Feeling Undermined in Your Life? Three Key Steps for You!
In my experience as a coach and aspiring therapist, working with people day in and day out has taught me greatly about confronting undermining moments in my life, or I should say, has taught me about confronting moments I’ve perceived as undermining in my sessions and life alike.
Feeling undermined is when you feel like your authority and power are being challenged and stripped from you. A moment where all of your hard work and credibility have come to their edge only to be knocked over by a question someone asks with a certain tone or a comment made that speaks to your deepest insecurities. This can happen so easily depending on how we choose to perceive situations followed by our initial defense responses to the situation. The gut reaction and feeling that arises to defend and protect, puff your chest, wish that you were invisible, or run away is something you cannot overlook or “turn off.” We are wired to experience that to secure a sense of safety and well-being.
The clients that challenge me most tend to be overly rational and solely desire a tangible solution to their problems without a willingness to go deeper. When I attempt to support their self-exploration process, I’m met with an air of ‘what’s the point of your question’ or ‘what are you getting at’ that can seem to scoff at my professional training and skillset. I’ll easily become pulled into a power struggle with what feels like a difficult client. These clients may question aspects like my credentials, background, training, or age, and overtly or covertly dismiss the self-exploratory process. Their reactions and body language seem to suggest that my questions and reflective statements aren’t getting them anywhere. And your job is to get them somewhere of course.
They keep reiterating in their responses where they don’t know the answer that ‘that’s why they came to see you.’ When asked an open-ended question, I’m told that if they knew the answer, the why, or what to do that keeps creating undesirable behaviors and situations in their life, then they ‘would be doing it already.’ I often respond light-heartedly and with a bit of edge, ‘If that were true, then I’d be out of a job.’ Their demanding presence comes from that strong impulse to move on and find that quick fix. I can surely understand and empathize with that desire as I’ve been there before myself. My invitation for broader self-discovery around what may seem like minor situations at first is denied or at best, delayed. However, I’ve learned in my own life and those lives that I touch, that the meaning behind those minor instances always carries more weight than we’d like to initially admit. Behind those seemingly minor moments, lies fertile and transformative grounds. Trust me…
In response to these challenging client dynamics where I’ve felt exhausted, weak, and impatient, I used to notice myself clench up and get defensive. As we often hear, the body doesn’t lie and the body remembers. This wisdom is surfacing for me on deeper levels professionally and personally. My body cues and reactionary impulses are strong indicators that there has to be a better way to meet these opportunities for growth in my sessions and hard conversations. After further experience, inner work, and reflection, I’ve established a three-part protocol to help navigate any instances in life where you may too feel overpowered or diminished. Whether it be an overt comment or a suggestive nonverbal cue, it’s registered as something or someone pointing at or questioning your effectiveness or lack thereof. The reality is that it’s still one’s perception of what happens that creates this experience in the first place that then further validates the existing disempowering stories we hold deeply in our minds and bodies.
The following will break down a way to gauge these dynamics with greater clarity and self-responsibility. It’s meant to be a fluid procedure, so if one area feels best to start with, please listen to your intuition and let your experiences further teach you from there while integrating the pieces from each step I offer. There’s also room to practice one step for a bit and add other pieces from there. Each step speaks to a valuable component of your experience. Whether it’s on a physical, cognitive, or spiritual level, it’s all interconnected to shape your whole experience more positively and to help you grow from an undermining moment that you have or could be presented with.
1. Soften From the Inside Out — Soothe Your Nervous System (PHYSICAL LEVEL)
The softening part speaks to the value of body awareness, and continuously growing your body awareness so you can leverage its signals to monitor any projections or transference with your clients. Transference is a fancy way of saying how you might be playing out old patterns or feelings toward someone who isn’t the source, oftentimes it’s named as this in a clinical context toward your therapist. For example, your therapist receives the brunt of your negative feelings directed at your father in a session.
The body provides early warning signs and cues to what you’re experiencing. As a helping and healing professional, when we ignore our body’s messages we make it harder to know what is ours versus another’s in the shared emotional and therapeutic container. When our defensive feelings are integrated into the space unknowingly, this can heighten a client’s alertness and generate confusion. I believe it’s our responsibility to keep track of what’s ours and what isn’t to support forward momentum and healing.
I believe this applies to interpersonal relationships and connection with ourselves. It transcends into different arenas in our lives as greater body awareness fosters deeper self-understanding. This affords deeper relationships with others when we acknowledge and take accountability for our feelings and thoughts that contribute to the reality we’re operating in and from, together and apart. One’s perception is a reality at the end of the day.
