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The Living Room: Belonging Without Self-Abandonment · Echoes & Edges

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Echoes and Edges, the Broken and Beautiful podcast.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I'm really glad you're here. I'm Patria, the host for
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Echoes and Edges and the founder of the Broken and Beautiful.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Right now we're in a series about integrity. And if
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: you listened to the last episode, you know that I'm
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: using that word a little differently than sometimes we do.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I'm not primarily talking about integrity as honesty or morality
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: or doing the right thing. Although, of course, those things
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: are part of the picture. But I'm more thinking about
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: integrity in its basic sense of integration, what it means
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: to increasingly live as one whole person, where my inner
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: life and my outer life belong to one another. And
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: I don't have to abandon one part of myself in
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: order to maintain another. Last time I introduced an image
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: I've been calling the courtroom. I talked about what happens
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: when another person has a strong negative experience of us
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: or develops a story about who we are. And suddenly
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: we find ourselves answering a case we didn't quite realize
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: we'd entered. For me, that movement can happen incredibly quickly.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Instead of beginning with, wait, wait, wait, what is true here?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: I can move almost immediately toward, what am I missing?
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Oh no, what are they seeing that I can't see?
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Panic about what I need to own. As I said
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: in the last episode, those aren't bad things to consider.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: In fact, I want to remain the kind of person
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: who is willing to ask those questions of myself. I
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: don't want to become so certain of my rightness or
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: that I can never hurt somebody that other people can
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: no longer reach me. But I'm also beginning to understand
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: that there's a difference between self-examination that leads us toward
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: truth and self-examination that pulls us out of relationship with ourselves.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: And I think the question underneath that distinction is something
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: like what happens when someone else's interpretation becomes more authoritative
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: than my own knowing of myself. That question has been
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: staying with me, not because my knowing is infallible. Certainly
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: it isn't. I certainly have blind spots. I can misunderstand myself.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: I can be selfish and defensive. I can have an
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: intention that feels perfectly clear to me and still have
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: an impact on somebody else that I need to understand.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: I need people in my life who are willing to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: tell me the truth, particularly when it's a truth I
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: can't see on my own. But that's very different from
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: automatically assuming that someone outside of me has greater access
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: to my heart than I do. So I ended the
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: last episode with a deceptively simple question. Is this true
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: for me? Before I rush to prove that someone else
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: is wrong, before I rush to prove that I'm good,
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: and even before I start frantically searching for my own part,
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: can I remain still long enough to ask whether what
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: is being said is actually true for me? Today, I
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: want to move out of the courtroom and into another
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: image I've been carrying around, something much more like a
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: living room or a family room or a great room
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: with a great big cozy fireplace. And honestly, the difference
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: between those two rooms tells you quite a bit about
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: where I'm going. When I imagine this living room or
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: this family room, it's beautiful. Of course it is. Because
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: if you know me, you know, I care about things
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: being beautiful. And so in this living room, there are
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: big windows and lots of light. There are like creams
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and light and earthy greens and maybe a little pink
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: with something darker like forest green or navy perhaps that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: gives the room some weight. There are comfortable places to sit.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: It's lovely. But it isn't precious. It's the kind of
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: room where people can live. It's earthy. And importantly, there
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: is room for other people there. Because when I talk
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: about staying with ourselves, I'm not talking about building an
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: internal fortress where nobody gets to challenge us and everything
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: we feel becomes unquestionably true. That isn't what I mean
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: by self-trust, and it certainly isn't what I mean by integrity.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: What interests me is whether I can remain in relationship
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: with myself while I'm in relationship with you. Can your
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: experience matter without becoming the only experience in the room?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Can I discover that I've hurt you without immediately concluding
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: that I'm harmful? Can I listen to something difficult without
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: leaving my own chair in order to see myself entirely
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: through your eyes? And if after listening and considering and
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: being genuinely curious, I don't believe your interpretation of me
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: is true. Can I tolerate your disappointment without needing to
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: make either one of us wrong or demonized or bad somehow?
