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The Courtroom: When Someone Else’s Story Becomes Your Case Against Yourself · Echoes & Edges

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Echoes and Edges, the Broken and Beautiful podcast. Hi,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: I'm Patria, and I'm really glad you're here. Today, I
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: want to introduce a new series to you. It's a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: new fall season, and even though January is, of course,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the start of the new year, I always feel, for
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: some reason, the most alive, and energized in the fall.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: And I really think that that dates back to the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: beginning of school when I was growing up. And still today,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: most people are on like a fall, winter, spring, and
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: maybe even into the early summer school schedule and man
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: alive by January and February. Do you remember how exhausting
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: that was? But something about the fall and And in
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the Midwest, anyway, here we have the four seasons. And
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: so fall brings the changing colors of the trees and
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: autumn reds and golds and crackly, crunchy leaves and crisp
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: air and the smell of the harvest. And it's just
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: honestly my favorite time of the year. And so as
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: I introduce this new series, it really is. in many ways,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: another beginning. It's not the last beginning, and it's not
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: certainly the first beginning, but it's a new beginning that
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: I'd like to invite you to come along with me on.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: It's a little journey. I want to begin talking about
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: something that's really important to me, and it's something I've
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: been thinking about for a long time. Although I don't
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: think I've had language for it until really recently. And
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: this thing is about integrity. And when I say integrity,
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: I'm not primarily talking about being honest or having strong
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: morals or doing the right thing. Although, of course, all
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: of those things matter. I'm thinking about integrity in its
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: more basic sense. Integration. Integrity. Integration. They're both words that
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: come from the original word integer, which is a math word, right?
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: It hearkens to this idea of living as one whole person.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And being a woman from a biblical background, from a
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: faith background where I know a lot of the Bible
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: in and out, I mean, and I've learned it well,
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I think, because I've had to, to find my way
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: to wholeness for myself, but strictly speaking from a biblical perspective,
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: it's a theological debate, but I don't really know why
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: it's a debate because scripture is really clear that we're
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: ever only one person. We have many parts of us,
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: but integrity to me means living wholly. It's living with
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: all of our parts together as one whole person. It's
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: to have my inner life and my outer life increasingly
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: belong to one another, increasingly belong to what I know
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: to be true and to remain curious about what I
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, to recognize when I've caused harm, to make
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: repair when repair is mine to make, to let another
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: person have an experience of me that may be different
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: than my experience of myself. And somehow to remain with
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: myself through all of it. I think that last part
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: is what I want to explore in this series, because
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: I've become increasingly interested in what happens when our good
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: desire to be actually good begins to pull us away
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: from ourselves. And I especially see this in women. especially
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: women who care deeply and want to be honest, women
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: who've done a lot of work on themselves to, you know,
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: comply to whatever the value system is that they live within.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: And being raised as a Christian woman with the Bible
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: and with Christian values, it's a perfect example of what
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I mean by that. All of those things aren't bad.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: But I'm speaking to women who understand this. If you know,
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: you know. You are hearing me and you're nodding your head.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: You've done a ton of work on yourself. You're willing.
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: You not only are willing to apologize and learn and change,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: you want to know when there's something that you have
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: genuinely done to harm or hurt another person and you
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: want to take responsibility and be better. Women who genuinely
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: want their lives to be aligned with what they say
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: they believe. Yet sometimes those very beautiful qualities can create
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a vulnerability. Because then when someone says, you hurt me,
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: or you're not who I thought you were, or even
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: there's something wrong with the way you're relating to me,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: something can happen very quickly inside of us. The question
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: stops being, what is true here? And it becomes, what
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: is wrong with me that I'm not seeing? I know
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  Speaker 1: that movement very well. And it's very quick. That movement
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  Speaker 1: from what's true here to what's wrong with me that
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: I'm not seeing. Help me see. Show me more information.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Give me the data. And so today I want to
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: talk about what I've come to call the courtroom. Over
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the last several years, I've experienced some relationships ending in
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: ways that have been truly deeply painful to me. Some
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  Speaker 1: involved direct accusations. Some were less direct. Some involved people
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  Speaker 1: I loved. Some involved people I worked with. And I'm
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: not going to use this space to litigate those relationships today.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, that's a part of what I'm trying to
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  Speaker 1: stop doing, litigating. I don't want to build a case
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  Speaker 1: for why I was right or to build a case
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for why someone else was wrong. That's not particularly interesting
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: to me anymore, to be honest. What interests me is
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: what happened inside me when I realized that someone had
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: developed a story about me that I didn't recognize as myself.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: Because my almost immediate response was, Look, look again. No, Patria,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: look harder. What are they seeing that I'm not seeing?
