103: What To Do When Your People Just Don't Get It

Have you ever come away from a conversation thinking "gosh, "people just don't get it"?  Either they say something insensitive or simply can't empathize with your childless circumstances.  

It's definitely happened to me.  Even recently.  But the mistake I see in the childless space is the assumption that there is nothing you can do about it.  You just have to deal with the irritation or "trigger" and move on somehow. 

What I have noticed, in myself and my clients, is that there IS something you can do about it.  The first step is recognizing when it's happening and then taking steps to do what's in your own control instead of trying to change them.  

Listen to this solo episode to find out: 

• what lies beneath the feeling that people "just don't get it"
• 10 different ways that your feelings might be invalidated
• 4 steps you can take to avoid feeling this way

DM me or email me the word "empathy" if you're ready to find true connection and empathy within a community that understands you.

Where to find Sheri:
Instagram: @sherijohnsoncoaching
Website: sherijohnson.ca

If you want to create your best life in 2024, even without kids, download my free guide.  You'll discover how to find purpose, joy and fulfillment and what might be standing in the way. 
Click here for your free guide

Transcript

@0:01 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

 So I was recently on a sort of a webinar, and one of the women on this particular call was describing her situation as a single childless woman who was aging, and she was talking about how people just don't get it.

And it made me realize that we kind of say this a lot as childless women. We say it about people in our lives.

And I caught myself thinking it recently when somebody who's close to me in my inner circle was trying to tell me that it's mothers who understand the childless women the best.

And she sort of ran through a lot of the cliches, the insensitive comments that I hear women in this space talking about.

And while I was able to let those comments roll off of me, I was sort of rolling my eyes.

I caught myself saying she just doesn't get it. And I really wanted to delve into this a little bit to see what's behind it.

Why do we feel this way and how can we and how can we sort of get through? You and how can we get through it?

How can we stop rolling our eyes and and really find a way to allow it to roll off of us and and not get in our heads about it?

So if you really want to understand what's behind this sentiment, people just don't get it and what are the signs that this is really happening and what to do about it then I invite you to stay tuned.

I'm going to talk all about it. Welcome to the Awakening Worth Podcast. Welcome back. If you are a regular listener, I'm so glad that you're here.

Today, I'm going to really dive into this feeling like people just don't get it. When you are a childless woman who wanted kids, it can feel like people just don't get it all the time.

Whenever they say insensitive things or even sometimes when they talk too much about their kids or when they... I don't know, when they say certain things, it can really feel like they don't understand us.

And I'm going to tell you a little story about how I first identified that this is one. what I was feeling because it didn't exactly show up as though people just don't get it.

So I was at a girl's night. There were four of us and I had, this was maybe a year after my third miscarriage and I was really trying to move on with my life.

was trying to, my husband and treatments. What are we going to do? And one of the girls asked how things were going and it just so happened that on that particular day I had had this huge crash of grief in a way that I actually hadn't at all through all three of my miscarriages.

think I sort of buried my grief. didn't even know how to feel it and suddenly it all came rushing out.

When I came across this website that had pictures of little, teeny, tiny babies that had been miscarried at different stages of gestation.

And of course, it's almost like, you know, you can't turn away from the train wreck, I had to go to the 12 week one, because that's when I lost my first.

And there was this little tiny baby, they're wrapped in this little cloth, and I just fell apart. I won't go too much further into why, and you know, there was a whole bunch of reasons why that particular thing, I felt a whole bunch of guilt.

Actually, that was the main thing that I felt sadness, but also a huge amount of guilt because I had not honored my own baby in that way.

had not wrapped my baby in a cloth. didn't even have a baby to do that with. I didn't have the remains.

And so I felt this huge amount of guilt for not having some sort of, you know, ceremony, even if it was just me or honoring my baby, naming it.

I didn't do those things. And so I started to tell my girlfriends about this and how I felt this wave of guilt that I had never felt before.

And one of the girls immediately piped up and said, oh, you shouldn't feel that way. You shouldn't feel guilt.

