Ep #308: What is Toxic Independence?

Welcome to the Weight Loss for Busy Physicians podcast. I'm your host, master certified life and Weight Loss coach Katrina Ubel, M.D. This is the podcast where busy doctors like you come to learn how to lose weight for the last time by harnessing the power of your mind. If you're looking to overcome your stress, eating and exhaustion and move into freedom around food, you're in the right place. Well, hello there, my friend. Welcome to the podcast. So glad to have you here. How is your December going? Can't believe this year is almost over. We always say that every year, but this year feels like the fastest year of my life. Truly, my dad said something.

 

He's in his eighties. He made a comment one time.

 

About how life is like a roll of toilet paper.

 

The thickness gets less and less and less, more and more quickly as you keep going on. And I always thought that was kind of funny. Probably not describing it properly, but.

 

But anyway, I'm very excited to bring you this topic today because it's a term that I have just recently learned about. It's certainly not an issue that's new to me, but the language around it is something that really sums it all up in a way that I think is so good. And as I did some more research on this, I actually relied heavily on two articles on the Internet for the content of this episode, and we'll put that in our in our show notes page if you want to check those out. While I learned about this, I was like, Oh my gosh, yes, a lot of this used to be me. Some of these things I'm still working on. And I know for a.

 

Fact that so many women physicians out there are struggling with this.

 

I coach my clients.

 

On these subjects all the time.

 

This is something that definitely needs to be out there, and I'm so glad to bring it to you. So what we're talking about today is something called toxic independence. So we've heard about toxic positivity that's kind of a newer ish term. Today we're talking about toxic independence. And even when I saw this phrase, I thought it kind of took my breath away a little bit. I was like.

 

You will take my independence out of my cold, dead hands, right? Like, No, it's mine. Like, this is what keeps me safe.

 

This is something I can rely on. And I bet that you are going to identify with at least some of this as well. And not to worry, I have some ideas about things that you can do to help move yourself away from toxic independence and closer to an appropriate amount of independence, because we're not saying that it doesn't have to be such a stark pendulum swing, right? Like you're too independent over here. So the solution is you have to become extremely dependent. Know, what we need to do is we need to bring that pendulum down a couple notches so that it's an appropriate amount of independence. So where do we get so toxically independent from? Course, it's going to be different for each one of us. I think particularly where I live in the US. I mean, rugged individualism is just a part of our culture. It's part of the way that the people who founded our country saw themselves even several hundred years ago. It's just kind of baked into our culture to a certain extent. So just understanding that it's, you know, it's this very subtle or sometimes not even that subtle messaging that is throughout so much of what we do. So we can't blame ourselves or anything for that. It's just kind.

 

Of the soup.

 

That we've been swimming in. Right. But the other thing to understand is that while some people are naturally more independent, right, that's just our personalities. For whatever reason, some of us an extremely independent person or an extremely independent mindset or an extremely independent way of approaching the world can be secondary to either having your needs unmet when you were growing up or possibly from some trauma as well. And this makes sense, right? If the people that you relied on, even as a child or even as an adult, if those people that you relied on were not able to meet those needs, then it would become clear that, oh, I have to meet those needs, even if maybe it was inappropriate, like especially if you were young. So here's an example. Maybe we'll just say a hypothetical person. Maybe we can envision a young ish child who does not have family at home to provide regular meals for them. So this could be for lots of reasons. It could be because the caregiver or the parent is out working several jobs to try to make ends meet. It could be because of some sort of substance abuse issue. It could be whatever it may be. But you have a child who needs to eat and no one's going to prepare, supply that food for them. So they go and they figure out a way to do that in a way that would not be expected of other children of that age.

 

So maybe you didn't have that particular experience. That's just kind of an easy one to understand, but there could be emotional needs that weren't met. There could be safety needs, security needs that weren't met. There are a lot of experiences. Sometimes when we start to reflect on things a little bit, we start to realize, Oh, you know, it was right around here that I realized, Oh, you know, my parents are so preoccupied or spending so much of their time focusing on maybe a sibling or another family member who is ill or has a lot of other needs. So the way to be in their good graces, the way to get. Approval and love from them is for me to just be independent and to never ask for anything that I need for me to just take care of myself completely, even though it would have been completely appropriate for me to ask for what I needed help with or in a different situation, it would have been completely inappropriate for me to not ask. So just even understanding that I think can help us sometimes when this really comes up or I see it so much is when people think that they shouldn't need help. Losing weight like this is kind of flummox me a little bit in the sense that.

