The Soulful Leader Podcast
The Soulful Leader Podcast
Toilet Seats Up, Boundaries Down: The Comedy of Being Always Right
Ever noticed how often we get trapped in rigid, black-and-white thinking that leaves no room for growth or connection?
That 'certainty' might actually be your biggest obstacle.
Stephanie and Maren share their illuminating conversation, that explores
- the hidden dangers of all-or-nothing thinking
- being stuck in patterns of right versus wrong
- the 'yes versus no', and 'us versus them' trap
- internal boundaries that matter more than the external ones we try to enforce on others
They share personal stories about how this mindset creates barriers in relationships, workplaces, and even in our own self-development.
Stephanie shares a powerful client interaction that demonstrates how rigid thinking blocks healing, while Maren vulnerably discusses a team meeting where she caught herself in the certainty trap.
The episode offers practical techniques to create spaciousness in your thinking:
- observing rather than absorbing your reactions
- using conscious breathing to notice when you've slipped into rigid patterns
- approaching situations with curiosity instead of certainty
They share simple shifts that can transform conflicts into opportunities for deeper understanding, higher functioning businesses and tighter teams.
What makes this conversation particularly valuable is their exploration of how all-or-nothing thinking extends beyond personal struggles to create societal polarization.
When we're caught in competitive rather than cooperative mindsets, we're easier to control and manipulate.
Ready to break free from the limitations of black-and-white thinking? ✅
🎧 Listen now to discover how creating space for possibility can transform your relationships, work, and inner peace.
🙌 Then join our community at tslplife.com to continue the conversation about evolving your thinking and leadership.
Please share your insights and questions in one of our Soulful Leaders groups:
Get all the latest episodes, news and updates directly to your inbox. Subscribe here. TheSoulfulLeaderPodcast.com
Watch the podcasts on our YouTube Channel: @Soulful Leaders
In a world where we have everything and it's still not enough, we're often left wondering is this really it?
Maren Oslac:Deep inside, you know there's more to life. You're ready to leave behind the old. Push your way through and claim the deeper, more meaningful life that's calling you. That's what we invite you to explore with us.
Stephanie Allen:We're your hosts, stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac, and this is the Soulful Leader Podcast.
Stephanie Allen:Yay, hi, welcome to the Soulful Leader, podcast Boy. Have we got something good to talk about today? Just saying that just means that Stephanie is fired up. I'm fired up, I'm fired up.
Stephanie Allen:I had an interesting experience today at work, at work. So I help people with chronic pain and I often find that it's the underpinnings of chronic pain that helps to alleviate it. And what I mean by that is that we need to explore our thoughts and our beliefs and our attitudes that may be causing some of the tension in our body, especially if we've tried everything else, like stretches and medications and all those things, and they're not working. It's usually something more on the mental plane, and I had this long-term friend of mine that I haven't seen for a long time actually long-term friend of mine that I haven't seen for a long time actually and she came in today and boy, has she ever got some interesting thoughts and beliefs and attitudes? And it brought up a whole lot of stuff because there was no space as a therapist, there was no space to even have a dialogue, so I just kept reflecting it back to her, and what I mean by that is that she was absolutely certain that this was the problem, and you know.
Stephanie Allen:When you're going to a therapist or you're going to, you're trying to ask for help. It's good to let go of your certainties. I often say when you're really, really certain, you might want to do another look, because there's no space for possibility, creativity, and it doesn't mean that you're indecisive. I think that's a real key thing is that if you don't know, you're all mamby-pamby Sometimes. That is actually the space that allows the clarity to come is to sit without trying to figure it out or force it is to sit without trying to figure it out or force it.
Maren Oslac:I think for myself, I can really relate to what you're saying because I see it in the people around me. Right, that's where we see things and I know that I do it too, and it's so much more obvious when I see the people around me when they complain about it's like my leg is still hurting or my this is whatever, and have you tried this? No, no, no, have you tried? Oh, no, no, oh, no, no, like, and they just dismiss everything and they know Right. So, yeah, I can. I can totally relate with, with this woman.
