S2E3: Taking the Wheel: Agency in Hard Times 'N at

We talk about agency as the small, real choices we can still make when life is unfair, overwhelming, or full of grief. We connect self-awareness to action, name the nervous system “freeze” response, and share practical ways to find one next step without shaming yourself.  

• defining agency as influence inside what you cannot change  

• why awareness without action turns into shutdown  

• Jodi’s story of leaving an unhealthy marriage over time  

• what personal responsibility sounds like without blame  

• Sherry’s health crash and the grief underneath “staying busy”  

• rebuilding with deliberate, small moments of joy  

• reframing coping as joy versus avoidance  • understanding fight, flight, and freeze in crisis moments  

• sorting “what’s mine” versus “what isn’t”  

• choosing one next small move instead of a full plan  

• acknowledging real constraints like money and power dynamics  

• owning harm you caused with a clean apology and repair  

Crisis Support

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, available 24/7
• National Domestic Violence Hotline — call or text 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), available 24/7 — safety planning, local resources, online chat available if calling isn't safe

If You're Still in It and Not Sure How to Start

• NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) — nami.org — family support resources
• Al-Anon Family Groups — al-anon.org — for those loving someone through addiction

If You're Ready to Take the First Steps

• HEARTH Pittsburgh — hearthpgh.org — transitional housing for moms and children rebuilding after homelessness and trauma, with wraparound services including workforce development, childcare, financial stability support, and therapy
• 211 — call or text 211 — connects you to local housing, childcare, food, and financial assistance
• PA Legal Aid Network — palegalaid.net — free legal help for low-income Pennsylvanians navigating divorce and custody

Transcript

Sherry 0:01

What would it mean to you to feel like you had some power back even in the middle of something you can't change? What's the episode about? And I said, agency. And he kind of raised an eyebrow.

Jodi 0:25

I used to feel the same way. People would talk about agency and I'd be like. But what actually is it? You know, it is kind of a confusing word, right? Because

Sherry 0:35

yeah.

Jodi 0:35

the word agency and they think of a place, an entity, you know, like advertising agency. So when you're talking about it, as a verb, What is actual meaning?

Sherry 0:46

The way that I kind of explained it is that when life's being jag off hard, that it's stepping back and recognizing and accepting that some things are not going to be in our control, but that we do have some control, and it's figuring out what that step is and how to take the next step forward, keeping in mind for our listeners, that if this is arriving in a certain. If your whole world just imploded this morning and, and then this comes on, that's irresponsible to say you have agency, get up off your ass and do something.

Jodi 1:29

That's not what we're saying.

Sherry 1:32

There might be people listening who are going through something that's so devastating that talking about taking small steps and finding your influence really might feel almost insulting. Those sudden catastrophic things that, you know, there's your life before it and after.

Jodi 1:50

Yeah. And if there's any version of agency available in those moments, it might be just this. Let someone in just don't carry it alone. If there's somebody that wants to step in and help, let them let them. It was very hard for me to let people in.

Let People In And Get Help

Sherry 2:06

Yeah, you don't have to carry that alone. And, we're not therapists or coaches and we're not gonna try to tell you what your patterns mean or what you should do about them. And if something lands, we're glad. If you need more than a podcast, please go get that. We have some resources listed in the show notes or call or 988 anytime. We're talking about the kind of loss where you're genuinely not the same person anymore. And we're not gonna pretend to have words for something that big, but what I wanna make sure we say is, the people that we've watched carry the most unimaginable losses. They maybe didn't come back exactly the same, but they did come back. Different maybe, but still here, still finding moments, even small ones that meant something.

Jodi 2:55

We can't tell you when that happens or what that's gonna look like for you.

Sherry 2:59

Yes, but I didn't want anyone walking away from this episode feeling like hope wasn't meant for you, too. And sometimes that hope is just, you know what? I made it through today. And that's the thing that counts. So that's where we're starting today.

Jodi 3:16

Last episode we talked about self-awareness, noticing what's happening inside us, catching patterns and triggers. And, what we've been realizing is that awareness without somewhere to go can start to feel a little stuck.

Sherry 3:31

Yeah, Because when you have that awareness without meaningful action or change, you end up in frustration. Then eventually maybe shut down.

