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Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele TarabaLiving from an expanded perspective. Author: Gissele Taraba
Love and Compassion Podcast-Where Gissele talks with everyday exceptional people who have overcome adversities and have wisdom to share. Language: en Genres: Health & Fitness, Mental Health, Religion & Spirituality, Spirituality Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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Ep. 85 – Educating from the Inside Out: Leadership, Self-Worth, and Compassion with Deidre Harris
Saturday, 24 January, 2026
TRANSCRIPT Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. Gissele: Today we’ll be chatting with Deidre Harris, who is a national leadership in highly effective teams development trainer and coach. She supports educational programs looking to enhance their administrative staff’s leadership skills and their teaching teams levels of effectiveness. Gissele: Please join me in welcoming Deidre. Deidre: Hi. Gissele: Hi. Hello. Welcome to the show. Oh, Deidre: thank you for inviting me. Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being here. This is definitely a topic of interest for me. I was wondering if you could tell the audience a little bit about how you got into this work. Deidre: Oh my gosh. To make a long story, very short that I’ve just been working in the education field for over 35 years [00:01:00] and through all of my very. Deidre: Various different positions. You know, leadership has just been coming up over and over and over again. And, and what does that look like? As a teacher working with children or as an assistant supporting that teacher or as a director or principal supporting staff. And so no matter what position I was in or what I was doing, leadership was just always, at the foundation of everything we did. So as I stepped out to do my own work, it just kept coming up more and more, and so I said, okay, there’s a need. Let me get out there and help to address it. Gissele: Wonderful. Wonderful. And what were some of the biggest leadership challenges you saw in the education system? Deidre: Well, gosh, I have to start with myself, Gissele right? So how did leadership show up in me? And a lot of times we kind of think about it and put it under the category of professionalism, but leadership. Actually goes [00:02:00] beyond professionalism to to be professional, to to show up with that hat, to do the work that you are hired to do in a manner that you know, that gives great outcomes for everybody. Deidre: That’s just one piece of it. When I go in and I talk about leadership, it’s really about mindset. And so I actually had to work on my own set. Who am I as a leader? And how do I get to show up in that leadership to, you know, to actually, again, get those outcomes that I’m looking for. And so, as I was, you know, as I started doing this work among myself, like I mentioned earlier, I started seeing it. Deidre: Elsewhere. And what I notice is that again, well, the biggest challenge, or the thing that I notice the most is everybody attributes leadership to a title. Gissele: Mm. Right? Mm-hmm. So yeah, you’re Deidre: either your administrator or like I said before. You’re a director or a principal or, you know, sit [00:03:00] somewhere where leadership is part of your, your title in the sense of authority. Deidre: And so that’s, I would say one of my, my biggest challenges and, and what I noticed and again, what’s, you know, motivated me to do this work because leadership, we’re all leaders. You know, regardless of our title, regardless of what we do, and because I have that belief, then going out there and helping people to see their leadership and then to start standing in their leadership, that’s, that’s been my ongoing challenge in work. Gissele: Hmm. Deidre: Yeah. Gissele: Thank you for that. Thank you. and I really appreciate that you said that you know, everyone or anyone is a leader, right? Including the children. And so as teachers who, step up into their own leadership can then model that for the kids themselves. But the school system isn’t always sort of designed that way. Gissele: Where leadership [00:04:00] can come from anywhere. It is at times designed in a very hierarchical, as many other systems that we have. How has the structure been sort of a little bit of a hindrance or help, around leadership? Deidre: Well, you know, I would say it’s definitely a hindrance or, a challenge, a barrier, and again, you nailed it. Deidre: The education field is very hierarchy driven. It’s very top down. We see that in our struggles with, being a teacher or wanting to be a teacher and having things. Put upon you that you have little to no control over and and hence some of the impact in terms of the severe teacher shortage that we’re in right now. Deidre: I mean, who wants to work under those demands. So absolutely. Going in and again, helping people to understand that when you take on and think about personal leadership, it takes you out of this space of feel, what I call victimhood [00:05:00] of feeling like, oh. I have no control, I have no