6 Irresistible Reasons to Stop Explaining Yourself
June 22nd, 2009 by Christine Kane
Last week, one of the women in my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program (I’ll call her Rita) came to our group coaching call wanting guidance. She has been making amazing changes in her life, her business, and as a mom.
But then, her parents came to visit. They found out Rita had gotten a kitten. They did not approve. Rita said that she would be receiving a long letter from them soon filled with judgments about her irresponsibility. As she waited for that letter, she was trying to figure out what she would write back.
——–
Sylvia, one of the women in my Platinum Coaching Group (my year long program), just bought her dream house. She avoided telling her father about it for fear that he would judge her, call her irresponsible and proceed to describe her imminent demise. On our call, she told me that she finally told her dad, and that she was still waiting for his reaction, gearing up to explain her choice to him.
———
Now, there are some people who might read these stories and think, “Are you freakin’ kidding me? Who cares what your parents think about houses or cats or anything??! It’s your life!”
If this is you, then read no further. This post is not for you.
I’m writing this for the “explainers” out there. You know who you are!
Emma is also in my Uplevel Your Life Mastery Program. The program begins with a contract to go complaint-free for an entire seven-weeks. Emma has been complaint-free for about three years, so she didn’t need to sign this contract. She told me that she wanted to use the contract to help her stop explaining herself to people. She went on to say that the energy of explaining herself was an old pattern, and she didn’t want to allow that to dictate her choices anymore.
I said, “So now that you’re already complaint-free, you wanna be EXPLAINT-free!”
She liked this.
So, to all the explainers out there, I’m proposing that starting right now, you go explaint-free.
And here are six irresistible reasons to do just that:
1 – Waiting steals your energy.
When I’m coaching an explainer, I realize that much of her energy goes to the non-activity of waiting.
She is waiting for judgment.
She is waiting for people to “get” her before she’ll take action.
She waits for people to let her know that her choice was okay.
She waits for criticism.
This literally drains her creative life force. Both women in the examples above were losing energy waiting for criticism.
After Sylvia realized that she was waiting for her dad’s judgment, she decided simply to stop waiting. In her words: “Once I stopped waiting for the difficult conversation – it vaporized. When I give up waiting, the difficult conversation doesn’t manifest, and I don’t get hooked into ‘please like me’ patterns.”
2 – When you’re an explainer, you never learn how to trust your own choices.
Explaining robs you of empowerment.
Our choices and decisions teach us valuable lessons about intuition and instinct. After all, rarely do our decisions come from our mental activity. Gut instinct is clearer than our critical minds.
When our choices are “up for grabs” by whomever, then these choices move into the territory of the mind. When we explain ourselves, we move away from the place of deep trust in our intuition and into the realm of mental activity – where the choice didn’t come from in the first place! We’ve suddenly stopped honoring and trusting ourselves and started creating a pattern of mental activity as we question our choices.
3 – Explaining blocks creativity.
Creativity means you’re the Creator of your life. You’re a Creator. Not a Reactor. When you explain yourself, you become a “Reactor.” You can’t live in both realms at once. They contradict each other. Living in a state of reaction means that you cease doing the wild creative things that bring you joy and abundance.
4 – When you explain yourself, you miss the opportunity for disapproval.
Huh?
Yes, I’m serious about this!
Becoming an adult in the deepest sense of the word is about learning to take responsibility for your actions and choices. Sometimes that means other people won’t like these actions and choices. And what a great opportunity they provide when they do that!
I once heard a relationship coach say that love can sometimes mean letting your partner be disappointed in your choices. Think about that. Can you stand in your body and love someone enough to let them not be happy with a choice you’re making? When you can do that, you really wake up!
5 – When you explain yourself, you endorse irresponsibility.
People who take personal responsibility for their lives do not blame others (or themselves) for their unhappiness, for their life situations, or for their financial state, etc. Instead, they recognize that they created it, and they can un-create or re-create anything. It’s an empowering place to live.
Many people do not live in this level of personal responsibility. They are too busy blaming other people, taking other people’s inventory, and looking outside themselves for their happiness. Byron Katie calls this minding other people’s business instead of your own.
Your choice to explain yourself teaches other people that it’s okay not to take responsibility, and that it’s okay to mind your business instead of their own. Your explaints actually perpetuate the age-old pattern of irresponsibility!
6 – It’s hard to Live Big when you’re waiting for permission.
