ep 121 Being Disliked Self-Sabotage Emotional Freedom
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Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Coffee Corner. Today is your episode 121. I will try my best to fit three topics in this episode. The first one is being disliked and the second one will be self-sabotage and then last one will be emotional freedom. So let's get started. The first one being disliked, well I'm very experienced on that topic just because I constantly experience being disliked.

If you hear noises, that's from my neighbor, I will try my best to speak as clearly as possible. Being disliked is not a pleasant experience, 100% sure. I've been there a few times and I've learned my lesson in a hard way. But recently, I've discovered how to ignore that. Ignoring that and not just trying to avoid it, but more of...

understanding why it is not important to you. So I like to use driving as an example just because I'm new and I'm really observing everything when I drive. Tailgating is one thing that bothers me a lot. When people tailgate, I hate it. I feel annoyed.

and I feel personal. But then I realized when I'm not paying attention to people who are driving behind me so closely, if I'm only focusing on where I go and focusing on surroundings and try to make sure I am driving safely,

I lose those tailgaters. They disappear. I didn't even realize they disappear. And then I was trying to think and to link this with haters or being disliked, the feeling is sometimes they are around you and they follow you to the point and you really feel like this is very personal and it gets really, really personal as well. And for you, you start to, if you're that kind of person, you start to think about yourself. Did I do something wrong to annoy them?

Or I want to be part of them. How am I going to please them? People, please, sir.

Don't think about that. Of course, it's easier said than done. Don't think about that. You have to talk to yourself out of that. One thing I was listening this morning is Andrew Hilberman. They were talking about inner voice and how important it is when you are being affirmative and also positive. And how harmful, how damaging could that be when you have a negative inner voice?

So here is my tip. When people don't like you, they just don't like you for no reasons. It's hard for yourself or it's easy for yourself to come up with the list of everything you do that could be the reasons they hate you, they don't like you. But then are you going to change them to fit in their group? Or you think there's really nothing wrong, there's really nothing you can do to change and you just have to carry on and live your own life. So there's a difference.

Think about tailgaters. Those haters are tailgaters. They will always follow anybody, not just you, follow anybody so closely to the point you feel intimidated. That's because they want you to feel so. They think they're above everyone. They think they're better than anyone in the world and they want to show you that they're capable. But deep down, they're not. They're probably the losers.

And that's their way to defend themselves. Best defense is offense, right? And then don't focus on that thing. Don't focus on being disliked. It's not a happy thing to think about. And it bothers you because every time...

When first thing you wake up in the morning, if it's a bad thing, even just a little teeny tiny thing, it's going to bother you the whole day. It doesn't matter if you have a wonderful day, you have great experience, everybody loves you. That little tiny one bad thing will bother you throughout the day. That's because people tend to focus on a negative thing, not because it's a very important or valuable to you, just because that thing stands out.

Being disliked, same thing. It stands out because it makes you uncomfortable and you remember the pain. That's your body working to protect you. We have our own mechanism. The whole body tells you to avoid that. That's where they send the pain, the sense of pain to you. Then you know, oh, I remember. I learned my lesson. I try not to get back to do the same stupid thing again. But with the emotions and feelings, it's very difficult. You hang on there. You hold tight on it.

You won't let go of it. And that becomes more miserable. And then that becomes more personal. It's not about haters anymore. It's about yourself. Deep down, you are hating yourself, not being able to get rid of those people, get rid of that feeling. You feel like you're failing yourself and disappointing yourself as well. And that's why you have those unpleasant feelings about being disliked.

Not because you want to be popular. Some of you, and including myself too, I don't want to be the center of attention. But I feel when people don't like me,

then that's not right. Because I don't want to be the center of attention. It's my choice. But being disliked, it's not my choice. I'm forced into that mode by other people. I have to be the unpopular one. So that makes you uncomfortable. But being popular or being liked, is that really important to you in your whole long life? Or even in that short period of time? Is that really important?

If you cannot get rid of those people or if you cannot change the status quo that moment, all you can do is to focus on yourself. I was sharing my experience, my story with some of friends out on streaming. I said when I was bullied in the university, all I could do because I could not quit the school and my parents were not going to come to fight for me just because I'm an adult. I can't ask my parents to fight for me like that.

