Man (Un)Caved
Welcome to Man (Un)caved podcast where we explore the complex landscape of masculinity in men. Hosted by facilitator /life coach Shane Coyle, this podcast delves deep into the multifaceted nature of what it means to be a man in today's world.
Join us as we embark on a thought-provoking journey, navigating through topics such as societal expectations, emotional intelligence, mental health, relationships, and personal growth. Each episode features insightful discussions, personal anecdotes, and expert interviews, providing listeners with valuable insights and tools to navigate their own journey towards authentic manhood.
Whether you're a man seeking to understand and redefine your masculinity, or someone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the male experience, this podcast offers a safe and inclusive space for meaningful conversations.
Join the conversation as we challenge stereotypes, celebrate diversity, and embrace the richness of masculinity in all its forms. Tune in to Man (Un)caved and discover a new perspective on what it truly means to be a man.
"Not until we are willing to come out of hiding, will we truly experience our greatest potential"
Need support? Our free recovery services and weekly support groups are here to help both individuals and families affected by addiction and mental health challenges. You don’t have to do this alone. Schedule a free, confidential call today and start the healing process for everyone involved.
www.manuncaved.com
Man (Un)Caved
(Un)identified: Anxiety and Radical Acceptance: Navigating Self-Compassion and Growth with Mollie Birney
What if we've been getting anxiety all wrong? Today, we sit down with Molly Birney, a former therapist turned coach, who takes us on a journey through her eclectic career and shares profound insights on embracing uncomfortable emotions. Molly's transition from choral conductor to clinical psychologist to coach illuminates the freedom she discovered in coaching, which empowers her to bring her authentic self into her work. We discuss the importance of confronting discomfort directly and Molly's candid response to a client wanting to eradicate anxiety, emphasizing the necessity of coexistence with challenging emotions.
Capitalism often shapes our identities and creates a dependency on marketed solutions for our problems. Together with Molly, we unpack this intricate relationship and explore how labels can both define and limit us. By examining systems of dysfunction, whether familial, societal, or personal, we highlight the importance of self-love and understanding in moments of pain. Through direct yet loving communication, we discuss the pathway to healthier relationships and personal growth, using examples like Alcoholics Anonymous to illustrate the need for embracing all parts of ourselves, including the uncomfortable ones.
Mindfulness and meditation emerge as powerful tools for accepting anxiety, as we explore the practice of observing thoughts and emotions without rushing to fix them. Molly shares her approach to fostering curiosity and awareness, promoting a healthier relationship with our feelings. We also dive into personal growth and ego awareness, inspired by Ram Dass’s philosophy. Molly’s upcoming offerings, including her weekly donation-based sessions and her six-week coaching group, "The Living Room," promise further avenues for transformative support and connection. Tune in to discover how acknowledging anxiety and letting go of control can lead to more authentic self-compassion and growth.
Get connected with Molly Birney
Website: molliebirney.com
Instagram: molliebirney
How many times, while sitting in the grips of our anxiety, have we uttered the words I hate this, I wish it would just go away. Now, as we sit and we think about the words we're saying, we're actually trying to get rid of a part of ourself this anxiety, this sadness, the depression. Now I understand it might be completely uncomfortable to sit with, but the deeper question when we're saying such words as I hate this or I want it to go away, is how do we get rid of a part of ourself? Would we want to get rid of that part of ourself, and what are the possibilities that that part of ourself is actually here to reveal, possibilities that that part of ourself is actually here to reveal, to light a path on a way to heal? In today's episode, I sit with former therapist turned coach, molly Burney as we explore this deeper question, as why would we want to, and is that the path to freedom, or is learning how to be with it the way to liberation?
Speaker 3:Welcome to man Uncaved. My name is Shane Coyle. Welcome back, welcome back. I am sitting today with Molly Burney, former therapist turned coach. So I think the question I want to start with is usually it's the other way, right. People go from maybe a coach I mean I would. I would gather they go from some type of coach to become a therapist. It seems like and I guess, in our understanding of how this goes, but you went the other way, so I don't know if there is a right way. So let's just put that out, sure, but kind of give a snapshot of what was that decision behind your becoming a coach.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of pieces to this. First of all is that I had worked with a coach since I was 20. My coach got me out of my first career, which was choral conducting, of all things. I was finishing a master's in choral conducting right before I got the master's in clinical psych and my coach was telling me are you done pretending to do whatever this is, you need to be coaching. And I had said to his face, coaching has no credibility. I said this to my coach this is not a credible field. I think I was being sort of tongue in cheek. But that's fine for you, but for me I need to do something serious with my life. And he sort of smirked at that and he said look, you should be working in human behavior. And so I went and got the master's in clinical psych and after a few years, uh, with that under my belt, he said are you done pretending to be a therapist? You ready to have the conversation you want to have?
