Babbling About Accountability: The Mirror We All Love to Avoid

#212: What if accountability could feel like relief instead of punishment? We take a hard, honest look at the patterns that drive our reactions—scrolling to numb, anger to protect, silence to avoid—and explore how awareness turns pain into data and boundaries into self-respect. I start with a small but telling experiment: deleting social media during Lent to cut the dopamine loop and face what I’ve been avoiding. From there, we unpack the difference between false accountability (self-blame, people-pleasing, carrying others’ failures) and the real thing: noticing our triggers, naming our patterns, and taking ownership of the part that’s ours, no more and no less.

We walk through why inner work is messy but liberating. Anger often feels safer because the nervous system rewards it with certainty and adrenaline; vulnerability shakes us open. I share practical language shifts—how “I don’t care” often hides “I cared and it hurt”—and the two questions that change everything: Where have I felt this before? Why did this affect me so deeply? Those prompts help trace the roots of our reactions and stop the spiral from repeating. We also clear up a buzzword: everyday narcissistic tendencies are common protective reflexes, not a diagnosis, and accountability is the antidote that brings us back to truth.

Three real-life examples ground the ideas. When someone’s silence stings, the work is recognizing capacity and not arguing with reality. When work stress spikes irritability, the work is asking for help and dropping loads that aren’t ours. When overgiving leads to resentment, the work is repairing boundaries and taking responsibility for the energy we continue to spend. Relationships move forward not by copying each other’s styles, but by learning each other’s wiring—communication, capacity, and care included. If you’re ready to trade blame for clarity and avoidance for growth, press play and sit with the questions that set you free.

If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review to help others find these conversations. What pattern are you unlearning this week?

Transcript

Johnna 0:00

What is up, everyone? Welcome back to another episode of the Babbles Nonsense podcast. This week we are going to talk about accountability a little bit. Yes, I know another deep inspirational podcast. You're probably all like, come on, where's the fun, lighthearted stuff? Hopefully it'll come back. This is just where I'm at in my life right now. Um, also, I deleted my social media apps from my phone this morning. Um, I'm recording this on Monday. Y'all will hear it on Tuesday. And I deleted my social media apps this morning. No warning. Didn't say anything to anyone. So if there's any messages in the DMs, they'll get answered when I get back on. My goal is to last until after Easter for Lent. I've never done or given up anything for Lent, but it was just much needed for real because I have been a scroll, scroll, scroll person here lately, and that's typically not like me. So needed that break. I'm sure it was a dopamine addiction, just scrolling on TikTok. Um, and then of course going down the political rabbit hole. I just I needed a break. So it was a great time for a break, and we shall see how long I last. And since this episode is about accountability, then hopefully I can hold myself accountable to that. But, anyways, um, for me, when I hear people say the word accountability, it almost feels automatically like punishment, like it has that negative connotation to it. Um, it's it feels like blame or guilt. And it's also become one of those hot topics or buzzwords lately, I feel like, because we see it on TikTok or social media where it's talking about all the therapy talk. Um, but what does that even mean when we talk about accountability? Well, per Google, accountability is awareness, honesty, and ownership of your inner world, such as your patterns, your fears, your reactions, and your choices. Accountability is not looking back at your life and saying that you did everything wrong, but it's looking back and saying, I finally understand why I did things that I did or the way I did them. And that's what we're gonna get into today. So let's dive in. All right, we're just gonna jump straight on into it because I gave you a very long introduction, nor much longer than I normally do. Um, but I kind of just want to reiterate like what I feel most people think accountability is, because it's a lot of the things that I feel, so obviously I can't speak for everyone, but this is just generalized. Um, I feel like we think that accountability means blaming yourself, shaming yourself, taking responsibility that isn't actually ours to take, or carrying other people's failures, whether that be your parents, um your siblings, your children, whoever it may be, um, apologizing a lot for the needs that we have, staying silent so that we quote unquote keep the peace for other people, or assuming that we are always the problem anytime something goes wrong, doesn't go our way, or maybe someone pulls away. And that's not true accountability, that's really emotional self-abandonment. And that's something I'm having a hard time um honing in on or staying true to because I do self-abandon myself a