The women at the June Unstoppable Power of Intention Retreat had a common theme: Living big and shining bright. One of the shared desires among them was to stop giving so much attention to other people’s opinions of their choices.
Explainers are often waiting for permission, approval, or for people to “get” their choices.
I’m convinced that most of the unhappiness and depression in the world come from a lifetime of waiting for these often unattainable things. Living big means making decisions from your soul. And your soul doesn’t feel the need to explain anything!
—————-
So, are you ready to go explaint-free?
Add to del.icio.us
Stumble It!
Subscribe to this feed
Digg it
|
|
Share this Article:
|
A Friday Night in One Lifetime
Right Outta Nowhere
Rain & Mud & Wild & Green
Live
A Thousand Girls
This Time Last Year
June 22nd, 2009 4:34 am
Oh Yeah! I have been living from my gut for a while now and get a lot of disapproval because of it. It makes me sigh!
However I know what I know and really, I just can’t explain why I choose to do, what I choose to do. It’s simply what I must do, that’s all!
I have actually given up explaining, mostly, but often feel that need creeping back.
Understanding why I might feel this way is very helpful – thank you!
June 22nd, 2009 6:50 am
Oh this is so very timely for me right now!
An excellent reminder and exactly the encouragement I needed to hear. Thank you!
June 22nd, 2009 7:09 am
“It’s hard to Live Big when you’re waiting for permission.” OH I can tell this is going to stick with me for awhile. I need time to sit with this. Thanks for an inspiring kick start to my week.
June 22nd, 2009 7:14 am
Hi Christine,
You must be tracking my current issues and posting accordingly! This was just the clarification that I needed today. Thanks.
June 22nd, 2009 7:32 am
I love #4 – that has been BIG for me. I wrote about it at my blog when I was dealing with my dad’s disapproval over the decision my husband and I made not to vaccinate our child. You can read about it here:
http://myfriendoprah.blogspot.com/2009/03/choosing-peace.html
I think a piece that is missing from your post, Christine, is looking for what I call “positive intent” in one’s disapproval. I’m not looking for anyone’s agreement or approval (I wasn’t going to get that from my dad), but seeing where his disapproval and disagreement was founded on concern for me and my child really helped me choose peace more quickly – and that’s HUGE for me.
June 22nd, 2009 7:57 am
Love the post. Used to be a massive explainer myself, and sometimes the temptation is there. From a communication point of view, there is the question about how much information a third party really needs to know. Usually not much.
June 22nd, 2009 8:13 am
Thank You!!! Again an absolutely relevant post. Those are my parents and I’d been struggling with this for aeons, only fully realizing within the past few weeks that, like Stacy said, it’s founded on concern. All of a sudden I had a way to disarm my frustration with love and thanks to this wonderful post I can grow forward even more.
June 22nd, 2009 8:28 am
In reading this post I noticed that creator and reactor both have the same letters just arranged differently, there is a word for that, I guess I should have paid better attention to my high school English teacher.
I think the amazing part is that you will be a reactor until you “c” the light (understand yourself) and at that time you will be able to become a creator. Rearrange the letters, rearrange your life or is that vice versa
June 22nd, 2009 8:45 am
Christine -
I think you must have written this post just for me! This has always been an “issue” for me, but is particularly timely because I also have a desire now to break out of that pattern. (I just wondered how)! Thank you!!
June 22nd, 2009 9:15 am
Thanks for an insightful post Christine. It made me realise how much I need to let go of with respect to my husband’s negative attitude about my decision to go back to school. I think that’s the one piece that I could have done with some elaboration on – how do you live with disapproval when it comes from those closest to you?
BTW I’ve just successfully completed my first year of part-time study and I feel like I’ve made the right decision for me.
June 22nd, 2009 10:10 am
Good Morning Christine,
Wow – The only thing missing from your post is my name, Betty, at the top. Talk about hitting me right smack in the face and THAT was before coffee..lol I’ve printed your post out and I can assure you that it will stay close to me as I work on getting out of the cycle of explaining myself and waiting for anothers approval. Thank you so much Chrstine. If you’re ever passing thru the Thomasville/High Point – make sure you let me know -Lunch at Butlers for sure on me so I can hug your neck to say thank you in person.
June 22nd, 2009 10:22 am
These are all GREAT reasons. It’s amazing how many people (myself included) feel the need to explain themselves. I definitely agree that it blocks creativity and also hinders people from going with their gut instincts. Great stuff in this post!