Speaker 2:And I had to look at the work I was doing as a therapist and watched how often I was tugging my reins or how often my client was asking a follow-up question that I wanted to answer a little bit more cavalierly and with more directiveness, and how often I was biting my tongue and look, there are plenty of therapists who coach and keep their license For me. I had so much noise of like, oh no, if I say that, is that clinically inappropriate, would this be something a coach says or what a therapist says? I was so wrapped up in my noise that it robbed me of being present with my client and I finally surrendered to my coach. I said, fine, yes, train me. Let's go the apprentice model, let's do this Because I was clear how much I was.
Speaker 2:It was in my own internal conflict of like, can I say this? I want to speak the way I want to speak, and so this was just about freeing me up to integrate all parts of myself. I will say that there are plenty of clients that I work with and it might look quite similar to therapy, but I get to bring a lot more of myself and my I don't know my doggedness, my playfulness, to the conversation. So in that sense it's quite different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I love that and I think that it rings true for the straight talk therapy that you or the coaching that you do which I love it because I think we're in agreeance or some type of conscious shock to the system. That needs to happen, and sometimes we need to hit it direct and we need to hit it raw and and we can move in the discomforts from that place, as opposed to the soft and gentle staying in some type of parameters, whether that's parameters of illusion, parameters, or we're making the parameters, or whatever it is Right. There's definitely a risk taking into this work. I think we need to push the lines a little bit sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and that certainly allows me the forum to do that without the noise, and that doesn't mean I'm not still discovering parameters. I mean one of the things that I got to see in putting up this reel that we're going to talk about today was like oh, there are some elements of this that are too in your face, that are quite provocative, which you know.
Speaker 2:I think that's playful. I also my social media took some my person took some liberties with the Zoom, so I think all that was a little bit more aggressive, but it allows for just a more authentic presentation of the work for me. So that's why I dig the title no-transcript.
Speaker 3:You know, set the stage a little bit around that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the post specifically was about a consultation that I'd had recently with a client who was asking you know, I'll ask in a consultation with a prospective client how can I be of service? What are you looking to do? How would you know if this work was effective? And she said, well, my anxiety would be gone. And I had said sort of playfully well, I need you to know, I want to shoot you straight I have no ability to get rid of your anxiety and I don't know that there's anyone out there who can. She was shocked. You know I'm saying this again out there who can? She was shocked. I'm saying this again sort of tongue-in-cheek because of course, the work that I'm doing is of help to the anxiety. I wouldn't continue to get clients if I'm not helping you work with the anxiety and experience relief around it. But for her, the idea that it would be extinguished entirely if our work was successful.
Speaker 2:It's a theme I hear sometimes, sometimes that clients have an expectation that they are going to be able to amputate successfully some part of themselves and that will allow them to move forward when I can rewrite my story or cut off from my trauma or when I can really wash my hands of that nasty anxiety or that shame, then I can move forward with my life.
Speaker 2:And I think this is a really common misconception. We can get into the reasons why we think that way, but suffice to say I was responding with like, look, the game is about making a relationship with our anxiety so you can have it rather than it has you. But the idea that you're supposed to be able to get rid of this puts us in combat, in true conflict with ourselves and convinced that some part of us shouldn't be there. So you know, then you have to live at war with yourself if you're striving to get rid of it. And the whole game is about how do we live in more peace, how do we live in more freedom? So anyway, that's the post, that's the gist of the post.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, definitely in an agreeance with you and as I was listening to your post and I don't know if you know, and maybe you do actually you know Rolo May was talking about this to the meanings of anxiety, particularly with anxiety and the meanings to find out. It could lead to sense of creativity, it could lead, you know. So he looks at it from a very wide lens and a very narrow way of I need to get rid of this. And and and again, I am an alliance with you because I don't know how do you get rid of these things, nor do I, nor do particularly I want to, because there's such learning, there's such messaging behind that, and I think there's this let me just get over these things, let me get over this, Let me and I think there's this let me just get over these things, let me get over this, let me move my trauma, let me move these things out of the way. And I'm just like, well, why don't we learn and understand the messaging? And it's kind of bringing that to your forefront.
