This is the All Ears English Podcast.
How to share what you've been through in English.
Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
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Have you been through something hard in your life?
Find out how to share what you've gone through without tipping the conversation and connection out of balance.
In English.
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Hey, Michelle, how's it going today?
I'm good.
Lindsay, how are you?
Good.
Michelle, what are we getting into on the show today?
This is going to be a good topic.
Yeah, we're kind of getting getting deep today.
I mean, we're not afraid.
Yes.
Yes, exactly.
So I mean, Lindsay, well, let me start with a question.
Would you say that you're pretty open with people about hard things that you've been through in your life?
Yeah, I think I am.
It depends, really depends on the context, though.
I mean, I'm pretty choosy about what I share with whom and when and do they have time to listen?
Are they in a place to listen?
Would it be helpful to share that thing?
Right.
The way I talk to my therapist is not the same way I talk to my friends or my acquaintances or coworkers.
Right.
It's all these different relationships we have.
Right.
And if it is somebody that you are friends with, sometimes it might not be something that you talk about all at once in a big, dramatic conversation.
It might be something that you kind of sprinkle in a little bit at a time and it just you know the whole story comes up like over time.
So yeah, it's very interesting.
But we're talking about this because we had a really good listener question from Masami and we're very excited.
Masami asked us on YouTube.
So we're going to read the question in just a second.
But before we get into that, we want to give you the results of a Spotify poll that we did.
And that was from the episode Excellent English for Home Cleanup.
And we love doing these polls.
Guys, if you're listening on Spotify, every episode gets a poll, but not every episode.
Do we read the poll correctly?
So this is one of the special ones that we do.
And Lindsay, so what was the question?
All right.
Yeah.
I remember we were talking about accumulating items, right?
And this is the tendency, the human tendency sometimes to not want to throw things out.
The question was, are you good at getting rid of old items?
Yes or no.
And so we're leaning in a good direction, Michelle.
Yeah.
57% of our audience is good at it and 42% not as good at it.
Yeah.
Right.
So maybe that 42%, you all are more sentimental.
Maybe those items mean something to you or your family.
It's hard sometimes, right?
Yeah, for sure.
I thought the results were very interesting.
I thought people were more going to say no, just because I guess I figured...
I don't know, people are sentimental and it's hard, but it turns out we have a lot of really responsible listeners.
And we also have listeners who do have a harder time letting things go.
I'd definitely join the 42%.
I'm on the nose.
I'd say me too.
I'd say I'm kind of on the borderline, but if I had to choose, I'd probably be in the nose as well.
So we'll tip those results a little bit, Michelle.
Yeah.
All right.
So, okay.
Masami asked the question from YouTube.
Lindsay, would you like to read it?
Yes.
Masami says, Hey, Allers English family.
Thank you so much for answering my previous question.
I really appreciate it.
And I have another one for you.
The other day I was watching a series where the main character talked about their traumas, but not in a negative or self-pitying way.
Instead, they used it as a point of connection with others.
So my question is how can we talk about our traumas in a way that helps us connect on a deeper level without sounding like we're seeking pity?
Thank you so much for your insights.
Wow.
Good question.
This is a really good question, Masami.
Thank you so much.
This one actually reminded me a little bit of an episode we did.
That was Always English How to Relate but Not Dominate in English Conversations.
That one you should definitely check out as well.
Very similar, but this one is different.
So this is not necessarily about taking the attention away.
It's about more not having a pity party thrown for you.
Lindsay, what's a pity party?
A pity party.
That's a good one.
That's a good one.
When all of a sudden it feels like everyone is coming to your side and feeling bad for you.
It doesn't feel great to have people feel bad for you.
I think that's the point, right?
Because again, pity doesn't feel great.
Sympathy, empathy feels good, but sympathy and pity are not necessarily the best things to receive.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so it's, it's interesting how everybody processes whatever they're going through.
And if they do want that sympathy, if they want to talk it through.
