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Have a Cup of Johanny
Where every "oops" is a gateway to "aha!" Join Johanny Ortega, the dynamic host of this one-woman show, as she takes you on a journey through the transformative power of self-reflection and learning from mistakes. In Have a Cup of Johanny Podcast, Johanny shares her personal experiences, from embarrassing moments to life-altering missteps, and shows you how to pivot and thrive through adversity. Each episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tips for self-improvement and personal growth that you can apply in all aspects of your life. Whether you're looking to boost your resilience, enhance your communication skills, or simply find inspiration, this podcast is your go-to source for motivation and empowerment. Don't miss out on these inspiring and actionable episodes to help you turn every setback into a stepping stone to success!
Have a Cup of Johanny
Overcoming Communication Fears: Embracing Self-Love and Honest Conversations
Ever been so embarrassed by something that it stopped you from speaking your truth? Growing up, I faced that head-on with my less-than-glamorous home address and a visible eye condition that made me self-conscious. This week on "Have a Cup of Johanny," we kickstart this August theme, "How We Sabotage Our Conversations," by tackling the fears that hold us back from honest communication. Using my own stories, I shed light on the common fears of embarrassment and confrontation that often keep us from having open and genuine conversations.
Imagine avoiding confrontation your whole life because of childhood experiences of being shut down. That's a reality for many, and it's a key topic in this episode. I share how such experiences shape our communication habits, creating a false image of ourselves just to keep the peace. This false image can erode trust and build barriers in our relationships. Together, we explore the importance of transparency and how we can break these damaging habits to foster more meaningful connections.
Lastly, we journey into self-love and confidence. Born with a lazy eye, I had to learn to embrace my uniqueness both externally and internally. Through practices like journaling and being honest in small matters, I've found a path to true self-awareness and self-acceptance. These practices not only help build self-love but also improve our communication, making our interactions more genuine. Don't forget to engage with our community by leaving your thoughts and comments. Join me next Wednesday as we continue to grow and learn to speak our truths, even when it's tough.
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Oh, we could, we could fly. Welcome to this new season of the have a Cup of Johani podcast. So I want to title this new season that I'm embarking on with I'm Growing, so this is going to be the season of growth, and that's what I'm going to share with you throughout the season. So I thank you for coming over here and sitting with me, and I hope you enjoy. Hello everyone, and welcome back to the first episode in August. We are diving into a topic that affects us all, and you may have heard the teaser that I published previously to let you all know what we're going to dive into for the month of August.
Speaker 1:Nevertheless, here I am repeating it to you. Nevertheless, here I am repeating it to you, and what we're talking about is just all the many ways that we sabotage ourselves when we communicate. Like, have you ever found yourself in a conversation where you just couldn't say what you meant? Maybe you avoided a topic because you feared embarrassment or confrontation whenever you bring this subject along? If you're nodding and this is resonating with you, this episode right here, peeps, this is for you. Are you ready? Yes, yes, you are, because why else would you be listening to this? Let's go. All right, folks, let's face it, we've all been there. We want to express ourselves, say something important, say something articulate, witty, whatever, but the words just get stuck or we end up saying something completely different than what we mean. We end up nodding along when it should be shaking of the head, right.
Speaker 1:And this miscommunication often stems from fear, and you have heard me talk about this fear time and time again and you know that these are fears that are very personal to me and fears that are humanistic. We all carry them. We carry more than just these two that I'm about to mention, which is fear of embarrassment or confrontation. But I am honing in on these two just because I believe, from my experience, that these are the two that tag along on my shoulders and prevent me from communicating and engaging honestly, fully and truly with whoever I'm talking to. So let's dive into fear of embarrassment. We've all experienced that sinking feeling when we're about to say something personal or significant and you feel it in your gut and it's like this dread coming up and you know it's like it's gonna make you feel so embarrassing and that's a powerful thing to feel. It's a powerful force that can lead us to shut down or deflect, get defensive rather than communicating openly. I'm laughing because I remember being in high school and you know it's like this is sad, and you know it's like this is sad. I don't know why I'm laughing, but it's sad, right.
Speaker 1:So everyone was saying out loud their home address. It was something I don't know why. The teacher was things, stigmas and things of that nature and I say my address and somebody just blurts out for the whole class to hear and he was like oh, you live in the projects. Mind you, my sister and I used to walk miles, miles, miles I mean miles so we can go to the school that was not in the projects, so that way we can get better education. We didn't know at the time how home taxes play a big role in how well the schools are furnished right and afforded all these things, and then teachers paid a little bit better so that way they're more apt to have a good attitude and put forth a better effort. We didn't know any of that. We just was like, yeah, the school outside of the projects is better, so let's go to that one.