Speaker 2:Sorry, go ahead. Yes, no, no, I was just speaking to like. I think that's a really advanced and or fear or anything we're looking to get rid of. We can't be curious about anything we're trying to banish.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And the game here is curiosity, like, well, what does my fear have to tell me and what is my anxiety trying to communicate? And what else is on the heels of this boredom or that shame or whatever it is that's showing up? And so much of this work? I don't care if it's coaching or therapy or fucking plant medicine, lots of directions you can go in here, but you have to be curious about whatever it is that you're studying. And if you're studying your thoughts, let's get curious about them. If you're studying your fear, anxiety or shame, curiosity is it.
Speaker 2:Again, as soon as we're trying to get rid of it, there is no room for that curiosity. There's this thing I'll talk about sometimes is that I playfully call it the step zero paradox, meaning before you actually start doing the work, here's the zero step, which is anything you're trying to get rid of. You know I'm trying to stop lying or stop this addiction or stop this thing. We first have to include it, we first have to be in embracing it and in relationship with it so that we can do the work of changing our relationship to it, because that's not possible if amputation is the only goal here, right, and I, yeah, and I'm agreeance I think the dismemberment of those is really the root of it anyway, is like we've been trying to dismember, or it became dismembered instead of learning from it.
Speaker 3:You know, and and it's, it's so interesting and you did in the post and I want to kind of talk about that too is well, first of all, there was a lot of mixed, mixed feedback, which is fine, that's okay and, again, I love the allowance of people having their experience and it's not for us to tell them what their experience is, it's for us to sit in it and I think that sense of curiosity gives them the invitation to challenge it. What about what I'm saying is evoking something and what about that is there with a sense of curiosity. So I do love that. You did bring up something too, and it wasn't particularly at this individual, so we have to make this clear.
Speaker 3:I think, yeah, yeah, there was some feedback. It was like why are you talking about this, about your client? I was like, but that's not what I heard, you know, it was like there is a system that kind of can create these conditionings of let's get rid of, let's get rid of, and so maybe we can talk about that and and and and, the anger towards some of that stuff or the frustrations, yeah yeah, I think anger is valid and this is some of the pushback I got.
Speaker 2:It's like wait, why would you be angry at a client? Absolutely not angry at the client. I'm angry at the system that perpetuated this misconception for her.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, instagram. Of course I'm going to be a little provocative and start the real, like I'm fucking mad about this, um, but you know, if anyone is watching that and bananas enough to think that I would speak to a client that way, I think you might be missing the point of Instagram. But that's okay. That's okay If you're, if you're, if you're seeing it that way, you're probably not, uh, my client. Let's be clear. Um, but yeah, that there was.
Speaker 2:There was a lot of uh, a lot of pushback and, and specifically from people with um reported having acute anxiety and complex PTSD anxiety, things like that, saying no, no, no, I can't accept this as a part of myself, and how dare you suggest that I do? And I gotta say I, I, um, I tend to have a pretty peaceful approach to this, so I was surprised that, even with how provocative and the video was a lot of zooms and so it is um, I was surprised to get that kind of response and it made me really, really interested in um, uh. You know, my, my assumption is how identified you have to be with your anxiety, uh, and the idea of getting rid of it and being victimized by it too, that the idea of including it is offensive. That's my first interpretation, maybe no being on the bones to that um, but I think it's really interesting taking a look at why that is such a dangerous idea to folks. Um, and I think it's because it really is in conflict with everything our culture, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:I don't know about you, but I mean, I grew up in the capitalist soup, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:We get a lot of information about how to be successful, and not being anxious is part of how to be successful, by the way, I certainly got that message really clearly.
Speaker 2:And even though our culture has included anxiety to some degree it's okay to talk about. You know, I have a diet, I have social anxiety or I have a diagnosis of anxiety there is still the idea that we need to use the wellness industry to figure out how to get rid of this thing. Therapy is going to help me get rid of it, yeah, and we. I think also capitalism is really committed to this idea.
Speaker 2:You're a problem to solve you better figure out how to solve that you better Let me sell you the solution to that problem. Let me market you the problem that you don't actually have, and then I'm going to sell you the solution to that same problem.
