What To Share With Who

Sharing our thoughts & feelings with those around us is a huge part of our lives. Today we discuss what to share, how much to share, and who to share it with.

Transcript

Welcome to Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with your host Glenn Ambrose.

Hello.

Welcome to,

What is it?

Life,

Lessons,

And Laughter with Glenn Ambrose.

I like that you're talking in the pause now.

The classic Glenn Ambrose pause.

Yeah.

What is it?

I'm expanding on it.

Can you introduce me?

I don't think I've been introduced in like six weeks.

Hi.

This is Ben helping out with us and Dave DeAngelis is our other producer as well.

He's here with us.

Oh,

Is he talking this time?

I don't know.

Are you talking?

He's not talking.

He's waving it off.

He was on last.

Well,

He's still here.

He's always here.

He's always here.

Always watching.

He's like big brother.

He's a horrible big brother.

That's not true.

What are we talking about today?

I don't know.

You're the one with the master plan.

The master plan.

That was Rhode Island.

The master plan.

I think we're talking about what to share and who to share it with.

Ooh.

Wow,

Huh?

That's an amazing topic.

A specific topic that I am horrible with,

Which is always a lot of fun.

Then we have good examples.

Yeah.

Yeah,

I think what we have to keep in mind when we're sharing things,

I have to,

I'm going to focus now for a minute,

See if we can actually get some lessons in here in between the life and the laughter.

Is it in between life,

Lessons and laughter?

Yes,

Technically it is right in between.

Lessons are in between life and laughter.

Okay.

All right.

Let's get back to lessons.

See how easily I'm distracted?

Ooh,

Something shiny.

Anyway,

Yeah.

So who to share what with?

So,

You know,

A lot of times in our life we either seek advice from somebody that is emotionally invested in us.

So they're not the best people to give us advice because they're emotionally invested in us.

You know,

So the same fears that cloud our vision of the situation will clear,

Will cloud their visions of the situation.

So that's one aspect.

And then the other aspect is who you open up to.

That's an important thing.

There's a lot of,

A lot of times we have unrealistic expectations of our friends and family.

And we go open up to them,

Expecting them to be able to handle it.

And they're just not.

And if we look at it realistically,

We can see that they're not.

But we go do it anyway.

You know,

We'll say,

Oh,

But they're,

They're my family.

I'm supposed to be able to go to my family.

Well,

They're my friend.

I'm supposed to be able to go to my friend.

Well,

If you look at how they're living their life and how they,

How they deal with other people,

You can get a good idea on what they can handle and what they can't handle.

You can get a,

You know,

If somebody,

If you have a friend that's coming up to you and constantly gossiping about other people,

Other friends,

And then all of a sudden you want to open up and share this big,

Deep,

Dark secret that you don't want them to tell anybody.

And then they go tell people.

Well,

That's kind of on you.

That's right.

Because both.

But we go,

Yeah,

But they're my best friend.

Yes,

But they're your best friend that gossips about everyone.

They're not capable of,

Of keeping a secret.

So don't share your secret with them.

Right.

You know,

Um,

So who like,

Because you don't want to lie to people,

I imagine.

No.

Are you saying that lying is OK in this situation?

No,

Ex ne on a lying a.

Well,

Then how do you keep a secret without lying,

Glenn?

We don't have to keep a secret.

It's,

Um,

You just don't share certain parts of your life with people who can't handle it.

You know,

People have to.

People have to earn the right to hear your story.

That's how I heard it phrased before.

They have to earn the right to hear your story.

So if they haven't earned the right,

I mean,

I have different people in my life.

And there are certain things that go on in my life that I don't share with certain people.

And sometimes it's because honestly,

Most of the time at this point where I'm at,

I don't sit there and put a lot of stock into.

I don't sit there and think and go,

Oh,

Is this person the right one to share this with or has this one earned the right to hear my story?

So in the beginning,

You need to do that.

You need to slow down and really put some thought into this before you just act.

Now I've been doing it for quite a while,

So it's it doesn't take a lot of thought.