Some people don't want to talk about it.
Everybody's different.
So it is, this is definitely a tricky situation.
Um, before we get into it, um, we also want to say thank you so much to our reviewers.
Yes.
Huge.
Thank you to UJ Lee who gave us a five-star review.
SJHK from China, five-star review as well.
Um, A. Alphite Lee from Iraq.
Michelle, these are all five-star reviews, by the way.
Oh, wow.
And Tommy Tarta from Italy.
Huge thank you to these listeners.
Guys, go ahead and leave us a review so that we can announce your name out loud on the show.
These reviews, they mean a lot to us.
We give our heart into the show.
We want to make sure that we are in line with you in terms of what we're covering on the show.
Okay.
Yes.
Thank you so much, everyone.
It really means the world.
Yes.
Leave that review for the show.
Good.
Yes.
Yes, please do.
So let's get into it.
So yeah, this is not a question that has an easy answer or just one answer.
Because I, in my opinion, native speakers have trouble navigating this type of issue as well.
Right, Lindsay?
This is not necessarily just a One size fits all.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, I even go back to this past weekend.
So some of our listeners already know that my mom passed away this summer.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And that was really hard back in June.
And even just this past weekend I was walking with some friends, some kind of acquaintances, just a Buddhist group that I'm, that I hang out with sometimes.
And I, you know, my friend had asked me, how was your summer?
I said, it was kind of hard.
My mom passed away.
And it was that moment when you decide, are you going to share that?
How are you going to share it?
Again, you don't want it to turn into a pity party, but it was a very important part of my summer.
So how do you do that?
Right.
Right.
And, and you, I feel like there's a moment.
Do you get that feeling in your chest of when you're about to consider if you're going to share something or not?
And you know that this is an important, and you get this feeling in your whole body when you're about to kind of expose something that's important or very raw to you.
And it's like, if you don't expose it, you won't move any further in that friendship.
You don't eventually share something like that.
The But yeah, it's a real sense of vulnerability.
And this cuts across all languages, all cultures.
So I'm so glad we're talking about this today.
Yeah, this is really important.
So we're going to give you some ideas today of how you can share yourself, get to that moment, but not turn it into a whole thing.
Right.
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
So the first thing, we're going to kind of give you five ideas.
The first one is about the tone of voice.
So when you share your trauma, you can and you should be serious, but you don't have to use intonation that sounds like you might cry.
Right.
Because once you get to that, that's what I mean.
And it's okay to cry.
Yes.
But if you don't want that pity party, right?
Like if it sounds like you're having really extreme feelings about the topic, then people are going to be more inclined to start giving you more attention over it.
So again, you want to be very.
If you don't want that kind of attention, you can be very matter of fact about it, but also not robotic.
You wouldn't want to say...
Oh yeah.
I, my, my dog died.
Right.
None of us are robots here.
We all feel very sad to have our dogs pass away.
I mean, that's a very traumatic thing, right?
We love our animals.
I mean, I also think that there's a matter of timing here.
When something is really raw, we probably do want to avoid sharing it, maybe for a few months, maybe a few years, whatever that looks like until we're actually ready to talk about it with a different tone of voice.
Right, Michelle?
Yes.
Right.
Sometimes it is just so raw that you can't talk about it.
Now we're really getting so deep without crying.
And then as time moves on, you know you get used to whatever it is that you're mourning or whatever it may be.
So, for example...
When I lost my job, I had a really hard time.
Yeah.
Right.
So I you heard I had feeling there, but I wasn't I didn't sound like I was going to cry.
I didn't sound right.
Yeah.
But I was still sharing myself.
I was still being vulnerable.
You're still sharing.
But the tone of voice indicates that you've kind of come to kind of a bit of a resolution.
Right.
You've you've got you've got context for this.
Right.
Like, you know what happened after and maybe something good happened after you lost that job.
Right.
There's context.
Right.
Love that.
And what's what's the next thing we want to highlight?
