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The Thing I Never Lost · Understanding Yourself: A Framework For Change

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Understanding Yourself.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a collection of stories, ideas,
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: and conversations designed to help us better understand ourselves
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: and maybe experience life a little differently.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for being here.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let's begin.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: The thing I never lost for years,
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: whenever life wasn't going the way I wanted, I asked the wrong question.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: How do I get out of this?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: How do I make this stop?
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: I asked it after relationships ended.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I asked it when work became overwhelming.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I asked it when I found myself facing problems that seemed impossible to solve.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: I'd replay every possible solution in my head,
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  SPEAKER_00: complain to anyone willing to listen,
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: and convince myself that if I just thought hard enough,
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'd eventually find the answer that would make everything okay again.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I wasn't really searching for an answer.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to escape the experience.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: These days, I try to ask a different question.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to learn?
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: My clients are probably tired of It's
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: amazing how difficult that question is
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: to answer,
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: not because people aren't intelligent,
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: but because we're all too close to our own lives.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And the funny thing is I'm no different.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how hard I try, I'm almost never the first person to recognize my own shortcomings.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The people who know me best usually see them long before I do.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the way,
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: life became a little easier when I stopped assuming I was
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: the most objective observer of my own life,
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: and I started listening to the people who loved me enough to tell me the truth.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: I remember sitting outside a treatment center about three weeks after I got sober.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Every afternoon before the evening AA meeting,
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'd sit on the same picnic table just outside the building.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: It was early spring and my body was still trying to figure out what life
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: without heroin felt like.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: I was constantly cold, but I was also sweating.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Sitting in the afternoon sun with the cool air on my face seemed
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: to help regulate my body at least a little bit.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: One afternoon a man walked over before the meeting.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't a counselor, he wasn't on staff, and he wasn't a client like me.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was just there for the meeting.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: He looked at me and asked what was wrong.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I looked miserable.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was written all over my face, my posture, He mentioned that my body was probably still
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember his explanation.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: I remember that he stayed.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I think that afternoon quietly changed the way I understood people.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: For a long time,
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I believed helping someone meant understanding them well enough to fix the problem.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted the right question, the right insight, the right answer.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: That afternoon taught me something different.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: That man never tried to understand everything I was carrying.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: He never tried to solve it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: He simply made time and space for me in his life.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: He sat beside me in my pain until I wasn't carrying it alone anymore.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, I didn't have the words to explain what I was feeling.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: That was pretty common for me in early recovery.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: We had a feelings group every morning where we had to write an emotion on the board.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: My peers would come up with words like perplexed.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: I wrote sad.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I had been writing sad for about three weeks,
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: so when this man asked me what was wrong, I honestly didn't know how to explain it.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I was overwhelmed.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: I knew I was sitting outside a treatment center, wondering how my life had gotten there.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But I didn't have much language for anything beyond that.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I don't think I needed someone to understand me that afternoon.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: I needed someone willing to be with me.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, I've noticed something else.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: Clients will often describe overwhelming sadness,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: regret, disappointment, or shame as though those feelings are somehow inappropriate.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: As though simply feeling them means something has gone terribly wrong.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: More often than not, their feelings make sense to me.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Given what they've shared with me,
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: the things they've experienced,
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  SPEAKER_00: the choices they've made,
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  SPEAKER_00: and where those choices have taken them, I can understand how they got there.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those feelings make sense.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes life has happened to them.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they've created part of the mess themselves.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Most of the time it's both.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I've hurt someone, regret makes sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I've wasted years running from my life, sadness makes sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: If I've disappointed people I love, disappointment makes sense.
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  SPEAKER_00: Those feelings aren't evidence that something is wrong with me.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: They're invitations to pay attention.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're invitations to learn.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've come to believe that some of the hardest seasons of our lives become
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: the moments that shape us the most.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not automatically.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Pain doesn't automatically make us wiser.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: I've met people who became bitter because of painful experiences.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I've met others who became remarkably compassionate.
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  SPEAKER_00: The experience wasn't what made the difference.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: The learning did.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: For me, the greatest lesson wasn't really about addiction.
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  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about work.
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  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't about relationships.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: It was about worth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Whenever I ask people how much worth a newborn baby has,
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  SPEAKER_00: the answer is almost always immediate, infinite, impossible to measure.
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  SPEAKER_00: Think about your own child for a moment.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have children, think about a child you love.
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  SPEAKER_00: Go all the way back to when they were born.
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  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't talk.
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  SPEAKER_00: They couldn't walk.
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  SPEAKER_00: They hadn't accomplished anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: They hadn't earned anything,
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: and yet I doubt you looked at them and wondered whether they had enough worth yet.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: They came into the world with the same inherent worth every other person comes into
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  SPEAKER_00: the world with.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now follow that child forward.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Did learning to talk increase their worth?
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  SPEAKER_00: No.
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  SPEAKER_00: Would making straight A's increase it?
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: What if they made a mistake?
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  SPEAKER_00: Would their worth decrease?
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: What if they engaged in less than perfect behavior like every human being eventually does?