I just kind of automatically go to certain people with certain situations and don't go to other people with other situations.

You know,

This it's kind of just the way I live now.

And it's you do you need to take some slow down and put a little thought if you've got something serious on the table,

Who should I share this with?

And can I trust them?

Are they worthy of this?

Have they have they shared things with me?

You know,

Things like that.

If somebody has shared things with you.

Is it more like,

Do you have to take into consideration they've shared things with you and maybe that's a good opportunity to share things with them?

Or is it this person likes to talk?

They like to hear themselves talk.

They talk about other people as well.

They're the gossip.

And yeah,

They're they're free to gossip about themselves as well.

And to put that out there.

But yeah,

So just because someone has opened up to you doesn't always mean it's a two way street or right.

Am I right on this?

Yeah,

Yeah,

That's right.

And it's you know,

This is a lot of this is when we a lot of the things that I talk about,

I think this is a good time to point it out.

I always say that living in awareness is important and slowing down and looking at things is important.

And it is because the things that I say are not groundbreaking.

They're not mind blowing.

They're not that complicated.

But we just don't do it because we don't slow down enough.

So if you take that situation and you say,

OK,

I'm going to try to implement what Glenn was saying and I have this friend and they've opened up to me.

OK,

That's that's one thing.

That's a positive.

I might be able to open up to them because they've opened up to me.

That's often that's a good sign that that they're feeling comfortable enough and trustworthy enough to share themselves with me.

That's a good sign.

But I've also seen them just gossip about everybody else and just talk randomly.

And they they talk like they they just like to hear themselves talk and there's no filter at all.

Oh,

Well,

Then that's like if you slow down to look at the situation,

It's pretty self evident.

You know,

It's not like you need some spiritual genius to tell you who to share things with and who not to share things with.

You know,

If you look at the situation,

If you slow down and look at it honestly and just look around for different things,

You're probably going to make the right decision with common sense.

You know,

I mean,

Obviously,

If you're working with a life coach,

If you've committed that type of energy into shifting your life into better habits,

Then heck,

Man,

Use your life coach.

You know,

Run it by them,

Talk it out with them because that's what they're there for.

Obviously,

Like a gossip is someone that you don't want to confide in.

But also,

I feel like a lot of times people don't want to confide in certain people because they might be too judgmental or you might not want to hear their opinion on things,

Even in the even if they're your friend or relative or close confidant.

You some things you don't want to share because of the fear of judgment.

Is that a yeah.

Yeah.

And I mean,

It's especially with a family member or a friend.

You know,

If they're if they're a close confidant,

Then that might be a little different because that's kind of what we're talking about,

Trying to figure out who is a close confidant and who shouldn't be.

Aren't there some things that you don't like there?

You kind of cherry pick,

Though,

I think,

Like this,

I'll tell you.

But this I'm not going to tell you and this I'll tell the other person,

But I wouldn't have told them the other thing.

Yes.

That I mean,

In a nutshell,

Did what I just say make sense?

Yeah,

I did.

Because it was confusing to me after I know it made sense.

It made sense.

It's just the only reason I paused is because it's it almost made it sound difficult.

But it's true.

It just sounded a little bit complicated.

And this really isn't that complicated.

But,

You know,

Like I said,

As you if you slow down a little bit,

You know,

Looking at it from a perspective of somebody who really hasn't implemented this yet.

Generally,

You're going to the first thing we're going to do is kind of look at it and try to find out why it's difficult a lot.

And that's kind of the perspective is like,

Oh,

Well,

How am I going to be able to know who I'm going to share this with that person and and maybe this with that person?

But then I can't share this with this.

It's going to be too confusing.

I'm not going to be able to keep track of who I shared what with.

You know,

That is that is basically the ego's way or the mind's way of keeping us stuck in a negative environment.

We we take we generalize and we make it sound more complicated than it actually is.

So,

You know,

That that's kind of you know,

That's what the mind does.

So if we step back away from that a little bit and try to look at it from the more realistic.

And we say we get specific about it.

