Speaker #0Are you someone that when you connect or meet someone you tend to overshare or label yourself an open book? If so, today's episode is for you. I'm Coral and this is The Road Leads Back to Me and on today's episode we are going to be covering what oversharing actually is, its function, and why it's actually a real form of self-harm. Let's talk about it. So why do we overshare? Well, like I've mentioned, oversharing tends to be a trauma response and if you are someone that has felt rejected or like you didn't belong you likely have what we call an anxious attachment style and when that occurs what ends up happening is we then go through like these stages where we skip right you meet this person you skip from going from being strangers so then i'm going to tell you my entire life story let's connect because we want to connect and then all of a sudden we're like oh wow why did i say all that. That was a lot. And when then it's just an element of, OK, I need to give myself some grace right now. Maybe I was a little excited and maybe I just wanted to connect. But we don't know who we're saying this to, because like I mentioned, this person was initially a stranger. So you don't know what they're going to do with that information. So it's kind of being mindful of what you're going to say, what you're going to share. And if you are very comfortable with it being repeated. And that's something that I always tell people, if you're an overshare or what we call an open book. Are you okay with what your open book and narrative is being shared with other people? And now this is where oversharing becomes dangerous, right? Because information gives somebody a lot of leverage over you. You're pretty much sharing with them what your triggers are, what it is that your blind spots are. And since you don't know this person, right, because you just them or you're working with them in this capacity. You don't know how they're going to utilize that sort of information. Believe you me, I am saying this to you and I'm going to give you some loving big sister advice because I've been there. It sucks. And it is one of the most hurtful things because again, all we want as humans is to connect and to believe that what goodness we have others do. Right. But unfortunately, and fortunately, people do have free will and have their own. psychology and where they are stuck at. And just because you are somewhere doesn't mean they are, even if you are very open and owning of your story. So I want you to just be mindful of that, especially if you're going to any sort of social setting and use this as a grounding exercise for yourself of why am I talking right now? Right? Like, why do I feel the need to have to say this to this person? And why do I think that they deserve even more importantly to know my information? People give, it's also like reading the room, right? And being mindful of that. Because how many times, I know I'm guilty of this and this has happened to me, I don't even know how many times. I'm saying something to someone, someone's asking me all these questions and when I go to ask them, nothing. One word answers. Very guarded, very slow to even commit to even sharing anything. I want you to be mindful of that because if that occurs for you a lot, you're likely trauma dumping or just oversharing. And you don't know what they're doing with that information. You don't know how they're going to use it against you. I'll give you an example. I once had someone that I used to work with and I hired and they saw that I was a one woman shop. Right. I was doing everything by myself, meaning I was very overwhelmed and things would. kind of not be in my peripheral or I wasn't really paying attention because I was so overwhelmed with everything else on top of being a mom on top of you know having to keep up with the group chats if you know you know um and having to do all of the activities that come with not only being a business owner but a mother and this person took full advantage of that and what did they do they lied to me and they pretty much committed something that they shouldn't have done and it took a little bit for me to for me to catch on to that person And when I did, what did they do? They faked accountability. They pretty much were like, no, I totally you told me I could do this. They gaslit me and all that jazz. Right. And when people do that, it's because she saw in that case that I was very overwhelmed and they saw my blind spot and she's not going to ever notice. It's fine. She's always so busy anyways, or that case is so complicated. She's not going to be able to take note of it. But when it does happen, because it will happen eventually, you need to be mindful of who that is and how you're going to move forward in it. Again, you only meet people with what they show you, right? So you need to try to believe them in their humanity, but action. Follow through and how they show up in their humanity is how we base the way that we move and how we continue to share information. And that is why I always tell people, if you're someone that over shares, I want you to implement. And this is something that we actually apply in brain spotting. It's called the acronym of weight. Why am I talking? And really ask yourself that. We do that when we're trying to attune with a client in a session and want to maybe interject to like. help them navigate it or just connect with them. But when we're doing