Latest / Conversations with My Walls / On grey rocking, pigs, & the beauty of oversharing

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On grey rocking, pigs, & the beauty of oversharing · Conversations with My Walls

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey it's Morgan and welcome to Conversations with My Walls episode 10.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've been dealing with an overarching theme of disappointment that's creeped up
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: in my life and honestly it made me stall in posting my next episode
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: because what I was going to talk about didn't feel as true anymore and it's not fair
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: to pretend I owe that honesty to you dear listener and myself.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: It started with being stood up again, ended with a pig,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: and has a lot to do with the new girls reboot.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Years ago, a woman at Costco at the hearing aid center
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: of all apropos places said,
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can only control what I say, not what other people hear.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: That statement has never felt more true.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: There are people in the world who will always see themselves as untouchable to accountability.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Even when they are the ones in the wrong.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I found myself in conversation with such a person who was a no-show.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: They stood me up, and when I responded with a boundary, they escalated things.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Mind you, here's the important part.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: This was not in a dating situation at all, which makes the bad behavior even more surprising.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's where we expect it, right?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it exists in other corners of connection and interactions.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you cannot argue with these people, which is a big neon sign to start gray rocking.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to guard your energy from people who are sending toxic messages.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you, it was so satisfying not to argue with them to prove my point.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't matter because it was so obvious that they would only see things their way.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: Point-counterpoint would always be through their lens,
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: never seeing the other side of the street.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So as a natural-born people-pleaser,
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: becoming as uninteresting as possible felt like cosplaying a gold medal winner.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was so hard to do, but ultimately the best feeling.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Even as I celebrate it, I struggle talking about this.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a victim of the exchange at all.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, it was a beautiful exercise in acknowledging my worth.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I fear more of their energy will come at me by talking about this.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: We're the ones opening up with integrity and Yet,
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: the energetic ransom these people hold over us.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the problem.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The best medicine for that is talking about my experience.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that experience doesn't exist in a vacuum.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've likely had a similar one.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what is truly powerful.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's what's always behind my intentions of sharing.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Or oversharing as it is my love language.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even when it's vulnerable and opens myself up to more assumptions and judgment
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: and scrutiny, it's still worth it.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: As I briefly mentioned before in previous episodes,
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: coming out on the asexual spectrum,
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: which talking about that casts such a shadow of fear,
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: I worry that stereotypes will come for me,
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: because my reality is I'm a very sex-positive person.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: Being asexual, it doesn't mean I'm not attracted to people.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: What it does mean is that sex is decentralized for me.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I prioritize emotional, intellectual, and romantic connections first.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Physical intimacy is still present, but the crux of it is,
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: is that it's okay with me if the sexual side of it isn't there.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't mean that I'm robotic and cold and not sensual or lacking warmth.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's quite the opposite.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: So you can see how much nuance there is behind one statement
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: of finding myself identifying on this spectrum.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: I worry that I risk being misunderstood by not labeling myself
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: as something more like demisexual or sapiosexual.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: My choice behind not choosing those is that they come with expectations
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: that make me feel pressured as a woman.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I choose to identify as the umbrella itself, the spectrum there,
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: believing that the right person for me will approach that label and how I talk
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: about it with curiosity and not write me off before learning what it's like for me
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: and how they would fit into that.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: All of the years I didn't understand this part of me and felt so isolated
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: from the status quo of the merry-go-round of dating, that is why I talk about it.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because back when I was on dating apps,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: which is now a graveyard for me as I have finally laid them to rest,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: I was seeking chemistry differently from most of my matches,
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: and that was wrought with disappointment.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's why doing the work is what matters most,
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: and I'm just doing a lot of it in public,
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: like so many others who have inspired and helped me.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be that for someone else.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't just an ego trip like Hannah Horvath wanting to be the voice
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: of my generation or a generation.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's the quest for connection and being recognized for our inner world
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: that makes our current culture of substacks grow.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: We're living in a time where emotional openness is battling with commerce.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way I know to balance it is to be brutally honest, non-transactional,
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: and to trust the process of being open,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: following the good eggs in the world who want to make me be braver.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Bill Crisafi is one of those people and helps me bring to life a bad experience