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  Speaker 1: What am I missing? What's mine to own? Where have
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: I been dishonest with myself? Where have I caused harm?
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  Speaker 1: Is there something about me that everyone else can see
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  Speaker 1: and I somehow can't? And here's what's complicated. Those are
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: not bad questions. Sometimes we desperately need those questions. All
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: of us have blind spots. All of us have harmed people.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: All of us have acted from places of selfishness inside
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: ourselves when we didn't even fully understand what we were doing.
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  Speaker 1: I know I certainly have. And there have been times
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: when someone has told me something about myself and eventually
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: I've had to say, you know what, you're right. Or
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to do that, but I can see
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: that I did. And I need to apologize. Or maybe
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: I need some help understanding why I keep doing the
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: same thing over and over again. That is part of
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: being human. And I never want to lose that. But
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: there's another kind of looking that I've begun to recognize
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: in myself. And it isn't curiosity. It's panic. Look, look, look.
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  Speaker 1: Find it. Find the thing they're seeing. Find your part.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: And I've realized that underneath all of that searching was
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: something I was trying to prove. Somehow I was trying
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: to prove that I was good, not perfect, good. I
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: wanted to know that I wasn't secretly the person someone
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: else was believing in those moments that I was. And
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: that's where self-examination can quietly turn into a courtroom. A
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  Speaker 1: courtroom has a particular structure, the prosecuting attorney or team,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: The DA brings a charge against someone. Evidence is then
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: gathered to prove the charge. Arguments are made to prove
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: the charge. There's a prosecution of the defendant. There's the defense,
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: the defendant themselves. There's very little the defense can usually say.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: In fact, if you ever watch true crime, You'll probably
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: be surprised with me at how very infrequently the defense
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: speaks up for themselves. Because when you are being accused
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: in a litigation sense, when you have had accusations and evidence,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: you know, quote unquote evidence curated and created in a
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: certain fashion, you know, put together in a certain fashion
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to create a picture. against you. There's very little that
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: you can say because the verdict is being spelled out
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: as it is. And to defend yourself most of the
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: time makes that story that the prosecution is creating feel true,
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  Speaker 1: even more true. And what I began to notice is
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: that when someone was angry with me or had a
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: strong negative interpretation of me, I could automatically accept the summons.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't necessarily agree. I didn't necessarily disagree. I didn't
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: necessarily think they were right or wrong. I didn't suddenly
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: lose all sense of who I am. It's so much
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: more subtle than that. The best language I've found for
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: it is that I would go out of gear of myself.
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  Speaker 1: I was still there and knew myself, could feel all
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: my feelings, but suddenly what I knew was no longer
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: the organizing center of what I was doing. Their perception
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  Speaker 1: became the organizing center. What are they seeing? What does
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  Speaker 1: this mean about me? What if they're right? What is
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  Speaker 1: it that I'm missing? And particularly for those of us
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  Speaker 1: who've built our lives around being conscientious and responsible, that
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  Speaker 1: can feel an awful lot like integrity. It can feel
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  Speaker 1: and really look virtuous. I'm willing to look at myself.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to own my part. I'm teachable. I'm humble.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not defensive. By the way, those are all good
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: things and things I personally was explicitly taught to be,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: overtly taught to be these things. Be becoming, Patria. Listen
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  Speaker 1: before you speak. Use I feel statements so that people
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: never feel that they're on the defensive with you. Those
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  Speaker 1: are all good things. I was just never taught that.