Jodi 3:41

Right. And that's where today's conversation's going. Awareness is the foundation, the agency and personal responsibility, that's what you start to build from.

Sherry 3:51

And I wanna be really clear about what we mean by that, because both agency and personal responsibility can sound like, well, if your life's hard, it's your fault for not trying harder.

Jodi 4:04

That's definitely not what we're saying. Not at all.

Jodi’s Turning Point And The Bus

Sherry 4:06

Yeah. We are trying to be deliberately more hopeful than that because even inside really difficult circumstances, ones that aren't your fault, that aren't fair, that you didn't choose, there are almost always some small pockets of places where a choice, even just a tiny one can shift something.

Jodi 4:27

That decision to take the wheel you steer your own life. I remember a particular therapist and she was like, who's driving your bus? Are you gonna keep letting other people drive your bus? I stayed in an unhealthy marriage for a long time. I had three kids and money was already tight. I could barely pay the bills. I had spent seven years as a stay at home mom with no income of my own. I convinced myself I had no choices. Then I started noticing things in my kids, the way they interacted with each other, you know, just this unhappiness in their eyes.

Sherry 5:06

Yeah.

Jodi 5:06

then I started to notice the way people looked at me. And I just knew at some point something had to give. I found a part-time job. And I scraped as much money and support as I could manage to find. I got myself a small two bedroom townhouse. I slept on a futon in the living room. I had no car. I mean, none of it was easy, but I did it. And then just when the ground under my feet started to feel solid, I lost my job. I just remember sitting on the bus and I was thinking, who am I trying to kid? I'm never gonna fully live the life I want, the life I want for my kids. I, I'm just stuck in loserville and, and I'm never gonna get out.

Sherry 5:51

And that's the feeling that's so real because when you get in that spot, you go into that, why bother? I put in all this effort and now here I am. And that leads you into that feeling of being stuck. So, and I do think that's the human response to uncertainty.

Jodi 6:10

Sure. But you know, the next morning I thought to myself. I already did the hardest parts. My kids need to see strength from me, what is it that I can do right now? And I remember as soon as they left for school, I filled up my coffee mug and I filed for unemployment. I updated my resume and I started looking for work. But, I could have shut down, I knew I wasn't completely out of choices. There were times in my life when that didn't happen and I did shut down and I did let the excuses come in. This time was different and, I knew that I was gonna get through it.

Sherry 6:45

Yeah, and that's agency. You noticed, what can I reach for? And then start reaching in that direction. And then personal responsibility fits in that too. That's owning your responses even when you didn't cause the situation. Taking ownership of your role in that situation. And sometimes I think that phrase feels heavy to people, so try to be careful with that one. But there's no wagging finger attached. It's not like, oh, well you screwed up at work and then that's why you lost your job. So now figure it out. You know? There are some things that just, aren't, aren't in your control.

Jodi 7:23

I could have in that situation, very easily gotten down on myself and been like, why

Sherry 7:29

Yeah.

Jodi 7:29

did this happen to me? I could have you know, oh, blame the boss, blame the company, blame everybody else around me but me. And I, I just knew that that was not where I needed to be. That wasn't how I was gonna move forward.

Sherry 7:43

Yeah

Jodi 7:44

But it's easy to do that too. And I, and I, like, I've been there, I've been on the other side, which is why,

Sherry 7:50

Yeah. I think we all have, I think we all have, I mean, it's a, it's a hard ask to ask yourself, what, what is my role in this? You know, whether, whether you contributed to getting yourself in a situation or not, it is really eye opening whenever you realize that you have both, you have agency in a situation and a responsibility to take steps to get yourself out of it. I had to face it that no one, no one was coming to put me back together. You know, there were some unfortunate circumstances and, it took a while, but no one's coming to put you back together.

The Now What Moment

Jodi 8:29

Take us back there. Take us back to where you were before

Sherry 8:32

Well, I realized I was really good at telling myself a bunch of bullshit. A lot had been dumped on me. And despite that, I convinced myself I was doing okay. I didn't really look at it as a coping skill or anything. My mantra was, ain't nobody got time for that. It was just life. Work hard, play hard, repeat. And to sum it up short. I was locked in all week on momming so hard and, and, and working and blacked out on the weekends, throwing myself into the work and the family and giving my best to all of it. But I, I was slowly sinking and I stayed busy enough that there really never was a quiet moment where I had to sit with anything and ask myself, you know, some, some questions

Jodi 9:25

And from the outside it probably looked like you were someone that had it all together.