Speaker 3:You never have in the first place, definitely for capitalism. It's a great business.
Speaker 2:You have a problem that can never be fixed and we have the only solution only solution, and I think that not only can it be fixed, but I have the solution for it.
Speaker 3:Yes, yes, absolutely, and I and I'm in total agreeance with you, and this is where I think we align. You know, when we're doing this work. Obviously, there's just the micro, the macro lens to everything, and, uh, I came upon this thing where it was. This gentleman was talking about what creates a dysfunction in a system. So that's going to be a family system. Obviously, we ourselves are a system, society is a system, relationships are a system. Everything is systematic. But what creates dysfunction is this abandonment in your pain or abandonment in your hurt. What creates a healthy system is we love you in your pain. So, if you look at that from the lens of a society, or even our own self, we are a system of communication within our own self.
Speaker 3:Learning to love that part of ourself or understand that part of ourselves with a sense of curiosity creates a healthy system. But, like what you were going back a while ago, is that, if that is a part that we have to get rid of, we're in constant collision with ourself. And, believe me, you know and I know probably you, as me, as any human being out there I have enough going on in collision with myself on a daily basis.
Speaker 3:I don't need another thing to hold on to and attach to and speaking of attachment, that is so interesting because I think there is something we can use people, we, I can use these labels as an identity to attach to, and we can somehow hide behind these identities. These are the reasons why we cannot move forward or cannot succeed or cannot have that relationship, whatever is presented in front of us, and we will hide behind our own excuses, without the sense of curiosity. Is that true?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it sort of begs the question well, who would I be then without the anxiety and there's often fear about that and somehow including the anxiety, even though, like the illusion is like let me get rid of this thing and then I'll be fine, there's often an enormous amount of anxiety about not having anxiety.
Speaker 2:Um that when I, when I work with clients and it starts to get better, some of the feedback I'll get instantly is wait, who am I? I feel disoriented. Is this safe? Is this okay? I feel irresponsible. Um, because we're so allied to who we were when we're listening to it like it's credible, um, but yeah, we have a real conflict about like, am I supposed to get rid of this? But who will I be without it? And then I want to be allied to it. Um, there's a lot of personal identification with our so-called pathology. That's just part of our humanity. It doesn't need to be bigger, or smaller.
Speaker 3:That's right. Yeah, and that, and that repetitive pattern that keeps us stuck there and just, you know, that identity kind of a regurgitation we we attach to it is this is, this is who I am, and this is who I am. And it's like I don't know if that's necessarily true because, right, I love that question. It's like, well, what would be possible if that wasn't true? And you're not that, and bringing that from the rear view to the frontal view, but just understanding the mechanisms of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Well, this parlays into a better identity conversation. Like whoever you think you are is immediately a limitation. One of my favorite quotes and I want to be clear before I provide this quote I grew up in Alcoholics Anonymous. There's a lot to love about Alcoholics Anonymous and I love that.
Speaker 2:One of the things Ram Das says is look, you don't want to end up an alcoholic, you want to end up free. But even with that title of alcoholic and sobriety and all of the positive things that come with that, there's a limit to any title we put on ourselves. There's something quite congested about that. And he's not saying you need to go out and drink necessarily. He's saying open up that identity, get curious about what the identity costs you. If you are an anxious person, there are things that are going to cost you. If I have to be seen in any identity, if I need to be seen as smart right now, certain things I cannot say for fear of protecting that identity or for fear of risking that identity. So true freedom is the ability to show up using all parts of ourselves, including our anxiety and our shame.
Speaker 3:For goodness sake, yeah, absolutely, and I think that's really what was calling me with your post is just. First of all, I just love your straightforward talk. I tend to really love that. You know, it's something that I inspire in mine is being very direct as possible. I mean, obviously, with gentleness, I think we can be direct, obviously, but the love needs to be felt right, the connection needs to be felt underneath that.
Speaker 2:If it's not present, that directiveness is abuse. If the love isn't there, it's just that direction, it's actually abuse.
