“She Always Wants Attention”: Overcoming Judgment Through Inner Work

Todd: [00:00:00] In this episode, you’ll discover how questioning judgments like she always wants attention can lead to surprising insights and emotional freedom.

Todd: Welcome to Stress Management for Highly Sensitive People, a podcast helping HSPs avoid overwhelm, eliminate stress, and find true inner freedom. I’m your host Todd Smith, a facilitator of the work of Byron Katie, a way to question and reduce stressful thoughts. And you guessed it, I’m a highly sensitive person myself.

Todd: In this episode, you’ll discover how to use a trigger situation as the entry point for deep inner work, how the mind creates a story to avoid looking at its own insecurity, and how to cut through the story the mind has created, no matter how believable. [00:01:00] Today is another edition of Open Session Wednesdays.

Todd: You bring your questions and stressful situations, and I facilitate you in the simple, powerful process of the work of Byron Katie. As always, I share the unedited recording so you can experience the open session just as we did.

Client: I have someone today, I found out she was I’m trying to not identify, not use identifying details, but basically this person cancelled on someone I know and said they it’s not anyone, no one you guys know, it’s just, I’m just trying to be conscious.

Client: So this person cancelled. A date and said it’s because she’s queasy and I just react every time this person says they’re sick. I just feel it’s not legitimate. I feel like I get really exasperated when I hear that she canceled because she’s sick [00:02:00] and the exasperation I think is about Will you stop being a martyr?

Client: Will you stop expecting people to feel sorry for you? Yeah, you just want so much attention for your illness. It’s those sorts of feelings that I get really frustrated with. So then I just don’t want to be compassionate. So it’s, there’s some beliefs. I’m having there about that person’s illegitimacy of being sick.

Todd: Yeah. Okay. We’ll follow that stress that you’re feeling inside. And you mentioned a few stressful thoughts that could be candidates. Let’s just brainstorm a little bit. I’ll give you back what you just said, and then you can. brainstorm more on what could be the stressful thought to question.

Todd: You said something like will you stop being a martyr? You want so much [00:03:00] attention for your illness, it’s not legitimate. That’s just the starting point here. So how would you brainstorm stressful thoughts in this situation.

Client: Yeah, look okay she always wants attention. She’s not really sick. She causes her own problems. She is so needlessly weak.

Client: She’s, yeah, she’s a martyr sounds pretty good, encompasses a lot of it. She’s a martyr.

Todd: Yeah. Okay. Here’s what I’ve heard in the last few seconds here, is that she’s, she always wants attention, she’s not really sick, she causes her own problems, she’s so needlessly weak, and she’s a [00:04:00] martyr. What feels closest to you as getting, paying attention to the stress that you’re feeling?

Todd: What are the words that connect with that the closest?

Client: Can you read me the first three on your list again? I heard something there that I was like, yeah.

Todd: Sure. I’ll just read them all again here. There weren’t many. I think five. She’s, she always wants attention. She’s not really sick. She causes her own problems.

Client: I’m going to go for she always wants attention.

Todd: Okay great. So let’s look at that. And the situation is when you found out that she canceled on someone, canceled a date because is that she was queasy, right? Yes.

Client: And so I’m walking outside with my friend and then my friend mentions this and I feel it.

Todd: [00:05:00] Okay, perfect.

Todd: So is it true she always wants attention?

Client: No.

Todd: So how do you react? What happens when that thought is in your mind somehow that she always wants attention in this situation? How do you react?

Client: I feel really frustrated. I feel really exasperated. I feel angry. I really want to talk about her. I really want to just say, oh, she’s just complain about her.

Client: And, but she is sick and she is old. So I feel terrible. Like I feel, it’s so mean, like I, I just become this really mean person, like [00:06:00] mean person, not compassionate at all. So I don’t like that about myself, feeling that. And that makes me even more mad at her because it’s she didn’t want so much attention.

Client: I wouldn’t have to have this mean part of me come out. So I’m blaming her for my meanness.

Client: And the future is just Oh, I’m it’s really, there’s a real role playing in my mind. Like we have to act sorry. Cause that’s what a nice person is going to do be, Oh, you’re sick. Like, how are you be compassionate? And I don’t want to do that. I want to just be like, whatever. I don’t want to do that. So I feel like this idea of how I’m going to have to role play and I don’t really want to see her kind of, she’s someone who’s in my life a lot.

Client: I have to, I don’t want to see her. And [00:07:00] it’s the past images, I just see, oh, there’s always this sickness, that sickness, this sickness, that sickness. And get, I get lost in the frustration of having to role play. Nobody’s asked me anything to read, but I feel like, oh, I have to.

