Dear Life Kit: I need a gut check for a sticky situation
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Today on the show, we have another edition of Dear Life Kit, the series where reporter Andy Tegel seeks advice on behalf of listeners. In this episode, she talks to Sophia Benoit, a comedian and writer of an advice column we love called Here's the Thing. Andy is going to present Sophia with some of your stickiest interpersonal situations, and she'll give us a gut check on each one. Enjoy.

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What are some of the worst ways people can go about following their gut? With your advice column, I'm sure you have heard and seen it all. One thing that we mistake for listening to our gut a lot is anxiety. The feelings of anxiety feel so similar to intuition sometimes. And so especially I see on my end of things with my advice column, people write in all the time about chemistry and passion and excitement of the early stages of a relationship where

And then when they describe what's happening, what they're actually describing to me sounds much more like I have anxiety about whether this person likes me back. There's not comfort. There's not calmness. When you're doing a gut check, you shouldn't necessarily feel frantic excitement about a thing. You should feel calm.

like, calm assurance with that, you know, like, oh, I can do this. This will be fun. This will be enjoyable rather than like, ah, you know, and you should be excited. I want to be clear. If you're dating someone, you should be excited, but there's a big difference between anxiety and excitement. Yeah, absolutely. Sophia, this is a great start. Are you ready to jump in? I'm ready. Let's do it. Okay. Here's your first question.

Dear Life Kit, I'm a recent graduate and I work remotely for a startup. Recently, we had an in-person retreat and I was feeling more anxious than usual. The management had a meeting in the morning and the rest of us were scheduled to come in later. When I walked into the office, I overheard one of my managers complaining about me to her entire team. Something about how I messaged her directly with questions instead of putting my questions in the shared communications channels.

As she was saying this, one of the other managers saw me and awkwardly closed the door to their meeting while my manager continued to complain about me. I felt humiliated and embarrassed and tried to hold back tears. I never addressed the situation. My mom told me to just let it go. But I did wonder, should I have told my manager that I heard her concerns and would like to improve upon the feedback? As a new professional, it's hard to know when it's appropriate to raise concerns in the workplace.

When are you being overly sensitive? And when is feeling disrespected worth talking about? Signed, worked up at work. Sophia, my cringe meter on this question is 1,000 out of 10. How would you have reacted in this situation? I think just like you said, there's that immediate human response of shame that if I was in this situation, I would feel shame or I would feel embarrassment. And I think...

It's worth taking an extra step back and reminding yourself that at the end of the day, people do always talk about each other behind our backs. And it's not always malicious. It's sometimes venting. And so it is super unfortunate to overhear it and incredibly hurtful to your own ego of I want to be a good worker. I thought I was doing well.

And I think that's worth exploring and thinking about. But to me, I think the reminder to yourself is it's okay to mess up at work. I would release yourself from the shame of it. And I would go to your manager and not say that you overheard anything, not address this situation, but just ask and do a check-in and say –

Is there anything I need to improve on so that you can actually hear what your manager has to say? So first off, zoom out from the particulars of this situation and just remind yourself that like everybody's human. We've all complained about people. We've probably all been complained about. And then go to the manager. Personally, I'm

I'm surprised that no one in leadership talked to our friend, worked up about this afterward. It seems strange that there wasn't any follow-up there. I agree. I think it's not...

great management anyway to be in a room complaining with the door open when you know people are coming. I think there's a little bit of like some sloppiness on the side of the management, but I think you can always come to a situation and decide I'm going to be mature about this. I have a friend who has a very healthy sense of self-confidence. Her name is Priyanka Matu. And she always says, whenever someone doesn't like me, I just think they'll come around. And I think it's really...

been helpful for myself because I think all of us get really into the idea of being liked as this like yes or no thing. But if you remind yourself that like there's fluidity, I can come back around on this. Give yourself grace. Give yourself space to be like, I messed up maybe. It's okay. I like that a lot. Okay. So when is it appropriate to raise concerns in the workplace? When are you just being overly sensitive? I think this is a question a lot of people grapple with, especially when you're first starting out.