Speaker 3:Right and I think, yeah, absolutely Good point. And so making sure that that is clear within our relationship, that we can allow the space to have that direct, because you know that it's coming from such a loving place, and that's what it was really. What that post was really calling to me is the micro, the macro. I mean, obviously you did point out, obviously it's unprecedented times. There's a lot going on in the world. We don't have to get into it. That's what you were talking about. We all know, we're all living it. However, yes, what is this teaching us? What is this learning? What are we learning here in our own healing and actually I'm a firm believer in that we have everything we need to actually heal. I think these are beautiful things. To know is that you have everything. I'm not giving you anything, I'm just pointing to it. We're just pointers. Did you see that? Look at that. Did you see this?
Speaker 2:One of my favorite things is I'll be coaching a client and I'm watching them nod. I'm like, by the way, you're nodding not because I'm blowing your mind here, I'm saying something you already know clearly. I'm affirming what you already know, so let's ride on that particular.
Speaker 3:Right, it's so. It's so interesting Cause I know you know we're in the same lines of work. But obviously, yes, Listening to someone talk and they're like you know, say, if it's coming from the recovery and I'm like I'm, I'm feeling stuck, I'm not calling my sponsor. If you're looking from the recovery, I'm not calling my sponsor. I'm not doing this step works, I'm not. Did you just hear what you're just saying? So what would be the solution? You already have the solution.
Speaker 3:That's right, let's just pause and listen to what we're saying for a second. Did you hear what you're saying? Oh, so call your sponsor and do your step work, if that's the room I'm sitting in or if the person I'm dealing with. So I, you know and I, and so if that is true, then really this understanding more of what is my own experience and what is my own process, this is exactly the stuff, and so I started this little weekly.
Speaker 2:what is it? It's like, really, my office hour and folks can come. I'll do a little meditation and answer some questions for folks. It's a. It's a chance for people who are not familiar with my work to step into it a little bit, and one of the things we're doing is just a little bit of meditation practice at a time, and I love this idea of can you just take a look at what's present In our silence, with your eyes closed, if that's comfortable for you, in your stillness? What's here? Because we're so quick to get into. I want to start organizing it. I want to start labeling it. I want to start fixing it. I want to start clearing it out. Can you tolerate just the looking? Can we tolerate just the awareness as the dimmer switch increases and more light is shed in this room? We want to start organizing and cleaning and fixing.
Speaker 1:Tolerate more so beautiful.
Speaker 2:Tolerate more and cleaning and fixing, tolerate more, so beautiful. Tolerate more and and not like. Tolerate from like suffering. But can you tolerate the peace and the stillness before taking action? That's really this, the uh, the piece that's often missing in our ability to sit with our anxiety, because we think, including the anxiety, making room for it or whatever, that it's going to be either all consuming and dominating right, or that we're going to be either all consuming and dominating Right or that we're going to somehow lose something in the process.
Speaker 2:I'm going to lose some control, and this is why our instinct when we feel anxious, is always to push against it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Every time I do a workshop, I'm nervous. Every time I do a podcast, I'm usually nervous. And at the beginning of most workshops I will start by saying I need you to know I'm anxious because I want to model what it looks like to not be pushing that away. If I was pushing it away, I then have to pretend like I'm not anxious and you don't want to watch me pretend like I'm not anxious. You want to hear me coach. So in order for me to include that anxiety in the room and not have to pretend like it's not there, let me name it.
Speaker 2:So you know I'm anxious, we know I'm anxious. Can we fucking move forward now we get on with it.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And that's being in relationship with it. But that only comes from that ability to slow down, be mindful and compassionate about what I'm seeing Ah, my anxieties. Of course it belongs here. Wouldn't it be bizarre if I did a workshop and I wasn't anxious?
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I don't care how many workshops you've done right. Can you speak more and maybe what you're noticing too? Because you brought up a good point about the need to control and how there's a collision against that. I guess that fear response.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I talk about anxiety with my clients and this is a coaching definition this is not a clinical distinction, but I think of anxiety as the instinct, the attempt to control. Get control over something we have no business trying to control, whether it's the future or the outcome or what. You think of me trying to micromanage something I have no business trying to micromanage. Think of me trying to micromanage something I have no business trying to micromanage. And this is why our instinct when we're trying to work with anxiety is get the control, as though that's going to extinguish the anxiety and the game is actually can I practice surrendering the control, which is the most counterintuitive thing we could possibly ask someone in high anxiety to do? I realize how absurd and offensive that can be. What do you mean? Go into?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:You know, I've usually spent a decade surviving it by not going into it. That's why we do drugs and why we binge and why we have compulsive sex and why we gamble and why we do all the things we have to do to avoid it.