Sherry 9:29

Maybe. Unless you caught me late night on a weekend. And that was a different story. But I convinced myself it was working. And the thing is, I, it was kind of, until my body said, nah, we're not doing this anymore. And then a series of medical things piled up and eventually took my career with them. It was all of it at once.

Jodi 9:55

So everything healthy or not just disappeared.

Sherry 9:58

All of it at once. And I remember sitting there thinking, now what? Genuinely not knowing, because I really never had to ask that question before. And there was always something to reach for. But now I couldn't throw myself into work. I smoked for 30 years, dropped that, didn't drink, couldn't even have the coffee, the sugar or the screens like, and I even couldn't stay busy because my body wouldn't let me. And I didn't know who I was without all of it. I didn't know it then. But I realize now when I was asking that question to myself, it was agency that I was searching for in the moment. There was a lot that had happened that was out of my immediate control and I was looking for any little bit of something to grab onto to figure out where, where my life, what I was gonna do with my life but the whole point is that people are often carrying a lot around that we don't, you know, we don't walk around with billboards on.

Jodi 11:12

People outside of you didn't realize what you were carrying.

Sherry 11:16

Yeah. Well that's, that's what I haven't said yet. My life at this time when everything kind of came unraveled, um, I didn't really question what was really underneath all of it. But when I asked myself what led me there, I realized that I was carrying way too much and way more than most people knew for a long time. And it was, you know, the kind of weight that doesn't show up on the outside because you're too busy holding everything together for everyone to let it. And it wasn't that I didn't wanna look at it, I'd looked, but we tried for so long to help my sister find her way, out of her darkness. But when you've exhausted every option that you know of, and the only thing left that you can actually do is show up for the people that she loved most, you just keep moving because that's the job now. And the other piece to that is that stopping means feeling, all of it. The grief, the helplessness, the weight of loving someone.

Jodi 12:35

It's a much heavier weight anyone realized.

Sherry 12:40

Yeah. The weight of, you know, loving someone through something that you can't fix.

Jodi 12:46

Right. I mean, and maybe that's exactly what you do need.

Sherry 12:51

Yeah. And it lives in you. And the only way that I knew how to carry it was just keep going.

Jodi 12:58

Yeah. Thank you for sharing that.

Sherry 13:03

But I really had been missing my sister for a long time by then, long before she was actually gone and watching someone you love disappear right in front of you, that's its own kind of grief that we don't really have a name for. You just keep loving them and you keep losing them. And you just keep going because you have to.

Jodi 13:28

Right, and there's not time to look at what it's doing to you. There's not time for you to reflect and, and at that point, you couldn't have taken agency over your life. You just couldn't have, it was just too much.

Sherry 13:45

Yeah, I was trying, but it's like you, you realize your, your capacity, like you can, uh, a person can only carry so much and you know, I always, I think I'll always think back to what everything came down to. Um, but I know that I did the best I could with what I was carrying at the time. But I'll talk more about her this season. And she wanted her story told, and I am gonna honor that. But for now, I just wanna say that she was there underneath all of it. She always was, even when we felt powerless to change her life. So,

Jodi 14:32

Thank you again.

Sherry 14:32

yeah.. Yeah. So the now what moment which I mentioned before, when it all caught up to me medically, what really held me upright was that I had people who were depending on me. And that's still is what keeps me upright. And I know that that sounds like pressure and a lot of days it was. But mostly it was the one reason that I had to figure it out and not for me just. There are people who need me to still be here and I have to find another way. That was the thought. I didn't know how. All I knew for sure was you can't quit.

Jodi 15:22

And that's everything in that moment, like that's it right there.

