Twinsdom
Twin siblings, Kate and Mark O'Neill, share their intimate and whimsical talks about life and learning
Twinsdom
Nourishment, Surrender, and Low Bars
Things get a little deeper on this episode as Mark talks about his low bars and the twins discuss the challenge of finding true nourishment and the difference between surrendering and not caring.
Kate mentioned a quote in the pod, "courage is fear walking," by an author whose name she couldn't remember, it's Susan David, the author of Emotional Agility.
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as much as I can hold people or have so much more capacity now, to come to that realization that I can't do enough, I can't keep the world together for somebody else, no matter how hard. I could try or did try and then I was starting to drown myself, both lifeguards, right? Yeah, you have to save yourself, when you go out there and they're panicked and they're grabbing on to you It's like you have to push away It's better to let them go under the water and then get them because you're gonna drown And I was having that feeling and, when you have capacity, sometimes just because you can doesn't mean you shouldn't, Yeah, I'm not afraid. I'm not afraid. Alright,
Kate:tell me about your
Mark:bar. My bar now is like that. I want it all. I like it. That's my bar. So not just someone that likes me. Always when I think about this stuff, the bars, the low bars that we have, they're like ridiculous. Think about that. That's your low bar for a relationship is that someone actually likes me. That's my bar. In fact, no one met that bar. So how amazing is that?
Kate:Oh,
Mark:yeah. I'd have someone that likes me that's happy to see me that wants partnership that will do dishes if I cook without me having to ask that it's not crazy. It is I just That's Patty. This is this lovely voice that you're hearing in the background. And I just asked for a glass of water, right? Low bar. Hey, can you give me a glass of water? And she did. But for real, like that doesn't happen in my life.
Kate:I know that, Mark. I know. I do. I know. I've seen that. I would love to see you do that in all aspects of your life too. Yeah.
Mark:ask strangers for water. I'll walk down the street, can I have some water, can I have some food.
Kate:In a way, yeah, well, here's what my question would be for you is how can you look just like you've done with your relationship bar? I would be curious what you might see if you look at it. Globally too
Mark:the life bar,
Kate:all your relationships,
Mark:ask more my kids,
Kate:yeah, or whatever, I'm just saying, cause I would love that. I love that for you. That's, this is so wonderful. And not only that, someone who's not only getting you a glass of water, but who's happy to get you a glass of water,
Mark:Were you happy to get me a
Kate:glass of water? I was ecstatic. I knew that Patty was. Yeah, I told him that you need to I hope that you can experience. Being taken care of, cared of a little bit, I don't know I could see how special he was when I first met him, honestly, I don't, it's only been a month, but I still, I just think he's worthy of love and caring for sure. That's right. That's right. And,
Mark:like I said, it's six months. If that's still true, but right now,
Kate:no because sometimes, how it's hard, ask for what this happens to me sometimes where I finally get what I've been longing for, but because my, Neuropathways are so used to the other way that it feels almost threatening or uncomfortable. So it's I have to remind my brain like that. That's the old thing and. temper that down. I mean, I'm not saying that's what happens for you, but that's what happens for me a little bit when I finally get it.
Mark:Yeah, it'd be interesting. We got because of the twin thing. I wonder if you will feel something, right? This idea because oh, yeah, so you're going to make us all cry.
Kate:That means I'm doing my job.
Mark:Well, it's true though, right? I mean, because I made a really conscious decision. You were actually talking to me as I was making this decision, driving to meet Patti for the first time, even with all the stuff that was going on in my life. Because I made a decision to make room for me, what it is I live in, and that whatever that was, if I was just having a conversation, just having that kind of moment and I really made a decision and I don't think that Patty is a figment of my imagination, but she seems to be, an answer to a prayer of that, right? Being met, right? I think if I, you and I have had this conversation, but I'm trying to move away from this idea of connection and what we're seeking is connection. And what we're really seeking are the ships, friendship, partnership, companionship, fellowship, fleeting or can be fleeting. The ships are like lasting,
Kate:well, I think about the ships. I know exactly what you mean, because that was my relationship with Melissa Kendall, yeah, this is an old friend of mine, Patty, who was my best friend here in Vermont and passed from cancer very young. But the depth of that relationship was just amazing, and I always said it was difficult to explain. But the thing I wanted to say I mean, aren't ships. A form of connection. I think maybe I mean what I hear you saying is that it's about sustained. Yeah, it's a connection, where it's not fleeting, but it's
Mark:it's being part of something. Yeah. Yeah, right. So if I think about this, maybe in terms of comfort versus nurture, right? So comfort gives you a feeling of well being or, solace, but it isn't nurturing,
Kate:right? So like the nourishment that I've been working with lately.