 

I'm kind of like.

 

I'm sorry.

 

Why? Why shouldn't you need help?

 

Like, often the explanation doesn't really make sense. You know, we kind of do the whole like, I know what I should be doing, but I'm not doing it well.

 

So.

 

But if you know what you should be doing and you're not doing it, doesn't that then like the next logical step in that line of thought is that there actually is something that you're missing that you don't know yet, or else if you had everything you need, you would be doing all of those things that you know to do, right? It's like a way that we subtly shame and blame ourselves. Like I have everything I need already. It's just that something's wrong with me. I can't get my act together and actually be consistent and doing this like, is that really the truth? Is that really effective? I mean, thinking about it in that way, how often does that actually motivate us to go do those things that we quote unquote, know we should be doing? I mean, like, never really. I mean, really think about it when you approach yourself in that way for any kind of goal that you want to accomplish, does that actually create for you what you want? I don't think so. I don't really think it does at all. So this toxic independence can often just sound like we're being logical.

 

Even when what we're saying.

 

Actually doesn't make sense. Another example that I can give of.

 

This.

 

Is for a while there I've always had someone helping and cleaning my home when we first got married, when we were in medical school. My husband and I, we actually got advice from another to physician couple that and what they said, like their best marriage advice for us was to always have a cleaner that way. Even like when you're an intern and you feel like you can't afford it because nobody wants to be post call in arguing about who's going to clean the house. So even when we probably shouldn't have been doing that, we did it anyway. So I haven't had help with that. I very much felt like permission through that conversation with those family friends. But when it came to moving forward with getting some help with some other household tasks, it started to.

 

Feel less comfortable. And so one.

 

Thing I struggled with for a long time.

 

Was.

 

Getting somebody to come and pull the weeds for me. So I personally believe that a great job for children in terms of their contribution to the household is to mow the grass and to trim. And so we've always had our kids do that. I mean, basically from when they were old enough to do it. So I don't need really a lawn service, but I don't like gardening. I like the look of a beautiful yard, but I don't want to do the work myself. And I forced myself for years and years and years and years and years.

 

To do it. I would avoid it. I would notice the.

 

Weeds and the trimming and the things that needed to be done, and I would of course mention it to my husband, hoping that he would just suddenly decide that he liked gardening and that he would go take care of it. Of course he doesn't.

 

Like to do it either, and so it wouldn't get done. And then I'm.

 

Frustrated and mad. And finally I thought, you know what? I bet you I could find somebody, maybe the person who does our fall cleanup stuff. Like maybe that person could come and maybe stop by every couple of weeks and just go through and pull the weeds for me. And when I finally got past that toxic independence and decided, yeah, this is something that I would like to rely on someone else for, I found an amazing person. He's been helping us for years. I love supporting him and his business just been a great asset to our lives and all of that because I decided to drop that toxic independence. Another example.

 

Is.

 

When I decided, you know what? Like, this makes no sense. And I'm spending all this time doing laundry. Nobody wants to help. You know, it's the putting away part. It's the folding in the pudding away. I don't actually mind the sorting and the washing and then the advancing to the dryer. I don't have a problem with that. It's the folding of the pudding away. And as much as I try to get my kids to do it and whatever, and then, you know, I have this standard where I want it folded in a way that everything doesn't look like it needs.

 

You know, like it just was like balled up in a corner, you know, and nobody wants to do it my way and, you know, literally, like, what am I doing?

 

And I remember having so much struggle going. I mean, it's ridiculous to ask someone like hire someone to come to your laundry. And then I was actually in conversation with several other amazing women physicians where they're like, Oh, no, listen to me. You hire someone to come in and do that. And I was like, okay, tell me more.

 

What how, how does this work?

 

And even feeling so nervous of how others, particularly family members, might judge me for making that decision. And it was one of the best things I ever did.

 

Right?

 

So another example where that toxic independence like, only hurt me. It only hurt me. Someone else that I was talking to recently, she was talking about how she went to a gym to learn how to lift right to work on strength training and all that. So they taught her how to do it. And then she's like, Oh, I don't need their help anymore. I don't need to pay for that. I don't need their assistance. They showed me what to do. I'm just going to go do it myself. And so guess what happened? She didn't do it right. And that fitness that she had really built up, that strength that she had built up, you know, quickly was gone again and all that again because she had that belief, like, I should need help. I should be able to do this myself. Now, it doesn't mean that we always have to rely on other people all the time to do things. But, you know, I'm sure that you can think of some sort of scenario in your life, and maybe it's even with weight loss right now where you're thinking like, there's really just no reason that I should be getting extra help. There's no reason I can't do this by myself. And maybe that's true. But what I want you to open your mind to today is whether you might be wrong about that.

