Controlling Relationship Signs: The Vegetable Knife Story

The time my ex blew up over a vegetable knife and what it has to do with you. Hi, I'm Natalie Fisher, and in this series I'm sharing stories of selective self-advocacy and the moments that helped me to truly see where I wasn't valuing myself. And now, looking back at my experience 14 years later, I'm seeing exactly why I ended up in the situations that I did, which was a 10-year abusive relationship for 10 10 years. 10 years. Long time. Felt the need to mention it twice. And the fact that it's— it wasn't something that I knew, like I wasn't aware of. And this is the thing that gets me, because I'm like, I think a lot of people are in toxic work situations and they don't know that they are. And maybe you do know, but there's a lot of rationalizations that I made, and I didn't realize I was making them until it was Way in the future. So the story that I was going to share today is I was cooking dinner one night, and I like to use a paring knife to chop vegetables. But apparently that is the wrong kind of knife to use, and I should be using a large chopping knife. Now technically, that might be true if I'm going to chef school or I'm learning how to do that, whatever. But my ex had such an issue about this. Like he was so controlling. He was like, "If you don't change knives, like if you don't use the proper knives, like I'm not eating whatever you cook because it'll be garbage." And I thought like at the time I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I'll use the right knife. Like, oh my God, right? Like that's how I was. That was previous me. I was just like his certainty, his level of certainty affected me so greatly that I believed that that was a big problem. Like I almost believed that that was actually going to affect how the food turned out because I was using the wrong knife. I mean, looking back at it now, I'm like, yes, that was ridiculous. But here's what I learned, and here's how I like operate now because of this. incident. So me using the wrong knife, and then I switched to the other knife and I realized I'm not as comfortable with this even though I learned how to use it properly. I'm like, I just like using the smaller one and I think it's going to get me the same result, so why don't I just do it my way? Because I'm the one doing it, right? So what I learned was if you're the one affected by the decision, then you should have the main say in the decision, okay? And this goes across the board. That's kind of my rule now, right? Like in my relationship with my partner now, Like whoever's affected the most by the decision is the one who has the most weight in making the decision. And in that time, I was the one cooking dinner. I was the one doing the thing. So therefore, the decision on what knife to use should have been mine completely. And so this can apply when you are— the first thing that's coming to mind right now is if you're making an investment in a coaching opportunity, like say you wanna sign up for a coaching program and you're the one who's gonna get the result from that program. You're the one who's gonna do the work and you're the one who's ultimately gonna change your life. Or not, right? But you're the one who's making the decision. And this is like a pet peeve of mine, is like people go and ask their spouses for permission, or like they're like, oh, can I sign up for this? Like they say it's a discussion between the two of them, and like that's fine. It's like having a discussion to let someone know that you're doing that, and that's fine. But it's like you're the one who's ultimately the one who is gonna do the work. You're the one who's gonna be the participant in the program. You're the one who's gonna get the results, right? So therefore you should be the one making the decision. like the main weight of the decision. And, um, with, with the coaching investments, that's something else I want to talk about in the future, is how you actually guarantee that you are going to get a result on that. Because a lot of people, they approach coaching investments all wrong, and they look at it as like, oh, this investment is going to solve all my problems. And they don't see— like, they don't have a plan for how they are going to make that money back and double and triple it. With coaching, you can make so much return on your investments, which I have done myself and seen how it's possible for my clients. But then I also see a lot of people not doing that. And so I really want to teach about that too. But the, the main point I'm trying to make in this video is the one person who's going to be the mostly affected by the decision, whether it be in the relationship or in the workplace, be the person who gets the most weight around the decision. And so many decisions were made in my relationship by him that affected me, and he made the decision and it actually didn't affect him whatsoever. And I was the one who had discomfort around it. I was the one who had to deal with that discomfort. Just because he decided that I was doing it quote unquote wrong. So that wasn't a way that I was totally undermining my own value. I was totally undermining my own ability to make decisions for myself and speak up and say, no, actually this is how I want to do it. This is the tool I want to use. It doesn't actually affect you. It's going to get the same results and I'm going to do it my way. And if you don't like that, well then here you can actually take it over. and do it how you want to. And that doesn't have to be spiteful or mean or like whatever. It doesn't have to come from like an argumentative energy. It can just say, no, this works for me better. I'm gonna use this. So I hope that was helpful for you. It was a little bit of a tangent video. And yeah, how are you making your decisions? Are you putting someone else's like comfort level above your own? And are you the one who's mostly affected by the decision? Or are you actually honoring your own voice? 'Cause what I find is when we're looking for approval from somebody, and that's what I was doing, is I was just constantly looking for approval from him. And so even if that meant making myself uncomfortable or doing something that might be unsafe or, or just really unnecessary that I had to do so I could endure more discomfort so he could be happy about it, I would still just do it because I was wanting his approval and I was wanting to keep him happy and I was wanting him not to be mad at me. So then I would do that. But what I was doing in that, in that whole paradigm was I was missing my own Wisdom. I was missing the fact that my points were valid. Like, my points to use the knife that I wanted to use, just as valid as the points he had— he— that, that I should be using the knife that he thought that I should be using. Like, the knife is such a silly example, but it's something that, that I don't know, maybe you can relate to and everyone can understand. Like, we have preferences, and as long as we're the ones affected by that, we're the ones doing the work, we're the ones who are going to carry out the task, we're the ones who get to make the decision on it. And I think that that is across the board true. Prove me wrong, tell me why I'm wrong. Love to hear it. Give me a comment in the, in the comment section. If you like this video, give me a thumbs up. If you didn't like it, give me a thumbs down and subscribe to the channel. Let's be friends. Tell me about what's going on with you. And I'm doing a class, so I'm doing a class coming up. If you— depends on when you're watching this video, you can watch the replay of the class, but I'm going to be teaching how to value yourself, and I'm going to be giving you a specific framework of how to value yourself, a specific way that you can communicate your value in multiple different ways, ways to look out for that you might be blocking your own value, that you might not even see it yourself. That's a very common one. Lots of people are offering so much value, they're doing so much, and they're not even seeing it for themselves. There's a lot of traps that come into play. Um, a process of a plan of how to communicate your own value so that you can get people responding to you differently. Suddenly instructing people how to treat you and how to respond to you and how to see you, especially in those interview situations, in those raise and promotion conversations. And a step-by-step framework that you can start applying yourself right away. So if you sound like that's something that's going to resonate with you, then click the link below and get signed up for that. Or you can sign up anyway if you can't make the time and get the replay. The replay will be available for you. It is an extremely valuable class that will help you to put these pieces together. So if you've been underpaid, or if you haven't been making the money you want to make, or if you've just been stuck in an environment for a long time that you don't understand why you're still there, I hear you. I was you, and I can definitely help you to See why that is and get the courage to be able to leave that knowing that there's something better on the other side for you. So if that interests you, I can't wait to see you. I can't wait to meet you. I can't wait to hear your story. Give me a thumbs up, subscribe to the channel, and I will see you in the next video or on that class. Bye-bye.