Essentially, I encourage you to soothe your nervous system. When the tension accrues, try to soften physically. I notice myself taking a brief body scan to support this. For example, I’ll invite myself to unclench my jaw, soften my face, lower my shoulders, or deepen my breath to enable the conditions for a more positive experience to be possible. A mindfulness or relaxation practice makes this easier to access in the present moment while in a challenging session or engaging in a tense conversation. It allows you to lean on an anchor of some kind, whether it’s your breath or a spot in your body to restore ease and release the growing physical and underlying emotional tension. It is easy to tighten when negative judgments, perceptions, or feelings are circulating and as a result, the story of being undermined is validated. So step one surrounds the body, specifically the practice of softening your body, which means soothing your nervous system.
2. Let Go of Some Control & The Idea that It Has to Go Perfectly (COGNITIVE LEVEL)
As you embrace a softer and more relaxed body, remind your brain that it’s okay to let go and that perfectionism isn’t your only or best option, or if you cannot live up to that self-created ideal, you may tap out or give up. As feelings and perceptions of being undermined accrue, it’s so easy to resort to a more fixed and rigid cognitive lens. For example, in my experience a need to prove or command respect surfaces. My natural defense mode comes online and my mind tells me that my worth is slipping under my fingertips as a professional and even an individual. All my hard work and self-worth fall to the wayside in this new narrative of being undermined. I’ve noticed that a common thread is that the best way to defend and protect sounds something like, “I have to do this right. I want them to like me. I have to prove to this person I know what I’m doing, so I have to put on my A-game. I’ve got to make this a powerful session!!” The black-and-white thinking becomes all-or-nothing, and my controlling side takes over. The urge to placate and prove removes the present moment from unfolding more clearly and what’s actually happening in the here and now is hard to grasp and becomes a predominantly negative version I am stout about reaffirming in my head. My pride gets in the way as I strive to impress and make this the most perfect session ever for this difficult client or I’ll strive to overcompensate in my closest relationships. “I’ll show them,” I hear. It’s such a relatable and common response, but truly counterintuitive to coming from a place of power within yourself. You become your worst critic and the client or person in front of you a mere projection of your worst fears.
The amount that you’re willing to let go of control and the need to be perfect is your gateway to a more empowering experience and storyline. So, say goodbye to the predetermined solutions and protocols in your head of how things must go to prove this person wrong, and start to breathe more fully and intentionally into your here-and-now experience. This quality of mind enables the facilitation of a transformational session experience or having a surprising, perhaps even enlightening, dialogue with that difficult client or person, what may soon be known as your ‘worthiest opponent’ - who beckons you toward a stronger, confident you.
3. Trust the Process, Especially the Unknowns in the Process (SPIRITUAL LEVEL)
As you learn to relax the body and mind, it’s also about trusting in the process. As explored above, we play a role in foreshadowing a negative outcome or experience through how the body feels and what we think. Sometimes that’s not always enough to create our immediate desired outcome, therefore, it requires a level of faith and trust in the process, especially in challenging moments where we feel undermined. A great approach to having faith and trust in the process is approaching that person with curiosity. The moment our defenses rise is a prime moment to reconnect to a curious tone in the exchange. Curiosity helps us to navigate the unknowns like what will come in the relationship, what to say or do next, where we stand, and other looming question marks with arms wide open.
When our assumptions get the best of us then it’s easy to create a whole negative tale based on an uncomfortable exchange that led to us feeling less than somehow, however, this fate of ineffectiveness or unworthiness is not set; we can remain open to what is to come as the conversation unfolds and allow others to surprise us. In the process, we give ourselves room to learn not assume. It’s not about solely predicting the course of our experience or relationship from that undermining point in the exchange but rather placing full trust in the process. That moment becomes one of many and a necessary part of the whole whether it’s in pursuit of fostering a healing with a client or a gathering of the minds in a tense interpersonal conversation.
Another piece of wisdom while trusting the process is remembering the bigger picture by giving a professional or personal relationship space to unfold and change as certainty stunts growth. The trust and faith in what is to come coupled with ownership and responsibility to learn and grow is where the magic lies and a ‘higher’ perspective can be gained. The undermining moments may still stick out like a sore thumb in your memory at first and fade with further introspection, or possibly not. However, the discomfort of feeling undermined serves a meaningful purpose when approached with greater trust and curiosity in the lesson unfolding for you. When we can get out of our heads and have faith in our hearts the process at large shines light and meaning on all the moments that lead to a fuller creation or our bigger picture.