June 22nd, 2009 10:28 am
[...] http://christinekane.com/blog/6-irresistible-reasons-to-stop-explaining-yourself/ [...]
June 22nd, 2009 11:25 am
@glenn: Great idea!! Especially since I swing on the pendulum between the two
Christine:
I had to come out of my feed reader to post to this one because I am a compulsive explainer, and I recently realized that I need to stop that!
Thanks for a ‘right on time’ post [are you peeping in my window or something? LOL!!] … It’s going into my journal!!
June 22nd, 2009 12:41 pm
Your timing is impeccable! I laughed when I saw the title, just because it was so perfect. I know all this, but needed to be reminded. Just yesterday I’d slipped back into explaining. You have it so right about that draining your creative life force and robbing you of empowerment. Great post. Thanks, Christine.
June 22nd, 2009 2:17 pm
Thanks for all the cool comments! Glenn – the react/create connection is very nice.
My friend Joy told me that she’ll even explain to her husband the reasons he needs to pick up sour cream at the store – and why she had to call him to ask him to do that! He tells her to just say, “Hey! We need sour cream!” She says that it’s SO hard NOT to explain even that!
June 22nd, 2009 2:27 pm
I am in love with this post! Thank you, thank you! Many of my clients will benefit from reading this.
XO
S
June 22nd, 2009 3:20 pm
[...] from them. I have been preparing explanations for things that have not even happened. Then I read a post today on Christine Kane’s blog about explainers and saw things from a different [...]
June 22nd, 2009 3:56 pm
Excellent post. I know I’ve been guilty of waiting for criticism so I can explain myself, and I always hated doing that for all the reasons outlined above. I’ve been working on owning my stuff for the past year, and the explaining tendency has gone way down, I’m happy to say.
Glenn: “anagram.”
June 22nd, 2009 5:22 pm
This post hit a little too close to home today. Just what I needed to hear though.
Thanks!
June 22nd, 2009 5:52 pm
I loved this post. Yep, you guessed it, explanation r us> Thank-you so much for laying this out there for all of us recovering explainers, waiting can be just so darn tiresome!
June 22nd, 2009 6:17 pm
This reminds me. There’s a line from Mary Poppins, when she tells Mr. Banks, “There’s one thing you must understand, I never explain myself.”
Thanks Christine!
June 22nd, 2009 10:51 pm
From the perspective of a former-complainer, I can also add that once you stop explaining yourself, initially those who are expecting it from you are very confused.
But even better, you give no one anything to “work with”. I often suggest to my sister (a lifelong explainer) that just before she starts explaining an action or deed to just take a breath, hold it as though she’s going to speak, and then let the breath out – with no words behind it.
She reported back that when she’s done this, people just say “okay”. It blows her away every time!
June 23rd, 2009 8:16 am
LOVE this. My husband just puts his hand up in a ’stop’ fashion whenever I start explaining things (like Joy does). I don’t even realize I’m doing it half the time, so I need the visual cue! Thanks for this!
June 23rd, 2009 9:52 pm
I like this, and thank you.
Learning to listen to my gut, or at least being aware when I listen but don’t pay attention. I understand intuition has nothing to do with explaining.
I have a habit of explaining others behavior and actions to myself, in order to “see” their side and NOT blame them, but I’m becoming aware that this drains me in some way…gets in the way of me making choices and taking action.
June 24th, 2009 8:36 pm
Oh my…this is me…explaining all the time and being afraid of others’ reactions to my choices. It’s exhausting and I’ve pretty much reached the breaking point. I want to make a change. Just joined the Uplevel program and am ecstatic about beginning this work. Thanks for the post and for the beautiful music
.
Jeri
June 24th, 2009 8:49 pm
Christine, you rock!
I was seriously thinking about e-mailing you regardin this topic because my parents don’t get me ever and still, I wait for their approval of every little thing I do and I’m so tired!
It’s like you’ve been watching my life!
Thanks for such a valuable insight. It was such good timing!
Love and Blessings
June 25th, 2009 1:44 am
I am forwarding this to my clients and friends. What a fabulous post at the perfect time!
June 25th, 2009 8:52 am
Fabulous post! I am one of those who needed to keep reading. Cheers
June 25th, 2009 5:06 pm
I’ve been living explaint free for about 5 years now and I’ve never felt better about myself or more in charge of my destiny (for good or bad) in my life. Unfortunately both parents had to die in order for that to happen. My Mom died when I was 21, but my Dad just passed said 5 years ago. Right after, I ended my relationship with his wife, with whom I co existed with politely for 20 years, but never liked. She never really liked or respected me either. The judgement I’ve felt all my life is gone. The responsibility I’ve avoided all my life is gone. The self judgement is still there to some degree and I’m working on dismissing that. But it’s a shame that it took 50 years to really “grow up” and grow into myself. And a shame that I never was able to develop an equal adult relationship with either of my parents.