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: That's what the living room is beginning to represent for me.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: And I think this starts much earlier in our lives
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: than we realize. A baby comes into the world without
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: any concern about whether her needs are acceptable, right? You
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: know what I mean. She doesn't know what integrity is.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: She doesn't know whether she's easy or difficult, whether her
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: mother is tired, whether this is a convenient time to
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: be hungry or whether she's already cried too much today.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: She simply has an experience. She's hungry and she cries.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: She's frightened and she reaches. Something feels good and she settles.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Something doesn't feel good and she protests. Her little body
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: knows yes and no long before she has words for
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: either one. I don't want to romanticize infancy or suggest
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: that every baby experiences some perfect beginning. We know that
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: that isn't true. Babies are born into every imaginable kind
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: of circumstance, and some experience loss, stress, medical trauma, neglect,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: or disruption from the very beginning. But I'm trying to
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: get at something more elemental than that. There is an
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: original way in which our experience simply belongs to us.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: A baby doesn't have to build a case for why
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: she's hungry. She doesn't have to decide whether her discomfort
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: is legitimate enough to express. Her cry simply announces that
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: something is happening inside her and it matters. And then
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: relationship begins teaching us things, not always because somebody is cruel.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: That's important to understand too. Sometimes it's simply because we're
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: human beings being raised by other human beings, all of
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: whom have their own capacities and limitations. But eventually we
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: begin to discover that bringing certain parts of ourselves into
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: relationship costs more than bringing other parts of ourselves. Maybe
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: anger disrupts closeness or saying no brings disappointment. We might
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: notice that being easy gets praised or that being successful
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: gets attention. Maybe our sadness is difficult for someone we
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: love to tolerate while being funny changes the temperature of
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: the room in a way everybody seems to appreciate and smile.
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: We learn that disappearing can keep the peace and that
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: anticipating what everybody else needs can make both us and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: the people around us feel safer. None of this requires
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: a conscious decision. We are learning relationship while we are
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: learning ourselves. And I think somewhere inside all of that,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a much larger question begins to form. How much of
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: myself can I keep and still have with you? Because
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: by then, we're not simply asking whether we're allowed to
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: be angry or sad or strong or needy or hungry.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: We're learning something about what happens between us when I
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: bring those parts of myself to you. We're discovering whether
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: there is room for my actual experience inside this relationship,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: particularly when my experience inconveniences you or disappoints you or
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: asks something of you that you don't particularly want to
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: give or don't have to give. And eventually, I think
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the question underneath all of that becomes, can I remain
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: myself and still have relationship? For a little girl who
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: depends on relationship for virtually everything, that isn't an abstract
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: psychological question. A little girl needs her people. She needs connection.
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  Speaker 1: She needs belonging. She needs a type of space that
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: holds her psychological in such a way that she can
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: trust herself, that she can trust her needs, that she
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: can say yes and that she can say no without
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: the cost of this relationship. And so of course she adapts.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Of course we adapt. I think that's one of the
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: places my own understanding of healing has changed. I don't
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  Speaker 1: want to tell the story as though there was this
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  Speaker 1: perfectly intact little girl who somehow betrayed herself, became false,
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  Speaker 1: and now needs to find her way back to the
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  Speaker 1: person she was before anything happened. I don't think that's
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: fair to her, and I don't think it's accurate. she
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: was doing something remarkably intelligent. She was figuring out how
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: to preserve what mattered. If being easy helped preserve closeness,
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  Speaker 1: she became easier. If anticipating the emotional temperature of a
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  Speaker 1: room helped her know what was coming, she got really
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: good at reading rooms. If being useful gave her a
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: meaningful place in the family, boy, did she become useful.
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  Speaker 1: If taking responsibility restored a relationship more quickly, she learned
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  Speaker 1: to find her part. If being excellent brought delight, she
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  Speaker 1: may have become very, very good at being excellent. Those
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  Speaker 1: adaptations aren't necessarily evidence that something went wrong inside of her.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes they're evidence of just how beautifully and intelligently something
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  Speaker 1: inside her was working. She was preserving connection or safety
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  Speaker 1: or belonging. Maybe she was preserving peace or preserving freedom.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it mattered enough that she learned how
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  Speaker 1: to organize herself around keeping it. And here's where I
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  Speaker 1: think it gets really interesting because those adaptations don't disappear
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  Speaker 1: simply because we grow up. We bring them with us.
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  Speaker 1: The little girl who learned to read the room may
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  Speaker 1: become an extraordinarily perceptive adult. The girl whose usefulness gave
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  Speaker 1: her a place may become the person everybody can depend on.
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  Speaker 1: And the child who discovered that conflict threatened connection may
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  Speaker 1: become someone who is wonderful at helping people find common ground.
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  Speaker 1: And the little girl who learned that goodness mattered enormously
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  Speaker 1: may grow into a deeply conscientious woman who genuinely wants
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  Speaker 1: to know when she's hurt someone. Those are not necessarily weaknesses.