Speaker 1:When I gave that address it just left me open to that kind of judgment, and then that prompted me to lie about my address and not have that honesty whenever that question will come about, because then I fear the looks, I fear the criticism, I fear the judgment that will come. So for me, that fear of embarrassment back then stopped me from engaging in that conversation. So whenever I laugh about it now right, but back then, as a child, this was real to me. This was a fear that I carried and that I tried to avoid. Whenever someone will ask me for my address or whenever I felt like somebody would look at any kind of slip that will have my address in there and I will have this fear that they will say anything that was on that slip out loud, because then I will fear the ridicule of my classmates about where I lived. You can just imagine kids that are unhoused having this kind of fear, which then will prompt them to engage in conversations around that subject differently.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying here that having the fear makes you a bad person or that lying or avoiding certain subjects make you a bad person. As you can see, this is more intricate, more nuanced than just that. Nothing in life really is black and white like that, where it's like, oh, you don't have honest conversations, therefore you're a liar, therefore you're a bad person. There are things in there that, with self-awareness and some self-work, we can go through and work out and identify, so that way we can become better communicators. This is just an example that I'm sharing with you so y'all can see how that fear of embarrassment can reflect in our conversations and make them unproductive in some instances, and I'm pretty sure you can think of any other things that you may have felt embarrassed about and that you didn't want to talk about in public.
Speaker 1:Fast forward to my college years and I was going through a nursing degree. Sure enough, anatomy and physiology is there. We're studying the eye, and then there's a condition of the eye, strabismo and everybody looks at me, right, and y'all heard me say like I have a lazy eye. It's very visible. So it's nothing that I hide from anyone because it's right on my face. But, believe it or not, you know it took me many years to get to that point of you know what I don't care. I am who I am. I look how I look. Know what I don't care. I am who I am. I look how I look. Leave it, love it. Whatever I'm going to love myself regardless. It took me a lot. So in college, when the subject was mentioned and the professor just stood up and started talking about it, just imagine my entire body I felt like it melted to the floor and everybody looked at me because you know, I'm always like the only one with this condition. Everywhere I go. I think maybe once or twice in my entire lifetime have I been with another person that has a similar condition as mine and of course, you know everybody looks at me and then I'm like paralyzed in shock and then I hear a murmur saying, oh, that's what she has, and I don't know what. Like God bless, young Joannie.
Speaker 1:Back in the day my voice was shaky. I was so nervous Just imagine that. All eyes on me. I still get a little nervous when all eyes on me. But back then it was worse, it was terrifying Still.
Speaker 1:I got up and I said something. I totally forgot what it was, but my voice was shaky and I remember at the end seeing some nods from some of my classmates and, I think, probably a bit of pride and one or two eyeballs staring my way, you know, and that right there, folks that helped me when it comes to that, to my condition, and presenting myself truthfully and honestly with other people that I meet and with other people that have a question about it, without trying to ridicule me. It helped me to kind of like gain that confidence to do so. That way we can approach these conversations with more honesty and work on that fear of embarrassment and fear of confrontation. But nevertheless, in that moment I became brave.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden I felt like I was pushed against the wall. No one else was there with a lazy eye. Obviously they were talking about me. Obviously I needed to say something and I did it. It was sink or swim, do or die, and I did it. I was nervous as heck, I was trembling as heck. I was trembling, my voice shook, but I stood up and I explained my condition and how I can still function in life and things of that nature. Like I said, I totally forgot what I said. I remember the emotions and the feelings of that moment clearly, but I just don't know what I said. I just know that it was a positive thing that I did and it propelled me to build on that later on, you see.
Speaker 1:So it's like what I'm telling you with this is that you're going to have to rip the bandaid when it comes to your fear of embarrassment, those topics or subjects that just make you so embarrassed in conversation that you either pivot away from them, lie about them or kind of like disregard them or avoid them. If you want to have honest and transparent conversations, you will have to rip the band-aid per se quote, unquote so that way you can just get through it, and the more that you do it, the less embarrassing that it will be, and then you'll end up learning how to embrace that thing, and for me it was living in the projects, having a lazy eye and so many other things. Right, I'm to the point now where I'm embarrassed about very few things. Very few things I'm embarrassed about. I still feel embarrassment, but that not often. Okay.
Speaker 1:The second thing that keeps us from having those honest conversation where we don't, where we don't mean what we say, we don't say what we mean, is the fear of confrontation. I have found that this can stem from childhood trauma being pushed away by parents or caregivers as soon as you bring up something being shut down, either in a verbal way that is very aggressive or physical, you know, but in a way that teaches you to never confront, to either just accept or to pretend in order to not confront. So, once again, this is a perfect example why just because we cannot have honest conversations does not make us bad people. It just makes us people that have to learn how to do these things, and I think it's a little bit of all of us, if you ask me, but I don't know everyone in the world, so that's really it's just a theory. But, like the fear of embarrassment, fear of confrontation is just as paralyzing and we avoid it like the plague because we feel that by avoiding conflict we are keeping the peace.