For those of you who still have that opportunity – grab it. You might be surprised that it’s what the “judgers” in your life have been waiting for. And you might be able to enjoy a whole new wonderful relationship with them. And yourself.
June 26th, 2009 8:13 pm
It is so incredibly freeing to go explaint free!!! I am no longer a citizen of the explain-nation. My brain is still kinda trying to catch up to the idea that I don’t have to explain anything. It starts to make a run for it (cooking up some kind of explanation), and I have to correct it like I’m in Obediance Class with my dog…”HEAL!”. Yes, my brain IS my dog
Thanks so much Christine, I can use all that time (formerly used for thinking up explanations) to create funny songs & enjoy the moment.
June 28th, 2009 12:19 am
Love love love the insight on this one. Hit home for me tonight!
xo
~Alison
June 28th, 2009 4:36 pm
Christine–
Steve has been following your blog and shared this Explainer post with me. We were discussing the fact that Sam, who is now studying Musical Theater at Carnegie Mellon, has been criticized by Steve’s dad. It brought up the exact same injury as when Steve was not permitted to attend Berklee, as recommended by his guitar teacher.
The clarity of your post and the generosity of the way you share it inspires me as a parent, artist and teacher.
Thank you! Hope to catch you in person whenever you tour the north east!
Peace in mud and rain,
Jane
ps it has been 10 years since you did our living room birthday concert!
June 29th, 2009 1:01 pm
Thank you so much for this post. I’ve been wanting to get a tattoo since I was 40. I’ll be 47 this year and still haven’t gotten hubby’s approval. Oh well, I say. I think he’s just going to be surprised with my birthday gift to myself. –Lori
June 29th, 2009 3:53 pm
I wish I had read this last Fall, it would have saved me a lot of wasted time & anguish. I had been wrestling with a big, life-changing decision for a couple of months & I was waiting for my husband to “approve” and give me “permission” to do it. While he was not opposed, it was going to disrupt his life enough that he wasn’t gung ho. When I finally realized it was ultimately MY choice..both of us felt better when I made it.
I felt good about the decision and it has caused me to not rely on my husband so much for approval. I feel better about myself and he even said it took a lot of pressure off of him.
June 29th, 2009 6:52 pm
OMG I am SUCH an ‘explainer’. Or should I say, I am a reforming explainer. Let me explain how good I’ve gotten at not explaining….doh….wait, that would be explaining, wouldn’t it?
June 30th, 2009 1:31 pm
Love this post. Takes courage and confidence to take on the no explaining challenge though. I find most folks (me included) when they do explain it is because they are lacking some sort of confidence in their own choice, decision, or self. Otherwise it’d just be “here’s my choice” and no further drama.
I’d be curious… what is your take on the distinction between explaining and say elaborating on value. Example – small business owner makes a proposal for work. Client has questions and is maybe hemming and hawwing on price (a little, not a total shopping only on price, see ya later client, but just more curious) — what is the distinction between the small business owner who 1) feels bad, desperate, etc. and tries to explain it away or even bargain down versus 2) the small business owner who is fully confident in the value and wants to demonstrate that to the client so they will hopefully say yes.
Anyway — just a scenario that I thought would be fun to toss around in discussion..
July 4th, 2009 11:13 am
[...] was reading Christine Kane’s blog post the other day, 6 Irresistable Reasons to Stop Explaining Yourself, and it reminded me of my experiences with Landmark Forum years ago. Christine’s is right [...]
July 4th, 2009 11:14 am
Christine,
This is amazing. You are so right on the money with this stuff and have given me much to think about! THank you so much for writing this!
July 15th, 2009 1:02 pm
[...] I stopped back in (thanks to the beauty of Google Reader) and read her blog post about the 6 Irresistable Reasons to Stop Explaining Yourself and I was hooked. What an amazing resource she is! The more I poked around, the more I liked [...]
October 17th, 2009 4:29 pm
I just read this in the newsletter I put aside 4 days ago so I could read it in peace. I’m glad I did. It hit the nail on the head.
Thanks for the reminder Christine.