lot. Like the more I am in therapy and things are coming out, and the more introspection I am having, that's what I'm realizing. And true accountability is looking at that inward aspect and exposing those patterns we keep running back to, whether it be childhood trauma, attachment styles, learned behavior. And let me just be clear that's not easy to do. Doing that inner work or, you know, going to therapy and talking to people or and even after, like that's one of the things that I used to think. I I used to think, oh, we can just go to therapy and talk about it, and everything's gonna be great and dandy, and I'm gonna be this happy person. And I always used to say, well, talk therapy doesn't help me or it doesn't work for me. And I think that's because it's that that hard part that you have to go home and do. You have to continue working on it. You have to, you know, realize it's messy and sit with yourselves and realize that we're not all that in a bag of chips. It means admitting that we are wrong and acknowledging those faults and where can we grow and where do we then create new boundaries and new thought processes and how can we do that? And the only way to do that is we have to go inward, do the hard work, and become accountable. So we're gonna get a little bit more deep into the psychological aspect of it while also remembering that I'm not a therapist. Let's just keep that in mind. I'm just a human that has really liked and enjoyed learning these human patterns lately. Um, just I think from being friends with Min Yu and doing podcasts with her and going through her life coaching courses, and then of course going through several therapists myself and finding one that has really made me think a lot lately. Um, but anyways, we're gonna go back to why it's messy, why it's not easy, and why being accountable for ourselves is hard. Um, so I've kind of divided this out. So one of the reasons is being holding yourself accountable requires that inner work, and that inner work then exposes the patterns that we have and that we hold on to because we're used to it, right? It's familiar familiar, I can't ever say this word, familiarity. Y'all have a good laugh at that because I'm not editing it out. Um it's not those, it's not our prettiest moments. Like I know I've said before, like when we post on social media, whether it be Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, whatever it may be, we post those good moments. We post those highlight reels where we're looking our best, you know, we're smiling, we're laughing. We're just out and about living our lives. And that's not always quote unquote real world. Um, we don't share things when we're constantly over giving or settling or staying silent, um, while we chase clarity from people who thrive in ambiguity, while we ignore red flags because connection feels good for a minute. We don't talk about those things. I try to on my podcast, I try to be as open as I can while still, you know, keeping some to myself, just because these are the thoughts that I do have and have conversations with my friends about. Um, number two, why that inner work is hard is because it forces us to face our emotional reflexes. And everyone, including you, including me, all of us humans out there have narcissistic tendencies. Don't shoot the messenger, and please hear me when I say this. I'm not saying that you have a narcissistic personality disorder, but we all tend to lean toward narcissistic tendencies. And I know narcissistic personality disorder or just saying they're a narcissist has been a huge buzzword lately. But what does that even mean? So narcissistic tendencies mean that when we're hurt, we project that hurt onto others. When we're uncomfortable, we blame outward. When we feel shame, we deflect. When we feel rejected, we create stories to protect our ego. And that's really just human of us. It's it's just trying to protect our brains and it's survival, which really, when we think about it, could be probably the deeper layer of it all because we all have these tendencies. Every human being has moments where we don't want to be the bad guy in our own story. So we push that blame outward, we project it onto other people, we rewrite the narratives, we villainize others to avoid looking at our own insecurities, whether that be, you know, loneliness or wounds under those reactions that we may have. Even the ones who have done self-work and can self-reflect do it. We all do it. I do it. I continue to do it. Mine tends to come out a lot in irritability or anger. I know when I'm in therapy, those are the two things. Like every time she's like, What emotions are you feeling? Those are the two that come up the most for me. But really, when we look at frustration, irritability, anger, those are those are emotions that cover deeper wounds. And I'm I'm trying to learn the different emotions because I've hidden them for so long for out of self-protection that my therapist sometimes has to hand me an emotion will so that I can be, she can be like, which one of these words feels more true to what you're feeling? And the absolute truth of all of that is that accountability is kind of the antidote to narcissistic tendencies because accountability forces us to get honest about our patterns and our triggers