Rebuilding With Small Joys

Sherry 15:26

That was enough to start, and that's all I needed was a start. That's all it needed to be. But when you get in a place like that, starting is so unfamiliar because what you're used to is, is not, is no longer there. I felt ridiculous. I had to get deliberate about joy. Most of my usual go-tos were off the table. So. I started focusing on the small things that I let go over time, down to the simplest things, you know, enjoying the place where I live, sitting outside because I couldn't do much else at the time. And discovering that, you know, what, that did something, you know, calling people that I'd been too busy to call, noticing that certain things brought peace and certain things didn't. And slowly, very slowly though, but very slowly building from that noticing.

Jodi 16:33

And what shifted from doing it for the people depending on you to doing it for yourself.

Sherry 16:40

That took longer. And I think at some point I started noticing the things that I was finding, the quiet things, the real things, they were actually giving me something I needed, not just keeping me functional for everyone else. And somewhere in there the reasons started to shift.

Jodi 17:04

Straight from them to you.

Sherry 17:08

From them to me. And I knew that I couldn't have gotten to the second reason without the first one. I needed something outside of myself to hold onto long enough to find something inside myself worth holding onto in those moments.

Jodi 17:24

That's it. That's the whole thing right there.

Sherry 17:27

But it also then does tie back to the personal responsibility. I am a parent. Parent needs to be there for their kids. And I'm sharing all of this not to be dramatic though, there kind of was at the time, but people everywhere are running some version of this right now. And somewhere in there you're in that convincing yourself that this is working phase. You gotta keep going and you do.

Jodi 18:00

And, and honestly, maybe the floor hasn't even fallen out yet. Maybe it's just that little tiny feeling like something's not right. Something's not right.

Sherry 18:11

Yeah, maybe, and you don't have to wait for the forced version of this question. I don't recommend! You know, asking for it now before something turns to crisis mode. What am I actually reaching for and what do I actually need? Those aren't the same question, and the answer isn't always the same thing.

Jodi 18:34

And I wanna make sure something lands clearly. I don't want Sherry's story to sound like cautionary tale about specific things,

Sherry 18:43

Yeah. Please hear this. I,

Jodi 18:45

or do's and don'ts.

Sherry 18:46

Yeah, the bar wasn't the villain in my story. I know I said I can't drink anymore, whatever. That wasn't the primary cause of the health problems, and it wasn't the remedy either, but it was one of the things that I missed most. I stayed away over five years because I knew myself well enough that I couldn't trust myself to set my own boundary in that environment, and I still needed to be here for the people who loved me. That was the whole reason. And that connects back to the personal responsibility part that we talked about earlier.

Jodi 19:18

Right. That's knowing your own limits before the situation tests them, and it's important.

Sherry 19:23

And I really didn't think of it quite that way at the time. It really just felt like grief, like something I'd lost. But I say it because I don't want anybody thinking. I'm saying the bar, the drink with the friends, you know, those are things to be suspicious of because they can, they can be real joy. The connection with your friends. For me, the connection with friends is real and important.

Jodi 19:49

Right. It's, I mean, it's almost never about the actual thing, right?

Sherry 19:54

Rarely, and anything that brings genuine joy is just something to be careful because it can quietly become the thing that we're hiding behind when we're not paying attention, which is what I was doing prior to, you know, the before and after. So, um, the question isn't, should I be doing this? It's, what is this doing for me right now?

Jodi 20:20

That's a great way to reframe it too. And sometimes the answer is honestly both. Something can be giving you genuine joy and it can also be a little bit of hiding

Sherry 20:29

Yeah. Which again is human.

Jodi 20:34

But knowing that about yourself, that curiosity about what's actually going on underneath the surface, that's exactly what you need when things get hard fast.

Joy Versus Hiding From Pain

Sherry 20:44

Yep. Yep. So the place where all this gets tested the hardest isn't in those, quiet journal time or you know, those quiet moments of reflection. It's really in the oh shit moment.

Jodi 20:59

Right. When something happens fast, bad news lands, something goes completely unexpected and your brain just hasn't even had a chance to catch up. Like, when I lost that job, I wasn't expecting it. And, and at first I, I felt like a hole was opening up underneath me. In that moment, all I could think was I just, how completely fucked I was. I was terrified and I was frozen. Thankfully, for me it was a brief freeze because again, I had kids depending on me too.

Sherry 21:33

Yeah, the self-awareness part that's a lot easier to practice when you're not in survival mode.