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  Speaker 1: Some of them become our gifts. I think that's why
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  Speaker 1: I resist language that treats every adaptation as pathology. I
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  Speaker 1: don't want to look backward at myself and say, look
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: at all the unhealthy things I learned to do. I
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  Speaker 1: would much rather ask, what was I trying to preserve?
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  Speaker 1: That question feels completely different to me. It doesn't shame
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  Speaker 1: the adaptation, but it also doesn't require me to keep
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  Speaker 1: doing it forever. And it gives me another question to
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: ask now as an adult, do I still need to
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  Speaker 1: do this in order to have that which I'm trying
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  Speaker 1: to preserve? Because that's where an adaptation can quietly become
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  Speaker 1: a problem. Not when I'm useful or sensitive or accommodating
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  Speaker 1: or conscientious, but when I no longer realize I have
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  Speaker 1: a choice, when I can becomes I must. There's a
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  Speaker 1: difference between enjoying being useful and and needing to be
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: useful in order to feel that I have a place.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: There's a difference between caring that someone is disappointed in
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  Speaker 1: me and assuming their disappointment means I've done something wrong.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: And there's a difference between being deeply interested in another
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  Speaker 1: person's experience and allowing their experience to become more authoritative
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: than my own. And there's a profound difference between examining
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  Speaker 1: myself because I want to know the truth and distrusting
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: myself because I believe goodness requires it. Those distinctions are
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: subtle and usefulness is one of the places where I
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: personally have had to learn them for myself. I genuinely
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: love being useful. I love helping people. I love seeing
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: connections between things and finding possibilities that weren't obviously there before.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: I love building something where there wasn't something. I love
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: being able to walk alongside someone and see them find
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: language or clarity or freedom they didn't have before. I
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: don't want to heal myself out of any of that.
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  Speaker 1: That's actually part of me. But I've had to become
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: more interested in the point where I love being useful
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  Speaker 1: turns into I must be useful. Because if usefulness is
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: one of the ways I've learned to experience my place
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: in the world, then somebody not needing me can feel
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: like more than somebody not needing me. You know what
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: I mean? Somebody rejecting my help can feel more like
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: a rejection of me as a person rather than a
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: simple no. And someone who I've loved or helped or
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: poured into developing a negative interpretation of me can touch
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: something much deeper than ordinary disagreement. Now we aren't just
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: dealing with criticism. We're brushing up against belonging, goodness, connection,
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: and identity. And when that happens, it makes sense that
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: the old strategies come rushing back because when that happens,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: we feel shame. The shame can bring things and responses
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: that sound exactly like the good things and the essence
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: of us and the gifts, but they're not the same thing.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: So shame can say, I want to understand, I want
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: more information, I want to repair, I want to know
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: what I did, et cetera, et cetera. But if shame
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: or contempt or self-contempt is driving it, those exact same questions,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: then it takes us out of the living room and
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: back into the courtroom, which is why I don't think
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: the opposite of the courtroom is saying, well, I know
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: who I am and I don't care what you think.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: That doesn't sound integrated to me either. I care very
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: much what some people think. I care what my husband thinks.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I care what my children think. I care what my
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: closest friends think. I don't actually aspire to a life
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: in which nobody else's perception can touch me. Other people
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: can see things I can't see. There are things I
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: know about myself today because somebody loved me enough to
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: tell me something difficult. There are ways I've changed because
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: someone said, Patria, and took my face in their hands
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and said, I think you need to look at this.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: And after some resistance or confusion or time, I realized
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: they were right. I want those people in my living room,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: but I think there's a really important distinction here. They're
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: in the room with me. They're not sitting behind the
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: judge's bench and I'm not on the witness stand. We're
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: trying to understand reality together. That feels like a very
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: different posture. Maybe that's one of the clearest differences between
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: these two rooms. The courtroom is ultimately organized around reaching
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: a verdict. The living room has room for conversation. And
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: conversation can hold so much more complexity than a verdict can.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: I can say that I genuinely loved someone and something
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I did hurt them. I can say that I made
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: a decision I still believe was the right decision and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: that it had a painful impact on somebody I care about.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I can recognize that I misunderstood someone without concluding that
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: everything I understood was wrong. I can realize that someone
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: misunderstood me without deciding that they are cruel or malicious.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: I can wish something had gone differently and still believe
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: I made the best decision I knew how to make
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: at the time. Sometimes repair is possible inside that complexity
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes two people can sit together
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: long enough to discover that the story was larger than
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: either of them knew. And sometimes two people leave the
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: same relationship with very different understandings of what exactly happened.