 

Or.

 

Whether that might actually be toxic independence. That's, you know, worming its way through kind of trickling through into your life. So let's talk about healthy dependance, like what are we trying to do? And then we'll talk more about toxic and dependance behaviors and then we'll talk about some of the benefits of depending on other people. So people. Who report feeling the most emotional balance, feeling most satisfied with their lives, and feeling the most optimistic about the future. Do you want that? I want that. I want to be emotionally balanced, feeling satisfied with my life, and optimistic about the future. People who report that have an ability to lean on and confide in others at times while also being able to work independently as needed. So it doesn't mean we're giving up all our independence. We're like, we're cool if we're on our own, we can totally do that. But we also have the ability to get the help that we need. And finding that balance for ourselves overall. So good. So, so good, right? So some of us are naturally more independent. Sometimes we have to think what has created that when we say. Quote unquote, naturally independent. I mean, is that again, because that was our coping strategy, the way that we adapted to our upbringing, or it could really just be us. I mean, I think for me, that's definitely some of the situation for me that I was just overall a pretty independent person.

 

But again, we're not trying to dampen that. We're trying to prevent it from becoming extreme and toxic. Right. Okay. So let's talk about some of the behaviors that are examples of toxic independence. So number one is it can feel hard to ask for help. So, I mean, here we go with everything I was just talking about with so many different things, but particularly with weight loss. Right. I shouldn't need help. I don't want to ask for help. Maybe you're a new attending or maybe even a bit more seasoned of an attending, and you're really not sure about what to do with a patient, but you feel like I can't really ask for help. I'm just going to have to figure this out on my own. Like, it would just be really uncomfortable for you. Or think about when you're maybe on service and you see the list of patients that you have to see. And it is a lot, arguably too much. Do you find it hard to ask your colleagues for help? Do you find it hard to ask them to come and assist you so that you don't have to stay there all throughout the night? What ties into this is that often another behavior of people who exhibit toxic independence is that they dislike people who they consider to needy. So back to the being on service and having the patient load be too much example, right.

 

If when you're not on service and another doctor who is on service asks for help because they believe that the workload is too much for them, it's interesting to think, what are your thoughts? Do you judge them as being needy or you know that they shouldn't be doing that, that that's a sign of weakness? And if you do and we're not judging this, we're not saying it's good or bad, but just like the reality, do you have thoughts like that? And if you do have thoughts like that, then it would make sense that when you're the one who's on service, you wouldn't want to ask for help because you wouldn't want others to be considering you as needy because you are independent. Right. This is a strong thing that you believe by yourself. So interesting how those two things can tie together, right? We don't want to ask for help. We don't want to be seen as needy. And then we judge others who ask for help as being too needy. So interesting. Another behavior prefer to do things for ourselves. And again, this doesn't have to be a bad thing, but sometimes it can be. I know that I was brought up with a certain mindset of if you want something done right, then you just have to do it yourself. Well, that.

 

All sounds.

 

Good until it's not working for you anymore. Until you have a beautiful full life and you start believing that no one else can do things like you, right? That you have to do it yourself. So that leads into the next behavior, which is that it's hard to delegate tasks and responsibilities. I can't tell you how many women physicians we coach in our programs who struggle with this so much. They want help, right? They don't want to do it all. Yet they have a hard time giving up some of those tasks and responsibilities. Right. Another behavior is being proud to be that workaholic, really having a lot of pride in yourself, in that you overwork. Right. So interesting. Really what that is, is tying accomplishment to your self worth. If you want to feel good about yourself, then you need to be working a lot. You need to be overworking. You need to be taking on tons of tasks and responsibilities so that you can have those positive, worthy thoughts about yourself. For some people with toxic independence, they feel like they have to decide everything for themselves, right? They can't really delegate out the decision making either. So this could be like, maybe you're in a partnership with a romantic partner and you find that you want to make all the decisions for everything. I know I've struggled with this myself, right? You know, if I let you make that decision and you choose wrong, then I'm going to suffer. So I'll just do everything.