influence. Deidre: I have no power. And really showing people just how much power they actually have, even when things are being put upon them. So how they address the situation, how do they stand up and use their voice? How do they actually go through and develop their skillsets? Those are things we all have Personal power. Deidre: Over and agency. And so therefore, we can stand in our leadership regardless of what’s going on around us. And in fact, when we’re truly grounded in our leadership, the outside world tends to impact us less. Meaning it’s not like things don’t happen, but our response, we tend to be more responsive and less reactive. Deidre: Yeah. Right. And, and ultimately that’s the goal. Gissele: And what you said is so, so important because I think you’re right. There’s times when we feel [00:06:00] helpless and so if you, if we really can reflect on where’s my power in this moment, even if it’s just in how I react to this particular experience, then we’ll feel more powerful then we feel like we’ll have more leadership Gissele: I just wanted to go back to your point about this this sort of shortage for teachers. Do you think that sort of the lack of funding or the lack of like, the amount of money that teachers are getting paid, it might be contributing? Because right now the cost of living seems to be not necessarily reflecting what people’s salaries are. Deidre: Absolutely Deidre: So wages and salaries are certainly part of that. And also, I mean, there’s a disparity even within the education field. So if you’re if you are part of a school district, then your salary tends to be higher. You have access to more resources. Including additional education that, you know, can be subsidized as well as benefits.[00:07:00] Deidre: But if you’re in early childhood, which is where I spend a lot of my time, where we’re working with teachers who are with infants, toddlers, and preschoolers, many of them are in community schools and don’t have the same system set up. So their wages, their benefits, their resources are even less. And yet the expectations for their education are the same and we know how ex. Deidre: Expensive it is for college, right. To get that degree. And so even in early education, you need to have a degree. So now we’re asking people to take on a lot of debt, right? Yeah. Because most of us, how many of us can afford paying for it outright? So we’re taking on a lot of debt and coming out with very low wages. Deidre: Which means that, I mean, just the cost of living, but those dreams like owning a house, right? Or you know, things like that, providing for your family get whittled way down because of the amount of debt that you’re already coming out with. [00:08:00] And so, absolutely, that has a lot to do with the field. And as I mentioned earlier, again, because a lot of things are so top down driven, they’re, a lot of things, again, I use the word put upon because it is directed by people sometimes outside of the field who Have little understanding or have an expectation of an outcome and say, this is what you know we want you to do and this is how you, we want you to do it. All of that decreases the, motivation for becoming a teacher because they actually have taken the art away from it, and I don’t think people see, you know, realize that teaching is both the science. Deidre: And in art. Mm-hmm. And so we can go in and deliver a curriculum and the curriculum is the science part, but how we do it when we do it to, you know, to what degree we do it, what strategies are we doing when that’s the art piece. And many times things are so [00:09:00] structured that the art goes away. It, it’s no longer fun. Gissele: Yeah. I completely agree Absolutely. Yeah. sometimes I think to myself, we kind of live in a topsy-turvy world, right? Like, think about the people that make millions of dollars. Not that we should take anything away from people to play, football and movie stars Gissele: Wonderful. You know, you’re allowed your abundance, but important roles such as teaching and nursing they’re paid such, such a base level and it just doesn’t work. And we’re kind of in an interesting time. Gissele: I see it because we kind of have this gap. there was the baby boomers and people of my generation and even younger that kind of got sold a bag of goods, right? and it sort of worked for us during our time you could go to a good school, graduate, get a good job, get all the things that you thought you were going to get, but the new generation. Gissele: Even if they graduate, they come out with huge debt. They don’t have jobs that are going to pay them because some of these companies now are just wanting to not pay [00:10:00] benefits, not just give what people deserve. Mm-hmm. And so then you see this new generation that is like, I’m out. Gissele: Yes. I’m gonna live off grid. I’m gonna make money on social media. I’m just not gonna do those things. Yes. And so something’s gonna have to change, right? Like, I think we’re gonna have to prioritize. These sorts of positions and go back to the art and go back to the acknowledging the value that is being offered by these positions it doesn’t have to be