And another one also chimed in. The third one just sat there and looked at me with this look of pure empathy and sadness for me.

And as I started to think about this later on, because I was so annoyed with the other two, and I really couldn't pinpoint why.

Because I knew that what they were saying, you know, you shouldn't feel guilty that comes from a good place.

They don't want me to feel guilty. But why that annoyed me? I couldn't, I couldn't pinpoint why. Now, I actually know why, and it's because I felt invalidated.

I felt that they didn't understand, they didn't try to understand, they didn't ask me why that felt, why that brought up guilt for me.

It just, it felt like they were dismissing my feelings. And that's really what is behind this feeling that people just don't get it.

It's a feeling of being invalidated. When I think back to the moment when I was talking to this other person close to me just last week, who was telling me that mothers are the ones who can understand, I think they think they understand because they can imagine not having kids or maybe they can imagine what would happen if they lost one of their kids or if they had never had one of their kids.

They think they can imagine the grief but and maybe they can to a certain extent but what they can't understand are all the other emotions like the guilt that I felt around not honoring my baby.

So what I learned this is that there are a whole bunch of signs that someone is invalidating you. And one of them is this shudding, I call it, that is sort of like superiority.

You shouldn't feel that way. You shouldn't let that bother you. That conveys that you think you have authority over how someone feels, and you don't.

So when someone says that to me, to you, to us, it feels like they are invalidating how we feel, because they think they should know, they think they know how we should feel.

They just don't. So that is a sign that someone's invalidating you. they're telling you you shouldn't feel that way, or you should feel this way, or you shouldn't let it bother you, that's a sign.

There's a whole bunch of others wanting to hear. So showing you the silver lining is one of them. So you've probably heard this before as a childless woman or a child-free one, even someone who made the choice.

You know, other parents will say to us, oh, well, at least you can travel. You never have to worry about getting a babysitter.

You get to sleep in. You get to do whatever you want on the weekends. They will look for the silver lining for your situation and show you that.

And what that's saying is it's kind of the same thing. You shouldn't feel the pain because you have all these great things.

Look at what you do have in your life. And yes, you might have a lot of wonderful things in your life and the ability to

ability to travel or not worry about getting a babysitter or all of those things, but when you're in pain, that's not what you want to hear.

You already know that you have some wonderful things in your life. You probably do at least and you're not able to focus on those things when you're in pain.

So that's the silver lining. There's also fixing and this is a big one in the, and it's not, you know, I was going to say in the infertility community, but it's not just there.

I heard this a lot as a single woman. Have you tried this up? Have you tried that thing? Have you, you know, have you tried this way to see if you can find your, your perfect person?

In the infertility community, it's, have you tried, you know, going gluten-free. Have you, You know, I heard about this modality, acupuncture, the Chinese medicine, or this new doctor that is trying this new thing, this new research.

Have you, you know, that's fixing. All of that is fixing. So you might have felt that before. I definitely had a lot of people giving me advice and trying to fix what they saw as the problem.

You know, I even, this is the other thing that comes up there is, you know, people used to ask me, have you tried surrogacy or have you looked into surrogacy and and I was like, no, that's not my problem.

So that's not the solution to the problem. And so people would try to fix without actually even knowing what the issue was.

Then there is diminishing, or this could also be comparison and it comes out as guilting you. So this usually starts with at least, and it sometimes can sound like a silver lining as well.

At least you get to travel. At least you have a marriage. Be grateful for that. At least you have nieces and nephews.

At least you, I don't know, there's so many things that I've heard people say. And that's diminishing the pain by telling you that you've got all these good things in your life that you should be grateful for.

And so that, and that's comparing you to it's comparing your pain to something else. It's comparing you, perhaps, to other people.

So, you know, there might be so someone who doesn't have a happy marriage for children. And so the person who says this to you is, you know, at least you have a happy marriage and it could be worse.

So they're making a comparison of the worst life and asking you to to let go of your pain because it could be worse.

Then there's the trying to get you to move on. It's time to move forward. And sometimes people are really blatant about this and just, you know, this might come from, I hear people talking about this when it comes from a partner.

