I have to say the right thing or they’ll be mad
In this episode, Gervase shines a light on the pervasive belief: “I have to say or do the right thing, or they’ll be mad.” Gervase explores how this belief can not only trap you in cycles of self-doubt, stress, and rumination but also leads to self-abandonment. Join her as she shares insights into how the mind can mask trauma with obsession, frustration, and the relentless need to “get it right.” Keep listening to hear how you find the unique somatic soul strategy you need to bring yourself out of overwhelming obsession and into clarity, self-honoring, and groundedness.
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I have to say the right thing or they’ll be mad
Episode Full Transcript
Welcome back to another episode of the Modern Phoenix podcast. I did not get sick of saying that. I am your inner transformation coach, Gervase Kolmos, and I am here to help you know what you want, know who you are, and choose it out there in the modern world despite the many obstacles—and there will be many—from people to life challenges to the things that come from within ourselves, like our limiting beliefs and our trauma, etc. Today, we're going to talk about one of those things. I'm going to walk you through a presenting belief that came up recently. Somebody booked a Soul Shift Intensive, and as I was listening to her share the story of what was happening, why she felt really stuck and overwhelmed and confused and unable to move forward, what I started to pull out was this core belief she was carrying through the conversation: I have to do the right thing or they're going to be mad.
You don't even need to know the details to relate to this. How many of you have felt or thought: I have to say or do the right thing or they will be mad? We have so much pressure and conditioning that tells women—and only women—there is a right way to behave to get the things we want. There is a right way to belong, to succeed in the workplace, and especially in our families of origin if we are parents. None of this stuff comes for dads. It's really just so much messaging and conditioning toward women that there is a right way to do “womaning,” and there is a wrong way.
Once we identified this belief in this client—that it was the lens through which she was seeing her options and her challenge, “I have to say the right thing or they will be mad”—we tapped a layer deeper. Of course, if you're not new here, you know the next place we go is the body. What's happening in our systems? This feels like activation. I know that I am working with a limiting belief and, in her case, a childhood trauma, because it feels like tightness, stress, anxiety. It feels uncomfortable in my body. It doesn't feel like I'm me. It doesn't feel like I'm safe to be me. It doesn't feel like I know who I am or what I want. Raise your hand if you relate to that experience. All of us have this experience. It's so common for women because of all the conditioning that tells us the right and wrong ways to behave and succeed and be included. The result is the felt sensation—the somatic experience—of feeling bad in our bodies.
Now, let's talk about what this looks like. It feels bad, but it looks like total confusion. And often—tell me if you relate to this—I’ve seen a lot of obsession lately. I am not judging. Girl, I have been there. But it's really useful to notice the way the ego masks trauma, the way the mind masks what is clearly a spinning out of our own authentic self into a performing way of womaning that requires us to self-abandon. It creates obsession with contrived, manipulative solutions: if I do it just like this and say that, I’ll show them, I’ll prove it. It's obsessive. One thing I'll say: women, we know how to obsess. It helps us in so many ways. And also, when you find yourself in this obsessive pattern of thought, you already know: okay, I'm in a limiting belief. I feel the activation. It's showing up as obsession, resentment, anger—solutions that are totally not soulful. I’m thinking of strategies that are contrived by the mind. Okay, I need to stop and drop. I need to stop what I’m doing, drop into my body and soul wisdom, stop obsessing and ruminating, stop thinking my way through this, and drop into a somatic and soul strategy.
So I asked this client: is it true that they may be mad either way? Is it true that these people—or this person—may be disappointed or upset no matter what you choose next? Maybe they're already mad and disappointed. Maybe no matter what you choose, you unconsciously know it's an uphill battle and it will never be enough. Raise your hand if you have that person, that relationship in your life, and you’ve been unwilling to see the truth of the situation—which is not to make it bad or wrong. Relationships are complicated and complex. But when we can get really honest and go, “Oh, it will never be enough. I could never say the perfect right thing for this person to love and accept me and see me for who I truly am,” that can be heavy, hard news to the weary soul trying so hard to be loved, to do it right, to be accepted, to make someone proud, to get validation, to do a good job. And it can be liberating.