that, we're actually interrupting their neuro neuro subcortical processing is what we call it's the hindbrain. So whenever we interject, we're not letting them go there. And it's not on us to project our anxiety. The client we need to trust can tell us the truth, right? And tell us where they're at. But sometimes our own anxiety and our own humanity. So we implement, why am I talking? So I'm going to share that with you. Ask yourself, why am I talking? I want you to also ask yourself when you're noticing that maybe you do overshare, how are people reacting to you oversharing? Are people making faces like this or looking at each other like that? Or, hey, I think it's time for us to go. If that happens, it's fine. God knows I've been there and I think you've been there too if you're on here. But give yourself the grace and humanity that maybe in that moment you just wanted to connect, but we're not going to do that again. Because now we're in a more neutral and more regulated nervous system. And we're recognizing, yeah, you know what? That wasn't my vibe and that isn't really who I am and my values. So I just want you to be mindful of that and create some awareness and really start to implement right before you leave to any sort of social setting. And ask yourself, why am I talking? Before you get excited or maybe want to overshare. Because again, we don't know what this person is going to do with that information and we need to be very mindful of that. So there's a very important distinction here that I want to be mindful of. We could be vulnerable, right? Because people that tend to overshare, oh, I'm just trying to be an open book. I'm just trying to be vulnerable so people can, you know, connect with me. Oversharing and vulnerability are two very different things. And what I will tell you is that vulnerability is something that is earned. It's not something that you just go and give that information and go and divulge all of that and hope that the person is going to be vulnerable with it and reciprocate that. You have given them now free reign. They have not earned. that ability to, or respectfully, even that position to own or have that information of you, right? Because we don't know what they're going to do with it. So being mindful that vulnerability is something that is earned versus oversharing is something that really lands on you and respectfully lands from your own anxiety of wanting to connect with people. And when we have that, if you're oversharing and it's not vulnerability, vulnerability is something that is reciprocated. It is something that... hey in my lived experience too I've lived here or I've done this and this has occurred with me too and look this is how I got through with it right and there's always a light or whatever it is that you want to share with the person but that doesn't happen in just one conversation and for me something that I always tell people is when you feel that instant like oh my god I need to tell this person everything more often than not that's just our brain and our anxiety most importantly trying to want to really make this thing happen, right? You want to belong. You want to matter. You want someone to validate your story. And that's why you're oversharing. So I want you to just create some awareness around that, because, again, vulnerability is something that is earned, not given. Proximity does not equal safety. And just because someone's in front of you and willing to lend you an ear to have you vent does not mean that they deserve to have that sort of information be divulged to them. And that's something that I feel is very important to... take away from this too because when you overshare especially if it's not reciprocated you leave with such an icky feeling about yourself more often than not it's like a reinforcement of i'm so stupid i don't know why i did that and you're not you're just wanting to have connection so this is an opportunity for you to really practice not doing that and being mindful and just again clocking right like just because someone's in front of me and wants to give me a lending ear doesn't mean they deserve to have my information you don't know what they're going to do with it. and you need to be very mindful of that. When I think of this, I think of those people, like I mentioned, that like you tell them everything and then all of a sudden when you ask them for what's up with them, they kind of just stay quiet and then you feel like crap, you feel stupid. Like, why the hell did I do this? Or the person that's like, I wanna hear every single detail. I want you to start from the very beginning all the way to the end. I am so sorry. We talked about vulnerability being something that's reciprocal, right? So if I'm telling you everything and you're asking me from start to finish and you're giving me one word answers, that's not reciprocated. That's not a real friend. That is someone that is listening because they want to hear, And guess what? Go ahead and repeat it. And that be the thing that they don't have to then think about their own stuff, their own life. They can then just use that as I always say it like gossip currency. Right. Like no one wants to use their own stuff unless you're an overshare. Right. To to go ahead and have that sort of exchange. But these people will literally. ask you for every single detail down to like what was the person wearing what was the what did they smell like