Stephanie Allen:So so I was. I was really interested in that because I what was coming up for me is like when we are in an all or nothing, thinking like it's my way or the highway, or why bother, nothing ever works out anyway. I might as well not even bother selling my business because nobody wants it anyway. It's like the old saying you shoot yourself in the foot. It's like every time you're trying to take a step forward you've shot yourself in the foot. So there's an external way of being in the world, with that of, like you just said, no, I've already tried this. No, I'm not interested in that, I'm not interested in this. No, I don't want to do that. We push, push, push, push away in the outer world. But there's also that internal that we don't even drop into our inner mindset because we say to ourselves why bother? I've tried it before, it's not going to work. Or nobody wants what I have to give them, or it's like an all or nothing, and we do it to ourselves and we do it to each other.
Maren Oslac:I'm going to use an example from our own team meeting this week, where good one yeah definitely is laughing me because she was at the team meeting. Um, you know, we were always looking at where how are we expanding and what are we doing and what's next for us, and one of our team members was super excited about memberships and subscription things and and that's kind of the direction that we want to go, and have you looked at this? Have you looked at that? And it's something that, personally, I have invested a lot of. I invested two years of my life into looking into memberships and building three other membership sites for other people and that type of thing, and so I went into yep, been there, done that. Have all the answers?
Maren Oslac:All or nothing, thinking All or nothing, thinking, there we go, and another one of our team members very politely called me on it.
Stephanie Allen:It was like you know what would it be like if you let that story go is?
Stephanie Allen:what she said and I was like wow, wow, that's fantastic yeah, and, to be fair, oftentimes that needs to be articulated to get to the new way of thinking, and so tell me about a new way of thinking, like use it, like to get from, from the old place of I don't want to, you can't make me that kind of thing or it's all or nothing. It has to be this way. We have to control it to fit it in a box, we have to let that go. What would be a new way of thinking? What would that be?
Maren Oslac:right. So I, in every situation it's going to be different, and so there does need to be space. You mentioned space, like when we're stuck in the all or nothing thinking. There's no space and oftentimes one of the things. So I'm going to rewind a little bit. At the time I didn't feel stuck in the all or nothing thinking. I felt like I needed to articulate what was going on, what my experience was, because oftentimes we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, right, so we don't want to toss the entire thing and I needed to toss out there like, hey, there are these things. That here's an area that I became an expert in, and I haven't pursued it continually, so I'm not completely an expert in it, and I did invest two to three years of my life in it. So I wanted to bring my expertise to the table while also holding space for here's my expertise, here's the excitement, if we take those two things and we look at what's possible from there.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, from that place that merging from emerging of the experience, emerging the inspiration. Where is that going to lift us? To? Yes, Because you're not the same person now as you were two or three years ago.
Maren Oslac:Right, and our business is not the same, right, and it's not the same that you know. And it's not the same as the businesses that I was working with. See, the other thing that I did poorly or I say the main thing that I did poorly was I didn't articulate of saying I want to share my experience and then I want to go to the higher level, I want to go, I want to see what's possible from there. So what it came out sounding like was you know what, been there, done that, no thank you. And that's not how I was feeling on the inside. It wasn't a no thank you to me, it was a been there, done that. So what's different now?
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, and I think it takes a lot of self-awareness to go okay, wait a minute, am I pushing away something? Am I so rigid that I'm not even allowing help or inspiration or possibility from a different way? And also internalizing, and if I do start looking at this, am I being mamby-pamby, am I being wishy-washy? I think there's a lot of that, and why I'm saying is that that internal all or nothing thinking ends up in the external all or nothing. And so we have to oscillate between outer our conversations with or our experiences with other people and also our internalization of things. And you know, before the podcast, maren and I do a lot of research around what have been the trends and what are the things.
Stephanie Allen:And I remember one of our teachers saying that in the 1800s the main disease of the century was pneumonia and a lot of people died at a very young age from pneumonia because we didn't have the skillfulness, we didn't have the knowledge, we didn't have the things in place to be able to help it. And then the next century, the 1900s, is cancer, and cancer has a lot of interesting I know in chinese medicine. They don't even look at it, they don't even call it cancer, they just they call it stuck energy and I you know it's very interesting if you look at it from different points of view, and I think that's what we're talking about in the all or nothing. All or nothing doesn't allow the space to look at something from a different perspective higher, lower, or from a different 360 degree view. So that was the 19th century. Here we are in the 20th. Now, in our current century, it's mental illness and that's on the inside, that's the disease that's most affecting us.