Jodi 21:42

Right, and here's the short version of what we come to understand. When the brain perceives a threat and it, it doesn't distinguish between physical and emotional, it just kicks into survival mode.

Sherry 21:54

Yeah. It, it took me a long time for this, to click for me somehow. But your body can't tell the difference between a bear chasing you or whatever hellacious thing happening.

Jodi 22:06

Right, a bad email, whatever,

Sherry 22:08

Your body is interpreting that, that gut drop moment, whether it's a bad email or a bear chasing you, it's the same alarm. It's the same response. Your body doesn't know you're safe. And then that kicks you into what most people know is fight or flight. But there's that third response, that freeze response. We've talked about it previously last season. The one that kicks in when fight or flight don't feel like the thing to do. If it feels too big, too sudden, too close. That's the stuck.

Jodi 22:44

And in that state, the part of the brain that makes decisions is gone offline. Every time I try to figure out my next move from inside that place, it was like reading in the dark. And honestly, that's that freeze mode is. Probably my biggest thing, like when I look back on my life, that's, that's what gets me every time. It's the freeze

Sherry 23:05

Me too. Yep. Still does.

Jodi 23:13

And, and when that freeze hits, it's not a failure. It's not your failure. It wasn't my failure. It was my nervous system doing exactly what it was built to do.

Sherry 23:23

Yeah. And I think that the biggest switch for me was realizing that the first move isn't to figure out what to do. The first move is to notice. What's happening? Oh, I'm frozen right now. This is the freeze. There's something about naming it that creates just enough distance that you're not stuck inside it anymore. You're looking out in .

Jodi 23:50

Sure. And I think that that also, when you name that, it's your acknowledgement of like, is happening. 'cause I think part of my freeze is almost like a denial. Like, okay, this isn't happening, this isn't happening.

Sherry 24:04

Yeah.

Jodi 24:05

And I think that when you, you're like, okay, I am just frozen and this is happening whether you're ready for it or not. And that's where your agency starts to come back.

Sherry 24:15

Yes. Yeah. It gives you that calmer awareness so that now you can start to think about what are your options, and once you give yourself a little air there, the question that I've found useful is, okay, what? What is mine here and what isn't? You know, what is out of my control and what do I have to work with?

Jodi 24:42

In the middle of an oh shit moment, the brain tends to treat everything equally urgent and equally mine to fix. And it almost never is that panicky, reactionary place, man. I can tell you from experience, it doesn't lead anywhere good.

Sherry 24:58

Yeah. So a little strategy is a little rough sorting, um, to figure out what's actually in my hands versus what isn't. That brings the volume down enough to think. What do I feel that's mine in a, in this situation? How do I respond that's choosing whether I'm gonna pick up the phone or what I'm gonna do in the next hour. And then What's not mine is what already happened. Like Jodi said, okay, this, this happened. Can't do anything about that. Can't do anything about what the other person involved is thinking. you can't predict the future. So by sorting things out like that from there, then figuring just. The one next thing. I can't keep on saying that one next small thing. Not the whole plan, not the whole solution. Just the next small move that's doable from where things actually are.

Freeze Mode And Naming It

Jodi 25:59

When we say small, we mean small. There have been times when I felt like everything was falling down around me and I thought, I'm just gonna go take a really hot for a really long time and then when I get out the shower, gonna do whatever it is I can actually do. And, a reset for me sometimes. It's just that one thing. And you know, for some people it's, taking a walk around a block. I used to have a boss that would say that you would come up on, in a meeting or a problem, a challenge, couldn't figure it out. It'd be like, just take a walk around the block for a minute. Everybody take one, around the block, then come back to the table and let's see what everyone comes up with. Right?

Sherry 26:36

Reset. Yeah. It doesn't have to be some big heroic thing. It's just, just enough to not stay completely stuck. Noticing the freeze, asking what's mine, and finding one next thing. So all that to say, what agency looked like in real time for us.

Jodi 26:59

Right? Not confidence, but clarity.

Sherry 27:01

Yep. Kind of finding your footing in the dark. One little step at a time.