I was a kindergarten kid, right? So you focus on something more meaningful, more important for you. Focus on something that will change your life, change your trajectory in the future that you can totally get rid of those people. Work hard. Make yourself capable. Make yourself outstanding. Make yourself be able to have more choices in your life so you don't have to worry about those people. It's going to be painful because you're going to have to spend a lot of time

with those people which is inevitable and you're going to have to deal with their opinions and judgment and everything around you because they are just around there in your life

But if you can focus on one thing and you automatically ignore the other thing, and that will make your life a little bit lighter, a little bit livable. So do that. If you are still students, focus on studying. If you are working right now, you have a job, maybe you don't like your jobs or you don't like your colleagues or your bosses, don't worry about that. Take advantage to learn as much as possible. Do as much as possible. And if you are still students,

And look out for an opportunity. And maybe there is something you can jump right out of this circle and jump in the other circle and start a new life. But you have to accumulate as much as you can.

Don't pause. That's important. A lot of people would say, well, you know, at this moment, I'm not feeling it. I'm going to pause. I'm going to focus on my emotions and feelings and the situations or those people. You pause your learning journey and you're hurting yourself. Never pause your learning journey. Think about something you can learn that is related to what you want to do in the future and make relevant. Make it that way and go that direction. That's what you can do when you are disliked.

And to be quite honest, I'm saying this as an older sister to you is I've been there and a lot of people are gradually disappearing in my life. Inevitably, just you can't control it. We have different lifestyles, different values that will go to a different path. You too.

And all the cherishment, all the care you put in, they were wonderful or not. They were gone. You know what I mean? They're not with you at this moment. Every day is a new day. Every day you're working on something new for tomorrow. So that's what you need to think about. So that is the first thing about being disliked.

Second thing is self-sabotage. So I'm currently trying to finish the book. Maybe you should talk to someone. I really like the book, but that book itself takes a lot of time and effort to digest. I need to read slowly and think carefully.

So I was reading this part about self-septage and I'm thinking about myself. Have you had a moment that you need to get your homework done, but you could do anything that you don't like to avoid the thing you should do? You will find the least favorite thing on your list to do first instead of doing your homework first.

That's called self-sabotage. She was talking about self-sabotage about herself because she needed to start to write the book about happiness, but she didn't want to. So she started a lot of missions other than writing the book and then found out and with her therapist talking about self-sabotage. And she thought in her first mind it was about avoidance because I want to avoid things.

But he, the therapist, actually brought this up saying uncertainty. You're not avoiding. You just you're not sure what's the consequence if you do it. And we don't like things we don't know. That's a self-sabotage when she was talking about it. And I was thinking about myself that before I published the journal, it could have sped up a little bit.

But because I avoided so much to the point, I could tell myself was just dragging. Now thinking about it is I was scared of what was coming up. I don't know if it's going to be a result or it's going to be a repercussion. If I do it...

There is going to be a result or consequence or repercussion. But I don't know which one is the positive one or negative one. But if I don't do it, it means that won't come. If that won't come, it means I won't have anything positive or negative. It doesn't matter. But I don't have to face it. It's some sort of avoidance, but more of...

Fear of uncertainty. The interesting thing about it, especially was about sending that in for review. I hate those reviewers. They, they, I'm sure, um, they don't know me, you know what I mean? They, they are just reviewing, um, peer review, right? Blind peer review. They were just reading your articles, giving the, their opinions, asking questions. Some of the questions are very harsh. Some of the comments are very harsh when I, when I read it.

I had to give myself pep talk before I opened the document just because I was so scared what I was going to see, what I was going to read.

But then there are so many questions. You remember first draft, I probably got three, four pages of questions I had to answer. It took me a while, a while to really sit down and hammer through those questions because I was so scared. I was not able to answer those questions. I'm scared of my incapability because I had a feeling that I wasn't able to do it.

But if I do it, that will show that I'm not able to do it. But I don't want that feeling. I don't want a feeling of me, of myself incapable.

But you have to face it. Then I start to self-sabotage. I told myself I was so busy. I was so sleep deprived. And then I had a postpartum depression. And I was busy with the newborn. My mom's here. There were so many excuses for me to stop working on my journal article. But I think...

Were they real legitimate excuses for not being able to work on a journal article or that those were excuses I purposely found for myself so I could avoid doing that so I could avoid uncertainty at that moment? So that's self-sabotage.