Stephanie Allen:Exactly Is, you know, thinking and I don't want to say about right or wrong thinking, because it's not about that. It's like do we have space within our own awareness to make space to observe our thoughts, our reactions, our behaviors, instead of just automatically going with them? Can we go? Oh, that's interesting. I'm feeling like I want to fight this, or there's a part of me that just doesn't even want to make. I don't even want to listen to that conversation. So, like going back to my client today, she has some very interesting views and perspectives which are totally opposite of mine, and I could feel myself going into all or nothing, thinking on the other side of like, no, you're wrong and I'm right, and, and you know, if you're going to continue to talk this way, I'm not going to treat you and these are all thinking instead of just saying isn't't that interesting? She has a very different perspective than what I do, and can I let go? Can I let go and make space for a conversation rather than a lecture? Or convincing? You know, convincing, yeah.
Maren Oslac:We live in this time where right and wrong are what most people talk about, and it is a way of thinking of I'm right, you're wrong, what's what's right, what's wrong, what's all of this? And it puts us in a up-down, a one-up, one-down, a controlling position. If I'm right, then I am controlling. I can use that I'm right. If I'm wrong, then I oftentimes feel like, oh, I've been controlled, so I need to become right.
Maren Oslac:And now we're in a clashing place instead of uniting place. So it becomes competition instead of cooperation and oftentimes, like a teenager usually will want to think it's like I don't want to think like my mom does, or I don't want to think like my dad does, I want to do things differently. So we take the opposing point of view instead of realizing that that's still the way of thinking. That's behind the point of view is still the same way of thinking. It's still that right, wrong, good, bad, I'm right, you're like yeah, you just polarized you just polarized it badly when I said the other night at our team meeting is, instead of coming at it from a place of how do I bring this together, I started from.
Maren Oslac:I've been there, I've done that, and it instantly took our team and split our team. And so we do that within ourselves, we do that with our friends, we do that with our partners, we do that at work, we do that everywhere. And it's the same thinking, even though we think I'm going to be different. We are perpetuating the same level of thinking. And there is another level of thinking of how do I do this, how can I bring this together? And one of the things I loved about our team meeting is we finally got to the place of realizing like we want to do it collaboratively, and I was trying to I didn't use the best words To set that in motion. And so there's all these beautiful learning experiences of like how do we continue to learn and grow? And one of that same teacher that Stephanie was talking about. One of the things that he always says is, instead of making that snap judgment, say what an interesting creation or what an interesting like, tell me more so we bring our curiosity.
Maren Oslac:Exactly, we bring our curiosity to it.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, to lean in rather than to push away. I think that's a real practice right there of like, being able to let go or suspend, being right or wrong or good or bad. And even the words of like you never and I always, you know, those separate, they don't unite. And I remember hearing I think it was Byron Katie that says you know, when someone is in that all or nothing thinking and they're accusing you of something Like you never, ever, put the toilet seat down or you know, I'm always having to clean up after you and when, so so if somebody says that to you and they're like because it's, it's making a fight, they're accusing, you know, accusing you of all or nothing thinking. It's like well, I'm sure it's not always and or never, there may be sometimes, or a lot of times maybe.
Stephanie Allen:Even I remember Byron Katie's response was to say you might be right because people want to be right, so you might be right. I'll take a look at that and then zip it like, don't say anything more, because it really diffuses that energy of fighting and and you know what, they might be right, that you do leave the toilet seat up or that you never. You know that you're, that that person is, you know, cleaning up a lot after everybody. That could be true, and I think when we make that space and staying curious to look inside, it's that looking inside, and as a culture we do not, and as a culture we do not know how to look inside. We look outside for the answers.
Stephanie Allen:We're trained that way. That's the conditioning. And so to look inside to the answers, we don't even know what the heck that means. Or even if we do look inside, what are we listening to? Often the conditioning. I hear my mother's voice. I hear my dad's voice. I hear my dad's voice. I hear my teacher's voices. Where's Stephanie's voice? What is Stephanie's voice? What is the voice of the divine?
