WHY do we overshare?
Setting healthy boundaries is an important part of self-care. Boundaries allow us to take better care of ourselves, emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually.
Having poor boundaries may mean that you have difficulties in making decisions or you may feel guilty when you may potentially let people down and therefore can’t use the ‘no’ word.
When your personal radar (your self-awareness) takes a break, you can find yourself oversharing. Oversharing is a sign that you have a distinct lack of personal boundaries – and we forget or don’t realise that its inappropriate to discuss relationship issues or to reveal financial problems etc.
People who lack boundaries sometimes lack close relationships… most likely because they have driven people away. This means they often don’t have close confidants who are interested in hearing about their personal issues. A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect, in my experience.
Consciousness is awareness, and self-awareness is when you are being present at all times. Having a lack of self-awareness, means you’re letting your unconscious mind take over – you’re not thinking. You’re carried away in the conversation, you’re on autopilot and the words are out of your mouth before you know it!
Absolutely, there needs to be a level of conversation where you have a level of transparency to build rapport and trust, however, some things are better not communicated with others.
There is a big difference between privacy and secrecy…
And what I mean by that is that I am a very private person, actually I am very much an introvert where I get my energy from being at home with my family. Most who know me know my husband, my son and my dogs, that’s no secret but what goes on at home I keep that private.
There has to be a level of ‘privacy’ or what I call ‘hidden self’ – The ‘public self’ is only the clothes you wear and the ‘private self’ we hide these away and refuse to discuss them with other people or even expose them in any way shape or form because they are ‘private’.
And some of these’ private’ or ‘hidden’ elements may be embarrassing or shameful in some way. They may also be ‘fearful’ or seek to avoid being discussed for reasons of vulnerability. Between the ‘public’ and ‘private’ selves, there are partly ‘private’ – and partly ‘public’ aspects of ourselves that we are prepared to share only with trusted others.
We all have different drivers – some people have an internal reference which involves in what they want to do by being driven by their own thoughts, feelings and internal authority. They take action without needing external approval. They don’t worry if their co-workers think what they did was a good idea or not. These kind of individuals, need very little feedback, they are very clear about their priorities and outcome.
But then there are other kinds of personalities – those who do seek validation, approval and acceptance, where they can’t make a decision on their own and therefore need the guidance and advice of others. And this really boils down to a lack of ‘trust’ to make their own judgments.
We need others to validate what we believe in…
Most individuals seek ‘validation’ because they’re not comfortable in their own skin, and then there are some who seek validation to justify their actions. There is no right or wrong here, we are all authentic human beings having a human experience.
The onIy way to stop caring so much about what others’ think, is to start trusting yourself more and believing in you! To do this, you need to build rapport with that greater part of your mind. At first, it’s okay to take one step forward and two steps back, you can start to combine the two by making an internal decision first, which will build your ‘confidence’ and then you can gain some feedback to see if you are on track.
We tend to each have a great need to feel important – ‘significant’, unique, special and needed. This need falls under the most fundamental human drivers for ‘connection’ and ‘love’ – this undeniable strong feeling of closeness or union with someone or something.
When you over-share or lack discretion, you can cause damage to your personal brand or ‘sabotage’ your own success. And this is because your unconscious limiting beliefs are playing out.
To help shed some light on those limiting beliefs which strive to play out all the time is to step back and give yourself the time to think, to be the observer of your thoughts …. And without judgment, just sit there and be curious. Put yourself under the microscope.
Journalling is a great way to get these unconscious beliefs out because once your beliefs are on paper then you can see them clearly.
Your attention please…
The greatest act of love and respect is to give someone your attention, and I am talking about your undivided attention. That is one of the greatest gift you can give yourself and others. Attention is one of the rarest and purest form of generosity and if we gave it freely, we wouldn’t have others seeking it so much.
When we don’t give ourselves enough time and attention, we begin to lack self-worth and then find ourselves seeking attention from others.
Some people think that they are overlooked and so they think that the only solution to restore their balance is to bring back the lost attention. Or… it could be that they are so bored with their life that they try to get a reaction or to provoke to excite, arouse, or call into some sort of action. How often do you worry about what other people think of you?
You, my friend, are an explorer …!
You are on a mission to observe and document the world as YOU see it, feel it and think it. It’s not your business to worry about how others perceive it. Sure, other points of view are interesting, but being mindful of how you move around in the world is really where your power lies. Keep a record of your life, this is how we discover the mystical parts that we may miss if we were in a whirl spin of just going through the motions.
Becoming more self-aware and conscious is key…
To create more consciousness, you have to become present and practice pausing daily!! And the way you do this is to pay attention to what’s actually happening. Ask yourself, what am I trying to achieve here? Then acknowledge your own reactions, interpretations and judgements about the whole situation. This will help you give ‘insight’ into others, and once you have a level of self-awareness then you will completely understand why others react, interpret and why they judge you the way they do.
When you are the observer of your life, you are therefore always searching for the most empowering, and productive way to deal with any situation, this is the place where magic really happens – it is worth your time and energy.
The way that I do it is by asking myself Insightful questions – always ask a question before you put your mouth into first gear and rev!!
Some questions before I overshare, I think about are;
- For what purpose am I sharing this information with this individual?
- What am I going to gain from exposing myself or being vulnerable?
- What impact will this have on my personal brand?
- How will the other person feel about the information that I am about to share? (maybe oversharing information)
STOP AND THINK BEFORE YOU TAKE ACTION!! And remember – be kind to yourself. We all make mistakes; the key is to take something positive from them. If you’ve damaged your brand or a relationship … what did you learn?