Mark:Yeah. So connection or connection is same way, right? It can be meaningful, but you can have a connection with your mailman. Think the idea of connection is the feeling of we're going to have this exchange this thing and it's temporary. The ships, yeah, they last and you're building something. Right. Partnership is not temporary. The whole idea of it, whether it's legal or not. Right. Yeah. And to me, that's much more what I'm interested in. Just like when I began to understand that what I was lacking was nurture. I started making decisions that were supporting that. And they were very different decisions. Yes. So instead of going to a movie alone and eating popcorn with peanut M& Ms, which is delicious, for the first like 10 minutes, and then feeling cranky and, not physically awesome afterwards, that was comfort. It wasn't nurture. So when I got the nurture information, then I was able to not go to a movie and not eat those kind of things because I felt better when I didn't. And so that was a nurturing choice, and it's, it seems so simple, but it really is. Being able to identify what we're really trying to solve and what you need, right? And what you need exactly. It seems so simple, but we're often trying to get a patch on something, right? We're just trying to like in this moment solve something, but we don't know what it is. We're solving. We're lonely, right? So we see connection. Well the wiring that we all seem to have We're going to probably find something that isn't quite meeting the need, or it's just meeting this very basic need. Low bar.
Kate:Or it was a bar that was set at a time of your life where it did make sense. Yeah. Cause that's often what I say is that maybe that was where we started. And at that time, that, that was. That was enough or was what we needed, at that time. And then, but as we evolve, it's not okay anymore. It's not the right thing for the moment or what we need in that time period. But I think to honor that. Honor and have like compassion for that part of us that yeah, that time period in our life, absolutely. Yeah, because I think about comfort. It's so crazy. The twin thing is going on right now. Oh my gosh, have I told you the journal writing that I've been doing in the last 48 hours. It would be insane. I literally wrote about nourishment. But I think about, with children, how, sometimes like to give them comfort, like you open up your arms and they crawl in and they get like a hug. And that moment of comfort is exactly what they need, and then they go off, and there's a place for that. There's a place for that foot massage but I love your idea of the sustaining deep cellular. Soul.
Mark:Yeah. But there, and there is a difference though, right? So if a child is getting hugged in that way, which I always say, I don't know what the fuck that is, cause that never happened, is there's trust, right? There's a belief like that you're going to be taken in, you're going to be met. So it's, it is nurtured, yeah. Yeah. It's I mean, as an adult, if you want that, you gotta, pay a hundred bucks or whatever it is. Right. Yeah, It's so true. For me to massage. Yeah, massage or other adult support. Yeah. I always joke and. I've never been to a prostitute, right? But I always thought in the past, if I was to do it, I'd be one of those guys that would go and be like, just, can you just hug me? Can you just, I just want to be held or can we do that? Yeah. No, I never did it, but I'm sure it's a business out there somewhere.
Kate:Well, actually, it's funny you say this because I remember, I don't know, somewhere in COVID, there was a woman who started a hugging. Business. Like she literally started, it was on Instagram or that's how I saw it. And she literally, that's all she did was just hug people and it was her. I don't
Mark:know.
Kate:Yeah. I've seen that before. It's like a professional hugger. They go and they just settle in when a very comfortable place and hold on to the person and. That person just melts and gets what they need.
Mark:So I'm working on it. All right. I think that's maybe a good time to say bye to Patty. It was so nice to meet you. It was
Kate:great to meet you
Mark:too. Yeah. All right. And I'd love to have Patty on in a more formal way at some point because she is a a functional nurse, functional medicine, psychiatric
Kate:nurse practitioner, functional, psych NP. Yeah,
Mark:psych NP. Yeah. So basically, she looks at the whole person, whole body life things and tries to, formulate a way to help someone's mental health. So not just the simple medicinal answer.