what did they eat and then when you ask them they give you one or two word answers that's not reciprocation that's someone that's just wanting to listen to hear to then repeat and you don't want that in your life that's not a reciprocal dynamic and you feel icky after that right and it's always like i think of people that are like i want to be mysterious and i want to be like an enigma you can be an enigma and not overshare Not everybody deserves that. Like your information is something that you should treat as so private that you don't want anybody else to know because you'd respect yourself enough to not be able to, to not have to do that. Right. Or if you have that agency and you really don't care, which respectfully, if you're an open book, you do care because that's you trying to connect with someone and using yourself almost as leverage to do it when they aren't reciprocating. And that's something that I just want you to create some mindfulness around. Because I know I see that a lot in my practice and it is one of the most uncomfortable things to kind of just go around or work off of. In true millennial fashion, I have to give you a pop culture reference that the zeitgeist understands. And if you haven't watched this movie, you absolutely should. OK, I actually have two of them. I think of Gone Girl. That girl not only did what she did in that movie. I don't want to give it away. But if you know, you know. But she literally studied people. She studied their emotional patterns. These people that are like her in real life are so strategic. And they fake vulnerability. They fake accountability in order to try to get a means. And because they're studying you. And these people like this movie. I know it's a bit of an extreme example. They actually exist. They're real people like that. I can tell you that. end. Another pop culture kind of reference is if you've ever watched the movie Swimfan. And if you know me, you know that I always say, if you're going to bring back a movie, and by the way, if it happens after this, I just, I want to get rid of it. But Swimfan, Swimfan was a movie that we had back in the early 2000s or late 90s. And it was about a girl who was obsessed with this guy on the swim team of this high school. She went, she transferred to the school. And she had this, back in the day, I'm totally aging myself, but she had an AOL screen name. So think of it like, I would maybe equate it like a Snapchat now. But that's how we would communicate because we didn't have cell phones. We didn't have WhatsApp. We didn't have any of the stuff that we have now. We just had this thing called AOL and AIM or Hotmail Instant Messenger. And her thing was Swimfan. And she studied this girl or this guy and the girl that she was dating. It's a crazy movie. I actually think it's a really good movie. Okay. When I think of that, that is how people actually operate. And it's actually really scary because people watch that and think, oh, that's normal. So maybe I could do that, too. And again, I go back. You don't know what people are doing with that information. And it's not just basing it out of like, I don't ever want you guys thinking, man, if I go on this girl's channel, she doesn't believe anybody's good. No, I know that there's good people out there. Unfortunately, there's also really shitty people out there. And that's why I'm here to try to teach you guys to just. be mindful and not overshare so that people don't have that leverage over you because trust me it'll cost you thousands of dollars it'll cost you heartache it'll cost you god knows what with all you had to do was just be more mindful of who you connect with and who you allow access in your life but when i think of swimfan and when i think of gone girl those are two prime examples of how people will actually study you and use that information to Thank you. do the things that they want to do because it's their primary or secondary gain. I want you to think about it like this. When people know your emotional blueprint, they now know how to influence you. It's literally reverse psychology. Okay, I know that this person has a real insecurity around X. So whether it's intentional or not, they're going to recreate that dynamic because they know they're going to trigger you and they're going to loop you into that emotional loop. And if they know, for example, that all you want is to be married or all you want is to be with this person. They're going to use that information to try to manipulate you and try to maybe create some friction or create some animosity between you or disconnect with people that may actually have earned your trust or your support network, but want to make you be isolated. They will literally weaponize your information to influence you. So you need to be mindful because, again, like I've mentioned in my other videos, our brains are constantly looking for that connection. and for that desire to belong and to matter. And when we feel like someone is, in this case, like I'm mentioning in this example, kind of faking accountability, you're going to want to believe them because you don't want to believe that they're making you feel stupid. You don't want to believe that they're tricking you. You don't want to believe they're cheating on you. You don't want to believe that they're stealing from you because then that strings up all the things that your ego is tied to. No one likes to be made fun of. No one likes