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  Speaker 1: but I didn't have to go out of gear of
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  Speaker 1: myself immediately. But I have begun to wonder whether there
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  Speaker 1: is a point at which our determination to prove that
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  Speaker 1: we are willing to look at ourselves becomes its own
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: form of self-abandonment. Because we stop asking the most basic question,
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: do I actually believe this is true of myself? That's
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: a very different question. It's not does she believe it's true?
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: It's not, what is she or he believing is true?
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: It's not, did I hurt somebody? It's not, could I
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: have done something differently? Because almost certainly those things can
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  Speaker 1: be answered in the affirmative at times. I can find
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  Speaker 1: something I could have done differently for sure in virtually
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: every relationship I've ever had. So the question really needs
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  Speaker 1: to be, I'm learning this. Do I believe This is
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: true of me. And I think some of us have
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a surprisingly difficult time staying with that question. At least
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  Speaker 1: I do. Again, if you know, you know, if you
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: can relate to this, you can relate because it can
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: sound arrogant or defensive or the anathema of good women, unteachable,
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  Speaker 1: especially if we've been formed around goodness. There can be
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  Speaker 1: an almost moral requirement to find our part when something
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  Speaker 1: has gone wrong. And sometimes there is a part. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: I would say there's always a part. Sometimes there's a
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  Speaker 1: very big part. Sometimes someone else's accusation contains something real,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: even if we don't agree with the whole story surrounding it.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: We do need to be able to tolerate that too. However,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: In the words of Tia Leavings, who is herself a
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: survivor of Christian and spiritual and physical and marital abuse,
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: that's a level four class. Before we do level four classes,
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: we have to do level one, two, and three. And
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  Speaker 1: I am increasingly convinced that integrity doesn't require me to
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: find something to confess to. simply because another person has
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  Speaker 1: reached a conclusion about me. And it certainly doesn't require
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: me to adopt their interpretation of my heart. This becomes
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: even more complicated because we now have incredibly powerful language
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: for describing relational experiences. Words like safety, trauma, power, boundaries, triggering, abuse, gaslighting, narcissism, harm.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: These words matter and words carry weight. Some of them
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: have given people languages for experiences that they could not
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: ever have previously named and not named on their own,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: myself included. And I am profoundly grateful for that language.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: And I use some of this language in my own work,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: as you've likely heard if you listen to Echoes and Edges.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: But powerful language requires careful, careful use. Someone's impact matters.
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  Speaker 1: If something I do hurts you, I want that to
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: matter to me. But your experience of my action and
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: my intention in doing it are not the same piece
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: of information. they are not the same data point. And
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: my intention doesn't cancel your impact either. We need both.