Speaker 1:However, this is not right, because avoiding it can lead to misunderstandings, miscommunications and unresolved issues that fester and then that makes someone explode about something completely unrelated but, because of the buildup of unresolved issues, reaches a tipping point that that person just goes off about the weirdest things, you see, and that has happened to me in the past, where I just suck it up and I like to use the example, as I used before, of saying yes too many times, right To avoid the confrontation that will come from saying no, you see, and how that didn't give me an honest conversation because I said something that I did not mean. I said yes when I should have said no. And then what did that let? That led to a lot of anger, a lot of frustration on my part that I held on to because I committed to things I didn't want to commit verbally.
Speaker 1:You see, so this happens, this happens, and when we don't say what we mean, it just it prevents us from engaging honestly and authentically with others. So, you see, so me saying yes paints the wrong picture to people that I like all those things that I'm saying yes to, picture to people that I like all those things that I'm saying yes to. And if I continue on on that path, then that means that I will continue to be getting invited to these things that I don't really want to go to. And then my friends, the people around me, will never really get to learn who the real Joanne is, because I have painted a completely inaccurate picture of myself through my words that are not truthful, that are not honest. But I set those things in order to avoid confrontation or avoid embarrassment. You see, so it becomes a bigger issue then.
Speaker 1:So it becomes a bigger issue then, and this lack of transparency can just take away, it erodes the trust and creates barriers in our relationships, both personal and professional. It's hard that's something that I'm going through right now at work and it's that it's hard to trust when people come to me and don't say what they mean. And then things get around, you know, and it comes back to me and it's like, well, that's not what that person said, you know, but this other thing gets around. So then for me, now that I understand from living the life, the experiences that I have lived, now I understand that in order for me to prevent these things from happening, I need to be open and honest myself and bring people to the table to have these conversations, so that way we can be honest with one another and then we can show that it's okay to be honest, that it's okay to be truthful and no one is going to belittle anyone and no one is going to harm somebody through words or actions or anything like that, just because they're being truthful.
Speaker 1:Because ineffective communication, like what I was doing before, it was just leading me on to so many misunderstandings, my own hurt feelings and then others hurt feelings. When I started correcting my lies later on, you know, because then of course they came back, my friends, it was like but I thought you liked these kinds of things, I thought you, you know. And then when I said, no, I'm sorry, you know, that's not what I want, or I'm too exhausted and that's going to deplete my energy, I won't have any more to do this other thing that I want to do Then when I corrected myself but I'm glad I did, I'm glad I corrected myself because I rather do the right thing, even if it's late, than not do it at all. But what I'm saying here is that it created not just hurt feelings on my part, as I was being dishonest and not really saying what I meant, but it also, at the end, it hurt other people as well that were part of these conversations and it was just a missed opportunity for genuine connection, Because sometimes I'm not going to lie, I think about that. I'm like God.
Speaker 1:How many friends, like genuine connections, would I have made if I was a little bit more myself, without that fear of being my true and authentic self, because of that fear of embarrassment. And that's why I try to tell my kids, like just be who you are. No one can be you, because then the right people will attach to you. You know, and I'm kind of, I'm glad that I was born, you know, with a lazy eye and I was born looking different because then, truly at heart, inside, I'm a big weirdo and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that. Now.
Speaker 1:I think my metamorphosis process from somebody trying to act normal to who I really are who that is a weirdo happened fairly fast just because I was born physically different and because of that, the shift into allowing other people to see who I am internally for reals was not a long process. Just because outside, in my exterior, I was already different, so it wasn't really far fetched for me to be different inside as well. Hopefully that makes sense. So that's why I look at my condition as a blessing as opposed to a curse, because it allowed me to be who I am faster than if I would have loved. I'm doing quotation, air quotation marks, normal right, and I'm happy with it and I am glad that I was born this way. I said that out loud for the first time today. Yeah, but take it from me and try to be as honest as possible, and here I'm going to give you some tips and tricks that I have tried.
Speaker 1:The big one, the big one is self-awareness, folks, self-awareness. I will continue to shout from the rooftops about bullet journaling and journaling period, because for me it has been kind of like the roadmap to self-awareness. The roadmap to self-awareness Because if it wasn't because I put words either on a physical notebook or on my digital journal on my phone, that told me about my reactions, my emotions, my dreams, my thoughts and things of that nature, I wouldn't have been able to find out about what makes me tick and my fears, everything, everything. I wouldn't have been able to find that out without journaling and having those introspective moments which aided me in self-awareness, in being aware of self, of who I truly am. Once I learn about me, then it's easier for me to love that and from that love comes confidence, not cockiness. You see what I'm saying. So cockiness is more like a defensive thing that we do to make other people love us or look at us in a certain way, right. But when it comes to self-love which stems from self-awareness, it is that hug that we give ourselves the good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty, whatever, everything that is us right. That's when we give it a big hug and we don't care how other people feel about that, we don't care how they may look at us. You know why? Because we love ourselves already and that's enough. So you see, so self-love will always look and feel way differently than cockiness, and that's the differentiation I make from the two. Okay, but self-awareness is key. It will lead to self-love, which it will lead to confidence.