Kate:That's wonderful. Oh, thank goodness. That's great. Oh, gosh, it's yeah, that's wonderful. So needed. Yeah, so our bars. Did you want to say goodbye? Are you good?
Mark:Okay, she's here on the couch staring. Lovingly at me, oh, okay. I didn't know what was happening. No, I want you to stay right here, but you know, can't legally kidnap you, so you have your own free will. Okay, so Kate can I ask you so you don't have to do this, but you mentioned. That you were journaling about nourishment I've been thinking about this. Clearly you've been thinking about this. What have you been coming to? And your exploration of that,
Kate:well, there's two aspects to it for me. And one is the literal physical things that have been going on in my body, yeah, there's been a real physical aspect happening that is just surreal. Honestly, like, when I, if I were to wind up everything that's happened in the last two, three months But the other piece of this is I recently listened to another podcast we can do hard things and had Liz Gilbert as the guest on the show and she has started a sub stack community called letters from love. And what she was offering to folks to try is this practice of writing every day a letter from love. And what you do is, this started actually in her Eat, Love, Pray book, but what you say is, Love, what would you have me know today? That's the prompt? That's the prompt. Okay. Love, what would you have me know today? And, and I have to say that what was really interesting is there were two, three themes that came out. I've been doing it for the last three days now. So I'm still new into it. But yesterday it was all about nourishment all about nourishment
Mark:and
Kate:for me, it's almost like on some level. I didn't believe I deserved it. Like on some level. I didn't believe I wasn't able to have the I'm calling it deep nourishment, which is very similar to what you're talking about. spiritual it's physical, it's relational, and it's body, it's spirit, it's all of it the, and I realized on some level that I have believe that I can only have this much, which
Mark:is just like what you're saying. The crumbs, yeah, the crumbs, the pinch.
Kate:It didn't feel, it almost I know you often talk about the bar, and for me it was about like deserving, like it has something to do you can only feel this good. Yeah, you can only feel this, and
Mark:that's a, it's a pinch podcast. People, this is a pinch, a little piece between your thumb and finger when you make it as small as possible. I'm showing
Kate:you this little inch. Yeah, exactly. And. And basically what love was telling me is that, I, she said, I said, what would you have, and she said, I would have, rest, the rest that seeps into your bones and muscles in every cell, I would have, true nourishment to allow yourself to be nourished in every aspect of your being. Yeah, and at the same time, I've been having all these physical things happening and literally to the point mark of me sharing with, having these physical things going on to the point where I'm like, it's now about my food to like, I literally
Mark:everything,
Kate:there's this new show on television with a show called finding joy and it's the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu having a conversation, which is beautiful. If you ever want to get give yourself this beautiful gift, sit down and watch this relationship between these 2 men, but 1 of the things that they talk about is how sometimes to find our compassionate self. We do go through struggle, and it's in that deep, dark struggle that we find compassion and and I was thinking about how often for me, that's the path like it's, yeah,
Mark:and compassion for ourselves. That we find that in through the struggle. Compassion for others. So you mean self compassion.
