In this episode:
I dive into the powerful quote by Nedra Glover Tawwab: “We teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves,” reflecting on a moment at work when I had to assert my boundaries with a student and contrasting it with my past struggles as a teacher battling alcohol addiction and self-doubt.
Resources:
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Transcript:
00:03 – Jessica Dueñas (Host)
Hey y’all, welcome back to Bottomless, to Sober and for today’s episode I wanted to talk about this Nedra Glover Tawwab quote we teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves. I’ll read it again, because it’s super short we teach people how to treat us by how we treat ourselves. So before we get into it, I want to be very clear about something, and that is that this idea does not apply in cases of abuse. So if you have ever experienced emotional, physical, psychological abuse, please know that you did not teach that person to harm you. Right? Abuse is never the victim’s fault. There is no boundary strong enough to control someone else’s harmful choices in the cases of abuse. So I just wanted to make that clear before I even start talking, right, all right, so now let’s go ahead and get into it. So we teach people how to treat us.
01:04
If you have been following me for a while, you know that I currently work with college students, but before that I was a middle school teacher and, honestly, I never thought that I would have to remove someone from a space under my authority at this stage in my career. Middle schoolers a hundred percent right, like absolutely middle schoolers they’re still learning emotional regulation. Sometimes they need to step out of the class to reset. But honestly, I forgot that even college students, who are adults on paper, are honestly still learning how to handle themselves right. Developmentally their brains are not done developing and sometimes they make bad calls. And when they do, it’s up to me to teach them how I accept being treated. So I’ll tell you a little bit in vague terms about a recent situation that I had. But basically, a student came to my office and they were heated about how I had handled a specific incident. You know they were sitting down kind of like fingers up in the air, you know, their energy was just sharp and they basically said that I owe them an apology. Now, In that moment I understood why they were frustrated, but I also knew that I had made the right call. So I stayed calm and I told them I’m not apologizing. And y’all. They did not like that answer. You know their voice got louder, their body language shifted and suddenly what was funny was that on my part I felt that old discomfort creeping in. You know, it was that old, familiar guilt from my classroom days, the kind that used to literally just sit on my shoulders when I was still drinking, still doubting myself and still unsure if I was doing anything right. You know it was a flashback to the old version of me. You know that moment.
03:03
It took me back to when I was a teacher and I was standing in my middle school classroom back in Louisville and I was just trying to push through, you know, the lesson, because I had a hangover, of course, and you know my head was pounding, my stomach was turning and my voice was. It was steady enough just to get through the lesson, but I was struggling, right, I was in the fog after having drank so heavily the night before, which was my daily pattern at this time, and I had a student I’ll call him Zavion. You know he looked up at me and he was just like Ms Duenas, you smell like alcohol, and I mean he was just grinning. He had no idea of the sheer panic that he had gripped me with by saying that, right, and so, you know, I just turned away and I pretended that I didn’t hear him and I was praying to the universe to like let that moment pass. Like let this kid get distracted by his peers. Right, let someone knock something over, anything to like distract the student and transition from that moment and thankfully he did move on right. So I felt safe for now, so to speak. But that comment that that student made Zavion, that middle school student, it stuck right Because, even though he wasn’t judging me, his words to me a hundred percent, were like a mirror. They absolutely forced me to see the truth that I was just trying to avoid, like I was not trying to be exposed. I was terrified of it and that was a fear that was following me everywhere back then.
04:32
And so, you know, let’s come back to the present, back in my current office, here on my campus job, with the student getting more, you know, verbally aggressive, I completely froze, even if it was for a split second, I just froze. And you know that old me, the one that you know used to drown in self-doubt and in alcohol, you know, would have a hundred percent crumbled under the under the pressure. You know I would have second guessed everything, I would have wondered if I had actually messed up and I probably would have even apologized just to like, make that tension disappear, right, and just please the other person and move on with my life. But thankfully, because I’m sober and because I do respect myself and because I do have a much higher self-worth than I ever had in my life. I had my voice, my true voice, ring loudly in my head and that voice said Jess, you’ve done nothing wrong.
05:32
And just like that I snapped back into the present, back into my body, and that old guilt went away. So I took a deep breath and I looked the student in the eye and I interrupted them and I was like listen, well, here’s the thing. I started to interrupt them. They definitely did not like that either. Like I said, they were not having a good day. And so then I had to say like I am interrupting you because this conversation is over and I need you to leave my office.
06:00
And that was it right. I didn’t sit there and just continue to take a verbal lashing just because I felt bad. Right, I know exactly what I am okay with accepting and not accepting from others, and a huge part of that is from my sobriety. Y’all, the version of me who drank would have just sat there, spiraling 100%, trying to fix the situation, trying to make everyone comfortable, fearful of the consequences, right, doing all of this at the expense of my own peace. But the version of me who is sober, who is clear.
06:37
She stood her ground, and that is how I now treat myself today, with self-respect. I won’t tolerate being treated otherwise, and so that moment brings me back to the quote, which is that we really do teach people how to treat us right. It’s not just with our words, but it’s definitely with our energy, with our actions, what we allow and, honestly, what we straight up refuse to entertain. And so I want to leave you with this right Reflect for yourself In what ways do you teach others how to treat you?
07:16
Think about your words, think about your actions, think about even what you tolerate. Do you stand up for yourself? Do you let things slide when they shouldn’t? And you know how do you model the kind of respect that you expect right? Let that sit with you. And, again, if you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear from you. Right, find me on social, send me a message, send me an email, jessica, at bottomlessandsobercom, or, again, just reflect on it in your journal, right? So thanks so much for listening today. Take care of yourself, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
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