The reframe for her was coming back to the It's All Me framework and asking: if they're going to be mad either way, if we knew it would never be enough, and if we held the complex reality that that's not okay and also it's okay—it's not okay, it doesn't feel okay, and also we're okay, we’re holding ourselves through this one and not abandoning ourselves just because somebody else is upset—then what feels right to you? What feels most like your truth to bring to this relationship, this hard conversation, or this next choice?
Suddenly the world shifts and everything that was upside down goes right side up. For this client, there was sudden clarity. Instead of outside-in strategizing, she started leading with her soul, body, and heart. Okay, what feels good to me? Well, I'm not going to go to that thing. I'm not going to call and do that thing. I'm going to choose what feels right for me. And I'm going to give myself permission for that to change. What feels right for me today may change tomorrow. This choice doesn't have to be the final choice of all choices. We love to do that when we're operating from the mind, but the soul understands the complexity of human relating—the web of dynamics involved between families, loved ones, and professional relationships—and gives us space for it to be messy and ever-evolving. Which we love, because we are phoenixes.
So: what feels right for me in this breath? What feels right for me in the next one? If I’m reframing to focus on myself—it's all me—what do I need? What feels safe for me? Then suddenly we’re likely to have not big, sweeping solutions, but the next right thing. We’ll know what to choose for that one little problem. We drop from rumination into embodied next steps. That feels empowering, good, honest—and it gets to feel a little messy too. It's uncertain because, instead of clinging to the old lie we’ve sometimes held since childhood—that if I say or do the right thing, they will love and accept me and they won’t be mad—we’re holding the truth of our relationship, which is: sometimes I’m not sure. It might be messy. I don’t know what they’re going to do. There’s a lot of uncertainty. I feel a little afraid. And also, at least I know what is true for me, what to do for me, what feels good for me, and what my safety line is. I’m going to focus on that.
Then, for this client—and always for my clients—the way we anchor that in and validate that it’s the right somatic and soul strategy is we check the system. We check the body. What does it feel like? Suddenly it moves from obsessive stress, anxiety, and rumination into calm, groundedness, relief, spaciousness, clarity, self-honoring—a breath. And there you have it. That is your soul shift. That is the way you take the work, know who you are and what’s right for you, and make a choice that is not perfect and not guaranteed—because guess what? Nothing in life, nothing in relationships is. It’s you and a whole other being with all their stuff.
As much as we create this worldview and survival strategy of making the “right” choices and saying the “right” thing so they won’t be mad, that strategy expires at a certain point of maturity. When we move from maiden to mother in the archetypal cycles, the strategies that really served us in childhood or maidenhood just don't cut it anymore. They feel like self-abandonment and anxiety. When we can hold what’s right for us within the larger web of uncertainty that is our humanity, at the very least we feel clear and sovereign. We feel like we know what we know and what to choose next. It also takes some pressure off, because wouldn’t it be nice to have a little less pressure on ourselves as modern women to do or say the right thing—and to just be ourselves? The truth is, there is no right or wrong. There’s your system and what you’re experiencing, and there’s theirs.
When we shift from focusing on them—pleasing them, not disappointing them—to ourselves—pleasing ourselves, not disappointing ourselves—and notice what that feels like in our bodies, and feel that validation, we also feel coherence, satisfaction, wholeness. It’s like, “Oh, thank you for being there for me. Thank you for honoring what we need, what’s right for us, that we are a mind, body, and soul.” You can just do that over and over and over. And I hope you do.
I love you so much. If you want to take this work deeper, your first step is to book a Soul Shift Intensive—a 90-minute one-on-one session with me where we will workshop your somatic and soul strategy for whatever triggers are happening in your life. If you love this podcast, I would be so grateful if you’d rate and review us on iTunes, subscribe, and share this with a fellow Phoenix. It really helps us get this message out to modern women everywhere: to blaze their own trail, to know who they are and what they want, and to choose it—even when it feels messy. Reclaim your ownership over your life, the wisdom of your body and soul, and the distinct pleasure that comes from choosing yourself and creating a life from that place of sustained self-trust. I love you so much. I’ll see you back here in two weeks for our next episode. Mwah!
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