Maren Oslac:You know, and you just start I was thinking about that today, you know, when you were just talking about your client of nobody has modeled. Very few people have modeled for us a higher way of interacting and, to be honest, it's easier to control us when we're at each other's throats. When we're in this competitive, all or nothing thinking, we're actually very easy to control and the powers that be right now, all of them I'm not saying anybody that's in particularly in power in politics or whatever but we're in a world where the powers that be want to stay in power and that means controlling us and that means not wanting us to truly evolve. So there has been a literal dumbing down where we've been either tried they're trying to keep us at the same place or take us backwards, because there are people like our listeners, you all, that are revolving and saying I'm tired of the conflict, because what happens in conflict is you either get to be right or you get to be in relationship, because when you're right, Relationship intimacy Into me.
Maren Oslac:I see, when I get to be right, the other person is wrong and it puts a layer between us. It puts us, like I said, in a one-up, one-down position. Well, it's a wall, right it?
Stephanie Allen:creates a wall around ourselves because we're doing it out of fear, so we're doing it to protect ourselves, and yet that's the very thing that's making us vulnerable like not even vulnerable, but stopping us from being able to evolve, because we hit the ceiling right. There's no space for us to spread our wings and try new things. And yeah, it's a real, it's a real interesting perspective. It's like how do we, how is it that we first of all, how is it that we's like, how is it that we first of all, how is it that we got here? And how is it that we can change it? Through gentleness, and that's where I would like to do it is through kindness and gentleness.
Stephanie Allen:I'm going to bring out another example is that a few weeks ago I had a client come in. First-time client came in in and I have an office manager who's very sensitive, very empathic, and they basically yelled at him, like yelled at him or were totally disrespectful to him, and then the client turned and was very disrespectful to me and different things. And I worked on her anyway and I know my office manager. He was like why do you even tolerate that? You shouldn't even tolerate that. Like, put a boundary up and they don't get to do that. And I'm like they're in pain. I'm not saying that that's right or wrong what they did, or good or bad, but they're in pain. So they're not themselves, they're scared, they're uncertain, they're hurting, they don't have a lot of life force because they're trying to manage just getting through the day. Now I worked on this person three times. After the third time that person came back in. It was so lovely to my office manager, so lovely to me. They were so grateful and kind and they left and my office manager was like, oh my God, it's not even the same person. I'm like exactly. I think you know, can we give space and I'm bringing this up because I hear sometimes people talk about boundaries of like you need to set a boundary and a boundary.
Stephanie Allen:I think most of us look at it as an all or nothing, like if you step over this boundary, this is what's going to happen. I, you know you either do this or I'm out of here. That's all or nothing. Boundaries are not even about the other person, they're about you. Boundaries are putting in. You have different boundaries for different people and it's not about a one and done. It's that if somebody crosses a boundary. I'm going to let you know that you did that. Hey, I would really appreciate if you could just like take a breath before you yelled at me and, like you know, and also the boundary is also saying to yourself this isn't about me, this is about them, and they're hurting, like being able to see through their eyes or be in their shoes. That whole thing of like I was okay, I was, I was okay.
Stephanie Allen:I love that you said that Because I had my inner boundary because I didn't let my mind, my itty bitty shitty committee, my stinking thinking, beat me up. That's a boundary. Yes, so that part of me that said you know, I'm not going to take this personally, this is not about me. This person's in pain, my old. If I didn't have a boundary in place inside myself, then I'd say, well, that's a terrible person, how dare them? And I would have just been lashing out right back at them. And then now we're at war.
Maren Oslac:You know when I said earlier that we're easy to control when we're in this all or nothing thinking. That's a great example of it, because we do look to the outside. For what are the rules Like? I'm supposed to have a boundary, and if they cross this boundary, here's what I do, here's how I respond. I need to take care of my team and you know what. All of those things are true in a certain situation. It's not in every situation and as I grow and evolve on the inside, those things are going to change. That's right and I love that. You pointed out that your inner boundary meaning between you and your itty bitty, shitty committee, the part of you that wants to beat yourself up, and then, if it's beating you up, is going to beat somebody else up and you're going to take it out on somebody else because you feel bad about yourself and all of that stuff. Exactly, the more inner work we do, the more compassion we can have for somebody else, because all that shit that we're going through with our little inside, they are too.