to be taken off. made a fool of, right? So you need to be so careful and so mindful of the information who you share it with. And again, I go back, your information and your life story is yours and yours alone. And you need to trust whoever you're sharing that with. Not everybody deserves that access. I promise. I want you to think about it like this. You are who owns your story, right? So When you give someone that you don't know and you don't know how they're going to use those words and what filter they're going to base it off of and what lens they're looking at it through, right? When you allow somebody to reshare your story, they're not taking that away from you. They're skewing the perception of the person that's listening to it because they're going to use it through their lens. They're going to use it through the way that they heard it or the way that they interpreted it. They take that story away from you. And that's not fair. That's your story. And that's why you need to be so mindful of who you are sharing your information with, because you know how it's going to get spread. You don't know how it's going to get told. And that was your story, not theirs to tell. So owning that is being very mindful. And once you create that mindfulness around it, you'll be much more selective with who you start oversharing or who you share with, because you know who deserves to actually have access to that version, which is your version, the version that came out of. your mouth that was your lived experience not theirs not through their lens or filter so more often than not self-disclosure feels like a form of bonding right because you're being vulnerable and you're thinking man this person's really listening to me because maybe people haven't listened to you before but when that occurs and especially if it happens really fast i need you to clock it that is the biggest red flag i always tell people right like i'm never going to negate that there is a sometimes that like synchronicities serendipitous beautiful connection that people meet it have it happens look i'll funny story like very random when i met my husband right on our first date i knew he was the one how did i know he was the one he's gonna kill me for saying this um he was walking into the restaurant and he had like a huge armpit like stain and he was like chewing very like aggressively so i knew he was nervous but That's because I analyze behavior for a living. So I was like, okay, so he's as nervous as I am because I was literally drinking water and my mouth would just get dry. So it was a moment of a reciprocal thing of, okay. And I had that connection with him and I did know in that moment. So I never want to take away that that doesn't happen. But here's the thing. We fall in love with potential and not like visual cues, right? So you could have someone that maybe if my husband didn't care, right? And like, wasn't a gentleman. He is a... He's a gentleman for all intents and purposes. But if he wasn't that, I would have then, you know, picked up on any little thing and been like, you see, this is why I thought he was the one and then not be the one. Right. But when I say that, you know, our brains, when we really think about it, and there's a lot of research on this, I'm actually looking down here. Our self-disclosure, we really do see it as a form of bonding. And what the neuroscience shows is that the more that you share. and how someone shows up and with consistency it's kind of like layered that's when you start slowly and slowly allowing them more in and that's a safe way of being able to do that that does not happen in one night it does not happen in a week it happens over time now we live in a society where everything's very instant you get instant gratification if i need to order something i can get it here within 24 to 48 hours right but we don't know how to sit with stuff like i think you know I'm an older millennial like I had to wait to like get on the internet and if you know you know you had to wait and you better pray to God that no one tried to make a phone call or you were trying to log on The struggle was really real back in the day, but it also gave us a sense of patience. Think of how now if you are someone that doesn't have commercials or pays to not have commercials, if you have to sit through a commercial, you're annoyed. Yeah, because we're now very accustomed to instant gratification. Same thing lands with closeness, right? We want to believe that, oh my God, look, this person's gonna be my best friend or this person's gonna be this. I've never met anybody like this before. And then a few weeks later, you're like, man, that person was such a dick. That person's such an asshole. That person is, I wouldn't trust that person with a 10 foot pole. You need to trust that intuition and creating mindfulness and not oversharing allows space and room for you to be able to action on that and to actually be able to do that. And to, again, practice the art of discernment of who is deserving of getting to have that information and who is actually vulnerable enough to reciprocate it. and you know, okay. It's not like that we both have info on each other, but we both have the capacity to hold space for one another. True capacity, not just listening to then give you one word answers. So what do we do in this type of instance and this type of dynamic? Right. So I've mentioned a lot of mindfulness. I've given