A partner who doesn't feel the same level of grief might move on relatively quickly and embrace their child-free life.

And or maybe they're a partner who never wanted children in the first place, or they've already. they already have a child from another marriage, in those situations that partner doesn't necessarily understand your grief or they move on much more quickly and they want you to move on too.

So they will have a hard time empathizing and they'll tell you like it's time to get over this. And I heard a metaphor recently that was, I just thought was such a great analogy for this, that maybe you could even use in response.

So if you have a broken leg, you are not going to try to run the marathon until that broken leg is fixed.

So no one's going to say to you, oh you've got a broken leg, oh just ignore it, move on, just run the marathon anyway.

They're not even going to ask you to walk. let alone run a marathon. what somebody's doing when they're asking you to move on is they're not acknowledging that you've got the broken leg, you're in pain, you can't just move on.

So that's another way of invalidating your pain is just it's time to move on. Another one telling us to just be strong or even you're so strong.

So you've gotten through you're you're in the midst of something or you've gotten through loss and the loss of your dream, the loss of you know you have a miscarriage or or just the loss of of that dream of not having a family.

Someone says to be strong or they tell you you are so strong I admire you. What that is saying

is keep putting on a happy face so I don't have to see your pain and you might be doing that putting on that happy face putting on that armor so that you can hide your pain and what someone is doing by saying be strong is keep doing that because I don't want to have to sit with you and your pain so that's another one there's a couple more here and and I'm hoping these are resonating or it and if they haven't stick with me because one of these probably will at some point I've got three or four more here the silent treatment so you might have experienced this where you have say friends who don't even ask you how you're doing they just they just ignore whatever it is that you're going through and it's sort of under the gun

eyes of, I don't want to make you think about it, or I don't want to get you upset. But really, what that's saying is I don't know how to deal with your pain.

I don't know how to empathize. And so I'm just going to avoid it. So that's the silent treatment denying your perception.

So this one is kind of about, this is a little tougher to explain in the childless context, but it's basically saying that, well, you've got it all wrong.

Here's an example. You tell someone that you feel left out, you feel unworthy, you feel less than the man.

brothers. And in response, you have someone say to you, well, I don't see you as unworthy, or I don't see you as less than me.

And what that person is doing is denying your perception. So maybe you say to someone, you're making me feel left out.

You know, you haven't included me in the imitations to the family barbecues, or you're, you're not including me, so you're making me feel left out.

And that person responds with, no, I want you to be there. I'm not making you feel left out. Well, actually they are because that's how you feel.

So they're just denying your perception of the situation. Another one is isolating you. And this one can feel really isolating.

I had someone say to, actually, this was a comment when this was back when I was still helping women through miscarriage in the early parts of my coaching business.

And so I posted something about how I can't remember exactly what the post was about. It was about miscarriage and how I'd had one and how it feels.

And somebody commented, actually, it wasn't even a comment. She sent me a DM, a personal DM, and said, my friend just had a miscarriage and she's fine, so you shouldn't be so angry.

That's isolating. It doesn't bother anyone else, so why does bother you so much? That's making you feel like you're the only one who feels this way, and you should stop feeling that way.

That's really invalidating. A couple more. Minimizing. That's sort of similar to the above, to the one that I just talked about.

It's above on my notes. Minimizing is it can't be that bad. How bad can it be? Is it really as bad as you say it is?

And can you see how that's invalidating? Because or remaining a woman without kids. And other people don't crave it as much.

There is no standard. You're allowed to feel what you feel. So saying that it can't be that bad is denying how you feel.

It's invalidating. Okay, then there's two more here. I think I had more than I thought. Judging. This one is

is also kind of along the same lines as minimizing, which is the last one that I talked about. It can't be that bad.

Judging is actually you're being too sensitive. You're overreacting. You're being too emotional. Don't be such a drama queen. That's judgment.

Minimizing is, I feel like it comes a little bit more from a place of curiosity, like it can't be that bad, can it?

