Our Desire to be Seen

In this episode, Steven Jaggers and Adam Carbary explore the paradox of wanting to be seen while simultaneously fearing judgment and rejection. Steven breaks down the difference between truly belonging and simply fitting in, and how vulnerability is the gateway to real connection. Through personal insights and honest reflections, they unpack the cost of hiding parts of ourselves and the courage it takes to live in truth. This conversation offers a powerful perspective for anyone navigating authenticity, relationships, and self-expression.

SHOW HIGHLIGHTS
00:00 - Show Introduction
02:00 - The Fear of Being Seen
06:12 - The Paradox of Connection
10:16 - Fitting In vs Belonging
21:30 - Truth in Relationships
31:13 - Social Media & Authenticity
38:00 - Speaking Without Filtering
46:16 - Boundaries & Vulnerability
49:58 - Relationships Out of Alignment
53:57 - “You Don’t Have a Relationship”
56:08 - Final Reflections & Closing

🧘‍♀️ Learn more about Soma+IQ
↪ https://www.somaiqtraining.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You just have to do the scary thing. You have to go through with it. But it becomes addicting. I tell a little bit of vulnerability, and just like you said it, then you see the response from people. And it's like, wow. The path for me that's been really hard to break out of the people pleasing, to actually be seen and heard from what it is that I want, is to stop trying to curate my language to make sure that other people don't get hurt from it. This is the My Body Mentor podcast where we explore how to create a life where you are deeply connected to yourself and everything in it. I'm your host, Steven Jaggers, and we are joined by my co-host Adam Carberry. Let's dive in. Jaggers, how you doing today? I'm doing well, man. It seems like it's been a morning of tech stuff for both of us here.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Very much so. I don't know if it's like all the solar flares or what the deal is, but like my computer has been struggling the last couple of days.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Yeah, but that's tech, right? Well, that's the test. Um, the test for me is I can regulate myself pretty well with everything besides tech issues, especially when there's pressure to show up just perfect here. But I'd rather be seen for where I'm at right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Exactly. And that's a perfect segue into today's conversation all around being seen. And you know, when we were prepping for this call, this is one of those that actually like really is kind of triggering for me because this is something that I've personally been working through for a really long time of like that relationship between putting yourself out there on social media, of being seen, of being vulnerable. And it's easy to do in the container that is somatic because it feels really safe. I feel super safe in the community. I feel super safe with you, I feel super safe with all of the students. So it's not difficult for me to be seen to be vulnerable, but putting myself out there to the potential of like millions, if not billions, of people, that's a whole different thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

It's a whole different thing, man, because it and it reminds me of the quote like right now, the main issue of society is that we are living in an in an ancient body. Our nervous systems are ancient, with medieval institutions such as our government and godlike technology, aka social media. So it's a different thing when we're talking about socially and social media being seen because our nervous systems, one, are just not designed for that to begin with. So there's a there's so many more variables when it comes to that. I think about the session that we just held for over a thousand people, and it's like, whoa, my I couldn't possibly fully tune into what it would be like to have a thousand people in front of me on stage unless I was doing that, right? Versus online. It's just it's really hard to tune into. And I try each time to to deepen my capacity to be able to actually feel the impact of what it's like to guide a thousand people. But it's just it's something that we're, you know, I believe that humans are are incredibly resilient um and we're adaptable, but we're still living in an ancient body where we're not we're not designed on that level. So um I'm excited to actually circle back to that based on where we kind of go with this conversation. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

So so that really brings up the question for me. It's like we all want to be seen, right? Like I feel like that is one of our fundamental needs as just a human, is wanting to be seen by you know your fellow brethren, wanting to be seen by your community. But why is it that we also carry this like fear to be seen at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 4:11

Yeah, well, let's first define like what being seen means, because I think that it's actually not just about being seen. Because I could look at you and I could see you right now, Adam. And that's actually not the thing that you're craving, more than anything, me just looking at you physically. Um, and I could hear, we talk about being seen and heard. I could hear what you're saying, but that doesn't mean that it's actually impacting me. Sure, right? There's that age-old adage of it uh, you know, whenever I talk to you, it goes in one ear and out the other, right? So it's it's not about just being heard, but it's actually about being felt. We want to be felt. So when we say being seen, it's about that I'm feeling you and you're feeling me. And that creates a deep safety in my nervous system because I'm not alone, right? We are absolutely wired for connection from childhood to the day that we die. We need to co-regulate because co-regulation and connection, and to be seen and heard and beyond that felt means that we are a part of the tribe and means that we will survive. So it's a it's a fundamental nutrient inside of us in a world of disconnection, in a world of isolation, that we need to be seen by each other to feel safe, but that requires a level of someone being able to host you to be able to feel you. And we can't do that if we can't feel ourselves first, right? So there's the whole aspect of we live in a world where most people are cut off from their own feelings. So how am I going to feel you if I can't feel me? So there's the there's the aspect of when we're able to be seen, and there's an aspect of vulnerability that comes with that, which we can that's the answer to your question, which means that like there's a paradox of being seen that we crave it so much, we want to be felt, we want to be understood by by each other. But at the same time, the paradox is if I'm seen, then I'm gonna be judged, or then I'm gonna, or people are going to um, you know, reject me, or uh, you know, I'm gonna be left behind. If someone actually sees me, then they're going to leave me because um they might not like who I am or they might have judgments towards me, right? So there's this paradox of my my soul or your body is craving to be seen, to be felt, to be connected, but at the same time, it's the scariest possible thing because I might be rejected or I might be abandoned.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