Generalizing generally is our way of of staying stuck.

So if we get specific about it and we go,

OK,

Well,

You know,

I I lied to this person in business and it's bothering me and I need to talk to somebody about it.

Can I talk to my parents about that?

No,

Because they're going to be very judgmental and they're going to come down on me and they're going to say,

Haven't I told you not to lie and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I don't want to hear this close friend.

Well,

This one this one talks about everything.

So now I'm not even going to them.

But this one I think I can.

And so it's it's pretty easy to to to live.

It doesn't you know,

Like I was saying earlier,

It's it doesn't it's not rocket science.

It doesn't take that much effort or energy to cherry pick who you're going to share things with.

And when you use specific examples,

It kind of gets a little bit clearer how easy it is when we generalize.

It kind of sounds like it's a big,

Difficult situation.

How about the other side of the coin becoming someone that someone would want to confide in?

What a twist,

Ben.

I'm you're amazing.

That's what I do.

That's what I do.

Let's see.

So I have another one in a minute.

You do.

Oh,

Yeah.

Let's let's let's go down this path for a little while.

Well,

You know,

As as you do that,

It's going to naturally unfold because as you you know,

You have to you have to see who you're going to share things with.

And that relationship will kind of just organically grow,

You know,

And generally when you find somebody that you're you can share things about yourself with that are intimate.

And then generally that person's going to start feeling the same way and sharing things with you,

You know.

And I mean,

It's just going to unfold that way.

The only other thing that you need to do is if you want to be considered a trustworthy,

Intimate friend,

Act trustworthy and intimate,

You know,

Be that,

You know,

A lot of again,

We complicate things a lot of times.

And it's like,

Oh,

How can I how can I be this?

Who we are is some of our actions.

You know,

So if we walk around gossiping,

People are going to view us as a gossip.

I just want to put it.

You said who we are is the sum of our actions,

Right?

Yes.

Not who are who we are is some of our actions.

Oh,

Is the sum of our actions.

Did I say that wrong?

I don't know if you said it wrong or I heard it wrong.

Yes,

The sum of our actions.

Yes.

Yes.

So so if we add up all our actions,

That's that's basically who we who we are presenting ourselves to the world.

You know,

I mean,

Underneath it all,

We're just wonderful beings and all that stuff.

But if we're looking at the outside projection as to what we're showing the world,

You know,

Somebody who steals is a thief.

Somebody who lies is a liar.

That's kind of period.

You know,

If you take the action and that's who you are.

OK,

So now if you have a lost say you were on that inside,

Say you were the confidant and you haven't become not the confidant.

Yeah.

Why would you why would that have like there are people that you trusted at some point with information and they broke that trust in some way,

Whether it be being a gossip,

Being judgmental,

Being not caring,

Which I think is probably the worst of the outcomes.

Just somebody that's completely not empathetic or sympathetic or that's because you're a caring person.

So that hits you the deepest.

OK.

But they're all probably equally.

But that person that has lost your trust that you go,

All right,

Well,

I'm not going to,

You know,

Like you said,

Your parents,

Like if you if you confided something in your parents and they yelled at you,

You're probably not going to do it the next time.

Right.

How do how does that person.

What what would make you regain trust in that person?

Honesty.

At the end of the day,

It's all about honesty.

It's the you know,

We'll just take for example,

Let's say let's say I did something that was inappropriate.

Somebody shared something with me and then I that I was supposed to keep close and I went and betrayed them by sharing.

God,

I hope I wouldn't do this.

But let's say I did.

If I did that,

Then and I wanted to repair that relationship with the other person,

I would approach them and and say,

Listen,

You know what?

Own up to what you did.

Make amends for what you did.

Be honest about what you did.

You know what?

I betrayed you.

That was wrong.

I saw what I did was wrong and I apologize for it.

And I wanted to let you know whether you decide to trust me again or not.

If you ever do,

It won't happen again.

That's it.

You know that and then it's up to that person whether whether they they want to take you back in or not.

But on it,

Honesty is everything.