What advice do you have for us? A thing that I remind people a lot is that you have the power to set the tone in conversations more than you sometimes think. So if you come to your manager, coworker, anybody that you work with, and you do have a concern, you can just say, hey, the other day I felt like

I wasn't included in the project. Is there anything that I need to be doing differently? X, Y, Z. Even if there's more emotion behind it, I think if you set the tone of like, my emotions aren't hinging on this, you're not going to hurt my feelings. Even if again, obviously everybody has feelings and you're allowed to bring feelings to the workplace. But I just think sometimes we all feel like, oh, I have huge emotions around this. How could I ever bring all these emotions to the person?

You don't have to bring them all. You can just bring that question that's at the heart of it to the table in a really professional kind of upbeat way. And then I feel like often people are pretty receptive to that. And I think also just always remembering that at the end of the day, this is work and as much as you can put it aside. It's okay to just say, I can't worry about this past 5 p.m. or whatever time you get off. So, you know. Work is work for a reason. Yeah, absolutely. Question number two, we ready? Yep. Dear Life Kit.

I often get into arguments with my sister over the ways she wants to be supported while venting to me. When she vents about someone, she wants me to nod along, agree, and then insult the person she's complaining about. For example, she wants me to say, "'That person is effing ugly.'"

I'm happy to listen to her, but I feel uncomfortable insulting people. And I've told her this. But she says it's an easy thing to do. And if I don't do it, I'm not being supportive. I want to support my sister and validate her feelings, but I also have boundaries that she can't respect. How do I navigate this? Signed, Kinderkin. I have a confession for you. I had a hard time relating to this question.

For me, it might not be the healthiest thing, I fully admit. But if my best friend, my sister, my husband calls me up and is like, this person made me so mad today, I don't even necessarily need much more of the story than that. I am already up in arms. What's their name? What's their social security number? They have become enemy number one. Are you in my boat or are you also a kinder kin? I think I'm probably closer to you than this letter writer. I do think that

When you sign up to be, you know, someone's best friend, their partner, you kind of say, you know, your enemies are my enemies and let's go, you know? But I think the question becomes, how often are we talking about hating people? And how mean and personal are we getting? Because the example she gave is really harsh. I mean, there's a big difference between, oh, your ex is...

hair is weird and this person is ugly. Right. I think those are different things. Yes, absolutely. And you have said that this is bothersome to you and that you have a boundary and now your sister's trying to override the boundary. You have to continuously remind your sister, this is a boundary. I'm not crossing it.

You can say that. I'm cool. I support you. I love you. If that's really the boundary, you have to be pretty strict about it, I think. I think that's the whole point of having the boundary is to say this is uncrossable. Now, obviously, it's a sister and sisters have kind of an asterisk on them, which is you're kind of bound together. So you have to have a little bit more flexibility. So that does make it harder, I think. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay.

do you have any template language for us here? How might we go about talking to the sister about this? I think sometimes like a simple phrase that you can repeat that has still a tone of, I'm not mad at you. I'm not confronting you. This isn't conflict, but just a reminder, I have this boundary that,

I think that's the tone that this letter writer should go for, which is just, I love you. I have your back. I'm not going to call her ugly, but I love you. Or I can't believe your boss did that to you. You should quit that job. I'm going to help you find a new one. Or there can be a lot of support and that same kind of like anger, protectiveness, fierceness for your sister, but

While still, again, very casually, calmly maintaining, but I'm not going to say he's ugly or whatever the phrasing is. I don't think you should be required to be unkind to people if you don't want to be. And I have a friend who says this, that has no scientific backing. So just be.

bear that in mind, but she always says that you become the three people that you're around the most or the five people that you're around the most. So if you keep that in mind and you think, okay, my sister is asking me to become a little bit more unkind or even in this situation, a little cruel, ask yourself if that's like a direction you want to change into and probably not. So again, be firm on the boundary. Politely remind your sister, I'm not going to do that. Yeah.

You know, the underlying question here for me is the potential hazard that comes from the unconditional support sometimes asked of or offered by friends and relatives, that kind of ride or die mentality, which doesn't leave a lot of room for accountability or nuance if or when our people are wrong. Where is that line, Sophia, for those of us that ride at dawn? How can we all be supportive and loyal without, you know, following our sisters or friends right off a cliff? That's a really hard question, hard line. It is...

When does it feel like your friend is tipping into either a destructive behavior or an unkind behavior or maybe a situation where their behavior is destructive?

Yeah.