Kate:That, right. Well, they were talking about finding compassion for others, but I also heard it as compassion for oneself. Yeah. Okay. Because
Mark:yeah. Yeah. But like that resonates because that story of, going on the date, that was because of the struggle. Yes. Right. What you and I talked about was this, the heavy stuff, which I can't really go into, but just heavy, like as much as I can hold people or have so much more capacity now, to come to that realization that I can't do enough, I can't keep the world together for somebody else, no matter how hard. I could try or did try and then I was starting to drown myself, both lifeguards, right? Yeah, you have to save yourself, when you go out there and they're panicked and they're grabbing on to you It's like you have to push away It's better to let them go under the water and then get them because you're gonna drown And I was having that feeling and, when you have capacity, sometimes just because you can doesn't mean you shouldn't, right? That's when I tell other people, and by giving up that because the beautiful part too. Was that I did. I told you like I prayed for help. I just said I can't do it and help came, in these kind of amazing ways that other people's came forward that we're offering support to people in situations that I couldn't fully appreciate. Fix, right? Or help. And so I didn't have to. And things got better. And I just I've been thinking about like self care. I had a mantra because I go into a coach, right? I was doing some somatic coaching, and I'm, I'm always trying to crack the code, understand the puzzle of myself, other people, how we kind of do this thing as humans. And I had like self care as this mantra and I like the idea of it, but I don't know that it actually really did it until I had that moment like a month ago where I was like, I have to put myself first. I'm not going to make it like boom. And now it's okay, the world responds. And, so not only were other people's situations able to step up and help, probably because I withdrew some, right? That's the other thing. That's like when we talk about boundaries, when we honor what it is we really can do, we feel aligned with and what we can't, other things come to fill in the gaps or other people adjust, it's an amazing thing. And we're talking about that low bar like. I wanted like a cup of coffee with someone, right? But I got like the whole fucking thing. It's like amazing, whatever happens, but the feeling of being met. Being seen and being nurtured like I literally had not known what that feeling is You know, so to have that feeling and what I did was I just Surrendered right and I said I need this from a place in which I really meant it Many times we think we're asking for what we need or we're really setting a boundary and we're not you know, we're negotiating We're compromising Yeah,
Kate:and also for me, I know you talked about that surrender before and I realized that the other piece that I needed when I thought about that was compassion that self compassion, which it feels like it feels like that is some essential aspect of the surrender. Because at least for me, that, that was something that was just missing because I know if, you were tracking all these things that I was telling you about, the challenges I was having and like you were saying the heavy things, right? But it was like, to really surrenders feels like there's that. Need to have that love and compassion at the same time for yourself, which is that other nourish that is nourishing, to have that because, like you said, I can convince myself I'm surrendering and I'm actually really not. Convincing myself not to care is not true surrender.
Mark:Yes. Yes. Well said
Kate:and I think writing, the writing practice was really helpful for me because I could hear a compassionate voice. And I could access that the act of talking to love, like outside of me which, Liz Gilbert says it's your, whether you call it higher power, like whether you call it source, whether you call it your wisdom keeper for yourself, like whatever it is that you want to call that source, but it is a sword, like it is real. Yeah. And the other thing I would say, too, is to allow yourself vulnerability because you let yourself, there's an incredible vulnerability in that moment, would you say?
Mark:Yeah, absolutely. But there's a lot of power, though, in the surrender because we're not keeping everything at bay. We're not trying to hold it all together and it makes room for something to come in to help you. Yeah. And I agree, the sense of worthiness. So many of us, it feels like all of us, but have at that core, this doubt about our worthiness or how it's going to go if we are ourselves in the world. Like I, I keep moving away from the word vulnerable to to talk about being open because vulnerable, Feels like we're at risk. And that's really what I mean by being vulnerable. It means you're open. It means you're gonna take the risk of putting the armor down to allow yourself to be seen. And it's so painful. So many of the people I work with, I've known it feels so painful not to be seen. And what it's hard for people to see is that they're wearing armor that does not allow themselves to be seen. And what's more fucking painful than that, right? We're drowning over here and nobody can see it. And it seems obvious to us, because we feel it's so intensely that we can't understand how others can't see it. But guess what, armor is it's not see through, and so we're in there dying and no one can see us. We need to be able to take that risk. So we have to get so uncomfortable. I fucking life and death. I know. Let's literally life or death. And to the point of saying, wow, okay. I have to honor what it is that I need. That's self care, right? Prioritizing that, and it wasn't even such a conscious thought, of okay, then what happens from that? It didn't really matter, I knew I needed to do that. Because you need to be able to function, that's what I was doing and everything is not solved. There's still a lot of unknown, but to have nurture, from a human being, not a fucking Bag of popcorn, it feels so much better,.
Kate:It's what you really want. Anyway, like you said it's just what you really want. It's what your it's what your soul needs. Your body needs everything. But it's hard. It's hard. I mean yeah, I'm traveling with you on this path right now. It's amazing. As you were saying about this alignment, you faced that challenge earlier on the bag of popcorn, you, but it was almost like, now you're getting into the relational piece on another level, it feels like and and it's with this next iteration, I realized that, I feel like I'm about to enter the zone that you're talking about right now, yeah.