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: We need context. We need pattern. We need proportionality. We
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: need curiosity. We need to be willing to ask questions
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: before we decide that we understand someone else's heart. That's
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: part of what I mean when I talk about becoming
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: trauma literate rather than simply knowing trauma language. It's kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: of like, have you guys ever heard, you know, the
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: most dangerous evangelicals or the most dangerous evangelists are the
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: ones that just learned the good news? Well, it's very
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: much like that in all arenas. The most dangerous people
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: are the ones that can learn the without really understanding
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: it or trying it on and understanding from an experience
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: point of view what the language means. And so I
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: have been working for a few years on this idea
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: of trauma literacy rather than simply knowing trauma language because
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: just simply knowing it creates a mass confusion ultimately, where
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: it's helpful in one particular point experience for one person
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: or one collective of people or group of people, it
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: becomes completely useless on social media. Take the word narcissism
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: as a great example. Like everybody is now a narcissist.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: If you disagree with someone, you're likely have thought at
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: some point, Are they a narcissist? Because we have been
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: so inundated with this idea of narcissism that we've actually
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: completely lost the original meaning of what narcissism is, which
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: is a lack of self. Narcissism comes from the Greek
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: myth about narcissists. And he was someone who stared into
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: his reflection all day, not because of vanity, but because
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: he couldn't find himself without looking into the pool of water.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: And that's what narcissism is. So becoming trauma literate doesn't
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: mean nobody's a narcissist or that narcissism isn't hurtful and
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: even harmful and abusive. Of course it is. That's why
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: it became like wildfires, so commonly used language. And we
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: don't have to look far in our public arenas to
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: see what a narcissist looks like. There's deflated narcissists and
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: there's inflated narcissists and there's all kinds of ways that
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: people live out that kind of experience. But in my
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: own personal life, to be trauma literate means that I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: don't just intuit something about someone I'm having trouble with
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: or somebody who's hurt me. And then from that intuiting
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: that I'm doing on the inside, I make a verdict
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: about them. or I go and find other people to
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: help me make a verdict about them. Language should help
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: us become more precise about reality. It should not make
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: reality smaller. And this is where I think the courtroom
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: can become dangerous because once someone has been assigned a
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: role in a story, everything can begin to look like evidence.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: That's why the defense hardly ever speaks up for themselves.
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  Speaker 1: Because if I explain myself, I'm defensive. If I don't
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: explain myself, I don't care. I'm a psychopath. If I
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: set a boundary, I'm controlling. If I remain engaged, I'm
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: consuming or intrusive. And this is especially true for women, again, women,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I bet you can really relate to this. And maybe
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: men too, in your own ways. I don't know. But
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: if I apologize, perhaps that's confirmation that the accusation was true.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: If I don't apologize for something, I don't believe I did.
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  Speaker 1: Perhaps that's proof that I'm incapable of accountability. And at
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: that point, there isn't really a relationship anymore. There's a narrative.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: And I think we have to be very careful when
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: we find ourselves inside a narrative that cannot be questioned.
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  Speaker 1: That goes both directions. I can create one about you.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: You can create one about me. I can decide you're
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: cruel or narcissistic or jealous or manipulative. And then I
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: can gather everything you do as evidence for the story
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  Speaker 1: I've already decided to is true. That is not discernment, folks.
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: That's a closed system. And closed systems don't require curiosity.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: They already know and they go to seek help to
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: prove what they know. One of the most painful things
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: I've experienced is being made into something I don't believe
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: I am by people I have genuinely loved. And I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: want to say that carefully because I'm not saying they
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: were wrong about everything. I'm not saying I was innocent.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: I'm not saying their pain wasn't real. I'm saying something
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: much simpler than that. I know the difference between being
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: confronted with something true about myself and being handed an
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: identity that does not belong to me. And learning to
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: trust that distinction has been costly. It has for me
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: and I bet it has for you too. because I
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: have spent a lot of my life wanting to be useful.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: I love helping. I love building and making connections and
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: seeing the possibility in people. And there is a beautiful
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: side to that, and I'm proud of it. There's also
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: a place in me that's wondered, am I useful enough?