Stephanie Allen:I'm going to give you another example. This happened a few years ago because I have so many examples. I remember and this is a customer service, she was wonderful. I remember I had gone through a breakup and we had shared insurance together with our cars and it was under my plan and he was on my plan and I called the insurance company and I got somebody who answered and they were all or nothing thinking, like there was no space, like sorry, he has to call, like you know, your partner, ex-partner, former partner, has to call and you have to both be on the phone at the same time. This is the only way I could do it. He was reading a script, essentially, and he had to stay on that script and I was like, well, it's not going to happen because he's not here anymore, he's out West, he's not available, blah, blah, blah, he won't talk to me, all these different things. And that's my all or nothing thinking, cause I'm like it's not happening, like it just won't happen. You have to make this happen.
Stephanie Allen:So my all or nothing thinking was coming up against his all or nothing thinking and we were just hitting and finally, I'm pretty sure I said a few choice words and slammed the phone down and then I took a breath and I'm like, okay, this is not, that is not working. I need to have a different approach. I said I'm going to call back again. I call back again. I get this lovely woman. This time I'm breathing, I'm slowing down and I'm surrendering my all or nothing thinking. I'm actually staying curious. I'm like here's a situation. I don't know how to make this work, but can you help me? So I actually allowed, my, I had to actually surrender my ego.
Maren Oslac:So instead of you need to do this.
Stephanie Allen:This isn't going to happen, Instead of you need to putting them on the defensive.
Maren Oslac:Exactly, you went in with curiosity.
Stephanie Allen:Yep, curiosity and surrender. And I surrendered my ego. And the first thing she said to me was I'm so sorry, that's got to be really hard for you. Let me see what I can do. Beautiful, and within literally 20 minutes she had it handled. She completely. I gave her the space. Because I had given myself the space. I let go of all or nothing thinking so that I could allow her to also let go of all or nothing thinking and allow her to find, you know, the way that it could unfold. And so what she said I'm going to put you on hold, I'm going to call him, I'll have him on the other line and neither one of you have to connect with each other and I will make it happen. And that's exactly what she did, but she did it lovingly, kind. I'm like wow, but I had to let go of my, and that's what.
Stephanie Allen:Why I'm saying that is that if you are stuck in all or nothing thinking internally, you're going to meet somebody with all or nothing thinking externally and you're going to butt heads and neither one of you are ever going to feel like you got heard or that you're honored, and it's like until one of us can let go, and that's not. That's not allowing the other person to have power over you. That's actually letting that internal mind stuff inside yourself to not have power over you. That's actually letting that internal mind stuff inside yourself to not have power over you. That you can make space inside your own awareness to go. There must be another way to connect. Where might that be? How might that unfold? But I have to look inside myself and go yeah, I can't really think that way or I have to really let go of that. Can I be in the not knowing and feel safe?
Maren Oslac:I love that example. I think of it as it's kind of like a container. If we think of a container and it's divided in two and in our all or nothing thinking, we both are actually thinking exactly the same way, but on opposite sides of the container. Beautiful image, yes, exactly. And to get to a truly different way of thinking, we have to step out of the container into a different container. What does that look like? Yeah, one above it. Yeah, yes, it transcends and includes, so that we still understand and we can, you know and include, so that we still understand.
Maren Oslac:And we live in a dual world, so we do need to be able to think this or that. We also live in a unified world, so evolving our thinking to the next level, and I think a lot of that has to do with I mentioned this earlier the modeling that we have in our world, and so the more we can step into that and model it and be transparent about it, kind of like we were with our team meeting, of like oh yeah, thanks for calling us on that. Oh yeah, thanks for calling us on that. And how can we do it different? How can we look at a higher way and do it differently For me recognizing. I want to do that differently in the future so that I'm clearer and we don't have to go through the crunchiness of like that didn't feel very good and now we're on opposite sides and instead of going through that great, I'm glad that we went through it. There's no shame, there's no blame, there's like oh, I learned, that's great and that's where growth happens.
Stephanie Allen:It is. It's you know. We're actually here to grow. We're here to be more awake, more aware with love, not with, I mean. We tend to become more awake and aware through pain, but that doesn't have to be the only way. We can also become awake and aware through love and joy and inspiration too.
Maren Oslac:So here's a place that you guys can start One of the things for myself. When I recognize that I'm feeling defensive, that I feel like I need to defend myself, I know that I've gone into all or nothing thinking.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, because the person you might feel attacked by I do.