one or the other. Gissele: I mean, these people can still say in their abundance, but the abundance of teachers and nurses should be elevated from my perspective. Deidre: Yes. I totally agree. I mean, and you know, we could spend weeks here on this topic alone. Right. just thinking about, you know, what are our priorities? Deidre: And when I go back and, and we know this because, [00:11:00] I mean, the research has come out over and over and over again, the return on investment, so. So I’m gonna bring it back to education because the return on investment, when we invest in our children, it’s something like 16 to 18% or times what the initial investment was. Deidre: So if we were to say to someone, Hey, if you invest, you know so much, you know, a hundred dollars and you’re gonna get a eight, 16 to 18% return, everyone would flock to that. Right? Yeah. Everyone would be buying shares in that company. So it’s really interesting how we look at it, the investment in that way. Deidre: Yet we don’t see the same type of investment in our children. And yet, look at our role today. Right. I mean, yeah. Yes. There’s great things happening and yes, there are, things happening. that we’ve never seen before in our lifetime. Yeah. And to go back to what you were saying, Gissele [00:12:00] this generation is the first generation that has done not as well as their parents’ generation. Deidre: So when you’re talking about they’re coming out with debt, that we have so many students coming out and having to live with their families because the jobs just aren’t out there paying what they would need to survive with inflation, or they have this huge mountain of debt that, you know, that they have to get up underneath of, and all of these other things. Deidre: So we get to. To look at that because what are we setting up for the generations who are, coming after us? what are we leaving them? Gissele: Yeah. and I totally agree with that, but, I have to reflect and I do believe that we’ve accepted certain things over time. Like one of the things I would hear often again and again is that, people. Gissele: Believe that like doing good, you don’t have to accept that much pay. Right? It should be free or it should be low. So I feel like there’s an element well, we’ve done this to ourselves, [00:13:00] and I feel like now is the time that we’re like no more. Because Gissele: that really allows you to then do more of that important work. there doesn’t have to be a trade off between you doing good and allowing your abundance to come into you. But I feel like we have, ’cause that was the one thing that I always heard, like people that are doing good and helping people, oh, it can’t cost that much. Gissele: It has to be free. And it’s like, okay, so this is why we’re in the situation we’re in. But like you said, we have power. We just have to say, well, we are not willing to take this low pay anymore. It’s done. So either pay us what we’re worth, or you’re gonna have systems shut down. Mm-hmm. Gissele: Because they’re not gonna have anyone to do the job. What are your thoughts? Deidre: so Gissele you take us right into the leadership mindset, and that’s why I’ve started doing that work. For just that reason is because you even said it. Deidre: It not that I wanna move into blaming or shaming, and yet we do get to [00:14:00] own that. When whoever we are in the helping field, whether it’s coaching in whatever area, or education or health, whatever that field is, it’s this idea of our money mindset. Right. Like, you know, money is the, the root of all evil or whatever. Deidre: We grew up with that somehow, and you said it, that somehow that when we attach money to helping others, now we’re wrong or we’re greedy, or we should do it from the love of our heart. And basically what we’re being asked to do is to subsidize. Other people’s wellbeing. And I think we have to really understand that, that really we’re being asked to subsidize, you know? Deidre: Somebody else’s health or somebody’s else is fitness or somebody else’s, you know, whatever that is. And so, like you said, when when we step into that leadership mindset and say, this is who [00:15:00] I am and this is how I wanna show up in the world, as soon as we fully own that, then the money doesn’t quite become an issue. Deidre: Or we start moving out of that and we start charging what we’re worth. Mm-hmm. And so that right there is, is just really huge. And again, as I bring it back to the education field, it not that you’re gonna go out and and demand a salary increase, but as you show up and, and we start advocating for ourselves and say. Deidre: Look, the, this is what we’re talking about. here’s your return on the investment. It FARs outweigh what, what you’re paying me. We get to start equalizing or leveling things up. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna disagree, Deidre. I do think that people should go out and ask for an increase the cost of living is so far above, and somebody did the numbers, I think it was on TikTok. Gissele: People are now spending almost like. 75% on their salary on living, [00:16:00] which doesn’t leave a lot to save. Whereas, you know, like many moons ago, it’s only about half. And so people were able to save for a house. We’re able to do all of these things. But let’s talk about worth. And I think that’s the thing. Gissele: Historically, we have not really valued our worth. I heard these two people talking about, how, they expect people to work nine to five, but they said come in for an eight o’clock meeting. Yes. and the person said, no, sorry, I’ve got this going on. Gissele: I can’t make it. And it was a huge deal. and they were, criticizing them and ostracizing them for doing stuff outside of work hours. And I think for many, many years we accepted that we thought it made us valuable and that somehow there’ll be a return on investment and it has not. Gissele: All it’s done is, oh look, we get a praise. And just praise is just not gonna cut it anymore. Which is why I think this younger generation is keep your praise. Yep. I’m gonna keep my money or I’m gonna keep my time. Right. And so I do [00:17:00] think it’s the time now to truly say, okay, what am I worth? And this is what I desire in terms of income. Gissele: What are your thoughts? Deidre: and I agree with that. So let me just go back and clarify. Deidre: ’cause I’m not saying don’t go out and advocate for yourself and financially, it’s just one way to do it. Mm-hmm. When you’re talking about stepping into your self worth. And again, the key is to own it. Yeah. So when you’re in your leadership, right and you’re owning your worth, that’s when the advocacy really happens. Deidre: And here’s what often happens is, is people will say I want you to do for me what I won’t even do for myself. Deidre: Fair Gissele: enough. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Deidre: So, when we’re grounded, when we’re in our leadership and we’re presenting ourselves as leaders, then that’s what I mean by that. The advocacy comes and absolutely, we still get to have those discussions and fight for [00:18:00] equal pay by all means, and not just as a group, but in. Deidre: Individuals, because not every person is equal. Right? Yeah. And what value we have is going to be different based on the work that we’re doing and who we’re doing that work with. So we get to be really clear about our value, and many of us aren’t. Yeah. So it’s really hard to go out and say, you know, I think I should have more money and not be able to answer the question of, well, what are you bringing to the table? Deidre: Hmm. And that’s where many of us are, as opposed to, you know, coming in and say, wow, when I come in, I’m able to do this, this, this, this, and this, and the benefits of this is this, this, this, this, and this. Now we have something to talk about and negotiate and discuss with. That’s us being in our leadership. Gissele: Mm, I understand. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, Deidre: yeah. Gissele: [00:19:00] Thank you for that. And speaking of different values, Let’s talk about compassion in the education system and the challenges that may present themselves in terms of managing behavior problems and then where leadership would fit in those circumstances. Deidre: Yeah, this is me sighing Gissele becauseyou know, I’m a little speechless and the reason for that is because you would think of all fields. All fields, or at least like you said, one of the helping fields that compassion would be embedded. And I have to say it’s not now there’s gonna be, you know, listeners out there that are gonna disagree with me, you’re probably gonna get a flood. Deidre: What is she talking about? That’s okay. You know, where I work, there’s, you know, compassion, but I just mean generally speaking that. Again, if we’re talking about, say, teachers with children, it’s not that teachers don’t have compassion for children, but they’re fried. Yeah. They’re [00:20:00] burnt out because of the, the workload and what they’re asked to do. Deidre: Now you take workload and then you bring in children who have lots of challenges on a lot of different areas, whether it’s just, you know learning. Disabilities that they have. And so it, you know, it puts additional workload on the teacher to figure out how to support them, especially if they’re not able to receive services around that. Deidre: You have children coming in who definitely are coming from circumstances that are traumatic or neglectful. So now you have a lot of mental health that teachers are having to deal with and trying to support children in order for them to learn. And then in addition to that, now you have teachers being attacked both verbally and physically. Deidre: Yeah. By very young children all the way through you know, into our high schools and our colleges. So much to the point where, where we’re talking about, you know, teachers carrying [00:21:00] guns in school in order to protect themselves Wow. Or be in a position to. To protect children if somebody comes in. Deidre: Wow. So, so when you’re thinking about all of these pressures mm-hmm. That are there, it’s really hard to be compassionate. So it’s not that our teachers, our directors, our principals don’t want to be compassionate. It’s really hard when we have all