Client: React a certain way. I feel like I have to play this role and I don’t want to cause I don’t believe it. I don’t think. I come up with the way she should live her life, so I’m fully in her business. I know how her life should be lived, and she’s not doing it, and that’s why she’s sick, and now I’m supposed to be sorry for her.

Client: So I’m fully outside of my own business, and I see I’m in everyone else’s business, because it actually doesn’t affect me, but I’m in the business of everybody who is taking care of her or who is compassionate. I don’t want them to do it. I want them to be like me. I want everybody to be mean and not buying it.

Client: So I’m really in the business of [00:08:00] everyone except for myself, because I have no responsibility in this situation.

Todd: So when you mentioned that you, this mean part comes out Like, how do you treat yourself when you see that, also, in this situation?

Client: I just, it’s like I just don’t really know what to do with myself. I don’t want other people to see it. I don’t want to express it.

Client: It just feels like I just try and push that part aside, but it doesn’t, it’s not really successful. It doesn’t leave. But I just, you can’t be like that. That’s how I treat myself. I can’t be like [00:09:00] that. So I try not to be, but it’s still there.

Todd: And how about your body? Do you notice any sensation or stress showing up in your body when you think that she always wants attention in this situation?

Client: I think in, I think a bit of shoulder hunching, a bit of inward, inward retraction and a rigidity, just a general rigidity of not wanting to give something. So having to hold, hold it closed.

Client: Maybe my jaw is a little bit tighter.

Todd: Okay. Yeah, and then another thing like when you think that she always wants attention does Do any memories come up from your past? Could be anywhere in your life, could be when you were young, could be at any point. When you think she always wants attention. [00:10:00] Does it remind you of anything?

Client: Yeah. The biggest one is just at one point about 15 years ago. She showed up in my life at a time. I did not want her there and Oh my gosh, I was so mad and I’ve never forgiven her really part of me and so that’s like it was like wanting attention at the like the it really felt like Absolutely taking attention from me and it’s such a Like I was supposed to get the attention in that point.

Client: So that memory shows up as the kind of look how much attention she wants. That’s how much, so that memory is the proof of not only that attention, but the unwill, like the unwillingness to let me like the total disregard for me that looks like. So that memory is it’s either always lurking there.

Client: And if I get really upset about it comes out. That’s lurking in the [00:11:00] background, that one memory.

Todd: Yeah. Who would you be walking with your friend and they mentioned that she cancelled on someone because she felt queasy. You get that news, but you didn’t have the thought, she always wants attention.

Todd: Who would you be hearing that? Without the thought, she always wants attention.

Client: I wonder if she’s okay.

Client: Yeah, actually I’m remembering that I got, I found this out by text. I wasn’t walking. I found out by text because my friend was now free to walk with me. She was supposed to do this other thing. Now she was free. So I’m like, Oh great. I can see her. I just was happy to see my friend. without that thought.

Client: It’s Oh, it just has nothing to do with me. Oh, you’re free. It’s so you, without the thought that [00:12:00] happened, is she okay? Maybe I’ll let someone I wanted to let know about this. It’s it’s okay. Noted information and happiness, because this is good news for me as far as what I’m going to do with my life in the next little while.

Client: So who am I without it? Yeah, I just feel sorry for her that she doesn’t feel well.

Client: Yeah I feel compassion. She doesn’t have an easy life.

Client: She really tries hard.

Client: So I’m just fine. I’m free in my life and I feel compassion for her. And I can let someone know who might be able to help. But [00:13:00] I don’t have to do anything. I just feel like I’ll keep that in mind and see what’s next steps kind of thing. So yeah, I don’t get lost in any stories. I don’t have to be weighed down by it.

Client: I’m just clear.

Todd: So it’s clear from this how this thought carries you away, right? She always wants attention. It just takes you and carries you. It connects to that situation 15 years ago. It brings up all kinds of things. And then all the reaction that you showed comes out of it. And if you weren’t introducing that thought, if it wasn’t coming in any way, it would just be this simple kind of good [00:14:00] information and understanding and compassion for her.

Todd: more settled, more quiet. So it’s just still always amazes me that one thought can make such a difference in the experience. But here it is again. So having seen the effect of that thought, how would you turn the thought around? What could be an opposite that we could play with to just to consider and consider other possibilities of ways of looking at this situation?

Todd: So the situation or the. The original statement is, she always wants attention. What would a turnaround be?

Client: I’ll go, let me go all the way to she never wants attention.