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: That last one is hard for me, I'll admit. I
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: like coherence. I like understanding. It makes me feel safe.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: I like the moment when enough information comes together and
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: something finally makes sense and light dawns on my marble head.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: One of my favorite things. But relationships don't always give
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: us that moment. Sometimes there is no shared verdict, certainly
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: no shared understanding. And perhaps that's part of why truth
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: has become such an important word to me. I don't
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: mean my truth in the sense that anything I experience
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: becomes objectively true. I just mean reality. The largest version
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: of reality that I can get close enough to, to inhabit.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Truth can include the fact that you were hurt and
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: that I didn't intend to hurt you. It can include
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: my responsibility without requiring me to take responsibility for everything.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: It can include your disappointment and my continued belief that
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the boundary I set was necessary. It can include love
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: and anger, regret and conviction, grief and relief. Truth doesn't
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: always clean things up. But for me, truth feels earthy.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: It puts my feet underneath me, even when I don't
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: particularly like what is true. There is something grounding about
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: no longer requiring reality to turn out a certain way.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: And I think we need people who can help us
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: do that. My mom said something to me years ago
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: that has stayed with me. She told me that I
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: would probably leave this world with the number of true
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: friends that I could count on one hand. It struck
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: me as true then, and it strikes me as even
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: more true now. Not in a sad way, and not
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: because I think we should shrink our lives down to
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: four or five people and stop letting anyone else matter.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I think she was naming something about the rarity of
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: genuine intimacy. There may be many people in our lives,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: people we enjoy and people we work with, people we
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: serve and people who serve us, people who admire us
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: and people who don't particularly like us, people who know
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: important parts of our stories. But there are relatively few
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: people who take the time and really the risk to
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: become curious about our hearts. They don't just tell us
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: what we intended, they ask. They want to know what
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: happened inside us. They want to understand what we were
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: trying to do, and they're willing to consider that their
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: interpretation might not contain the whole story. And importantly, they
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: don't need us to be innocent. I don't need a
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: soul friend who always thinks I'm right. I need people
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: who want to know me more than they need to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: have an explanation for me. And I think those are
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: living room people. They make it possible for us to
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: stay present when something difficult happens because the relationship itself
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: has enough room for more than one experience within it.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: I can hear that I hurt you and stay in
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the room. I can feel the sting and even the
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: defensiveness that comes up in me without letting defensiveness make
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: my decisions. I can remember what I intended without using
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: my intentions to erase your experience. And I can take
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: your experience seriously without using it to erase mine. And
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: maybe after we have stayed there long enough, I realize
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: you're right. Or I understand something I didn't understand before.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Maybe I owe you an apology. Maybe I need to
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: make a change. Or perhaps I understand your experience much
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: better than I did before and still don't agree with
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: your conclusion about me. A living room, a soul friend,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: has room for that too. And this is probably the
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: part I wish weren't true. Sometimes staying with yourself costs
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: that friend that you really want in your living room.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: Sometimes saying no changes that relationship and sometimes becoming less
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: useful means means someone has less use for you. Sometimes
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: telling the truth changes the system that worked better when
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: you didn't say it. And sometimes you stop carrying responsibility
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: that never actually belonged to you and the people who
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: benefited from you carrying it do not experience that change
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: as growth. And sometimes you can listen carefully, examine yourself honestly,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: apologize for what is yours, make whatever repair is available
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: to you And the relationship still ends. That is grief.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: I don't want to turn that into a triumphant story
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: about boundaries. Sometimes there is nothing triumphant about it. Sometimes
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: it is just terribly sad. Belonging matters. Connection matters. Losing
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: people hurts. Being misunderstood by somebody you love hurts. Having
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: someone walk away with a story about you that you
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: cannot correct hurts. Integrity doesn't protect us from that. And
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: I think we need to say that because otherwise integration
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: becomes one more formula. Become healthy enough and your relationships
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: will work. Some relationships do become deeper as we become
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: more whole. Others reveal how much they deepened upon our adaptation.
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: That's painful information, but it's still information. And maybe that's
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: where the living room image has become particularly meaningful to
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: me because the living room is in my home. I
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: belong there before anybody else walks through the door. Someone
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: can come sit with me there. They can disagree with
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: me there. They can be angry with me there. They
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: can tell me something I desperately need to hear. They
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: can misunderstand me there and then they can leave. But
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: if they leave, I don't have to follow them out
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: the door and abandon my own house. I can be sad.