of these external pressures. It, it just truly is now. Deidre: And then on top of that, think about again, just having compassion for ourselves, and that’s where that leadership comes in. So I always talk a lot about practicing grace. Gissele: Yeah. Deidre: So the practicing grace is for ourselves. And, and that gets to be embedded as part of our leadership. So, I mean, there’s great websites out there like I think it was one called self-compassion dot org. Deidre: So if anybody, you [00:22:00] know, wants to check that. That out. A wonderful woman who’s been in the field for a very long time provides lots of free resources on there. I tell everybody about it all the time because it’s something that we do get to practice. It’s a muscle. Having grace for oneself is a muscle that we get to build and we get to pour into to keep that muscle strong because we are typically our own worst enemies. Deidre: Right. You’ve heard that, right? that inner critic or that self critic, that voice in your head that comes up when you do something and they might say, you know, or You made a mistake. Well, that was stupid. Well, how dumb was that? Or that voice that comes up and says you know, who do you think you are? Deidre: You can’t do this. Keep your mouth shut. You don’t have anything to offer. That’s the voice that we’re talking about that we get to actually look at and say thank you. But no thank you. [00:23:00] I don’t need that advice today. I am practicing grace. Practicing grace means that we are owning, that we are fully human. Deidre: And so I say that as a as a recovering perfectionist. Mm-hmm. So I own that. I have to practice every single day to not get things to such a high degree. And then, you know, where I’m not getting things done or driving myself crazy. Instead, I get to practice grace and say, I’m human. It’s okay if I make a mistake. Deidre: Now, if I’m making that same mistake repeatedly, that’s. great feedback that I wanna go in and, and look at that. So I’m not saying, you know, go out and just be a hot mess all of the time, but just owning, you know, it’s not gonna be an if, it’s gonna be a when we’re gonna, we’re gonna make mistakes and if we’re going to learn and grow and practice that self-compassion, we need to practice grace. Deidre: Giving ourselves grace. [00:24:00] Yeah. And as soon as we’re able to really be compassionate. Then we become really genuine in stepping into compassion for others. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Absolutely, absolutely. I don’t think people realize that that critical voice, like internally is how they talk to other people as well. Some of the most critical people that I have met, that’s how they talk to themselves as well. Gissele: And so, here we talk about, when you. Fill up your bucket, right, and you give to love and compassion towards yourself, then you can give to others from your overflow, right? Yes. Then you have more than enough and when you give yourself love and compassion. You give yourself what you’re looking for externally. Gissele: You don’t need people to be different. You don’t need them to be a specific way. And so you can have that grace for yourself and other people. Mm-hmm. One of the things that I found, I was thinking about what you were saying around, you know, teachers carrying gun and so on is the role of fear [00:25:00] and the lack of. Gissele: Emotional regulation that has been taught, and I think that’s what compassion helps us do is regulate those difficult feelings. Mm-hmm. how has fear really impacted teachers’ abilities to really be in their leadership in those moments? Deidre: Well, fear shows up in a lot of different ways, and we know that, you know, fear is actually a secondary emotion, meaning something else is Happening and the result or the symptom is fear. So one of the things we get to look at is, what am I afraid of? So if I think about myself and me, as a perfectionist am I afraid of, of failing? Am I afraid of what people might think of me? I mean, it’s gonna look a little different for everyone, and that’s part of the self-discovery process is it’s what am I afraid of? Deidre: Because that’s really what I wanted. To look at. If I’m just saying, you know, I’m afraid, then [00:26:00] that’s, an outcome, that’s a symptom that’s telling us. Right? Yeah. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying about our emotions is that our emotions is our body’s feedback to us that something is going on. Deidre: And so listening to that feedback is critical to help us figure out What is it that’s going on? And you also said that earlier when you said that this isn’t something that’s taught. And so while we’re starting to do that, you know, we call it, you know, social emotional learning or development. We do that, you know, in our schools. Deidre: And that’s becoming prevalent again, especially after COVID. What people don’t realize is that our corporations are actually spending billions of dollars on training their people in emotional intelligence, which basically is social emotional development for grownups, right? So how do we manage those big emotions? Deidre: Right. [00:27:00] Anger, frustration, fear, resentment, jealousy. I mean, we can go on and on and on. How do we manage them? How do we regulate and how do we look at it in relationship to those people around me? So when I’m having. These emotions. Who else is it impacting? Because I, I get to look at that. And so one of the quotes that I absolutely love out there is live in the impact, not the intention. Gissele: Mm-hmm. Deidre: Yeah. And that’s huge, right? Because often we say, oh, well I didn’t mean to, or I intended to. and my question is, well, how did that turn out? And if we’re talking about something that, you know, didn’t turn out the way we expected to, that’s great feedback for us. That we get to go back and change or shift something and try it again to get closer to the outcome that we were wanting. Gissele: Yeah. Yeah, and I love how you frame that, and even this in what you had [00:28:00] said before, because there’s such an element of acceptance and not judgment. Even when you said, you know, I keep making the same mistake. If you keep doing the same behavior, you might not be aware that it’s serving you somehow. Gissele: Sometimes we may not like our behavior but it’s serving us ’cause otherwise we wouldn’t keep doing it. So maybe there’s a subconscious thing that we need to look at. So I love how you frame that in terms of, you know what, so these are just messages that we need to understand then, that are reflecting or mirroring back to us. Gissele: What we may need to heal, what we might need to address, which I think is so, so pivotal because we get stuck behind the shame, the criticism, the guilt, all of those difficult emotions and can’t get past them in order to be able to then to really understand the lesson. And I think that’s one of the reasons why we’re kind of in a little bit of a cancel culture because we can’t deal with just a little, those difficult feelings. Gissele: That was my nice way of saying like, what’s going [00:29:00] on? Because we can’t deal with those feelings of being triggered, of being in conversation when we disagree. Yes. And so how do we lean into those difficult feelings so that then we could lean into each other and not away from one another? What are your thoughts? Deidre: Yes. So I call that I have a problem and I want you to fix it. That’s, that’s exactly what it is. Right? Right. Because when I’m triggered, that’s my problem. But we’re so used to saying things like you make me so mad. Yeah. Right. And attributing our emotions to somebody else. and as soon as we do that, then we place right blame and shame and guilt and all of that judgment on somebody else as opposed to, and this is, it’s a radical thought, but yet it’s also a very freeing thought as opposed to owning it. Deidre: Our totally ourselves. Again, taking this back into our leadership when [00:30:00] I fully own my emotions. I am mad now that you know Gissele, you said something or you did something. And first thought is it made me mad, as opposed to, and I got mad. Yeah. So that’s feedback for me that there’s work that I get to do. Deidre: ’cause I am the one that’s mad. It’s crazy for me to say, Gissele you gotta change what you said or change what you did. So I don’t get mad anymore. Right. And what people don’t. Absolutely. Yeah. But, but we’ve been trained to do that. Yeah. And what people don’t realize is that as soon as you do that, you actually give all your power away to somebody. Deidre: Correct. ’cause now they have the power to, do this and make you do this, or do this and make you do this. And, and as soon as you see that and realize that’s where the freeing part comes in, because now, okay, if I’m fully owning my emotions, my feelings, my my [00:31:00] triggers, then. I now have the ability to change and shift it. Deidre: Yeah. And it’s doesn’t rely on anyone else. Gissele: Absolutely. And as soon Deidre: as that happens, like you said, that, you know, the, the cancel culture will start going away. It’s like, oh my gosh. Nobody can make mistakes anymore. Yeah. Nobody can make human or your whole life will be wiped out. Gissele: Yeah,I completely agree with what you said because I truly. Gissele: I truly believe that if something triggers me, I immediately think, okay, what’s what’s going on for me? Like what’s, because if somebody says something that is hurtful, I’m like, oh, that’s where they’re, but if I get triggered by it, that’s an immediate sign that there’s something going on within me because why am I giving that thought? Gissele: The power. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: but. We don’t wanna accept responsibility because then we are responsible for what we have created and therefore, and it expands that we’re responsible for everything we’ve created. [00:32:00] Yes. And then sometimes that’s hard to admit but like you said, it’s the first step towards making a change and stepping up into our leadership. Gissele: Right. Deidre: Yes. and you’re absolutely right about that. And that is part of that, that is really scary. ’cause like you said, as soon as I realize, okay, I’m being triggered, there’s something going on, I get to do some some work around that. So I always advocate for network. Right. Develop your network, develop your inner circle so that there are people around to help support you so that, you know, you can see and kind of process through this in whatever way, shape, or form that looks like. Deidre: But going in and, and understanding that you’re triggered and owning it is kind of like okay, I have work to do here and as soon as. You recognize It. It’s like, oh, okay, okay, I can do something around it. And then you look around and you’re [00:33:00] like, oh crap, I got a whole bunch of stuff I gotta clean up. Deidre: That’s where the work begins. It’s like now I gotta go in and and clean up. Right? So if I haven’t set boundaries right, really good boundaries. ’cause you talked about that a little bit earlier. And now I have all of these appointments and I’m overwhelmed. Okay. To stay in integrity, I’m gonna follow through, and that’s me cleaning up. Deidre: And how can I make sure that I don’t continue to do that for myself? But meanwhile, I’ve gotta, I’ve gotta clean that up, right? Yeah. Gissele: That we got in the shed that we don’t wanna see, or in the basement that we’re like, I’m gonna check that out later. In order for you to change your life, you have to look at that. Gissele: and I do think that what’s happening in the world is kind of like all of those boxes coming out and being like, hello, remember me? Deidre: Oh Gissele: yeah. But they’re coming up to be healed. Right? They’re coming up to be seen and then reone. Deidre: [00:34:00] Yes. Gissele: So, it’s a good thing. But like you said, it’s a scary thing. Gissele: because then nobody else is at fault, right? Then we can’t say, hey, it’s their fault. Right? And that causes us shame and guilt and all these difficult emotions, which we of course are, you know, managing with compassion. Let’s talk about the importance of boundaries in terms of having more compassion for oneself. Gissele: How does, how does having boundaries really reinforce that love for ourselves? Deidre: Yes, and you know, Brene Brown, who, many of us know and love, does a lot of work in this area, so you can check out some of her resources around it. But when we’re talking about, true self-compassion. It goes hand in hand with boundaries. Deidre: You can’t be self-compassionate and have no boundaries. Yeah, because basically what you’re doing is you’re literally giving all of yourself away, right? Yeah. Well, if you’re giving all yourself away, where’s the self in that? And [00:35:00] this is hard for many, many of us. And you know, myself included, and it’s going to always be ongoing work. Deidre: So when we talk about, you know, boundaries, and again, in having that self-compassion, you said it earlier, we wanna give from our overflow, right? So whether you think of it as a bucket or whether you think of it as a well, or however you think about it, you wanna. But pour into yourself so much that, like you said, you were giving from your overflow. Deidre: Not the bucket itself. The bucket is you. Yeah. And so it goes back to what they always keep telling us on the plane. And there’s a really, really important reason they tell. Yeah. Was on the plane. Yeah. Is you right? If you’re sitting with somebody, you know that you need to help you give the oxygen mask first because if you don’t, you’re gonna end up passing out and both of you or all of you are dead. Deidre: Yeah. Andwe don’t think about that in our day-to-day lives, [00:36:00] and we keep. Pulling from our internal wells, right? Or our internal bucket. And we wonder why we’re overwhelmed or burnt down and fried. So when we’re self-compassionate, self-compassion is really about saying no, right? and it’s not no to everybody and no to everything, but it’s being discerning. Deidre: So let’s set up some criteria And if you’re not comfortable with saying no, then I suggest setting up criteria for what you’re gonna say yes to. ’cause some of us aren’t quite in that place where we can, oh, I don’t like to say no, we don’t feel good. just. Means we get to do work there. And in the meantime, let’s work on criteria for saying yes. Deidre: What does yes feel like for you? And let’s be really clear so that when things come in, you take it through this framework of your yes. Yes. Gissele: Yes. I love that. I actually have a reframe what I say sometimes when I say it, I say, mentally says, [00:37:00] A no to you is a yes to myself. Yes. Because I’m like, okay, so I’m saying no to you because I can’t, it’s either not aligning with my values or I’m trying to scrape things for me. Gissele: Nevermind giving it. You. And so a no to you is a yes for me. but for those of you who might not be comfortable with that, I like. The thinking about, what are the things that I can say yes to? What are the things that really align with my highest joy and my values and everything else that I want to do? Deidre: Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yes. And, and again, just thinking about that, right? It’s kind of like this idea of you know, who do I wanna be? And let’s face it when you’re showing up because you said yes when you really wanted to say no. That’s where the