We you know,

We're always trying to figure out how to handle situations.

And if we're talking,

You know,

I see this all the time.

I do with my life coaching clients all the time.

My life coaching clients come up to me and they have this very complicated situation.

They say,

You know what?

I'm really confused about what to do because they hear they you know,

This happened and that happened and I don't know what to do and I feel like this and I just wish they would know this.

And and so what should I say?

I say,

Tell me exactly what you just told me.

And it blows their mind.

And then if they stop and they go,

Oh,

Yeah,

I guess I guess you're right.

It's we don't think of that for some reason,

But it's so obvious.

Just be honest with the way you're feeling.

You know what?

I did something stupid or you know what?

I got scared or you know what?

I care and it threw me off.

You know what?

I care and it threw me off.

Yeah,

That that happens.

Sometimes when we care too much,

We get fearful,

You know,

And it makes us do take weird action.

You know,

We'll out of that fear comes anger or frustration or,

You know,

All kinds of things.

So but that that's it.

It's being honest if you want to and that's an you know,

Getting back onto somebody's trust list or getting onto their trust list in the first place.

Just be authentic.

When you're authentic,

People can sense that people can feel it.

People share.

I mean,

I have people at the supermarket,

Man,

Sharing stuff with me that have never met me before.

I mean,

My son goes out with me.

He's constantly looking at me going,

Do you know that person?

Like,

No.

It's like,

Oh,

My God.

Like,

How?

Why do people just open up and talk to you about stuff?

It's like they just do,

You know,

Because they can tell that I'm bringing my authentic self and then they feel safe to bring their authentic selves out.

The last twist that I think that I have the last twist.

What if I want another?

I'll come up with another.

All right.

I just want to make sure I wasn't being cut off.

No,

You're not being cut off.

This is the last version of this that I think that I have as a question is the grander social issue of who to share what with.

Okay,

Is that currently in a time that is probably unprecedented with social media and everybody having a Twitter and a Facebook page that everybody not everybody,

But like a vast amount of people share so much too much.

Right with everyone.

And you know what's really simple about that is you will see a direct correlation between people who share too much and people who get hurt often.

If you share too much,

You will get emotionally hurt.

If you don't share too much,

You will not get emotionally hurt.

You know,

But generally what they do is they flip flop that around.

You see that on Facebook all the time.

You know,

Like somebody sharing too much with too many people who haven't earned their trust.

And then somebody turns around and throws it back at them and they get emotionally hurt.

And then the person who's emotionally hurt lashes back out and they're like,

Oh my God,

Can you believe this person did this to me?

And well,

You're sharing things with people who haven't earned the right to hear your story.

So like what it is,

When it happens to us,

We play the victim.

We fall into victim mode.

Oh,

Poor me.

Isn't this unbelievable that it happened to me?

But if you take yourself out of the story and look at it and you go,

OK,

If you throw information out to the general public and people that you're not even in contact with to your five,

Six hundred friends on Facebook,

If you just throw things out there constantly,

Do you think that there are people in this world that might use things against you?

Most people probably say,

Well,

Yeah,

I mean,

You know,

You probably well,

OK,

Then then when you do it and it happens,

We act so shocked and so victimized like,

Oh,

It's such a bad thing.

And then what's even beautiful is the general public supports you in your victimhood.

You know,

You say,

Oh my God,

Can you believe this person did this to me?

And everybody else comments on Facebook and they go,

I know that's so it's so bad.

You know what?

You don't need them anyway.

They're a bad person and blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah.

And they commiserate with you when it was your fault in the beginning.

So have some control over your intimate details.

I mean,

If you if you don't.

That's what this this podcast is about.

If you don't want to run around getting emotionally hurt,

Don't go running around giving your emotional baggage to people who can't handle it.

Yeah,

There's a lot of.

There's so much of that today,

Like because of the fact that there is the platform that nobody I mean,

What?

Twenty years ago would like.

I don't know.

It's it's almost the equivalent of like taking out a classified in the newspaper like 20,

30 years ago.

