You May Be a Responsibility Hoarder IF...

ARE YOU A RESPONSIBILITY HOARDER? In today’s show, we’ll be discussing why this problem seems to exist in the first place… how you can recognize it in yourself… and what you can do about it.

SHOW NOTES
2:12   What is a responsibility hoarder?
4:46   Who's more prone to being a responsibility hoarder?
5:27   If you do this, you may be a responsibility hoarder
7:57   Set healthy boundaries
9:04  If apologizing is your thing, I give you permission to do this...

If you're curious about what your genetic makeup is, and maybe how your thoughts can impact your genes, reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Brian G. Brown. Or you can go to my website. 
https://www.instagram.com/drbriangbrown/
https://drbriangbrown.com

Or you can dig a  little deeper and check out Dr Brian's FREE Gene Hack BootCamp
https://drbriangbrown.com/genehack/bootcamp

Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

hoarding, responsibility, hoarder, pandemic, apologizing, permission, optimizing, genes,  other people's messes, give, firstborn child, research, symbol, emotional baggage, struggles, default

Dr Brian G Brown  00:56

The mission is simple: to help high achievers naturally eliminate emotional and physical obstacles, so they can optimize their life for higher achievement. Welcome. You're just entered the Genesis zone. Good day, and welcome to the Genesis own show. This is Dr. Brian Brown. Thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us on this beautiful Thursday. Are you a responsibility hoarder? You may not have heard of that term. But in today's show, we're going to be discussing why this problem seems to exist in the first place and how you can recognize it in yourself, and what you can do about it. And at the end, I'm going to actually going to tie it into genetics, believe it or not, has this new year started a bit bumpy for you, not quite the way you wanted. I know it has for me personally. In fact, this year has not started the way I plan for it to start at all. In the past four weeks, you've likely either had COVID, or you know, someone who has had COVID. And either case, it's the gift that seems to keep on giving. And it's brought up a bunch of old feelings. And I'm not in this alone. It's not just me. I've spoken to quite a few people who feel the same way. So, if you feel this way, you're not alone either. Learning to live with the pandemic over the past two years, has been an interesting journey for all of us. But in this first month of the year, that is quickly coming to an end. As we're speaking, it seems like there's been a super concentrated dose of just pandemic crap piled into a very short period of time. unexpected circumstances, no matter what form they take, whether it be a pandemic or death of a family member or friend, being in a house fire, God forbid or being in a car accident, just to name a few. Any of these things can lead to a host of different responses. Some people become angry; some people become defensive. Some people withdraw and become socially isolated. Some people become sad, and others become responsibility hoarders. So, what is this new term? And why is this the default response for many people? In the early days of the pandemic and the lockdown a couple of years ago, people began hoarding things. For several days after the lockdown was announced, every time you turned on the news, it was all about this hoarding behavior and, and store shelves becoming empty. It's all you heard. And in reality, grocery store shelves went bare almost overnight, especially for items like toilet paper, believe it or not, do you remember that? In a study published nearly eight years ago, researchers actually study people who hoard toilet paper. If you can believe that. They found that people who hoard toilet paper are simply looking for a quote unquote, symbol of safety. Who would have thought that the almighty TP was a symbol of safety? Other researchers believe that in uncertain times, hoarding of any kind is actually a sensible behavior. And yet other research shows that those who hoard things, assign emotional attachments to possessions as a way of soothing their emotional pain. So how do you know if you're a responsibility hoarder? Before I answer this question, I'm going to share a moment of transparency here. For the early part of my adult life, I have to admit I was a responsibility hoarder. I wasn't pretty and it eventually wore me out until I figured out to end the madness. Now, again, in full transparency, when major things happen, like being ill with COVID, or the past few weeks like I was, I have a tendency to default