Speaker 2:What do you mean? Go into it? Are you insane? Yeah, a little bit, A little bit, To suggest some of this counterintuitive stuff. We have to be right. But that is the game. What happens if I orient towards it? And just that idea can be an overstimulating conversation for someone, which is why we come back to the mindfulness. What happens in your body when I just present the idea of moving towards it. Notice all the tension that, like we haven't even done anything and your shoulders are up around your ears and there's survival is in play. So we want to get curious about these phenomenons, because you wouldn't choose to pay the coach and then resist everything the coach is suggesting.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:You wouldn't put that on your to-do list. Only a crazy person would do it that way, and you're not crazy. So, like speaking to the piece of them that wants to be there and is hungry for a different experience, acknowledging the fear about including the anxiety and holding space for that whole dance. I don't even know if I'm answering your question. I'm sort of just riffing here, forgive me.
Speaker 3:No, I think you did. I mean, I connect to it again because I love the wide lens of understanding this and, yeah, I definitely agree with you on this way of approaching it from a different way and a different lens and connecting to it to it um, well, what we're talking about is a sense of more curiosity, um, a sense of yeah, I think it pushes up against survival, just as a species.
Speaker 3:if I'm not in control, I'm going to die, I'm going to lose validation, I'm going to lose love, I'm going to lose something, and so if I hold on, then then I can control outcomes and then I can survive as a species. You know, it's like all of these underlying needs, these basic needs, totally Right.
Speaker 2:And that really gets to the heart of what I was taught by my mentor, the guy who trained like he's been my coach forever and he's a madman. I want to be clear I come from the lineage of a madman. This is why it's good to have clinical training along with the insanity too, and I love men. It's good to have clinical training along with the insanity too, and I love Breck. Breck is he's he's a phenomenal figure to me, but is is the freedom work and the to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know that he would agree with this, but to me, one of the biggest components of the freedom work is freedom to lose, freedom to let go, cause anything I have to have work like.
Speaker 2:Freedom to let go, because anything I have to have work like if this podcast has to go well, then I can only say things that will make it go well. I can't take risks, I can't play, I can't tell you like, oh, this thing I just thought of, we can't work organically. As soon as I'm attached to an outcome or a way I need to be seen or something I'm going to suffer. So freedom to lose it all. Freedom for this to go poorly. Freedom for it to lose the relationship, freedom to lose the thing that your anxiety says you need to control. As soon as we're in relationship with loss and can work with loss like it's a part of our curriculum rather than it's a mistake, we can start to get liberated. And again, that's not a therapeutic conversation, that's a coaching conversation, because I not that it can't be therapeutic. Let me clarify it's not a therapy conversation.
Speaker 3:But I love that, the freedom to lose. You know you said something. Not that it can't be therapeutic. Let me clarify it's not a therapy conversation, fighting yourself. Actually, it's more sane to let go, and I did this interesting piece a while ago, where it was. I always hear this idea of the awkward silence and I'm like but silence isn't awkward. It's actually awkward that we don't know how to sit in the silence. I think that's actually. It's like I always like. It's not awkward to silence Silence. There's nothing about silence that's awkward at all. It's just silence. There's nothing, shane, that's about silence.
Speaker 2:That's awkward at all. It's just silence. There's nothing, shane. That's brilliant. What's awkward about awkward silence is not the silence, it's our commentary, that's right, our narrative. This shouldn't be happening. That's what's fucking awkward silence.
Speaker 3:There's nothing to silence. Everything is neutral. It's the meaning you're making it right. So it's like whatever. Whatever you're implying to this neutral thing is your own story and which could be creating more anxiety.
Speaker 2:That's the game.
Speaker 3:And stemming from you know, I know we just made references to. I did come from the AA community as well and I love this idea is like to restore sanity, is to understand the insanity in your own thinking. You know it's like we have to understand we are wild creatures, by the way, that are just our mind.
Speaker 3:We create problems that haven't happened yet. We don't know what's going on. We have a very limited frame of reference that we see life from, so we're not ever getting the whole picture of anything actually, and we leave it to be true. And when we react on that, whatever my mind's telling me must be true, whatever I'm telling myself, and it's like I don't know if that's necessarily true.
Speaker 2:But that idea of like we're not getting the whole, you're not getting the whole picture, Like this is, I'm telling you what?