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: from my childhood by making art.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Weirdly enough, it's the same energy that Kelsey and Rosie from Real Housewives
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: of Rhode Island brought to social media
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: when they posted their joint Halloween costumes dressed as pigs
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: after the iconic insult, you're a slam pig that Rosie hurled at Kelsey.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: My pick is different though.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not familiar, Bill Crisafi is a fabulous illustrator
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: who makes these very cool witchy diva characters.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's a toad, a goat, and a pumpkin, and a grim reaper that he calls the glam reaper.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: He taught a class where you made a little monster creature based
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: on your insecurities, which was the thing that got me to sign up.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I ended up making a little mascot for my art store,
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: which I've been meaning to do and I'm super excited to unveil it soon,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: but it's more than that surface level act.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was healing a past part of me.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: You see, the class was also celebrating the launch of Bill's book,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: The Glam Reaper's Guide to Slaying,
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: which has a really personal connection as he wrote the book through the grief
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: of his mother's diagnosis with an illness and eventually her death,
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: where sadly she didn't get to see the finished product,
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: the story of which he has shared openly and publicly.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: I was touched by the fact that it was still hard for him to talk about,
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: but he was pushing through it and sharing it.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: That says something about who Bill is as a person, because it is really, really hard to do that.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It goes to the fact that disclosures like this only make us more human and connected.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth it for the sake of somebody else being seen.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I felt seen.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you have listened to episode 7 of this podcast,
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: you'll hear the backstory of the art print collection that I titled
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: the 1141 collection of art that my dad drew while he was living with Alzheimer's.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that has been very challenging for me to talk about,
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: but I've gotten so much positive feedback for putting it out there.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Especially from people who have had similar experiences.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a special thing that we have all these tools at our hands to share these stories.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: In that art class, as I listened to Bill having a conversation with the host
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: while I drew my little pig, with heavily emphasized belly and curves,
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: a part of me rewrote that really painful childhood memory.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: Through this little piggy that I brought to life,
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: That story can live on with empowerment because it began with my love
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: of the color pink and cozy oversized clothes that ended with me being bestowed
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: with a cruel nickname when I returned home from school that day.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: After that day, wearing that pink hooded sweatshirt that I loved so much, I became porky.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because I looked like a pig.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: So clever, but then again, these were fellow third graders who came up with this.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: My body image growing up was echoed by Olive Hoover studying herself in the mirror
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: at the Little Miss Sunshine pageant at the end of the movie,
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: and Kayla at the pool party in Eighth Grade.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in the most meta sense, this proves my entire point.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Those films made me feel seen.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that is the whole reason I create.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Because telling our truth and rewriting those negative stories we tell ourselves,
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: it never disappoints.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Period.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm going to conclude with the recommendation for this episode.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's because it's such a good way to close it out because it is a song.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It will play us out of this episode,
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: not literally because I can't get the rights to this song with this little podcast
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: as it is, but you can go queue it up in Spotify and play it out yourself.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: My Body Isn't Ready by Sombr.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Please try to find the orchestra version.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: It is the perfect way to experience the song.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Sombr
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: wrote this song based on his own journey and vulnerability with body image.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: One could call that body dysmorphia.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: The lyrics, I like you but my body isn't ready, and the other line,
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: the mirror won't let me, That insecurity,
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: the idea of struggling and wanting something
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: and having this insecurity hold you back,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: it touches to so many points of the human experience, speaks to so many people,
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: and it's beautiful to humanize the experience and make art from it,
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: just like Bill did with grief.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And when you look at the different forms of art,
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: The glam reaper embodying the beautiful essence of Bill's mother
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: and Sombr's experience with his own body.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter necessarily who it's connected to.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: In reality, like the more specific these things are that people share and put out
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: into the world, as they say, the more universal they are.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a really beautiful thing to come together in those shared experiences.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you enjoyed this episode,
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: please subscribe or follow on your favorite podcast platform or send it to a friend
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: who would enjoy it.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: You can hop on over to morganlindsaynelson.substack.com to subscribe for free there
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_00: for special perks or go check out my art print store at morganlindsaynelson.com.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: As a reminder, that's Morgan as in Morgan Freeman, Lindsay as in Lindsay Lohan,
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: and Nelson as in Nelson Mandela.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, be sure to decorate your walls and your thoughts with intention.