Todd: Okay.

Client: So in this situation, there’s no, she never wants attention. She’s not telling me about it. And I see she never wants attention.

Client: Most of the times that I’m annoyed at [00:15:00] her have nothing to do with me. Most of the times I’m just hearing how it’s impacting other people, nothing to do with me. So she never wants attention for so many of the times that I’m stressed, she’s not wanting attention from me. She’s not demanding anything from me at all.

Todd: She’s been living her life and you happen to hear about it, but she wasn’t wanting the attention.

Todd: Yeah. Yes. Okay, can you find any other examples of that turnaround? She never wants attention or she doesn’t want attention

Client: She’s she really tries like

Client: like my mind calls things that she wants attention for my mind labels it as that but actually she’s like trying to stay out of the way or Saying oh, can I get this like she’s very much Another person looking at [00:16:00] her would see her not wanting attention. She’s fairly soft spoken.

Client: She often defers to other people.

Client: She asks what other people want to do first. Her general demeanor is not a person looking for attention. She has none of those signs of a classic attention. Seeker at all. She never wants attention. She never seeks like that. She’s so understated. So it’s, yeah, it’s

Client: and she’ll be quiet in a conversation. If she starts to talk and people don’t instantly pick up on that, she’ll usually just leave it. She won’t come back in. So she never wants attention is a lot more accurate for how she in reality shows up in the world.

Client: And if I [00:17:00]

Todd: No, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. I was

Client: just going to look at the 15 year ago for a minute as an example of she never wants attention.

Client: And I don’t know what was going on there, but again, it wasn’t really trying to get attention. It’s not what was happening. That wasn’t really an example of her actually wanting attention. That was an example of something going off and me thinking stuff and whatever was happening was off, but she wasn’t like, Hey, everybody, I’m here, look at me.

Client: It wasn’t that.

Todd: Where do you think you got this idea that she wants, she always wants attention or she wants attention? What was your mind doing there or where was it coming from?

Client: It’s almost thinking it’s like a, it’s like a deceitful it’s almost like my mind’s Oh, like it’s a

Client: thinking that [00:18:00] this must be a ploy. There’s it’s like not trusting her. It’s not trusting her. My thinking and me, is where it’s it’s I’m going to talk about what’s underneath, expose this.

Todd: Yeah and what’s the motive behind that? Why would the mind want to do that?

Client: One of the things that I saw with how, who would you be without the thought was like, there’s no threat to giving her compassion without the thought. There’s no threat to me. And so I’m wondering if it’s if I give her what she wants, I lose somehow

Todd: starting to remind me of what you were talking about 15 years ago, like where you were, it was your turn to get attention. And somehow she came along And then she ended up getting the attention instead of you or something. I don’t know. So she may not have wanted the attention, but she may have.

Todd: [00:19:00] But from your experience, you were, you lost an opportunity for something. I don’t know.

Client: Yes. And it was, yes. So I think that I felt very vulnerable in that memory. And it was my attention who left me, really, in that moment, for sure, and looked at her. And so it’s like that sting of that I think, is, yeah, it’s this vulnerable, I think it’s associated with, all the kids being born and when they were babies and I was vulnerable, and I think it’s associated with that protective feeling and then feeling violated or unsafe.

Client: And so I just kept that.

Todd: , you just kept it, and then anytime you hear anything about her doing anything, it’s boom! She’s, he wants attention. And you can build a story over 15 years, it gets pretty large. Yes. everything goes to prove that that’s what the mind does, finds authority and then [00:20:00] tries to prove it.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Okay. But it’s interesting to see that’s coming from possibly just that vulnerability you were experiencing and not like trying to almost trying to protect yourself or wanting to.

Todd: It’s interesting to look at this, and this is all in the context of she’s never, she never wants attention, like it’s possible that all throughout this whole thing, she’s never wanted attention, but you’ve, by happenstance, she ended up getting your attention. When you didn’t want to give it and then you felt resentment and then the thing continued to You know the story continued to grow over time.

Client: Yeah.

Todd: Okay, so she always wants attention. Is there another turnaround?

Client: Yeah, so I always want attention and Connecting that in that way of [00:21:00] wanting people to take care of me and notice me in that way. I feel like i’m trying to get back the attention of that time like I was supposed to be Just taken care of like I and so I wanted it then I felt I lost it Even though I didn’t looking at it.

Client: I didn’t and I just so I always want attention I want to go back in time and change that moment So I always want it in that way of just like never giving up the desire for that attention at that moment. And then I always want attention in how I compete with her indirectly in how I see that she’s a threat, like my conditioning is it’s a threat.