Mark:Well,
Kate:realizing that the only, for example, so now, like, all these foods are causing all this allergic reaction in my body. Yeah, and. What I realized and all the antibiotics that I've just recently taken, which I finally connected the loop from doing some reading after you and I talked and I'm just laughing. There's a part of me that's like. laughing at the universe. At the same time, I'm grateful. There's like a relief that I think this is the surrender maybe that you're talking about. Because even though I wish I didn't have to travel this hard, get this extreme place in my body. But at the same time, there's part of me that's okay, yeah, the guesswork is out of this, like time to reset. This is a major reset for me to be to live a healthy Life, and to get, like you said, the true nourishment that I need, not the comfort I might get from a glass of wine at the end of the day. All right. Right. Yes. Yeah, I need to get it from the bone broth that actually will. I could not destroy my gut lining, and give myself. That's where that compassionate voice needs to come in for me, because that's, to interrupt that just the compassionate voice. Yes, really helps me stay on that path because I have a tendency to beat myself up for past choices. So my surrender walk away from that and invite this other voice,
Mark:yes, yeah, it's true. That's self compassion because, we get in the cycle of, coping, comforting, and then we feel bad about what we did, and then we focus on that, not why we did it, or meaning what's the familiar wiring, right? It's just understanding That we were feeling overwhelmed or we're, we're accessing that coping reward response. It just gets wired in to do this to try to make myself feel better. But I think amazingly, we don't actually pay attention to how we feel. Yes.
Kate:100%. I'm so good at
Mark:that. We're paying attention. Oh, yeah. It's Oh, what am I feeling right now? Right. What is it that I really need? And is this thing that I'm doing, am I, is it aligned with that, and I mean, it's interesting, you're doing this. I'm also, I'm wearing a glucose monitoring patch for the first time over a week. I've done all of this research study, right? We have this wonderful heart disease in our family and I've done all these things and I have been using, sugar, carbs. For training, I'm a cyclist, but I was also using it to at some level still that sense of comfort looking at numbers like, okay, look at that. It's this black and white thing in which it's actually helping you tie. This choice leads to this. How I'm actually feeling. What is it that I'm really wanting to happen? Because when we have that clarity, we're no longer feeling deprived, right? We're having to give, which I think stops people. It's we're not giving it up because this feels better. Right? When I spent years with that low bar of just someone just wanting to hang out with me or wanting to choose me. And that was it. I didn't feel very good. Because it was always going to be a situation in which, someone was going to leave,, or something was going to end, or I had to accept the barriers or walls that people were putting up. It didn't feel good. I spent many years in relationships like that without really being able to feel it. It was just familiar. And then, when you encounter someone And there isn't the wall and there is this like true like connection affinity, welcome that dream that we all have right about being seen or met feels fucking good, it's like you want it to smack yourself in the forehead, that duh wow,
Kate:I know that
Mark:I know. So it's, yeah, I
Kate:know. And that is personal development. I mean, that's personal growth, right? It's I think about how things that, a therapist, when I first got to Bozeman in 2016, and I started doing this work, she literally eventually said, she tried to develop that compassionate voice. And help me with this. I couldn't, it was like, I wasn't ready. so I guess I also want to say, yeah, listen to us. Right. We've been working on this for a long time and it's okay. And yay, for these moments that we have. That open us up again, to this. So Mark, I'm just so happy. I'm so happy. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. I want you to keep
Mark:doing it. Yeah. Yeah. No, no pressure, Patty. I say I'm often convincing people that aliens exist in my work. Because not literally right. But because. Our perception gets to be such that we believe that in my case, like someone who could be open and nurturing and attracted to me doesn't exist. And when we get so wired to meet our perception, of course, we keep meeting situations that are actually just reflective of our patterning. If you want to read about this, read Blink. Talks about the adaptive unconscious, about how we can make decisions unconsciously that meet this inner thing, right? And there's a filter or the reticular activation system that is the filter. So it's telling our brain what to look for and we're not even aware of it. So we keep finding these things. So yeah, the world looks that way. But it doesn't mean that's the world. So it's a bit of a mindfuck for us, right? And it's so wired in that we're literally having to do the work of rewiring a brain to give it more flexibility to really take in information versus confirmation. This perception bias we don't even know we have. And it's the feeling to feel seen and met. Because you know what? I don't have my armor on. I've never been more myself in the world, for better or worse, than I am now. So if someone is crazy enough to embrace that, fuck yeah! Because I can't be anybody but myself right now, And that's the only way we get to be seen. Often we feel like we're being seen, but we're not. It's all this internal thing that's happening for us. And so if we're open, and it's a lot of work. Like you said, it's a lot of fucking work. To get to where it feels safe enough to be open. That we can be seen. And we can start to feel. You know what it is we actually want what feels good what doesn't feel good and man that becomes so much simpler.
