Debbie (16:33):
Absolutely, and I'm glad you brought it back to the
responsibility thing, because Ithink that maybe I didn't say it
in such a way that made itclear enough.
There is a responsibility iskind of like more of the task
oriented thing, the thing thatmaybe you assign to yourself,
(16:53):
like I got to go check that outor I got to be responsible to
myself.
What I was referring to wasother people have also given us
responsibilities, you know,typically family members or the
businesses we're in.
It's like this is what you willdo, and in order to participate
and be part of that, that iswhat you will do.
(17:15):
Right, if I'm going to keep myjob, I may have to do these 15
responsibilities, or'm nottalking about your
responsibility is to bring acasserole.
I'm talking about your place inthe family, the expectations of
you, right, and so it wastalking about when other people
(17:37):
assign us responsibility.
That's when we have to look andsee is this what I want in my
life?
It is awesome when we assignour own self responsibility,
yeah, okay, and then to beaccountable to ourselves for the
responsibilities that we acceptfor ourselves.
That's like the beautiful,that's like the Venn diagram,
(17:59):
where they come together, andthat's that middle where it's
beautiful.
So that's what I was sayingbefore the responsibilities that
other people assign us, what wedo, yeah.
Deborah (18:10):
So so asking yourself is this, whenever someone is is
assigning a responsibility toyou, whether it is well, I won't
say that, but you know askingyourself is this mine to do?
Debbie (18:24):
Exactly, and sometimes it's an authority figure in our
life that's insisting, demanding, requesting, pushing, wanting
us to do something, and it'slike I'm not willing to do that
behavior anymore, I'm notwilling to participate there,
(18:45):
and then there's a whole bigblow up.
And then that's where we haveto be accountable to ourselves.
I have to look at those things,just like that spam email.
I got to go check this out.
I got to take a look and see isthat really what I want in my
life now?
Right, we also have to beprepared.
There may be consequences to ouraction, yep, and am I willing
(19:16):
to accept what thoseconsequences are?
And if the answer is yes, thenyou get to move forward and your
life is way more free.
If the answer is no, no, no,I'm just going to do what they
tell me to do.
You're welcome to do that.
It's your life is way more free.
If the answer is no, no, no,I'm just going to do what they
they tell me to do.
You're welcome to do that.
It's your life.
You choose, because maybethat's the most appropriate
thing for you right now.
Um, but the beauty is gettingto the part where you're
(19:40):
actually choosing for yourselfright, and you know that it's
your choice.
And that brings us back to whatwe started with, with not
allowing the news media, thesepodcasters that we may listen to
.
I mean, like the bro culture,if that's what it's called.
I call it different thingswhere there's these big name
(20:01):
males typically white males havelots and lots of followers.
You know I'm talking about okayand okay and, and they're like
scooping in all these thousandsand thousands of other men about
how to be a man, or what youshould let your wife do, or
(20:21):
bringing people on and notreally vetting the people or or
not even fact-checking themwhile they're sitting in the
chair.
So when you trust this say I'mjust going to use one particular
podcaster, I won't say his nameyou trust this podcaster and he
brings in I don't know what dothey call a guest and he doesn't
fact-check that guest.
(20:42):
You, the people listening, havea tendency to believe.
You, the people listening, havea tendency to believe.
Well, if this podcaster didn'tfact check the guest, then the
guest must be right.
Instead of the listener sayingI don't know, maybe I should
check it out myself.
(21:02):
We get lazy, we let him do thework for us and it's like well,
I trust him.
That's not good enough, not inthis day and age.
That is not good enough.
People, people we don't knowwhat goes on behind the scenes.
I'm not accusing anybody ofanything, but it is possible
that people are gettingpodcasters are getting paid to
(21:26):
to slant something a particularway.
News organizations do it all thetime.
All the time, in fact, theytalk about I'm not really sure
what the difference betweenmainstream media and legacy
media, I don't know.
And then there's independentmedia.
(21:46):
I go for independent mediabecause I want some information,
but I want to make my owndecision, but nobody wants to do
that.
Some people I say lazy.
I don't know if that's theright words.
Maybe I'm accusing somebody ofsomething I shouldn't, and I
believe that we just we have tobe.
We have to be diligent in thisworld we're in right now,
(22:09):
especially america, because Ithink it's going to be too easy
to be swayed one way or theother and get caught up in
something that we may not wantto get caught up in, only to
find out later we're on thewrong side, or that you don't
even have any control over, findout later we're on the wrong
side, or that you don't evenhave any control over, you know.
Deborah (22:30):
I mean you can get caught up in something that's
taking over your life, your mind, your body, your spirit and you
have no control over it.
Debbie (22:44):
I'm challenged with that one.
I'm challenged with thatconcept.
Deborah (22:47):
What do you mean?
You have no control over it.
You have no control over theoutcome of some of these things
that we're spending so much timewith, like the political
dialogue, the political.
You know you can't go up there,you know, tomorrow and say,
okay, this is what I want, y'alldo it, you know.
I mean there's a process, butyou're fretting over something
(23:10):
that you don't have control over.
So then we're coming to the endof our time today, but you know
, debbie, I'd like to ask youthis conversation that we're
having, how do you relate all ofthese things that we're talking
to to self-love, slash,self-care?
I mean, what, what?
(23:31):
One thing kind of, and I won'tsay one thing.
But what comes to mind when youbring these, all this stuff
together with self-love andself-care?
What, what can you share withour audience?
Debbie (23:45):
For me it would probably be pretty much a one-liner.
We either live in fear or welive in love, and almost every
single action I say almost, Ithink every, even if it's a
little innocuous every singleaction either comes from a place
of love or a place of fear, andthat is the feeling we can feel
(24:07):
, that is the restrictiveness orthe expansiveness.
And, if you know, we do thingsbecause we want love, we want to
receive some sort of love,maybe not just self-love, but
love from another person, orsome love, belonging, acceptance
(24:28):
, whatever.
And sometimes we will dosomething that we hope to get
love, but it's not really a goodoption, but maybe we just don't
know anything different,anything different.
(24:53):
And so my thought, my offer, myinvitation is learn more about
what it means to love yourself,because once you know how to
love yourself and you are notjust self aware but you have a
self knowing, nobody will beable to pull you off your course
.
Nobody will be able to pull youoff your course.
Deborah (25:07):
Pull you off.
I love that.
I love that.
Debbie, Thank you so much.
I want to thank everybody somuch for joining us today and I
invite you to please click thatlike button and subscribe to the
Shero Cafe so that you can stayinformed and help us on our
(25:28):
mission.
And it is our mission to spreadlove, to move us to that place
of love instead of fear andself-care.
And, as always, we invite youto love and care for the Shero
in you.
Bye everyone.
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