and those inner child wounds. Maybe it forces us to be honest about our coping mechanisms, our delusions of quote unquote, I don't care, when we clearly and deeply do. And going back to what I said where mine, you know, my tendencies turn out to be whether I'm irritable or angry. And I was like, why is that? And we all know that feeling anger, irritable frustration, um, it's easier, right? Um let me give you some examples. So for like, for example, when we are angry, it can come out like I don't care, you can't hurt me, I'm in control, you don't matter, anyways. Even when we may not feel that way, but like if we chose to be vulnerable instead, it would come across as I cared, that hurt me, that triggered something old in me, this touched a wound I don't want to look at. So which one of those feels safer to you? Right? That the anger words feel safer every single time because it then doesn't force us or expose us to become accountable and to look inward and say, what about this situation, whatever it may be that you're going through, is triggering in me that I can hold myself accountable for and work on it. And I'm not saying every single time, but I think almost in every single instance in our life, whether good or bad, there is something that we can figure out about ourselves in it. Um, but I had to look it up because I was like, this is interesting. Like, you know how they say a lot of times, like it's easier to smile, or sorry, it's easier to frown than to smile. So I was like, that makes sense because it's easier to feel irritable or angry other than, you know, holding yourself accountable or vulnerable. And so this is what I found. And I found these explanations. So the nervous system explanation of it all. Um, anger is a fight response. So it gives our body adrenaline, certainty, protection, and a sense of control. Where vulnerability is a fear response and it gives your body shakiness, uncertainty, openness, and emotional exposure. And your brain will always choose protection over exposure unless you intentionally interrupt the pattern. So the psychological explanation to this that I found was that anger allows you to stay righteous, stay distant, avoid introspection, avoid accountability, avoid grief, and avoid rejection. It's a distraction from the deeper truths underneath it all. The mind loves anger because it gives you something to do. Vulnerability gives you something to feel. And most people are far more comfortable doing than feeling. And we can see that, right? Like that's why there's so much addiction, whether that be to social media, which is why I'm giving it up, because instead of having to think about my issues or figure out what I'm feeling, I just scroll. And, you know, we all do some kind of form of that to just numb the pain or not think about it. And I don't want to do that. I want to work through my own problems and hold myself accountable. So I was like, you know what? Let's delete the social media. And then the emotional explanation that I found for all this was that being mad is a quicker response. You don't have to sit with your own disappointment, acknowledge your unmet needs, admit that you're hurting, admit that you still care about the situation, admit that you wanted more. So anger burns fast, vulnerability lingers. So I thought that was really interesting. And then to finalize out what I know that kind of was a long explanation of why um inward work forces us to face our emotional reflexes. So apologize for that. But the third one that I have is that inner work shows us the places we've been lying to ourselves. And that right there, my friends, is the hardest part. It's all good as gold when we're lying outwardly to other people, but baby, when we realize we have been lying to ourselves, that one is the one we can't unsee. So why is it that we push blame outward and refuse to take that accountability? Or we can look at it in other words, why is it just so hard to hold ourselves accountable and not lie to ourselves? And for me personally, I've realized that I push outward when I'm feeling overwhelmed. And for me, like I had mentioned earlier, that can come out as anger, irritability, me being short or snappy, letting small things that typically wouldn't bother me overwhelm me. Like, for example, if work is draining me or my hormones are all over the place, which seems to be a lot lately, welcome perimetables. Um, or when maybe someone disappears in my life instead of communicates, it's easier for me to think they're the problem. I didn't do anything, but really it could just be that I need hormone replacement, I'm burnt out with work, I'm not sleeping well, I'm not standing up for myself in relationship aspects. And instead of saying they're the problem, I don't need to think about it, I need to look at what I can do where I can hold myself accountable and stop blaming the outward experience and fix the inner experience. And when we start recognizing those outward blaming situations, it does three things. It gives temporary relief, it protects our ego, and it avoids the deeper question of why did this affect me so deeply? And I think that's something that we we have to start asking ourselves is like, why did this affect me so deeply? And uh I'm gonna tell you to hold it there because I did actually