Speaker 2:you think about this Cause I often think there are stages to this. Um, like Ram Dass, too, talks about, look, you have to become somebody and then you can become nobody. And I think a lot of what we're doing in therapy is becoming somebody, learning how to advocate for our needs and speak up and trust our boundaries and get the result we want, take care of ourselves. But then freedom changes, you know. Then it becomes about. Can I surrender all these components that I thought made me up? Not that we don't keep the boundaries or speak up, but can I hold all of that a little bit more loosely, a little bit more gently, and can I allow more loss and more curiosity in this process?
Speaker 2:Like the becoming somebody process is wait a second. I do see this clearly. I can trust how I see this. That's a valid stage. But the becoming nobody is wait a second. I can't see any of this clearly. I'm making it all up and that's liberating, but if you tell that to someone who's coming into the becoming somebody phase, it's the wrong fucking conversation. I can't tell someone who's never had any therapy and needs therapy hey, you're imagining all this.
Speaker 2:That's an inappropriate invention, that's a totally, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, what a terrible gaslighting, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's a great way.
Speaker 3:So the timing on this conversation is Wow, that was so meaningful, molly, because I just love that direction as far as recognizing where this individual or individuals fall on, you know, the spectrum of change, and understanding where they are in their own development. So, coming in, I don't have a me, I don't have a self, I don't know how to advocate, I'm boundaryless, I'm living in my shame. So it's like, how do we advocate through the boundaries, through understanding internal or external boundaries, and then we can move into which could seem so interesting. Right, it's like build this now take it apart, you know, it's like that's exactly right.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right. Look, this is why we have to change clinicians or therapists or coaches or guides, or why we need to diversify often Because the person that helped you build it, or the conversation or the modality that helped you develop that self or get sober, that eventually has to fall apart. I can't tell you how many, how often. I again love the recovery programs and I get a lot of people in my practice who are 10 or 15 years sober insisting I still can't trust myself. Right, hold on a second. I think you've developed the right to trust yourself. When you came in to sobriety, you absolutely didn't. But if you're still believing that you haven't developed enough credibility to trust yourself when you came in to sobriety, you absolutely didn't. But if you're still believing that you haven't developed enough credibility to trust yourself now we're staying arrested from exactly where you began, and that's a problem. That's a problem.
Speaker 2:So, look, there's a time to trust ourselves. There's a time to surrender trust and defer to other people, and we want to know, in the beginning and in the end, what's actually required here, because you may have not started trusting yourself. Learn to trust yourself and then you operate differently. So we want to allow the rules to change and evolve. Things have to fall away. Even the stick that you poke the fire with goes in the fire. All of these methods are traps and have to dismantle. That might be too much. That's insane.
Speaker 3:Oh, molly, this is so rich and so good. I really love your wide lens. It really we really move when you can expand again. That idea is, if we always are seeing our life from a frame, that our freedom is just outside that frame, if we can just see it from, we turn from a very two-dimensional to a multi-dimensional individual and the more that you keep going down the journey is, the more dimensions you can pull from and see from and understand from and feel from and be with and not be. You know it's like, but it's always this idea of maybe it still serves a purpose, right? So if we're looking at it from the idea of the attachment and identity, so what's the purpose it's still holding for you? What are those gains that are associated with continuing to hide behind? Say, if we're just looking from the anxiety, what is it serving? How does it serve and what's the risk? If you let that go right, it's just like gain risks you know there's a certain risk.
Speaker 3:There's a fear that is coming. So if I let this go, what? What does that mean? I'm going to annihilate, I'm going to just dissolve into thin air.
Speaker 2:I'm not going to exist. Yeah, and I'll hear all sorts of things. Some people think like the anxiety allows them to feel productive. It feels like they're doing something like rearranging the furniture. Some of us that allows us to feel like we're just we're doing something, I have some role. Or you know, even if it's, it's mundane, it, the obsession, feels like it's might be making progress in some way, even though it isn't. And some of us just the habit of anxiety is what we're addicted to. That that feels like, well, I'm an anxious person, this is what I do. Again, it feels so identified with it it's hard to let that go. It can be like a real threat to your identity to start to heal, let alone to learn that, oh, this is a part of you and you can keep it.