Whereas judging is actually making the judgment. You're making it worse than it is, or you're being too sensitive about this, or you're overreacting.

That's a judgment. And it's also invalidating how somebody feels. The last one that I want to talk about is probably more here that I haven't even listed.

The last one here is making it about them. So this is the person who says, oh, you're lucky you don't have kids.

Raising kids is so hard. And they turn the attention back to them and how difficult. it is for them.

So that's also invalidating where you're at because you obviously want kids and so they're just invalidating by by brushing it off and turning the attention back to them and telling you that reading kids is so hard you don't want this life or you're lucky you don't have kids.

So I would love to know you know somebody DM and tell me what is most invalidating to you what do you hear the most?

I would love to hear from you which of these really resonated for you. Okay so now that we've kind of got that on the table what are the things that we hear from other people I want to say that this is also on this podcast I don't

I'm not judging other people for this, because we do this too. We just do it in different contexts. So we all do this as a society, and I'm going to tell you why in just a minute.

I've done this myself, I'm totally guilty, I'm learning how to not do this, how to do something different, which I'm also going to tell you about in a minute.

But what we do, you know, think of the last time that you asked someone to look for the silver lining.

I used to use the fix it one all the time, I'm a nutritionist. And so my automatic reaction, when somebody told me about a health issue, have you tried this?

Oh, you should try magnesium, you can't sleep, you should try magnesium. You should do this, and giving them solutions.

Rather than. actually listening to what the real problem is or was. I used to do this all the time to my sister who had kids and I'd tell her what to do and she would get so angry at me and I didn't know why until I finally realized she was telling me about the problems because she just wanted someone to listen.

She didn't want someone to fix it, especially not her sister. We usually will listen to other people outside of our family first before we listen to our family.

I have learned that as well but fixing is something that can be really triggering. It can be really invalidating and so I would I would invite you to just be curious and ask yourself when have I tried to fix someone?

When have I shown them a silver lining? I'll give you another example. I caught myself doing this to a friend.

She was telling me about a work scenario where she made a huge financial mistake and she was deep in her shame and pain and embarrassment about having made this mistake and she was telling me about it and I remember at the time actually really kind of focusing on how I was showing up for my friends and I really tried to listen to understand what she was going through and I did that and then at the end I said oh at least didn't do this and I shared a story of my own which in my mind was sort of worse and it was intended to make her feel better but I did the at least diminishing comparison

At least this didn't happen. So for us, remember, this is the one where people say, at least you have a happy marriage.

At least, you know, you can get pregnant, someone said that to me one time. So that's diminishing and I diminish her.

I listened and I empathize first, but I still then ended it with at least diminishing her shame and her pain.

So we all do this and as, you know, I would encourage you to actually go back through that list and see if you can identify when have you done this to someone else and think through what was going on in your mind when you did it.

How are you feeling? How are you feeling in that situation? How are you feeling about the other person? So let's dive into why we do it and this might help.

There are, I think, three big reasons why we invalidate other people and why they invalidate us. Number one, we are a society that is in so much pain and when we are in pain, it's really hard to sit with someone else in theirs.

We're a society that does not, you know, we haven't been taught how to release grief. We haven't been taught how to grieve.

We just hide it, we keep ourselves busy, we distract ourselves, we numb ourselves, we watch Netflix, we drink, we numb, we, you know, we do all of these things to try to make ourselves feel better.

But we, the last thing we do is release and process our pain. So, we are a society that is all walking around with pain.

And so, when we have pain, think of it this way, when you get sick, if you are like down with a flu, and then your partner or your, you know, think of this as if you had a roommate at some point in your life, you then get...

So, you have the flu, and then you're, whoever it is that's close to you also gets the flu, you cannot take care of them, because you are in so much pain yourself, and you're an illness, it's almost impossible to give in that situation.

And it's the same with emotional pain. When we are feeling so much emotional pain, even if it's denied or numbed or distracted from or shoved down, it's so hard to sit with someone.

someone else in theirs. So that's the first reason why we do this. We're all in so much pain. It's so hard to actually empathize with someone else.