What could you do differently? Or what made you feel that way? Or why is this the kind of support you want? Have curiosity about where they're at and where they're coming from. But I don't think you have to provide unconditional acceptance of every behavior that everybody around you that you love does. That is not support. I think unconditional support includes calling people out and saying, my friend, that's

That is not a great thing to do. I love you. You're a wonderful person, but maybe we don't go, you know, egg his car. I love that. I'm getting the carton at midnight. Question number three, shall we? Yes. Dear Life Kit, I'm a single woman in my mid-30s, never married and no kids. Recently, I went back to school for an MBA.

I'll be graduating soon and I'm wondering if I can create a happy graduation registry, similar to when people are getting married or having a baby. I love my family and friends and I never thought twice about buying the various bridal, wedding, or baby gifts that have come up over the years. There are big moments and of course they should be celebrated. Does my big achievement reach that same level of recognition? Would it be rude to send out invitations to a celebration that also includes a registry link? Signed, Party of One.

Sophia, I love this question. Party of one, congrats to you. Initial thoughts for us. I am so into this idea. I think it's fabulous. I think registries in general, even at weddings, have a little bit of an inherent awkwardness to them at first. Like the idea of just saying, hey, get me things. Totally. Which is also okay too. It is okay to just ask for things if you need them. But I think

It is a little bit awkward, but if instead you kind of reframe it for yourself as I'm celebrating this, I'd like to invite people to celebrate this with me. This is a huge milestone in my life. And if somebody wants to, here are things that I would really love and I'm inviting them in. Again, part of love is accepting help and accepting gifts and accepting generosity as well as giving it out. If you reframe it as like, this is a nice way to include everybody in this.

And I think if you have a sense of humor about it and say, even in the invite, like my MBA stands for like my baby, you know, announcement or something, you know, like something cute and kind of shout out that it is a little unusual and maybe even include like, please don't feel like you have to get me anything. But if you want, I have a registry.

I don't think it's weird at all. I don't think it's awkward. I think anyone who has a problem with it probably has very traditional ideas about things and that's okay. But then they can just not participate. What a great idea. Yeah. Especially as it sounds like a woman who has a high degree and is

going to be, it seems like in the business workforce, you're probably going to be punished a lot for being bold. But if somebody thinks you're too bold and that bothers them, that's a good thing to be. You don't need to put yourself in a box that is the size that those people decided. And again, all of us could do anything at any party that makes somebody else think lesser of us. You could talk too loud. You could

have bad food. You could do all kinds of things at a party. Why not also get a KitchenAid mixer? You know, if your little faux pas leads to a KitchenAid mixer, you came up ahead. I love that.

Final question. Are you ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. Dear Life Kit, my mother, who is widowed, has been in a relationship with a man who I'll call Pete for close to 10 years. My mom lives in Maine. Pete lives in Massachusetts. And they spend time together in both locations. Neither myself nor my sister have ever met Pete. Over the years, my sister has offered several times to arrange for us all to meet, but to no avail. Our mom just keeps saying, don't worry. You'll both meet Pete at some point.

She spends all holiday gatherings with us, but Pete has yet to join us. Here's the kicker. My mom recently informed us that she and Pete are getting married. When we asked about the wedding ceremony, she said it was going to be very low-key and that she only invited her sister and brother-in-law to be witnesses. This absolutely floored us and left us feeling abandoned and shocked. We've always been close to our mom, and this behavior is extremely uncharacteristic of her.

When we expressed our feelings, she said she didn't intend to hurt us and that this is simply the way they decided to do it. I should also point out that my mother is as sharp as a tack and is very healthy and energetic. Do we have a valid point? Signed, Stepdad Skeptic.

Okay, so this is our last question. And to me, the strangest, most difficult scenario in the bunch. First thing to me, 10 years is a long time to go without meeting the significant other of someone you're really close with, let alone a parent. What gives?

I think this one, like you said, is very bizarre. And I think that the letter writer is correct in thinking something is going on. I don't know that anybody, the letter writer included, will be able to guess what that is. I do think that there is a huge amount of concern here because when you start talking about people acting uncharacteristically in a relationship and excluding people and being more isolated...

Which a little bit sounds like of maybe their mom is still involved in their lives, but she's definitely keeping them from meeting him. And there's this separation going on.