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: Would their worth decrease?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us can see this pretty clearly when we're thinking about someone we love.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: The difficulty comes when we turn the same question towards ourselves.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Somewhere along the line,
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: we pick up the belief that our worth fluctuates as we move through life.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: I get a promotion, my worth increases.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: I lose my job, my worth decreases.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Someone rejects me, my worth decreases.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: I buy a nicer house, my worth increases.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I make more money, my worth increases.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: I get divorced, my worth decreases.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: None of that is true.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Those things absolutely affect something.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: They affect societal worth.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Societal worth is real.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: The person next to you at a stoplight may be driving a nicer car.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Someone else may have a larger home, a better title, a larger paycheck, or more influence.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Society rewards people who create value.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: It rewards competence, reliability, leadership, creativity, discipline, and service.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with any of that.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Societal worth changes every day.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: Human worth doesn't.
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  SPEAKER_00: The problem isn't that societal worth exists.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that somewhere along the line,
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  SPEAKER_00: we begin organizing our lives around it while forgetting that there is another kind
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  SPEAKER_00: of worth that never changes.
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  SPEAKER_00: We don't just confuse societal worth with human worth.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everyone deserves our attention.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly did.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: I spent years believing every success increased my worth and every failure decreased it.
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  SPEAKER_00: If someone rejected me, I didn't simply experience rejection.
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  SPEAKER_00: I experienced less worth.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: If I failed, I didn't simply fail.
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  SPEAKER_00: I became a failure.
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  SPEAKER_00: If someone criticized me, I didn't hear feedback.
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  SPEAKER_00: I heard evidence that I wasn't enough.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I don't think I was afraid of failure.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: I was afraid of what failure meant about me.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: The same thing happened with success.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I believed success would finally make me enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: It never did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Success felt wonderful.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: It opened doors, created opportunities, and allowed me to contribute in ways I couldn't before.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: But it never increased my worry.
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  SPEAKER_00: I
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: understood the idea of unconditional human worth long before I experienced it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: There's a difference.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I could explain it, defend it, probably even teach it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But understanding a belief and internalizing a belief are not the same thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Experience is what finally convinced me.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Failure did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Rejection did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Making amends did.
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  SPEAKER_00: Doing things I was convinced would expose my inadequacy did.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: One experience after another quietly challenged a story I had been telling myself for years.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Failure never lowered my worth.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Success never increased it.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually, my nervous system began believing what my mind had understood for a long time.
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  SPEAKER_00: My worth had never changed.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of the clearest reminders of that truth in my own life has come through
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: a prison ministry where I'm assigned to Penvale.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: We exchange letters regularly,
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  SPEAKER_00: and every letter reminds me how easily we confuse societal worth with human worth.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: From society's perspective, incarcerated men often represent the lowest level of societal worth.
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  SPEAKER_00: They've lost their freedom.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many have hurt people.
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  SPEAKER_00: Many have made decisions they deeply regret.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The consequences of those decisions are real, and accountability matters.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: None of that changes what I believe about their worth as human beings.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: The same unconditional worth I believe every newborn enters this world with is
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: the same worth possessed by the man writing letters from a prison cell.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those letters haven't just changed the way I see the man on the other end.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: They've changed the way I see myself.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the part that still surprises me.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: When I began focusing on the core worth that I have and every other human being has,
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  SPEAKER_00: something changed.
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  SPEAKER_00: I stopped looking at my career,
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: my income,
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: my accomplishments,
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  SPEAKER_00: or the way other people saw me as evidence of how much I was worth.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Those things could change a lot about my life,
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: but they couldn't change my worth as a human being.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing I will ever do to increase my worth as a human being.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing I will ever do to decrease it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: I have the same worth as every other human being.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: And when I really began to believe that something interesting happened,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: my societal worth went up.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: I became more of an asset to my employer.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I became more of an asset to my family.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I became more of an asset to my community.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not because my worth as a human being increased.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: I just became better at recognizing the worth that was already there,
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: both in myself and in everyone around me.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Today, when life isn't going the way I hoped, I still ask myself the same question.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to learn?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Not because every painful experience is good.
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  SPEAKER_00: Some experiences are tragic.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: Some should never happen.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I've discovered that the most difficult seasons of my life have also been
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: the seasons that shaped me the most.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: My ability to identify what those seasons are trying to teach me
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: and carry those lessons forward has determined the direction of my life far more
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: than any promotion, paycheck, or accomplishment ever has.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: Looking back, I don't think the greatest changes in my life came because I found better answers.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: They came because I had experiences powerful enough to change what I believed.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: Failure never lowered my worth.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Success never increased it.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: One gave me the opportunity to question what I believed.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The other gave me the opportunity to experience what had been true all along.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: My worth was never something I had to earn.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: It was something I had to remember.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've been listening from the beginning, thank you.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: It genuinely means a lot to me that you've spent some of your time with these essays
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: and these ideas.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Going forward, I'm going to slow things down just a little.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: The next five essays and podcast episodes will be released every other week instead
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: of every week.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm looking forward to sharing them with you.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thanks for listening to Understanding Yourself.