 

No, I'm.

 

The only one who suffers is me.

 

The only one who.

 

Suffers is me. So deciding everything for yourself, I mean, it could have been a super helpful quality and trait and capability that you've had in the past. But now, moving forward, does it really still serve you or can it be helpful to be able to let other people in to help with that? Now, some people with toxic independence will be intensely private. And this isn't just like being sort of more introverted or just liking some privacy. It really means like keeping people at arm's length. So people with this will have a fear about being more open and. Honest with other people, lest someone judge us unfairly for being vulnerable and sharing about what's really going on for us. So I definitely know that I coach people on this as well. People with toxic independence often have a history of personal relationship problems. And I mean, don't we.

 

All be like, that's the story of our lives? But what I.

 

Mean about this is if you've had some relationship problems in the past, particularly if they're unresolved or on process, then moving forward with new relationships or ongoing relationships, you can find yourself sort of shutting down or not allowing yourself to be more independent, protecting yourself emotionally by staying more independent, which can actually be at a detriment to those relationships. And the next behavior is taking too much responsibility. I know I struggle with this to where I start thinking that every single thing that's happened, like somehow it's my fault. I just have to figure out what it is.

 

And so I'm.

 

Working on that right now, going like, okay, well.

 

What.

 

Is appropriate for me to take responsibility for and what is really not mine to own? And finding that delineation. Sometimes I see this in clients who take too much responsibility for their children. I mean, so much of the coaching that I do on parenting is around feeling overly responsible for their experience of their life, particularly once they're at an age where they're making decisions for themselves and there's results or consequences of those decisions. We have to understand what we are actually responsible for, what we want to take responsibility for and leave the rest. And then the final behavior that people who exhibit toxic independence can have is extreme perfectionism and self criticism.

 

So this is something that so many doctors struggle with, right?

 

So that extreme perfectionism, what ends up happening is just ongoing perpetual disappointment, right? Because perfection doesn't exist, which means that things are not done to our liking, that extreme perfection. And so then we leave a bunch of things undone. Then it feels like there's so much we can't delegate it because we're the only ones who can do it. But it has to be done at this very, extremely unrealistically high level or quality of work. And so that just cycles, right? And then they're overly critical and demanding of themselves. We see this all the time. If you're listening to this and at least one part of you is not like, Yeah, that's me.

 

I'll be shocked. Right?

 

We all can work on that. I know there's there are several years ago I was working with a coach and I remember it was like week after week after week, so much of what we talked about. Like every time she asked me what my feeling was when I was talking about something, it was like literally 90% of the time. Disappointed is how I felt so much disappointment. And so this completely resonated with me as well. So here's the thing is when you avoid asking for help, I mean, there's research that shows that people who avoid asking for help suffer significant social and professional costs. So they tend to avoid valuable help, help that is available to them.

 

And that would.

 

Make their lives better because they think it makes them feel needy or that they don't deserve it or they shouldn't need it. And then when you isolate yourself in that way, in order to stay self reliant, you're at an increased risk of feeling unsupported or worse, depressed. And I know so many women physicians, in particular in those who are in intimate partnership, very often feel unsupported and they think like, oh, you know, my partner needs to support me more, and maybe they do.

 

But also.

 

It could be that we're contributing because of our toxic independence behaviors. So what are the benefits of depending on others? Right. Sometimes we're like, okay, I hear what you're saying, but still.

 

Have a lot of resistance to.

 

Becoming more dependent on others. So the first benefit is lightning your load. I mean, women physicians are tired, are exhausted. It's so much so many responsibilities, so many responsibilities. When you allow yourself to depend on others, you create space to lighten that load.

 

We may resist that all we want, but it really is going to be the thing that's going to.

 

Help, right? Another benefit of depending on others is learning more. When we're open to asking for help or finding a mentor or reaching out to someone who maybe has the. Physician or, you know, career that we want or anything that we want in our lives, they often are really open, right to some mentorship or to assisting you in some way. And even just thinking about people who decide, Yeah, you know what? I do want some help with weight loss. They come into our program, into weight loss for doctors only, and they really do learn what they need to learn.

 

So they can lose weight and keep it up permanently. And these are people who insisted.

 

That they already.

 

Knew what they needed to know. But obviously they didn't because they were not able to get themselves to do it. This is what I'm talking about, right? I'm only laughing because I've done this, too. Like, our brains are so fascinating. Another benefit of.