OK, so the next thing is the expressions we can choose.
So the words.
No, number two.
The next thing is not dwelling on it.
So, you know, this is an art of connection here using English.
How do we touch on something briefly but not sit in it too long, not dwell on it, right?
Um like uh yeah, as we've talked about in the other episode um, for example, my childhood wasn't easy.
I had a tough relationship with my family, especially my sister.
That was years ago though.
So michelle, what's happening in this strategy Right?
So you are going through some of the reasons why your childhood was tough, giving an example.
And then you ended it with that was years ago, though.
And you're also speaking about in a way that sounds like you're removed from it.
Yes.
Yes.
You're not dwelling on it.
You're not sitting in it.
Um, so you, you related to whatever the other person was saying.
Um, which is kind of like in the other episode you're you're, you were bringing up your topic and then you're saying that was years ago though.
You're kind of saying, okay, well, we're not going to.
You know, back to you.
Right.
Exactly.
So this is contextualizing things a little bit.
Right.
We are adding some kind of statement which says which gives time, context or I don't know, puts it into perspective a little bit.
Right.
Yeah, go ahead.
My dog ran away and it was awful.
But that was years ago.
I think I would still be crushed.
Yeah.
But yeah, that was in another life.
Also, a common thing we might hear if you're just trying to say that was a long time ago.
I was really insecure as a child, but that was in another life.
Right.
So, again, contextualizing, showing that you're not necessarily that same person you've learned.
There's context there.
Right.
Or one more you could say is, but so much has changed.
Right.
So I had three breakups in one year, but so much has changed now that I'm with Paul.
You know, Paul's a good guy.
Paul's a good guy.
Yeah.
I mean, this is really interesting because...
We know that you know things like this, like dogs dying, family members passing away.
Trauma is universal, obviously.
But we do need the English phrases to put it in context, to be able to then be in conversation and connection with someone where it doesn't all just turn into like a pity party, as you said, just like everyone's supporting you.
You need to allow that conversation to move on to something else after a few minutes, because that's kind of normal.
Right?
Right.
Yes.
Interesting.
Good.
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Okay, Michelle, there are other tips though.
That is not all of our tips.
We have more.
What else do we have for our listeners?
Yeah.
So this one is to keep the floor open for other comments, right?
So again, so you're kind of directing to that person.
You might be asking them a question.
You're just showing the conversation is you're not saying, okay, stop.
Here we go.
This is the new topic.
You're showing that this is a back and forth kind of thing.
So one thing you could say was, I know it was hard for you when X, right?
So maybe you know the person already.
You could say, I know it was hard for you when you broke up with Tim, right?
Yes, totally.
Exactly.
Or was it tough for you when X happened?
And again, you know, yeah, they don't have to say had to share.
I mean, I have a lot of friends actually who have lost parents previously who lost them young.
For some reason, a lot of my friends have lost their parents young.
And you know, and that's kind of, it's a very soft way of inviting them to share something, but not forcing it.
Right.
Right.
Yeah.
That's why we're saying leave the floor open.
It's not like you necessarily demand an answer, but you kind of hint at opening the floor for them.
Mm hmm.
So was it tough for you when you changed careers?
Maybe you would say just to get them to input to the conversation as well.
And then finally, reassuring phrases yeah um, showing that you are okay again.
Maybe maybe it's not necessarily that you really are okay and and that's fine too you're.
Maybe you're just protecting yourself and you're saying okay, you know, there's a time when you know, with whatever trauma you've had, it's your.
It's totally your choice how you share it and if you share it and why and how much of it you share.
And if you want to open up more about it or if it's just you want to state it matter-of-factly and then say okay, it's fine, right.
So it's so personal, which is why this is a little bit of a tricky question.
And I don't think that there's one right answer.
Yeah, I think you're right.
So I think there might be a little bit of this that's cultural here in our tip, too.
Yeah, we can't get away from our culture.