Client: It’s a threat. If she’s getting attention, I always want the attention, not her. I always want it when I’m around her and that belief comes up, I [00:22:00] instantly want the attention. I want to take it away from her. I want to go back in time and get the attention then. So I see that’s really running in me as a pretty constant want for that attention that I didn’t get, that I believed I didn’t get.

Client: And it’s pretty, it’s very constant, so always is a good word for it.

Todd: Interesting. Yep. Yep. Those words that come out in the moment of stress, they often are really true, especially when turned around. So yeah, I always want attention. It’s like you’re competing with her for a limited amount of attention somehow.

Todd: And and somehow you’re seeing her as winning and there, it’s that scarcity that feels so, desperate in a way. So I always want attention. Yeah. I was [00:23:00] just going to say,

Client: I always want attention. I also see how I can be quiet somewhere and wanting attention myself. Like I can be, everybody’s talking about something and whatever reason I’m not into it or, and I always want the attention and I keep quiet about it. So I see how that can, I can put that on her because it’s my experience of hiding my desire for attention when I want it.

Todd: Cool. I was just thinking it leads to possibly some more work on that 15 year ago situation, like possibly a judge or neighbor work cheat on her or, more work like this on one liners and maybe even just questioning The motive in that situation. I want attention just that one thought.

Todd: I want attention [00:24:00] and seeing In that situation how it affects you and who you’d be without it and all of that So there’s possible more exploration, but we touched on it quite a bit in this situation as well Okay, so anything else before we close here on this particular statement?

Client: No, just maybe my thinking wants attention I definitely leave reality and stay in my thinking about her it’s, I always choose my thinking over her my thinking wants attention, always wants the attention. And then just the last thing I would say with what you were saying about looking at this further, I totally think.

Client: I should. And I see that there’s like this very strong belief that I lost something 15 years ago, like I lost it forever. And there’s Oh, a little resistance to working on it. Because of that loss. So I think something about that loss is good for me [00:25:00] to check out if I really did. Lose it and you know that kind of thing

Todd: sometimes when I notice resistance to doing some work.

Todd: I That tells me something That’s probably a good one to look at right if I noticed embarrassment about wanting to work something or resistance about wanting to work something I’m gonna have to be gentle with myself. I can’t push myself, but It’s often a good sign that there’s something there that I’m trying, like my ego is trying to cover up or I’m trying to keep under wraps and it’s and it’s causing me ongoing stress.

Todd: So yeah, however you explore it, I think that situation from 15 years ago could be very interesting to look at.

Todd: Cool. Thank you. In this episode, we looked at how to use a trigger situation as the entry point for deep inner work. And [00:26:00] it always starts like this, just a feeling of stress. You’re talking to somebody, somebody mentions someone else, and you feel that stressful feeling. Whatever it is, that’s the trigger situation.

Todd: And the way to use that is to sit with it afterwards. To go into a quiet place, meet with somebody, a facilitator or a friend, or write it on paper, and start brainstorming. Okay, what were the stressful thoughts? that were bothering me in that moment. And you start writing them down, and then you find one that you can go in to do your work.

Todd: We also looked at how the mind creates a story to avoid looking at its own insecurity. And we saw that this story, She Always Wants Attention, had been running for a long time, in fact, maybe 15 years. And that situation from way in the past had helped the mind in that situation, the mind wanted attention, so the person [00:27:00] came in and instead of taking one’s own attention, she started turning her attention towards the other person.

Todd: And I don’t know the details, but this is the beginning of a story. This person wants attention, and maybe that person doesn’t want attention at all, but the mind creates that story because it doesn’t want to see. that it wants attention. And that’s what this work slowly, gently exposes in a way that is non threatening in a way that you can begin to own that.

Todd: Because when you do, there’s a lot of freedom that can come from it. And finally, we looked at how to cut through the story the mind has created, no matter how believable. And it always starts by going step by step. Start with the stress, be there in the stress, let the stress express itself, emote, find the thought connected to it, and then begin the process of questioning with the [00:28:00] work of Byron Katie.

Todd: Allowing yourself plenty of time to fully experience the negative side of it as well before just flipping it. You don’t want to just flip things. You want to gradually go through the four questions and then When you’re ready, you may start to move into a turnaround that starts to make sense and may start to really open something on a deep level.

Todd: So there are no shortcuts. So thanks for listening. It’s always a pleasure to do this work and to share it with you. And I appreciate you being here. I hope you have a great rest of your day.