Speaker 3:You don't have to get rid of it, by the way, you couldn't if you wanted to. It's so interesting, as we're talking about it, something that landed as far as like, if that can move in somewhat of a distraction piece, right, it's almost like that can be our over obsession and driving a lot of whatever that might be where we can obsess solely on that, because, as it relates to the fear, well, what's underneath that? Yeah, now, we had that's where the work is lying, but I could just focus here and I'll just focus on the top. I heard this. I heard this. I don't know who it was.
Speaker 3:It might've been, uh, I don't know if it's Richard Ward, but he had said something like the first part of life is developing the ego, so there's a sense of identity. The second part of life is learning how to become friends with your ego. Right, like noticing the mechanism, and that is the becoming. The ego is the evolved. We need that. We can't survive without an ego. We need that. We wouldn't be able to make it as a species so great. Create it Now, let's unpack that and dissolve that, and so this is where it's like that is so confusing If you're on this journey.
Speaker 3:Wait, am I supposed to? Am I I not supposed to? But I love what you really brought in you. You spoke these words of like knowing where that person is and on their journey of healing and honoring that space where they're at, and meeting them there on that road, I think is really important yeah, that's, that is the work, and I look, I relate to that, you and I we're.
Speaker 2:What I love about you, shane, is that you're doing this work and you're living embodiment of it as well, and I, it's clear, you're doing your own work while you're also facilitating this for your clients. Um, but, yeah, we're working with our own egos in this process. We don't get to amputate those either. Uh, we have to know where our zip code is. We have to know, like, who our tax person is. We have to, we have to have these resources at our disposal, um, and the instinct often when it comes to personal growth or even spiritual development, is how do I transcend that? And I love your point.
Speaker 2:No, we fucking need that, that's essential you know, get to get rid of that. That's an orienting piece. It's both. Can you use both? That's the game. Can you work?
Speaker 2:with the duality of both going at the same time and that's a tough one. It's a tough one. I also love what you said about like having to see the ego in play, and I say this to clients all the time the first step to getting out of prison is agreeing that you're in prison. You can't get out of prison if you think you're free. I was talking to a client who's like, yeah, I keep talking to a client who's like, yeah, I keep uh, uh. This is a client who's still becoming somebody and she was talking about, uh, I, I keep internet stalking my ex and as I got in, I started coaching her and how to stop that and I realized, oh, she wasn't fully on board, that this wasn't helpful behavior good but first I gotta back this up, uh, and I gotta get her to a point where she can agree oh right, stalking my ups online is in prison, that's prison, and then we can develop you.
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm in prison right now. I'm doing the thing, and now I can stop doing the thing or make efforts. What do I have to feel if I'm not doing the thing? But, yeah, we can't see where our ego is in our way, or have an awareness that it's even in play right now.
Speaker 3:We don't get free from it. The awareness is the first step to that. Oh, molly.
Speaker 1:Molly, molly, so beautiful, so rich.
Speaker 3:I love, I love your approach because I just it, I resonate with all of it. So let's kind of you talked about this before. What do you got going on? Um, you talked about some, um, some sessions that people can get involved in. Tell us what you got going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have uh, every Wednesday at noon Pacific I offer with what? Uh, this is kind of cheesy I always think it's cheesy when I say the name, but it's called in practice with Molly, come do some practice with me. We do a little guided mindfulness practice and, uh, again, I do it my way. So there's also some Q&A. So people bring in questions about their relationship, their meditation practice, their anxiety, questions about coaching. It's kind of a free for all and it's usually a really little intimate group so between two and 10, where people are practicing together, and then I usually will do a lecture on a particular topic, answer some questions and we're out in an hour so that you can register through the link in my bio on Instagram or if you go to the workshops on my website. That's a weekly offering. It's also sliding scale. It's by donation. You can come for free, and then I have the living room starting in September, which is my. It's my six week coaching group. I offer it several times a year. That's when one starts September 3rd.
Speaker 3:It's right around the corner. Can't believe it.
Speaker 2:We're already almost there, so yeah and I'll have all the links down at the bottom.
Speaker 3:So if you didn't catch any of that, I'll have the links where you can get connected with Molly and hear her approach. I mean, again, directful, but with love and understanding. So I really it resonates with me. I really love that. So I really it resonates with me. I really love that. So, Molly, such a pleasure to have you Always, always, always. I'm sure we'll probably do it many times because, yes, Absolutely. Anyway, we'll end here Again. My name is Shane. This is Men Uncaved. We need to come out of hiding.