 

Depending on others is increasing our effectiveness through collaboration. So some of us don't always have, like, the most positive opinion of teamwork. I mean, think about, you know, in school when you had to do work in teams and then, you know, sometimes it was one or two people and the whole group who was doing most of the work and whatever. But in general, especially once you work through that, you're willing to have some difficult conversations maybe, and really work on getting everybody to contribute. When you're able to collaborate together, you're able to create so much more effectively. So essentially, like you get everybody coming together, rowing in the same direction rather than, you know, this person's over here trying to get that done. This person is over there trying to get that done. And when you think about it, even from a medical research perspective, so many different labs across the globe will collaborate with one another rather than thinking they need to do everything themselves or going, no, you know what? We bring this to the table. They bring that to the table. When we come together, we're really going to be able to pool our resources and our knowledge, and we're going to be able to be so much more effective. And so that can be in the case of weight loss. Right? You're coming with your knowledge and your experiences.

 

And I and my team are coming with, you know, everything that we know and all of our expertise. And then together we collaborate to more effectively help you to lose weight, keep it off and create peace and freedom around food. Right. And then the final benefit of depending on others is just improving relationships. And this is one that, you know, is something that a lot of people work on. I know. I definitely do. Basically, when you depend on someone else in a relationship, it communicates trust and appreciation. And overall for humans, it increases our health and our well-being. So it's kind of the opposite of what we think we're like. No, like our fear is if I depend on somebody else and then they let me down, then I'm worse off. But we can probably argue that most of the time we're going to be better off. But there is that risk that, yeah, some of the time we might be worse off and you know, we're going to have to adjust with that. But when we never take the opportunity, there's so much that we're missing out on, right? So research shows that balancing independence with healthy and mutual forms of interdependence, right? Different people relying on one another helps people feel better about themselves in their lives. I mean, who doesn't want that.

 

Right?

 

So ultimately, being able to rely on others, being able to be dependent, more dependent on others leads to us feeling more empowered and not less. I'm going to say that again because it's so important. Being able to rely on others leads to feeling more empowered and not less. So what do we do? We have to start working on doing the opposite of maybe what comes naturally to us, right? We're going to have to start to practice small things. I mean, part of it might be, you know what, I am going to sign up for weight loss for doctors only and get the help that I need so I can learn to collaborate with a team that brings other knowledge and experience and expertise so I can actually figure this out instead of sitting around thinking I.

 

Should do this myself. And if I haven't been able to figure it out myself, then it means.

 

Something's wrong with me. What? No, that makes no sense. But another way of working on this is just asking maybe someone in the office for some help. If there's something, a task that you're doing that someone else could do, asking your medical assistant, asking your nurse, asking one of the receptionists. You know, whoever is helping in your office, asking for help in that way, maybe you have to ask the administration. It could be that you know that other people have scribes and you have felt like, Oh, who needs a scribe? I should just do this myself. But you actually go and ask for a scribe. Or maybe your administration won't pay for a scribe. They tell you you have to pay for it yourself. But when you crunch the numbers, you realize you'll be so much more efficient that you'll actually be able to improve your productivity so much that it.

 

Counteracts.

 

More than counteracts the cost of the scribe. And you go, Yeah, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and do that. I'm going to rely on the scribe. I'm going to depend on the scribe to help me to be more effective in my life. I mean, there so there's endless examples of how you could start doing this, but maybe pick one or two places and just start to practice with it. Notice the discomfort that comes up. Work through that. And see how it turns out. See what ends up coming from that. And over the course of time, you're going to start seeing the benefits sometimes quickly. Sometimes it might take a little bit of time. Sometimes relationships are going to have to shift a little bit because people get so used to you always refusing help that they offer that they no longer help anymore. That doesn't mean they're not willing to help, but it means that they might be surprised when you actually reach out to them. So there can be some adjustment that needs to happen here, but it's all for your own benefit. Let's work on relieving ourselves of our toxic independence. I know I'm going to keep working on it and I want to encourage you to do the same. And just so you know. Weight loss for doctors only is going to be opening up here very soon. So to find out more information about the program, go to Katrina, UBL, IMDB.com for info info. All right, my friend, have a great rest of your week and I will talk to you next time. Take care. Ready to start making progress on your weight loss goals for lots of free health. Go to Katrina, UBL, IMDB.com, and click on Free Resources.