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: I can wish they would come back. I can wonder
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: whether I could have done something differently. I can talk
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: with people I trust and ask them to help me
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: see clearly. I can remain open to repair if repair
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: becomes possible. But I don't have to leave myself in
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: order to prove that the relationship mattered. That is a
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: very different kind of stability than not needing anybody. And
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I'm after. not independence, not invulnerability,
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: not even certainty, but the capacity to stay with myself
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: while remaining genuinely available to relationship. And that brings me
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: back to integrity. Maybe integrity is being able to hold
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: both of these realities at once. I am here and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: you are here. Your experience matters to me without becoming
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: the only experience that matters. If something belongs to me,
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: I want to be able to recognize it and take
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: responsibility for it. If I've caused harm, I want enough
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: stability to face that without collapsing into shame and hiding
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: my face and running away. If an apology is mine
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: to give, I want to give it freely, open-faced, eyes up,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: rather than as evidence that I'm a good person. And
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: when something does not belong to me, I want to
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: become increasingly able to set it down leave it where
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: it belongs, even if picking it up would make the
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: relationship easier. And I'm telling you, at least for me,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: you guys, that's hard. For some of us, that may
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: be some of the hardest work we ever do, because
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: we're not simply changing a behavior, we're touching the old
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: question underneath it. Can I remain myself and still have you?
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: And sometimes the answer is yes, Sometimes the relationship expands
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: and another person surprises us with their capacity to know
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: more of who we actually are. But sometimes the answer
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: is no. Sometimes remaining ourselves means accepting that a particular
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: relationship cannot come with us in the form we wanted
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: it to. Perhaps part of integrity is becoming able to
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: survive both answers without turning either one into a verdict
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: about our identity. or our worth or our belovedness. So
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: this week, I want you to notice your chair, not
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: a throne, not a judge's bench, just your chair in
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: your own living room. Pay attention to what happens inside
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: you when someone is disappointed in you. when you sense disapproval,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: when somebody wants something from you that you don't want
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: to give, or you don't have capacity to give, or
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: when you've really genuinely made a mistake, notice whether you
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: can remain in contact with yourself while you're taking in
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: the other person's experience. Can you stay curious without immediately
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: surrendering what you know to the feeling of shame and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: embarrassment and humiliation? Can you ask what is true here
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: and allow the answer to emerge slowly enough that you
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: don't have to force either guilt or innocence? And maybe
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: underneath all of that, maybe you can begin wondering, what
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: am I trying to preserve? And that's where I want
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: to go next. The next episode, we're going to go
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: visit the well. There was a time in my life
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: when I was actually extremely angry at God because I
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: felt like I was surviving on little sips of water.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: I would get a little clarity or relief and a
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: sense of purpose, some small confirmation that what I was
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: doing mattered. And then I would find myself right back
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: in that familiar place of wondering whether I was doing enough.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Am I useful enough? Am I making enough of an impact?
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: Does what I'm building really matter? Those questions haven't magically disappeared,
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: but my relationship to them is changing because I'm beginning
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: to wonder whether the water was ever as scarce as
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: I really felt like it was. Maybe I was so
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: accustomed to reaching outside myself for evidence that my life
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: mattered that I couldn't fully receive the abundance already present
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: within it. And I don't mean abundance in a wispy
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: or sentimental way. I mean it in an actual life
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I can inhabit work and beauty. grief and friendship, desire
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: and rest, purpose and disappointment, God and my own interior life,
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: the people I love and the things that remain painfully unresolved, broken,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: and beautiful. both so the courtroom began with the question
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: of what happens when someone else's interpretation becomes more authoritative
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: than my own knowing and the living room asks whether
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: I can remain seated in myself while still making room
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: for you Thank you so much for joining me today
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: on Echoes and Edges, the Broken and Beautiful podcast. If
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: someone came to mind while you were listening, not someone
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: you need to convince of anything, but someone you would
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: genuinely like to sit beside in this conversation, would you
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: mind sending this episode to them? And be sure to
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: like and subscribe. Remember that our algorithms are all run
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: by those five-star reviews. So if you think that it
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: deserves a five-star review, I would be so grateful. And
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: either way, please know how deeply grateful I am for
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: you as you listen. And I'll see you next time.
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: If this episode resonates with you, follow or subscribe to
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: Echoes and Edges on your favorite podcast platform. Leave a
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: five-star review and share with a friend who might need
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: a gentle invitation to self-understanding. Echoes and Edges is produced
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: and edited by Stephen R. Sanders. Music promoted by Envato.