Everybody.

Hey,

I just want to let you know I'm getting a divorce and these are all the reasons why.

And he cheated on me and this is awful.

And can you believe what a bad person he like?

Oh,

Yeah.

Why would you do that?

You wouldn't do that.

It's like right.

And you do it to get to rally support.

You feel bad.

You feel victimized.

You feel hurt.

And you want everybody else to come over and take your side and make you feel better about yourself.

You know,

And that's why we go do that.

And it's it's you know,

There's nothing wrong with Facebook.

I've I've never.

No,

I take that back.

I had one person on Facebook that I felt was seeing my posts and generally ribbing me for no real good reason,

Just because he wanted to play devil's advocate.

You know,

Just kind of wanted to argue back and forth.

And for a little while,

It was kind of fun.

We went back and forth.

You could see both sides of the situation.

After a while,

It just seemed like it was turning into an argumentative situation.

So I ended that friendship on Facebook and I told them the reason why I was doing it.

It was just turning into argumentative.

You know,

I didn't feel like arguing every day over things that I believed in.

If you don't believe what I believe,

That's fine.

But I'm not going to argue with you about it.

You know,

So it's so that was the one situation that it happened on Facebook and I ended that friendship and it hasn't happened since.

It's but other people on Facebook,

It will happen constantly.

So there's nothing wrong with Facebook.

It's just how we use it.

It's the same thing with with anything.

We have to be responsible for our for our space,

You know,

For our lives,

For what we put out there,

Whether it be technologically or in our personal lives.

We have to be responsible for that stuff.

And it's you know,

This technology has exploded,

You know,

Pretty quickly.

So what happens usually with all types of technology is,

You know,

We've got the brain power to to develop it,

But we don't always know how to use it properly.

You know,

I think we're on the learning curve of that right now.

We're on the learning curve of going,

OK,

Well,

Yeah,

We've got the we've got the ability to throw all kinds of information out there.

But some of it we probably shouldn't be.

So some of that and we need to learn that,

You know,

Protect our our own information.

Isn't it kind of weird that yes,

Isn't it kind of weird that just because do you think it's the veil of the impersonalness that lets you that lets you choose to share so much personal information with people like because you don't feel like they're real.

You don't have that inter person to person connection of like I'm telling you this or I'm telling like a group of people this like you probably wouldn't do that.

You'd probably be more shy about that.

Right.

Like it's the reason you don't open your window.

And if you live in the middle of a busy town,

You don't open your window and yell like I'm mad about this.

Like no one does that really.

You don't go to the center of town square and go like my boyfriend's a jerk.

Like people don't do that because it's in public.

You get instant feedback to you get feedback.

Yeah,

Exactly.

But on Facebook or on Twitter or whatever else there is,

You get to you get to do it.

And then like but you're really just sitting in your bedroom.

Right.

And I mean,

And the you know,

The veil of these are my friends on Facebook,

My Facebook friends.

It sounds nice.

And there's an unconscious hook in that,

You know.

Oh,

Well,

These are my friends.

You know,

I have some sort of contact with them.

It's not like I'm a stranger's on the street.

Well,

You know,

I mean,

Nobody has six hundred people that they can just completely open up to and be vulnerable to without somebody possibly trying to use it against them.

Now,

You know,

I mean,

You can get to the point where you are completely vulnerable and you are completely open and you're not ashamed of any aspect of your personality or your life.

And if anybody throws an attack at you,

You can it doesn't even phase you.

I mean,

If you're at that space,

Well,

Then fine.

You know,

Go lay your life out on Facebook.

I'm I'm I'm going to venture to say anybody who is that at peace with themselves probably isn't going to be laying all their stuff out on Facebook anyway.

But but I mean,

You know,

Somebody like that could could handle it because,

You know,

At the end of the day,

Nobody can actually hurt you unless you allow them.

But if you're the average person and you're throwing all these personal details out there and then you're shocked that people use it against you,

It's it's like,

You know,

It's like leaving a hundred dollars on the counter at a store and walking away and coming back with a gun and going,

Can you believe somebody took that?