Kate:So I'll give you this quote that I think is a nice place to segue out and it's gosh, what is her last name? Susan. She's a Harvard PhD, who can't remember her last name, but basically she has this quote that says. Courage is fear walking, and I've always loved that because, when you talk about feeling safe or, or the difference between vulnerability and open I don't, I just love that because it's It means that we're always going to walk, I don't know that I'll ever get rid of the fear that I have about certain things. But when I say that to myself, courage is fear walking. It's even though I do feel this. I have these tools. I have these things. I, I'm doing whatever I can and I'm just going to keep going because when you were talking about vulnerability and openness, the other word that came to me was courage,
Mark:yes, this is not for the faint of heart
Kate:and bless you all. It's bless you. Takes a lot of courage. To feel that and keep going, we can do it. Yeah.
Mark:And then I said, we all get to be human. We don't have to be perfect. You will not be perfect. We don't need, like you said, to have these things go away, right? Because they are, they were our security blanket. They were our way of feeling safe in the world. So we just Have them not rule our choices, so we can have compassion. So when I, reach for a pint of ice cream now, like I know why I'm doing it. Feeling overwhelmed. And this is just my little, straight to the vein, approach. Right. So I know I'm feeling overwhelmed and that's good information. And I don't beat myself up because I'm feeling overwhelmed. Right. Yeah. How fucked up is that we do that. We beat ourselves up because we're feeling bad. We're feeling hurt feeling lonely, whatever it is. So if we're not adding that, it makes it. It makes it easier. That's the stuff I'm always selling. It isn't easy, but life could feel easier to feel better. The world can feel more like a place we want to be in. But it's not about it getting easy, right? Life is life, you were fucking battling the elements literally, like the floods, right? Nature, like the universe itself.
Kate:Yeah, pretty much on all levels.
Mark:It's true. Kate's in Vermont it's, life is life. But If we're doing things we're more aligned with, which you will hear me say that a million times, we're going to get energy in and the work will be towards building something, not surviving something.
Kate:Yes, totally.
Mark:Yeah.
Kate:This. Hey Mark, I'm looking at the time and I gotta go.
Mark:I gotta go. I gotta go. Why? What do you have to do? More important than talking to your twin.
Kate:gotta go help my daughter do her taxes.
Mark:so fun. That is more important. Yeah. And probably more fun. That's right. I have to go do my coaching. Yeah. and I gotta probably snuggle with Patty a little bit and yeah. That's important. But, it's good. It's always so nice to be with you. So nice to be with you, mark. And I am so happy to hear you know, of your connection to nourishment and I could just see it in your face. I can see it. It's good. It's lovely.
Kate:Thank you, Mark. I think it's been amazing how you and I have not been talking ahead of these podcasts. And when we start talking it's almost surreal. it's so interesting.
Mark:It's like we're twins or something. I know, that's weird. Well, I'll say this everybody go be human. Just be human this week.
Kate:Okay. Thank you, Mark. And I would say, keep the bar. Where it is.
Mark:Keep it high. Keep the bar high. In every aspect of your life. Yes. All right. Well, I got to go, Yeah. I gotta go too.
Kate:I gotta go.
Mark:All right. Well, let's go. It's great talking to you.
Kate:It's great talking to you too, Mark.
Mark:All right. All right. Bye my twin.