I'm just gonna go ahead and give you the example because I was gonna, I'm gonna give another example later. But I listened to a podcast recently that Mew had sent me with Jay Shetty and Sabrina, hopefully I don't butcher her last name, Zahar, Zohar. Love her. You've probably seen her on TikTok. She um is a dating and relationship coach, I believe. Um, but she said when she starts realizing something like is not sitting right with her, um, instead of saying, why did this affect me so deeply? She asks herself, where have I felt this before? Or when did I first feel this feeling to kind of go back and figure out where that trigger was coming from? So I think we do both, right? Like we say, when do I remember see hearing or feeling this way the first time? And then why did why am I letting this affect me so deeply? Because sometimes it is just that it's a learned pattern, right? And we have to unlearn it, and that's hard, especially the older we get, because patterns kind of get set in them the way in their own ways. But I and I used to say this a lot when I was younger. I used to be like, well, that's just who I am. And some of it is who we are, right? But I also think that there is a way to be a little bit more digestible to people, it especially if we want them in our lives. Um, and that's the real inner work. And a lot of times asking that one or two simple questions comes with layers of pulling that back within yourself. And I'm gonna say this it's wonderful if you can ask yourself these questions and be so in tune and so self-reflective that you can figure it out on your own. But me, I cannot. Like I I consider myself a very self-reflective person, but that's why I still go to therapy. And it did it, and like I said earlier, it took me several therapists to find one that does help me move through issues versus just talking, repeating, talking, repeating over and over and over and reliving trauma because I wanted actionable steps. Um, so if y'all need a good therapist, just DM me. Well, I probably won't get it for weeks um as long as I hold myself accountable um on the social media. Um, but y'all can always email me. I will definitely be able to get my emails. Um, but to kind of wrap this all up, I want to give a few of my own personal examples to kind of make this a little more relatable and drive it home a little bit, even though y'all are probably like, shut up. If you made it this far, I'm happy for you. Um, so I'm gonna give three different examples to kind of like like a relationship example, work, and then um just like when we're over giving. So the first example I'll give you is kind of like when someone's silence hurts you more than it should. And recently I had to look inward um when someone's silence hit me harder than I wanted to admit. And at first I had told myself, well, this doesn't bother me at all. But when I did some introspection, it did. And it wasn't just about the person disappearing during a hard conversation, it was more about the part of me that hoped that they may show up differently, or the part of me that wanted clarity, even though the silence was the clarity, and the part of me that didn't want to seem quote unquote needy, even though I feel it's very human to communicate your needs. And something else I've learned recently is like one person can feel that they've communicated the same thing over and over, but if it keeps coming up for another person, that means it's still triggering something in them. And I know that a lot of us as humans get tired of having the same conversation over, but I think that we also have to hold space for people. That's me, that's my personal opinion. And if we can't, that turns into a capacity issue, which I need to get menu on here so that we can talk about capacity because I've learned a whole lot about capacity late recently. Um, anyways, going back, it's also about the part of me that ignored the pattern because connection feels good. And so my accountability and all of that was that I keep showing up the same way, expecting a different result. And when I say showing up the same way, um, it's still trying to communicate the needs, whether it, and it doesn't matter if you're changing the words, the verbiage, the approach, it's still essentially continuing to have the same conversation that has been had and expecting a different result. And kind of that's where I've learned about capacity because some people don't have the capacity or don't and it come it comes down to capacity not caring. People can care about you very deeply, but the capacity in the container that they have at that moment, so I had to realize that. And that was something I had to take accountability for because I kept hoping this person would grow into the version that I had imagined for them, not the version that they're showing up as and having the capacity for. And it was never really about asking why they didn't want to have the conversation, it was more about asking myself, why am I still allowing this to affect me when the answer has been in front of me this whole time? And so it was just a different approach and how I looked at how something kind of went down, I guess. Um, and so the example two that I'll give you is about like work stress and how that can break your own capacity. And so