Jodi 27:08

And here's the thing about those, oh shit moments that we sort of touched upon but deserves to be circled around for is because there's also times when we're reaching for things that we may think are helpful, but they're really not in those oh shit moments,

Sherry 27:26

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Jodi 27:30

Once I get to that point, and there's been times when I just shut down and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna watch Netflix for the next three days. And it, I just, I've done it like I have pounded out seasons of shows in one weekend just avoiding everything that I knew I shouldn't be avoiding.

Sherry 27:56

Yeah, it catches you, it, it catches you. I guess mine's been sugar, when I know I'm hitting the sugar, the answers aren't there and the sugar.

Jodi 28:09

The refrigerator is not your Oracle,

Sherry 28:13

Yeah. So, but keep checking. Um, you know.

Jodi 28:17

And none of that's inherently terrible, right? Like, taking the time to enjoy your shows and, and, you know, having a sweet treat. None of those things are bad. They're not bad when you're enjoy doing them enjoyably, you know, it's, it's bad when you're doing them because you're avoiding something else, or you're trying to eat your feelings instead of dealing with them.

Sherry 28:38

Yeah, it's, it's not about the thing itself, but it's what I'm using it for, which is diversion and avoidance. You know,

Jodi 28:46

Right

Sherry 28:46

I don't, I don't wanna do this thing right now, so, Hmm, let's go, you know, what kind of ice cream's in there? Uh, um, so it's like, are we doing it because we actually want to, or is there something uncomfortable happening and we're just trying not to feel it or deal with it. So,

Jodi 29:05

Right.

Sherry 29:06

and, and, and Jodi already said, you know, a lot of the time it's the second one.

Jodi 29:15

Sure. And again you know, two things. I, I've been saying this a lot lately. I feel like it's becoming my, my theme for the year. Two things can be true at once. Something can be very enjoyable and pleasurable, and it can also be a crutch that you're using to avoid the hard things.

Sherry 29:32

Yep.

Jodi 29:33

That's all information, that's patterns showing up and saying, yoo hoo, something's happening here. What do we actually need to be doing?

Sherry 29:43

So maybe the coping isn't the problem. It's losing track of what you're coping with. I think maybe that's where it gets you. And here's what I've come to know about that moment when you actually see it, when you catch yourself. It's that fork in the road, and you can go left into the shame, doubt, and despair of it, or you can go right and trust that choices towards something better are coming, even if you can't see them yet.

Jodi 30:11

Yes, and, and the choice, there's times when, and we, and we have to talk about it because are times when there really might not be a choice. Like there might be a situation that you're in when, you know, like when, when I was first in that marriage and I wasn't working and the kids were little and bills weren't getting paid, and there was absolutely no way in the world that I could have just picked up and left. Like, it wasn't, it wasn't in the cards in that particular moment. There really was nothing that I could have done and it took me a while get out to where I could. So, you know, recognize that if even if you don't have a choice now, it'll come, it will show itself.

Sherry 30:58

Yeah. And I think the, the question I think becomes really what do I actually need right now? Which I think is a much better question, even if it takes a while to answer.

Jodi 31:12

We've been talking about agency as though everyone's working with roughly the same set of options and it's just not true.

What’s Mine Plus One Next Move

Sherry 31:20

Sometimes circumstances are just harder, not as a reflection of your effort or your awareness. It's the actual conditions are more constrictive. Money's the most obvious. There are more choices available when you have a financial cushion that aren't available when you don't. So someone telling you to take a walk and get more sleep when you're working on two jobs and can't afford to miss a shift. That's not agency.

Jodi 31:49

Right. It's just noise.

Sherry 31:50

Mm-hmm.

Jodi 31:50

And it's the same with relationships. I mean, you're in a dynamic where choices are consistently overridden. It could be a, a relationship, a family system workplace. Uh, you know, the sorting exercise we described can feel insulting, you know, um, again, what what is ours to hold? And if you can't hold anything, it keeps getting taken. You know, again, when I wasn't working and bills were barely getting paid and I had three kids depending on me, it felt impossible. So, the very first step for me was opening up to a couple people close to me, talking through it enough until I could actually start to see what the next step was, which was accepting some help with my kids, so that I could get a part-time job. There's something to reach for. It can take time to see it. And there's a collective version of this too, right? Sometimes the constraints aren't personal. They're structural, they're systems, power dynamics that genuinely limit what individuals can actually do on their own.