Speaker 1:The next strategy that I have for you is just to practice honesty. Practice it. Practice it in something so small, so small. You'll be surprised. The things that we lie about. I told my stepdaughter not too long ago we don't need to lie about a sauce. You know, she took a sauce and then she grabbed it and then she wanted to take an extra one. I was like, oh, you want another sauce? Oh, no, no, no, I gave it to my brother. I was like sweetie, we don't need to lie about sauces. That's like there's plenty. We can also go get another one if you want, you know. So practice is small. Start small, start at low stakes, so that way you can build confidence from there and start being more honest with other things.
Speaker 1:The next nugget that I will give you is to seek clarity. I do that quite often now, just because I understand what it is to feel embarrassed and to hide certain things, and I know what it is to feel non-confrontational and trying to avoid things in conversation. So I try my best to seek clarity through questions, pinpointed questions, so that way I can prevent a misunderstanding. On the same token, I look at the person's emotions a lot, what is going through their face, because that tells me a whole lot more than words. To see if I'm losing them, to see if they're having a different reaction than what my words should have on them. Then when I see that incongruency there in the conversation, then I go ahead and backtrack and clarify where I think the misconception happened, so that way we can both be clear in that conversation. And that has happened several times.
Speaker 1:When somebody is kind of like smiling, when I know something that I said would have had them frowning, so I'm like, let me go back, because this is what I said, you know. And if I know like why the reason why they will be frowning, then I add that in there. I said this right, and this, from my perspective, will affect you in this way. And I like to do that just because I rather this conversation just gets after everything that I want it to get after. So that way neither me nor the person have to come back to the table about that same subject because we have said what we needed to say on that subject and sometimes the other person clarifies it for me. Oh no, that's a wrong misconception you have, because this and this and that, and I'm like okay, then that puts me at ease and then I continue on the conversation, and then the same person can do the same thing to me to seek clarity in whatever I'm saying. But asking questions should not give big emotions to either one of the people. If it does, then try to use I statements Like I feel this way when you said this, or I feel this way when I heard your tone, which, to me, I took it as this, you see, and then that helps to put everyone at ease and not on the defensive during conversation.
Speaker 1:Lastly, I will tell you to prepare, and that is to when you know you're going to have a difficult conversation. Just prepare what you're going to have a difficult conversation. Just prepare what you're going to say. I like to use a three by five card and put bullet points in there, so that way I'm not anxious about forgetting certain things that I want to bring up, because anxiety is going to cause me to forget and that way I can reduce anxiety and then just really stay focused on the conversation, because I know that the points are on that three by five card and I'm not going to forget. All I need to do is look down quickly and then approach those subjects as the conversation is happening. So these are the four strategies that I use and I'll repeat it to you again Self-awareness right, which leads to self-love, which leads to confidence.
Speaker 1:Practice honesty and start small, with a low stakes. Seek clarity, ask questions. Both people in the conversation ask questions. To gain clarity and prepare, I use a three by five card with bullet points so that way I won't forget the points that I want to bring up in the conversation. It reduces my anxiety, because anxiety just makes me forget certain things.
Speaker 1:In conclusion, to wrap this episode up, effective communication is a skill and it takes a lot of time and it takes practice, as with any skill. And by facing our fear of embarrassment and confrontation, kind of like how I did embarrassment and confrontation, kind of like how I did we can engage more honestly and truthfully and meaningfully with those around us and remember it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to make mistakes, it's all part of the journey of learning and growing. If you're not learning and growing, you're not growing and learning. Damn it, okay. So it's all part of the journey. So it's okay, we're all learning together.
Speaker 1:Nevertheless, thank you so much for joining me today on the have a Couple Johnny podcast, and I hope that you found this episode insightful and that it encourages you to reflect on your own communication habits and perhaps some moments where you were not as truthful as you would have wanted to be. And if you enjoyed this episode, don't forget leave a review and share it with others, because sharing is caring. And until next time, don't forget, speak your truth and have those tough, important conversations. I'll see you next Wednesday. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. I want to hear from you. Leave me a comment, do a rating if you can on the podcast, share it with, with somebody you love, but, most importantly, come back. See you next time. Bye.