I feel like we're all kind of feeling it in this moment, especially after a year, like after the the an old year ends and the new year begins, it's kind of like grind central again. And so I've been dealing with a lot of work stress. Last year, you know, our work kind of changed a lot of things and I lost income and I've just kind of been stretched thin and carrying a lot of responsibility that isn't really mine to carry. And I noticed myself getting irritated at people around me and a lot easier than normal. There goes the word irritation again. Um, but if I if I paused, then the truth hit me. It's more that I'm just exhausted, I'm overwhelmed, and I'm trying to be strong through something, even though I'm struggling and stressed, and that's where I have to find accountability. It's I'm not speaking up soon enough. I'm not um asking for help. I'm trying to carry everything alone and I'm pushing myself past empty because that's what I've always done, and that's just what I've, you know, been taught. And it's a learned behavior to just do everything and kind of bear and get through it. Um, but yeah, more on that later because that could be a whole nother podcast itself. And then the example three that I'll give you is when we overgive out of pattern and it's not really intentional. And that's a huge pattern, kind of like I talked about in, you know, work. I do it, I do it a lot. I do it in work and relationships and friendships. I tend to really overextend and overgive. And sometimes it's it may not be out of. You know, generosity, even though I feel like it is, because I truly do care about people. But sometimes I am stressed and I'm tired. And I've always played that role of being the fixer or the strong one, or she's dependable, she'll answer, she doesn't really got a lot going on. And all of that is true, but that doesn't mean that I don't have my own stressors. And I think sometimes forget sometimes people forget when you are single and you're not in a relationship and you don't have children that just because you don't have that stress doesn't mean that you don't have other types of stress. Um, and so when people don't match that energy back or maybe check on me, because you know, I don't really have much like family relational things going on, then I start to feel a little bit of resentment. And that resentment isn't necessarily towards that person, it's more towards myself for overfunctioning. And that's where when I talked about earlier those narcissistic tendencies, even though I know it's frustration and resentment at myself, you then try to um, oh, what's the word? Project it onto someone else. Where and that's where you come into that narcissistic tendency because it's like, oh, it can't be me. But really, when we look deep and we turn inward and we hold that accountability, that accountability comes through as I'm responsible for the energy I continue to give, not the energy that people give back. And honestly, if we're being truly honest, a lot of us are really guilty of wanting people to love and treat us the way that we treat others. And that's just not realistic because we all have different traumas, communication styles, patterns, and love languages. And going back to the podcast that I listened to with Jay Shetty and Sabrina Zohar, they both had said relationships require learning each other, not copying each other. And that really stuck with me because when we're trying to figure out relationships, whether that be work relationships, friendships, romantic relationships, we're all trying to do the best we can in the way that we've learned, but a lot of we we forget you're bringing two different personalities, two different traumas, communication styles, patterns, love languages, all of that together. And a lot of it is simply settled with holding yourself accountable and communication. But, anyways, um, kind of that's where we'll leave it for real, because accountability isn't about blaming, you know, yourself for everything that happens to you. It's about understanding the why and why certain things hit so deeply and why certain patterns repeat, why certain people or careers feel familiar even when they may not be good for us. Looking inward is not comfortable. I'll be the first to admit that. But it's really the only thing that can stop those cycles. And it's not going to be an overnight thing, it's gonna be a lot of work and it can be very frustrating. But let's face it, we can spend our entire lives reacting to this world that has gone insane, or we can spend it understanding ourselves because blame keeps us stuck, avoidance keeps us blind, and accountability will ultimately set us free. And that's why I like doing these types of podcasts. A lot of it makes me hold myself accountable for things that I have to reflect on to share with you guys. And as I'm doing it, I'm thinking about certain experiences. And of course, when I'm done recording, I then go and think about it some more. And this week, I just want us to go into the week and let's choose a little bit of honesty, choose awareness, and if nothing else, choose ourselves. And we can do that by holding ourselves accountable. All right, guys, until next time. Thanks for babbling with me. Share this with a friend if it was helpful and tune in next week.