Sherry 32:59

And self-awareness and small steps aren't gonna fix those.

Jodi 33:03

There's a version of the agency conversation that gets used to redirect people away from systemic problems. If you just worked on your mindset, things will improve and that's really not where we're going with this. It's not what we're saying.

Sherry 33:18

We're saying that inside whatever constraints exist, that there may still be something to reach for, but we're not pretending that constraints aren't real.

Jodi 33:31

Sometimes the most honest thing we can say is your radius is smaller now than it should be, and it's not on you.

Sherry 33:39

And you're still here and you're still moving through it, and that's not nothing.

Jodi 33:44

No, it's actually a lot.

Sherry 33:47

Mm-hmm.

Jodi 33:47

It's a hell of alot.

Sherry 33:48

Yeah.

Jodi 33:49

Here's one more thing we wanna say about personal responsibility. We've been talking about it mostly as what do I do when hard things happen to me? But there's also that version where you have to reckon with maybe what? What did you do? Something you did. Where maybe you're not the one who was harmed, you're the one who caused it.

Sherry 34:11

And if you are someone who's listening right now and what's sitting heavy isn't something that happened to you, it's maybe something you did, we just wanna say we see that too, and that's a harder seat in some ways. We're not going to stay here long today, but we didn't want to walk past it either. That's a much more difficult place to sit.

Jodi 34:35

There's nothing that makes it comfortable, and the temptation is to explain before you fully looked at the impact on the other person.

Sherry 34:45

And I think it's important to first acknowledge and then repair where it's possible and wanted. 'cause that's a thing too. We're not gonna resolve situations like that here, but it's important to just mention that personal responsibility is not only on the receiving end, because most of us are both at different times.

Jodi 35:09

Yeah.

Sherry 35:09

Agency isn't just for hard things to happen to us. It's also for the hard things that we have to face about ourselves.

Jodi 35:16

Well, I mean, talked about it last episode. I started not being nice. I wasn't being nice. I was being a real jerk and I had to own it, and I had to a step back. And, you know, feel personally like explaining when you've been a dick isn't, the right way to go about it. I'm sorry, a complete sentence. Just like people say no is a complete sentence. It was for me to say, I, I'm sorry. And then my responsibility was to away from that apology and then do the inner work.

Sherry 35:54

Yeah. Yeah. The problem is when you say, I'm sorry, but the sorry can't come with a, but

Jodi 36:01

That's what I mean, like, I'm sorry is enough. A genuine, I'm sorry, is better than a, I'm sorry, but I had all this stuff and blah, blah,

Repair, Apologize, And Closing Question

Sherry 36:08

Yeah.

Jodi 36:09

You know, just say I'm sorry, and then go do your inner work and then make sure it doesn't happen again. Because I find too, you really quickly own your shit, you, you do reset and you're less inclined to continue the behavior.

Sherry 36:29

Yeah.

Jodi 36:29

The sooner you recognize it and rectify it, the better chances you have of not repeating that shit. A lot of us right now are carrying something that isn't just personal. The ground feels less steady. Things that used to feel like a given feel less so. And if you're cycling through anxious, numb, and grieving before lunch, are not alone.

Sherry 36:55

Yeah, we do wanna leave you with something that we've each been sitting with.

Jodi 37:01

When I'm overwhelmed by what I can't control, am I also letting go of what I can?

Sherry 37:07

So wherever you're landing right now, we're not asking you to feel differently than you do. Somedays, the honest answer is just getting through the day in one piece. It really is enough. If what you're feeling right now is less like anxiety and more like anger, we're gonna go deeper on that next week because anger deserves its own conversation. It really does.

Jodi 37:31

We are walking through this too, not from somewhere we've got it figured out.

Sherry 37:36

And remember there's a lot we can't change, but there's almost always something we can.

Jodi 37:42

That's where we live. This is it.

Sherry 37:46

This podcast is meant to be informational and inspirational, but it is not a substitute for professional advice. We are not licensed therapists or medical professionals, and what we share here comes from personal experience only. If you or someone you love is struggling, please reach out to someone trained to help. And if you're in crisis, you can call or text 988 The Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. It is available 24-7.