We learned in the context of American culture.
And this reminds me a little bit of like, how are you?
You know, how do you answer that?
Everything's fine.
It's not always the right time to extend that conversation.
And again go into the whole session of this is going to become a therapy session and Your friends are not necessarily your therapist, right?
I mean, they can help to some extent, but they also have lives and things going on.
So what are we doing here, Michelle?
Reassuring phrases.
Right.
I mean, one would be, but don't worry about me.
Yeah.
Be careful because this could sound sarcastic if you're not too careful.
Right, right, right.
Oh, but don't worry.
Yeah, right.
That's true.
Yeah, just be careful with that a little bit.
You could say, but I'm fine.
I'm moving past it or I moved past it.
I I've said a few times when I've shared what happened with my mom, I've I've shared um I'm working through it.
You know, I'm I'm working through it.
That's good.
I'm working on it.
Um because, especially with like a death uh, that's something that we have to work on over time, right?
We revisit it over time.
We work with a therapist.
I mean, we don't just like move on.
Right.
So there are different ways you can phrase this, but there is a sense of we want to make sure the person doesn't worry about us in a way that, so that we can continue on an even plane building connection.
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really good point, Lindsay.
Um, so we're going to do a role play in just a second, but um any, if any, final thoughts before the role play.
Yeah.
I mean, keep in mind, obviously like everyone's trauma is different and sometimes we do need people and this is not the episode for that conversation.
We could do another episode on that conversation where you actually like, it's very raw.
Maybe it just happened, or maybe it happened years ago, but you still need to work through it with your close friends.
That's another set of skills, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
So guys hit follow because we'll, we'll, we can get into that as well.
That's another very complex topic, but these are really interesting ones.
Um, so I like that.
Um again, it really depends on who you're speaking to, what your relationship is like, how much time you have.
You know, if you're, if you're, if it's a big function um, and there are a lot of people around and everybody's grabbing food.
Not really the time.
Yeah.
Context matters too.
Yeah.
Context really matters too.
Exactly.
If you're just walking from one place to another or there's activity going on, it's not the time to open up in that way.
Let's do a little role play.
Do we have time?
Just a quick one?
Yes, let's do it.
So here we are friends connecting over our childhoods.
Okay, here we go.
So are you close with your family?
Things have been complicated.
My childhood was tough and my family relationships never really resolved.
But so much has changed for me as an adult.
I've realized what relationships are worth fighting for.
Wow, Michelle.
Yeah.
Well, was it tough for you when you moved away from your home?
Yeah, I had a really hard time at first, but I moved past it.
Yeah.
Nice.
Nice.
So what did we do here?
We did a couple things.
You first shared that your childhood was tough.
Your family relationships never really resolved, but so much has changed.
So again, that's contextualizing, saying things have changed.
I'm a different person.
I'm not still that same person.
Right.
And then I did kind of change the topic.
Then I said so maybe we were talking in the context of our childhoods, or leaving home or, and I said, was it tough when you moved away, for you, when you moved away from home?
So opening the floor, opening the floor.
So yeah, because yeah, we know that everyone's been through something.
Right.
And then I said, yeah, I had a really hard time at first, but I moved past it.
And there's the contextualizing again.
And showing, again, I'm not that same person anymore.
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
Good one for today.
What's our final takeaway?
I mean, this is a very human skill.
A trauma happens all over the world.
Everyone has been through something.
Right.
Yes, exactly.
So we've everybody's been there.
And, you know, it's up to you how you want to share it.
And so we gave you the tools today to to share in one way, and we can do another one, another way, another time.
Yes.
Excellent.
So good.
Good topic today.
I'm glad we went into something a little deeper today.
Sometimes it's good for the soul to go into something deeper.
Why not?
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All right.
Good stuff.
Love it.
All right.
All right, Lindsay.
Thanks for talking about this with me today.
All right.
Take care.
Talk soon.
Bye.
All right.
Bye.
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