There were moments that I was really sitting down and working on that. I was really trying to figure out this question. Yes, this question. No, I can't answer this question, but it takes a little bit more time and effort and more research. And that question is easy. I can do. And I figure out a system for myself is work on the easy one, answer the questions, feel a bit of sense of achievement, and then you get the confidence to take another step.

to work more, to answer more questions. It was not a pleasant feeling for sure, but there's a way to help yourself solve the self self-sabotage problem is you need to come up with the list. The more specific, the better. I was chatting with a friend on the streaming. She was asking me or he was asking me, I don't know, about how to improve self-sabotage.

how to improve speaking. Well, that's a very common question. And also, there's a thing, other people speak really well, or they're at this level, but my speaking is not at that level. I think we focus on one thing to avoid practicing. For example, levels are, of course, very important because you reach a certain level, then you're able to do things. But they forgot to

What we want is the able to do things, not the level. IELTS scores, TOEFL scores, SAT scores, you know, a GRE scores, all the scores you need are just a paper proof, physical proof that you can do it. But can you really do it? That is a really good question to ask yourself. But because if you start to do it, it's going to show whether you can or not. You don't like that. You don't want to know if you can or not because you know deep down that

Consciously, unconsciously, you already know the answer. You can do it. So it's better to not start. Then, you know, if you don't start, you will never have the result of I'm not able to do it. Back to practice speaking. If you do realize you have problems with your speaking, make a list of your speaking.

Be more specific. If you say, well, my grammar is not good when I speak. Grammar is very general. Like which part is verb tenses, sentence structures or anything. You say, oh, my vocabulary is not good. What do you mean by vocabulary is not good? Is that you want to use advanced vocabulary you can't use? Or is that you don't have enough vocabulary to express your ideas?

Or which one? And pronunciation or even accent, those kind of things. They look or they sound specific, but they are very general. Can you narrow it down to a very specific problem you want to solve? One at a time. Don't make 20 items on your list and then you can't even do it. If you have a grammar problem, think about one grammar problem you have.

Be specific. So, for example, if I think I have a problem with the simple present, then I will start to practice speaking using simple present. For example, talking about my routines. Right. If you have a problem with the simple past, then I start to talk about things happened yesterday, last year or 20 years ago. You have ways to practice, but you don't want to do the work to make a list. Right.

So you know what the specific problems are because you don't want to know the specific problems are. And that's self-ceptic. You are setting yourself for failures. And you sometimes do that purposely so you can tell other people that, well, you know, it's not like I can't do it. It's just I didn't really prepare or I really didn't have time. And you are trying to find excuses for yourself so you can tell people,

You are capable. You are just not willing to do it. Anyway, so from now on, if I ever have that moment, I'm going to remind myself that while you're doing this, procrastination is one of the biggest signs of being self-sabotage. So anytime, next time, in the future, or even today, I need to get a lot of things. Even doing a video, I...

I was telling all you guys there saying I'm not going to do a video because my neighbor makes noises. I think deep down he said I don't know if I can do a video or not. I'm not very prepared but I forced myself. My problem is

I just need to talk. I need to get the camera out. I need to get the microphone out and start to talk about it. Don't think about the results first. Get it out first. If you do want to improve, maybe you can do a better job on preparation next time or there's a ways to improve, but you cannot say I don't do it.

because of this and then don't do it. Another thing, which is our last thing I want to talk about is emotional freedom. So if you Google it or if you go to YouTube to Google emotional freedom, they show you techniques about how to release stress or anything like that. But the one I'm talking about here is not really same thing. It's still from the book. Maybe you should talk to someone. And it really struck me in a good way.

Just think about when was the last time you had a meltdown, like completely meltdown with no restrictions. You were crying like a baby, you were screaming, you were throwing tantrums there without thinking about consequences. When was the last time you had that? I couldn't even remember. When I want to cry, I have to find a quiet place.

Nobody's around. I have to cry quietly because I don't want to worry other people. Sometimes I have super asshole students. I just want to scream out of my lung, but I can't because I'm an adult. I don't have the freedom anymore. But my son does. My son almost too. When he's not happy, he's just not happy.

When he doesn't want it, he just doesn't want it. He can cry as much as he wants. He can cry like a whining cry. Hmm, I don't want this. Or he can give me a super big cry. Just like tears and snot and slobber and everything rubbing on you. Cry, cry, cry. He can throw tantrums. He will throw cards and you will tell him, no, you cannot do this. And he will still do that because he has no sense of act properly.

But you would think, what is acting properly? What do you mean by properly? What's the definition of that? Is we have those social restrictions. We need to follow social norms. We need to be a normal person. And we have to restrain ourselves to the point sometimes we feel so stressed that we don't know what to do with it. And then we have depression. And we have all kinds of mental problems. And I feel...

Last night, he was a little bit constipated and had a really hard time pooping. And I was trying to help him and he had a mess, accident. And he kept saying, oh no, my man, oh no. And I felt so bad. So I kept talking to him. It is okay. It is okay. Don't worry about it.