you this acronym weight and we're going to create some mindfulness around this. Right. So why am I talking? So creating that is also really, really important. and being able to create this habit of... Before I go out, right, if I know I'm an overshare, let me just kind of either do some affirmations in the mirror and know, like, I love mirror work. I always tell people, listen to like a really powerful playlist where you know that you're embodying yourself. You're showing up as the person that's your higher self. Your higher self is very protective of you. It's not just easily giving away access to you because, you know, it has to be selective, right? Because you're surrounding yourself with people that deserve to be around you. And that's on self-love. Sprinkle, sprinkle. So with that being said, I want you to start doing affirmations before you leave. I want you to listen to some feel-good music and really, really tap in to a higher version of you. You deserve love and belonging and we'll have it with those that deserve it. Not everybody deserves that access to you. So in waiting on, why am I talking, right? So why do I feel the need to talk? Do I need attention right now? Why do I need attention? Oh, am I bored? And you need to ask yourself these things. Not out loud, on the inside. And maybe go to the bathroom and just take a little bit of, take some breaths or go outside if you have to. Touch some grass. Just see why you feel the need to have to get attention in that moment and why you don't feel like you belong. If there's somebody there in the room that you do feel that is a safe person, go talk to them and go hang out with them. You don't have to process or trauma dump or be like, I'm so anxious and I feel like I need attention right now. I'm not telling you to do that. Do not do that. But I am saying is having that connection with someone there or even reaching out to somebody and being like, hey, if you're up just wanting to touch base, what are you doing or what's up? And yeah, I'm a little bored and I'm feeling a little weird right now. If this is someone that you feel safe enough talking to about that, then go do that, you know, but don't just feel the need to have to overshare and have to play or put on what we call a metaphorical mask to. Connect and belong because oversharing does not equate belonging. It equates, okay, so they're going to label you as something and they're going to be, you know, thinking whatever they think of you. And are you going to be okay with that? Because nine times out of 10, you're not. So creating that awareness and creating that mindfulness is really important. The other thing is you need to ask yourself before you become vulnerable and allow yourself to go there. Watch the behavior. How do people respect your boundaries? Once you say something, are they asking you? I'll give you an example. I remember I was talking to someone and they brought up a situation that I had been in a situation here in my profession. And this person who, for all intents and purposes, I don't really talk to. I know they lurk on my stuff. They watch all my stories. They don't like any of my stuff. Right. But they're very invested in it. Right. And here's the thing. Whether you notice it or don't, you don't have to action on it. but just keep mind of it, right? Because people love to know everything but don't want to support you. How do they show up? Does that person deserve to have that information? I was in a social interaction one day and they were asking me something very personal, which number one, I don't talk to that person like that. So how the hell? And I don't post about that stuff either. How do they know that? And I just told them, well, I don't know how you know that, but that's a story for another day that's not here for right now. And it was awkward and you should make it awkward. because it's none of their business why are they trying to attain information from you that is none of their business and that you didn't even divulge to them Again, oversharing the guts, people having access to your narrative. And sometimes when we overshare, we forget who we overshare with. So being mindful of how they interplay with you, right? If you say all these things and when you want that vulnerability back, they give you one or two word answers. We're not doing that. That's a person that we're clocking. It's a red flag. None of the above. You stop it and you hold boundaries. You don't have to share your narrative or your information with anybody. especially not somebody who's actually invested in you. And that's on discernment. So I'm going to leave you with this, just some loving big sister advice. Just because someone is willing to share with you a lending ear does not mean that they're vulnerable. You don't know what their intentions are, and you don't know if they're listening to hear to then spread. Your story is yours and yours alone, and you have every right to. Be mindful of who you share it with because you don't want other people sharing your narrative. It's your narrative, not theirs. So I hope that this was helpful. If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments. I'm all about being able to give you more examples and be able to really talk on this topic and give you more coping skills. And if you know of somebody that could use this, share, like, subscribe, and make sure you follow me on all socials. And until next time, take care.