Yeah,

No,

No,

How I can believe it is because there's people who steal in this world just like there's people who will betray your confidence in this world.

It's not a big surprise.

So I would I would assume that the I don't want to say the moral of this is but the idea behind this entire episode and all of the examples and all of the categories of how to who to tell what to in social media,

Who to tell what to in a certain situation,

Who to tell how to make yourself someone that people would want to confide in and how someone would get your trust back or how you would get someone's trust back if you abuse that all of this is is kind of leading to one thing,

Which is be choosy.

Right.

Be careful with what you share.

Because you're the person you're hurting is yourself by not doing it.

Yeah,

You're opening up yourself to be emotionally hurt.

And then when it happens,

You know,

We tend to feel victimized.

So take responsibility for your own life.

And,

You know,

If you don't want people to use your personal life against you,

Then don't give them the ammunition.

Don't give it to them.

You know,

Only share.

I mean,

It's not that you can never be hurt or that no one will ever betray your confidence.

It can still happen,

But it's going to happen a heck of a lot less.

You know,

And obviously it's very important to let someone in to communicate with someone about the things like you might not feel comfortable doing it with with everybody and you should definitely choose carefully who you do it with.

But it's important to let people in.

Yeah,

You didn't do need to let people in and it's,

You know,

It's that I'm just gonna I know we're gonna wrap it up here but I do want to take a minute just to touch on something I mentioned at the beginning and that's,

You know,

Be careful also who you who you share things with because of their emotional connection to you.

You know,

So it's like if you want to if you've got a job decision,

For an example,

And one is a very stable paycheck and one is kind of more freelancing and a little less stable.

And a lot of times if you go to let's say a parent with that choice,

Not all parents I mean just I'm trying to generalize to make a point.

A lot of parents might go,

Oh,

You have to take the steady job,

You have to have the steady income,

You know,

When they'll guide you and that might not be the right choice for you but that they love you and their fear of you not being able to support yourself may influence their decision.

So you have to keep that type of stuff in mind,

You know,

When you're picking who to share what with who to go to to what with.

And it's,

You know,

So keep that in mind,

The emotional baggage around that other people have when you're selecting who to go to what with.

That's a great point.

And if someone wants to share their stuff.

You know,

I know a great life coach and you can get in touch with him at life-enhancement-services.

Com or the Facebook page,

Life Enhancement Services or my personal Facebook page,

Glen Ambrose with two N's.

Ambrose has two N's though.

In Glen,

I knew you were going there.

I knew it.

I left an opening and he was going to kick it in.

Glen Gary Ambrose.

Glen Gary Glen Ross Glen Allen Ambrose.

It's Allen,

Right?

Allen,

Yeah.

Middle name's Allen from four weeks ago.

Wow,

It's amazing what's locked into that brain of yours.

It's very sad.

It's very sad.

Thank you,

Glen.

All right.

Thanks for a great podcast and we'll see you soon.

Reviews

I appreciated the point that if you don’t want others to use your personal information against you, you shouldn’t give any and everyone the ammunition to do so. I have long struggled with this because I tell myself I want to remain open to everyone. However, this talk really made it click for me that the betrayal I often feel from the general crowd around me wherever I am in that point in time has been accidentally brought upon myself. I have been described as naive for years, and instead of wondering why people don’t have the same heart as me, I now get it more that it is their own reflection of their experiences and beliefs to not care to protect me the way I can only do for myself. It’s not personal, and not everyone is entitled to everything about me.

Really useful reminders, fortunately I have a good life coach to talk to! 😉 Blessings 💜 x

Share with people who have earned the right to hear my story. That's how I feel about it too. I'm a private person and if I share anything it's because I know it is safe to do so. Intuition plays a part in it too. It is a guide.

Not meditations, but a light hearted and engaging chat. Very enjoyable.

Always great honest advice🙏🏻🌸

Entertaining, with some good reminders & gems of wisdom.

So true! Thank you