Nobody's fault. It's not your fault. It's okay. Don't think about it. It's okay. You keep doing what you're doing. You're a great boy. Don't worry about it. And then finally, so we get everything ready. We cleaned up. We sent him to bed. I was sitting here just staring at nothing. And then from nowhere, I said to my husband, I don't want him to be like me. I don't want him to be that sensitive.

Because being sensitive means you have the least emotional freedom. You care about other people's emotions, feelings. You care about what other people think. You're worried they're not going to like you. You're going to make them unhappy. But you never cared about yourself because you've lost that freedom to express your own emotions in an explicit way.

When you lose that freedom, you're more likely to be stressed and depressed and you are more likely to have mental health problems. So my way to cope with emotional freedom challenge is to release my emotions. It's not easy. Now, you might think, well, of course you can go do this physical work.

Physical activity will definitely help, but physical activity is only released that moment, that stress, the moment. It's not really solving the problem. You can have the good moment. You can have the strength when you are on your peak, when you are at your best to deal with the difficulty and to solve the problem. But you can't just say, I'm feeling really good at this moment now, and I'm going to just be feeling really good. And afterwards, that will backfire.

I've been there, so I know how bad it is. You need to acknowledge your stress, negativity, and all sorts of sad feelings. So let's get back to the first topic we're talking about, being disliked. If that really bothers you, you should be able to have the emotional freedom to let your sadness, negativity out.

My way is to write it down. Now, I have my own journal that in English and Chinese depends on what moment I have. If the moment is in English, it will be in English. Um,

I want to curse, but I can't really curse. I want to shout, but I can't really shout. But I can do that on paper. I can do that with my pen. So I'm going to do it. I can say the ugliest words ever in my whole life that I've never said before on paper with my pen. I just need to get it out. Once it's out, it's out of my system, I can move on.

And next time when I think about it, I'll come back and do the same thing. But of course, you're going to have to keep your journal in a safe and private place. You don't want people to find out and you're a total jerk. But it is very, very good way. You are so sad. You have those negative moments. I had like last year, there are so many times that I thought about getting divorced just because like husbands are useless. Fathers are useless. They don't do anything anymore.

Which is not true because last year I was still on my fluctuating hormones so of course I'm not thinking clearly but my emotions and feelings are right there. They're legitimate. They're not false.

They're true. They're true. They're there. You have to acknowledge them. It's just because your hormone affected how you think about things doesn't mean they're not there. So I wrote down all the words and everything, all my feelings, all my thoughts about how I wanted to deal with this relationship, why I was so mad at him. And I wrote it all out on the paper. And the other night I went to read those things. I was like, I can't believe I said that.

And it wasn't even true. But that moment it was true for me. So I headed out. I never thought about it. And I moved on. Sometimes you have those evil thoughts. You can't put them into action.

Of course, those are evil thoughts, but doesn't mean you don't have them. You can write them down, write them out and let them go. Tell yourself once it's out, it's out. And then that's no longer being processed by your soul. And that's it. And another way to deal with emotional freedom challenge is to watch movies, sad movies, sad videos, whatever. Just feel sad of other people.

And if you see the moment, you say, oh my God, this is so sad, it's so tragic, and start to cry, you're crying for yourself. But now you have good excuses to cry out loud, even in front of other people. Are you okay? Is that really sad? Is that really touching? Is that really emotional? Don't say anything. Just cry, cry, cry.

Have the ugliest cry ever in your whole life as an adult. Do that and you feel a lot better. I had a cry last night for no reason. But I felt really good today. And I went to walk Bob. Bob had a good time. Came back. Had live streaming. It's still on. I'm very happy. Now I'm doing a video. So mission is accomplished. And I feel a sense of accomplishment. And also I feel like I'm overcoming self-sabotage.

And it's another good thing on my list. So what I'm trying to say is those things are real problems out there. We just don't see them. They are like part of our routine. You don't think about breathing every day, do you? Like you just breathe, right? And brushing teeth. Do you think about, oh, brushing teeth, I have to brush. Well, sometimes I do.

But most of the time, you get up, first thing, you brush your teeth. Thinking about those things is part of a routine, not part of a routine. You are not thinking about them. They are just there, like air. But they're problems. They bother you. You want to solve them, you have to think about them. When you think about them, you have to be aware and acknowledge their existence and start to think about how you can tackle them.

To be able to tackle each problem, you have to be more specific. You have to force yourself and say, hey, you need to look at each of the problem and start to think about solutions. And you also have to tell yourself, sometimes I just don't have answers to it. And not having an answer is not a shameful thing because not everyone has answers.

We don't have answers to all the questions and that is totally normal. Knowing that it's totally normal will help you a lot. So that's what I want to talk about in this episode. Hope you like it and stay tuned for next video.