All of those things to me raise a lot of red flags that might lead to an abusive relationship or an emotionally manipulative relationship of being kept apart and keeping these two things apart. Is that the case? I have no idea. I just would – those would be the things in my mind where I would think, why is this happening? If it were me and if it were my mom and if that were my sister –

First of all, we're going to surprise my mom at her house when Pete's over. I'm going to find out when Pete's coming and I'm coming too. And she's not going to know. But second of all, I would start talking to the mom's sister who does seem to be invited to the wedding. I would be asking Aunt Kelly or whoever it is. I'd be going, Aunt Kelly, what's going on? Why is mom doing this? Have you met Pete? Why were you invited to the wedding? Why do you think we're not? Can you give us some clues? Yeah.

And then, of course, you have to have a talk with the mom. I think that's kind of the big one. Absolutely. That was going to be my next question is like, what does that direct confrontation with this mom sound like at this point? I think it's multilayered. And I would say it's both siblings sitting her down and saying, what is going on with you? Why haven't we met somebody for 10 years?

Why is that not important to you? And why is that not important to him? And I think if you refuse to take a non-answer for them, you just continue to say, you know, that just doesn't really sit right with us. Can you explain more about why we weren't invited? Can you explain more about why we haven't met him? And kind of just keep asking and go in with curiosity and openness and kindness, but really refuse to walk away without some of those questions answered.

getting a little bit of an answer. And I do think at the end of the day, actions do speak a lot louder than words. And right now your mom is not showing you care or inclusion in her family. And I think you can say that, you know, you can say, I love you. I'm glad you're here for the holidays, but this makes us feel like we're not family with you, you know, or whatever the right words are that you actually feel. But

I just think it's got to be a pretty big confrontation at this point because 10 years, that's intentional. Something's up. Yeah.

Is there any version in which this family can continue on without resolving this? I think it's easy to think in black and white. Like if my mom did this to me, I'd have to cut her off or this is so inappropriate or hurtful or concerning that I couldn't be there for her. But I also think that we kind of forget how much humans have this great capacity to forgive and love other humans. And we kind of lean towards that and want to. And especially if it's your mom who you love, I think there's a way to compartmentalize and

You can forgive somebody enough. Maybe stepdad skeptic decides I forgive my mom enough that she's still in my life. I don't completely forgive her, but I 45% forgive her. I wish it was different. And I have grief and sadness that my mom has kept me out of this part of her life. But I want my...

45% forgiveness relationship with my mom more than I want to be right about this and to convince her that I'm right. If you are open and you keep that channel open a little bit, I think that's probably more likely to get you answers and answers

get your mom to a good place if there is something going on wrong. Otherwise, maybe Pete and their mom just don't really read social cues very well and don't know that it's weird that they haven't met and they just don't really know. Maybe they really are just bumbling along like, oh yeah, who knows? Man, Pete, wherever you are, answer our questions. Before we let you go, we ask every guest of the show for their very best piece of advice. I would love to hear yours.

There's a poem that my high school English teacher read to our class. And there's a line that has stuck with me for years, which is satisfaction is a lowly thing. How pure a thing is joy. And I think whenever you're in a situation where you think,

I'm okay. I am satisfied with this, especially relationships, but also jobs. I think you got to really ask yourself what would bring joy. Remember, you only get to do this once as far as we know. So go for big, go for joy, you know? Lovely. Sophia Benoit, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you.

That was reporter Andy Tegel. For more Life Kit, check out our other episodes. We have one all about wedding etiquette and another on how to vote. You can find those at npr.org slash life kit. And if you love Life Kit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org slash life kit newsletter. Also, we love hearing from you. So if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us at life kit at npr.org.

This episode of Life Kit was produced by Sylvie Douglas. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Gharib. Megan Cain is our supervising editor, and Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Claire Marie Schneider and Margaret Serino. Engineering support is from Patrick Murray. I'm Mariel Seguera. Thanks for listening.

Support for NPR and the following message come from State Farm. As a State Farm agent and agency owner, Lakeisha Gaines is passionate about empowering other small businesses. In the last several years, there are more business owners than we can count. Businesses are opening up quite frequently, and I think that shows the need, the dreams, and the desires of the community to have the independence and to have the financial freedom that's important to them.

The reason why it's so important to me to be out there to share information and to educate the community is because I know that a dream doesn't always help you to be successful. You need the competency, you need the wisdom, you need the knowledge.

That's where we come in as State Farm agents, our ability to be able to teach over 100 years of experience in this world to say, hey, we got you. You got this and we got this. Let's do it together. Talk to your local agent about small business insurance from State Farm. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.