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Am I making enough of an impact? And when usefulness
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: becomes tangled up with goodness, Criticism can become much bigger
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: than criticism. It can begin to threaten your sense of
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: who you are. So I have had to sit with
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: something I don't particularly like. I felt used while trying
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: desperately to be useful. I have experienced privilege and I've
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: experienced bullying around the privilege. I have loved people who
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: eventually interpreted that love through a very different lens than
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the one from which I offered it. And for a
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: long time, I wanted to resolve that. I wanted somebody
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: to tell me what was true. I wanted a verdict.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: Just tell me what is true so I can get
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: on with my life. But you know, I don't think
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I want a verdict anymore. I want honesty and integrity
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: and truth. Those are very different things. Truth doesn't require
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: me to be innocent. And truth doesn't require someone else
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: to be guilty. Truth, reality allows me to say, that
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: hurt me and I may have hurt you. Truth allows
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: me to say, I wish I had done that differently
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: and I still don't agree with the story you've told
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: about me. Truth allows me to take responsibility without taking
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: responsibility for everything. Truth allows another person to leave disappointed
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: in me. Truth allows relationships to end, sometimes really painfully,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: without requiring one person to become the villain. And maybe
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: most importantly, truth allows me to stop proving that I'm good.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I think that's the place I'm standing right now. Not perfectly,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: of course. I still feel the pull. If someone misunderstands me,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: there is still a part of me that wants to
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: run after them carrying the defensive evidence in my heart. Wait,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: you don't understand. Let me explain. And ask me what
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: I meant. Ask me about my heart. And sometimes explanation
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: is needed and it's appropriate. Sometimes conversation really can change everything,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: but sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes someone has decided what something means,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: and there comes a point when continuing to argue your
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: case doesn't produce clarity. It simply keeps you in the courtroom.
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: So I want to leave you with one question today.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's a relationship in your life where someone has
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: developed a story about you. Maybe they've said it directly.
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe you've just simply sort of felt it in the air.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe you're still carrying an accusation from years ago. Before
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: you defend yourself against it one more time, and before
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: you accept it one more time, I want you to ask,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: is this true for me? Not how do I prove
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: this wrong? Not how do I prove that I'm good?
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: And not even what is my part? Not at first.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Just is this true for me? And give yourself time.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: The answer might be yes. The answer may be partly.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: The answer may be I don't know yet. And the
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: answer may be no. Integrity has room for every one
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: of those answers because integrity isn't innocence. It isn't never
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: being wrong or refusing accountability. Integrity is the capacity to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: stay close enough to reality that I can recognize what
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: belongs to me and what doesn't. This is where we're
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: going in this series. We're going to talk about what
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: happens when we leave the courtroom, about what it means
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: to stay with ourselves without becoming closed to other people,
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: about the ways we learned, often very young, that some
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: parts of ourselves were more expensive than to bring into
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: relationship than others. We're going to learn about goodness, usefulness, belonging, accountability,
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and repair. And eventually what I think it means to
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: live an integrated life in a world where we still
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: will hurt people, be hurt by people, misunderstand and be misunderstood.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: I don't think the answer is becoming harder. I don't
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: think it's becoming more certain, and I don't think it's
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: learning not to care what anyone thinks. I think it's
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: something much more grounded and earthy than that. It's learning
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: that another person's story about me can matter without automatically
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: becoming the story I have to live inside. And maybe
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: that's where integrity begins. Not with winning the case, but
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: with realizing that not every accusation requires a courtroom. Thank
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: you so much for joining me today on Echoes and Edges,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the Broken and Beautiful podcast. Be sure to like and subscribe,
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: maybe share with a friend if this episode was meaningful
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: to you. The algorithm really depends on a five-star review.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: So if you feel this is five stars, I would
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: be so very grateful if you would leave that review
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: so that we get more listeners. Not because I need
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: to be popular or my group here, The Collective, needs
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: to be popular or because we need to reach all
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: the people in the world. It's just because I have
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: something to say about And I think you have something
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: to say. And if what I'm saying somehow overlaps with
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: what you are wanting to tell a friend or a
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: colleague or a partner, a spouse or a kid, would
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you send this episode to them? And I'll see you
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: next time on Echoes and Etches. If this episode resonates
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: with you, follow or subscribe to Echoes and Edges on
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: your favorite podcast platform. Leave a five-star review and share
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: with a friend who might need a gentle invitation to self-understanding.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Echoes and Edges is produced and edited by Stephen R. Sanders.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Music promoted by Envato.