resentment comes in. Yeah. In fact, that’s one of the characteristics that there’s a boundary crossing. Deidre: Whether somebody crossed it or you, you gave that boundary away or you weren’t consistent in it, is when [00:38:00] you’re feeling resentful. That’s typically means, oh, boundary issue here. So, you know, just a thought out there for your listeners, but you know, you’re going to show up all cranked or, resentful Deidre: So is that who you want to be when you show up and you’re around people and, you’re precious again, it goes back to, Deidre: Self-worth. you’re just so absolutely precious. And because you are so precious, you get to again, be really discerning who you get to share yourself with. Gissele: Yeah. Gissele: Yeah. Thank you for saying that, that was so good. I I was thinking about, I’m in my general life, I’m very good at saying no when I don’t mean no, except for my kids. Gissele: but you’re right. when I say yes, and I mean, no, I do it in a resentful manner. Like I’ll say yes, but I’m like, I’ll cough and puff, and I’m like, okay, this is not how I wanted to do this. So that’s one of the areas that I’m working on is really saying no with my [00:39:00] kids. Gissele: Right? Yeah. Because I just have this. Desire to give them everything. And, I just love them so much but at the same time, I’m not teaching them to honor their boundaries when I don’t honor my boundaries. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: And so, and I Deidre: say that all the time, Yeah. No, I, I’m just agreeing with you. Right. Just raising my, own kids. Deidre: It’s like, you know, what do we want from them? And just remember we’re modeling 24 7. Yeah. So if we’re not, you know, honoring our boundaries and sharing with them And saying, no, I can’t do this, and this is why. Right. to help our children understand the why. Deidre: Because, you know, because I just have a really, hard week this week and I just don’t have, the energy. And if I go, I’m just gonna be really cranky and nasty and that’s not how I wanna be with you. I wanna go and just. Really enjoy myself. Can we make a rain check? [00:40:00] Yeah, I’m just making stuff up about No, no, this is, people need to write Gissele: this down, but Deidre: great. Deidre: What’s a great thing about a podcast, right? It’s recorded. You can go back and And listen to it. Exactly. You can go back Gissele: and listen to it. Yeah. Deidre: Yes, Gissele: absolutely. Absolutely. Deidre: But add the, the why there so that we’re helping our children to understand why we do what we’re doing, so that as they. Grow up and learn, they can start using again that same level of discernment and decision making and thought process for themselves. Gissele: Agreed. Agreed. And for me, I think it goes back to being socialized to think what makes a good mother. Being a good mother is an important thing for me, like making sure that my kids are, happy, healthy, provided for you know, it’s one of my dreams I guess, that my kids are, well, that they’re supported, that they feel loved, that they feel accepted, that they feel like they belong, that they have a safe space and that they have [00:41:00] what they need. Gissele: but I’ve had some misconceptions as to what that means. It doesn’t mean I deplete myself to give to them. It means that I, again, give from their overflow and show them how to fill their own cups, right? Mm-hmm. But I’ve had to unlearn that. I’ve had to unlearn that and. Gissele: Realize that they weren’t the problem. It was me like in the words of Taylor Swift, I’m the problem. It’s me. But in a compassionate way, obviously. Deidre: Yes. Gissele: Well, Deidre: well, and you’re talking about feedback, right? When you’re talking about that compassionate, it’s not blame or shame. Yeah. It’s, oh, this is feedback for me. Deidre: Yeah. So it gives me the opportunity to shift and change how I show up in the future. That’s self-compassion. Gissele: Yeah. Agree. Agree. So we’re coming up to the end. I have two more questions for you. The first one is, what is your definition of unconditional love? Deidre: I’m just gonna pick up right on self-compassion. Deidre: When we’re [00:42:00] truly grounded in it, then our love for ourselves and then for others becomes unconditional beautiful. So Im gonna pair those two together. Gissele: Beautiful. Where can people find you? Where can they come work with you? Where can they just reach out to you? So just let people know where they can. Gissele: Sure, find yourself. Deidre: So they can find me up on my website, which is www.teamagreements.com. Literally you spell it how it says team agreements.com or if you wanna reach out to me by email, it would be Deidre, D-E-I-D-R-E dot Harris, H-A-R-R-I-S at. Team agreements.com. Nice. Beautiful. And I’d love to hear from your listeners. Gissele: Oh yeah, definitely. Thank you so much, for this amazing conversation, I mean we could speak for weeks. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and I hope people do reach out to you. And join us once again for another episode of The Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. Deidre: Thank you. [00:43:00] Bye.