Maren Oslac:Right If I've felt attacked, or oftentimes it's not even that person or that incident, right? I experienced this a lot in my home with my husband because we have many years together. So something comes up, it triggers something from my past and now I'm defensive and nothing's actually even happened in the outer world. I woke up defensive because he's already there, whatever it was. It's like, oh my God, I'm already defensive. I feel want to you know. It's like I feel myself in that energy. So when I, when that happens for me, that's one of the times where I start to become an observer and I go.
Stephanie Allen:Well, isn't that interesting Look at you go yeah, Instead of absorbing it you observe it. I love that.
Stephanie Allen:Say it again so, instead of absorbing all of the defensiveness from the other person or the attacks or from myself or from yourself, just observe it, like, give yourself some space, slow down, give yourself some space and just like you're watching a movie, like you're watching a movie and you might. You know, I always I have a crazy fun imagination. I imagine myself with a bunch of little thought bubbles and there's all kinds of stuff that's going on, and I almost literally kind of put myself in the audience and I watch the thought bubbles coming up or the opportunities and I'm like, well, that's really interesting, look at all those thought bubbles. So I observe it rather than absorb it. So same thing when someone's attacking you with accusing or you're doing something, it's like hmm, or you're watching something on the news or reading something in social media and it just doesn't really. It goes against your black and white thinking because they're black and white thinking.
Stephanie Allen:And you go, oh, I'm going to observe my body and my awareness, my behavioral. I'm just going to slow down and just notice. Am I in reaction? Behavioral I'm just going to slow down and just notice. Am I in reaction? Or do I want to fight them? Or do I want to run away? Or do I just want to delete them and block them? Just observe it, don't absorb it, just observe.
Maren Oslac:One of the exercises. Right now, we're in the middle of our eat, sleep, breathe, move, which is our inner mastery, where we look at each of those elements eating, sleeping, breathing and moving from the deeper inner place. So, instead of like what's the best way to eat and what's the best diet, it's what's eating you, and so we look at the higher perspective of each of those things. And we're in Breathe Week right now, and so one of the exercises that we give in Eat, sleep, breathe, move during Breathe Week is to observe your breathing, and it seems like a simple exercise until you try it, and that's one of the fastest ways. When you start to observe your breathing, it's one of the absolutely fastest ways to notice. When you go into black and white thinking, because you will go into shallower breathing, you might even hold your breath. You notice it, and now, the moment that that happens, you have space to make a change.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, when you notice that you're like space to make a change.
Maren Oslac:Yeah, like when you notice that and you're like okay, I'm just going to take a deep breath, you take a deep breath and imagine that, like that deep breath is actually cleaning you out of that old way of thinking and it gives you an opportunity to be like okay, what's another way.
Stephanie Allen:Yeah, and your nervous system will love you for it yes, it, it literally it literally will reset your nervous system so that you're not into emotional overload. You know, sometimes we just feel flooded and we can't think, see. You know, think, see or speak or hear correctly, we just we're just somewhere else. So it'll actually help you ground you again and you get your power back. You'll stand inside yourself.
Maren Oslac:Yeah, and then you'll be able to be a exemplar, a mentor, an example for the people around you and you can start. This is where we start to change the world, one, literally one being at a time, and me being that one being of I shift my own thinking in each moment and I recognize like, oh, I didn't need to go down that whole road, I can do it differently. And again, like I said, no shame or blame because, like you said, that's how we grow, so saying and congratulating ourselves of like I grew in that moment, woohoo, good for me and good for the world, because we need that. Thanks for joining us. Hopefully that was a good, fun thing.
Maren Oslac:You get to play with breathing this week over the next couple of weeks. And remember that we do our podcast every other week and in between we have great blog posts for you. So join our email list and you'll get those. You can find that at tslplife. That stands for the Soulful Leader Project, tslplife and you can find us on social media at the Soulful Leader. We'll see you all in two weeks on the Soulful Leader Podcast.
Stephanie Allen:And that wraps up another episode of the Soulful Leader Podcast with your hosts, Stephanie Allen and Maren Oslac.
Maren Oslac:Thank you for listening. If you'd like to dive deeper, head over to our website at thesoulfulleaderpodcastcom. Until next time, thank you.