Dr Brian G Brown  05:10

back to my old ways. So, this is a phenomenon that I have to be aware of and myself and be on alert for rearing its ugly head during these stressful times. As a sidebar. This is the reason that I wanted to do this segment today, when it comes to mindset altering your gene expression in the body. I just felt compelled during this time to address this issue, because so many people are struggling with it. Anyway, back to today's topic. I blame my tendency for being a responsibility hoarder on being a firstborn child. Now bear with me on this. Though I've not seen any studies specifically about responsibility hoarding, quote, unquote, and firstborn children, there's plenty of evidence that proves that firstborn children are a bit more prone to being hyper responsible. And in my professional experience, I see this clinically with clients I work with. But take note of this, if you're not a firstborn child, this phenomenon can still affect you. It's not exclusive to firstborn children, it simply may occur a bit more frequently in that particular population. So how do you know if you're a responsibility hoarder? Here are six ways to know whether your responsibility hoarder. Number one, you apologize for circumstances and things that are beyond your control. This is one of the most common characteristics among responsibility, hoarders. Number two, you shoulder the burden of other people's issues, challenges, problems and emotions. So, in effect, they don't have to. Number three, you have a savior complex, and you feel an overwhelming need to save others, no matter what that looks like, or no matter what it costs you or your family. And number four, you feel more comfortable helping with other people's messes than you do dealing with your own messes. Number five, you do all this even if it means sacrificing your own mental and physical wellbeing often leading to struggles with decision making, feeling perfectionistic eventually becoming so stressed out that you avoid others and avoid social situation, and you procrastinate instead of taking action. And lastly, number six, you even do this to the detriment of your relationships, because you put other people's messes first, I can tell you from personal and professional experience, that issues like hoarding, as in the case of a diagnosable disorder become worse during periods of stress. And I don't think it's much different for responsibility hoarding, which is not really a diagnosable condition. In many ways, I believe the research examples that I mentioned above, just in the first part of this segment, also apply to responsibility hoarding, for example, look back at those studies. And when we participate in responsibility hoarding, firstly, we're likely just looking for a symbol of safety. And, and being responsible gives us that symbol to focus on instead of the chaos in our lives, or in our friends lives or in our family members lives that are going on around us. And secondly, it may even be a way for us to assign emotional attachments to others and their challenges in order to soothe our own emotional pain in the moment and take the focus off of ourselves.

Dr Brian G Brown  08:53

So, what do you do about responsibility hoarding, if you're stuck in that rock, and that rut? It's really simple. And it boils down to two words, grace, and boundaries. First of all, give yourself some grace. You aren't a savior, you aren't the Savior, you aren't anybody's savior. Stop trying to seat yourself on the throne of other people's lives. Give yourself permission to drop the savior complex. Give yourself permission to stop apologizing for things that are beyond your control. What do I mean when I say give yourself permission? It's very simple. You have to talk to yourself, and I don't mean talk to yourself in your thoughts in your head. I mean, you have to talk to yourself out loud. Your ears need to hear what you have to say. And it goes something like this repeat after me, Brian, so just insert your name Brian. I give you permission to drop the savior complex. You don't need it. And it's not healthy for you to continue it or, if apologizing is your thing. Repeat after me, Brian or insert your name. I give you permission to stop apologizing for things that you have no business apologizing for. It no longer serves you, and it's breaking you down from the inside out. Now let's talk about boundaries. When it comes to boundaries, there's one lesson that I've learned throughout my personal and professional life that has served me well. If you take on the burden of responsibility for other people's stuff, even if it's legitimate stuff, they will let you hear me when I say this, they will let you shoulder the burden. I mean, this with all love and respect I can muster. Humans are inherently lazy, especially when it comes to carrying their own emotional baggage. And they will pawn it off on anyone who is willing to carry it. If you let them. They'll call you at 2am expecting you to dig into their stuff and listen to them. They'll show up at your house when you're walking out the door going somewhere important. Even if you're just going somewhere like the gym or go take a walk or whatever, they'll get you at the most unexpected times. And they'll expect you to drop everything for them. You know why they expect that? Because you've always done it. And here's some unsolicited advice. Stop it. Stop it right now. You have to give yourself permission to set healthy boundaries and not carry other people's emotional baggage. It's ultimately their responsibility to carry it. There's a very powerful two letter word that you need to get comfortable using and you need to incorporate it into your vocabulary now, and that word is no, that one word, the word no, is literally a complete chapter in a book because it carries so much weight, get comfortable with it and start helping on your own terms, not someone else's terms. Your health depends on it. If you followed me for any length of time, you know that I've given you research evidence that our thoughts can impact our genes both positively and negatively. If your default operating system is to be a responsibility hoarder, during times of stress, I want you to be on high alert for at all times, especially during periods of stress. If you're curious about what your genetic makeup is, and maybe how your thoughts can impact your genes, reach out to me on Instagram or Facebook at Dr. Brian G. Brown. Or you can go to my website. It's right there on the screen. And you can just reach out to me. I'd love to answer any questions that you might have. Tune in next Thursday at noon eastern standard time for our next in the zone segment, where I'll be sharing the latest research on my insights about that research as it relates to optimizing your physical and emotional wellness journey and optimizing your genes most informed, most trusted and most grateful you spent this time with us today. Until next time, stay in the zone. I'm Dr. Brian Br