Number two, it's really hard to watch a loved one be in pain. So it's actually, you might even find this, that it's your once we're the closest to you that will use all of these ways of invalidating you because they do not want to see you in pain.

So they're automatically going to want to fix or help to alleviate that pain. And they will do whatever they can to help you not feel it.

And all of these things are all of these ways, these signs that someone's invalidating you that I ran through are all disguises for helping.

So that's number two. It's really hard to watch a loved one. In pain. The last one, number three, as a society, this isn't everybody.

By the way, I'm saying everybody, I'm saying we're all in so much pain, it's so hard to watch someone in a loved one in pain.

There are definitely exceptions and you might have these exceptions in your life, but most of us have not actually been taught to truly empathize with others.

We haven't been taught to sit with other people in their pain, we just, we don't even know how to do that.

So and these are all really good reasons why, why this happens, why we all go around and validate each other and it doesn't actually help us heal.

So next up I want to talk about what to actually do about this. First of all, let me say that you

can't make someone else empathize with you. You can't make someone else do that. But here's what you can do.

There are four things I want to share with you on how you can create a better environment. So the first thing is, can you model empathy?

So can you show the people around you how you want to be treated? So when someone is sharing their pain with you, can you simply sit and hold space for them?

Can you truly listen without responding right away? You could repeat back what they've said. This is what I'm hearing you say.

Is this how you feel? Ask for clarification. Really seek an understanding. standing of what they're feeling. And that will model, that will show to others how to truly empathize and how you want to be treated, how you want them to hold space for you.

So that's number one, model the empathy that you want to see in the world, in your world, in your community or social circles.

Number two, also choose who you share with and choose carefully. So if you think about it, your friends, your family, they probably have a sort of go-to strategy.

They've probably got one or two or three of these ways of invalidating that are sort of their go-to pattern.

And if they are someone who you know can't hold space for you, Don't set yourself up for that failure.

Don't set yourself up for that annoyance. Don't go to that person. Don't share with that person. Go to the people who can hold space for you.

And here's where I want you to think about who are the people that are able to hold space for you?

Who are the people who just sit and listen for me going back to my first story of my girls' night.

My one friend, she just had this look of pure empathy on her face and she didn't say a word.

She just listened and she's the person that I go to now. So choose who you share with. That's number two.

three, you could ask for empathy. So this one takes some courage. But if there is someone close to you who, you know, uses one of these patterns, uses one of these ways of, of invalidating you and it's how they typically respond, you could sit down with them and ask them, tell them, look, I just, I need you to listen to me.

Just, just hear what I have to say without trying to fix it. Or I don't need a solution right now, I just want to vent.

Or I just want to be able to get this out. just want to share how horrible my day was and I don't need you to fix it.

So sometimes that works. Sometimes people, it stops people in their tracks and they realize, oh, that is what I'm doing, isn't it?

And okay, I can just listen. So that's number three, asking for empathy. And number four, seek out the spaces where you know you're going to receive the connection, the empathy, the understanding that you need.

So find places like mine. There's others around. There's not just mine. So, you know, my Instagram account in the comments, in my DMs, inside my Women of Worth program.

These are all places where you will find true connection, true empathy, understanding from people who know exactly how you feel.

So I'm going to end on that note. We've talked about just to summarize, we talked about people who just don't get it, and what that is really about.

That's about someone in validating how you feel. I talked about how we do this, also we all do this and why we do it.

And I also gave you, gave you four things that you can do about it. So if you are someone who is ready to be heard, to be empathized with, you need someone to hold space for you.

And you want true connection with others who understand, I invite you to just send me a DM or an email, both my Instagram account and my email are listed in the show notes.

I'm at Sherry Johnson Coaching and Sherry Johnson dot c a just send me a DM with word empathy. And I will show you how to find that space where you can feel true empathy.

That is it for today, a little longer than I expected, but I hope you gained some value from this.

you did, please drop me a review, subscribe, or follow, or whatever is the call to action on the platform that you're on.

And I will see you next week for another solo episode. Bye for now.