The the triggering part of this conversation, right, is like it is that vulnerability of like if I actually show all the parts of myself, like the the parts that you know, I would say my wife is probably the only person that knows the real me, like knows all the ends of me, all the parts of me. And that came about just from our you know, 12 plus years of marriage and being together, and slowly over time you develop that safety and allow others to see more and more of you. But that's the scary thing, and the easy thing is to just showcase the safe parts of ourselves, right? Like the the parts that like I fully accept. So those are the parts that I'm gonna show on social media, but how can I step outside of that comfort zone? How can I start to be okay with showcasing all of the uncomfortable parts of myself, all of the parts of myself that I've spent so much time trying to bury or or like no, that's not a part of myself. But like it almost seems like it comes down to like actually allowing others to see and feel you fully requires you to actually fully accept yourself first.

SPEAKER_00 8:01

Yeah, the greatest, oh this is a this is a big one, and this is something that I've had to really like almost like fight and go to war with within myself, which probably isn't the best way to go about it. But the deepest relaxation I've felt inside of my nervous system is when I'm okay with not being liked by everyone. And that's been a huge thing for me because as a child, and even through my adolescence, I wanted to be liked by everyone. I prided myself that I could be friends with all of the different cliques from the sports jocks to the like the hippie kids to the skateboarders to like the gangsters to like everyone. And I wanted to be able to be liked by everyone because that gave me a tremendous amount of safety because I was an only child. I didn't have brothers or sisters or or older, um, you know, an older brother to kind of look after me in a way. So it's been this, it's been a such a journey for me to, especially in the realm of like the healing arts or just wanting to show up and support people. How could you not like me? My intention is pure, and I really just want to do do good in the world, but I'm not for everyone. And that's been a really hard thing to deal with with inside of myself. So I heard this quote from Brene Brown: the way that she defines vulnerability is not that I'm going to just showcase my emotions and so her definition of vulnerability was it's not that I'm showcasing my emotions to people or telling everyone what's going on inside of me. True vulnerability is actually just giving you an opportunity to judge me, giving you the opportunity to reject me. So then I know that if I give you the opportunity to reject me and you don't, then it's actually true. And then the connection is real. The biggest threat to our to being seen is actually trying to fit in. The biggest threat to our belonging is actually fitting in because if I'm curating myself and I'm and I'm holding back those certain parts of me, then I'm going to fit in, but I'll actually never feel like I belong because people won't be able to see me and feel me. So it's kind of something that you have to learn the hard way, where you give people a little bit at a time and you showcase those parts of you that might be really scary to showcase. And a lot of the times it it it's mostly when um when you feel like if I tell somebody the truth, I'm gonna let them down. Like when it comes to your partner, when I have a truth inside of me that's like, ooh, they're not gonna like that, but I still tell them, anyways, it deepens the connection. We think inside that they're gonna reject us, or maybe they do, but then we we're we create the space for actually real connection. So a lot of us are striving for more, we might be deeply connected to people in our life. We might we might have a lot of different connections, but we won't get this like deep itch that's inside of us that's scratched unless we're actually telling people the truth of what's going on inside of us, because then we'll never be able to be seen. And we'll always feel disconnected and isolated. I know in my in my current relationship, there has been things that I've never told anyone. And I've told her, and I've and it's such a liberating feeling to share all of the shame or all of the the parts of myself that I've been that I've hidden from the world, and to have somebody on the other side when I'm scared and like, you know, this is really what's going on inside of me. Like, go ahead and just you you're better off just to leave me. And they're like, no, I love you actually more because you told me this and you were honest with me. And I'm like, oh my God, I feel so see, I feel so like I feel felt.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

And I'm curious, though, so like hearing you say that, did did did that instance open it up for you to feel like you actually could now share even more of yourself with Rachel?

SPEAKER_00 12:50

Absolutely, because there's the the the being seen requires us to be vulnerable. Like it requires us to showcase the parts of us that we might be judged or rejected or feel shame around. And then the connection actually happens. But the the the strength of that connection is like I look at it as like a it's like an Ethernet cable or a Wi-Fi signal, right? And the more that I'm showcasing, the more that it expands this cable for information to flow in between us. So the connection gets stronger. And when the connection is stronger, there's more trust in it. So I'm like, the amount of trust that I feel within her, because I've said things that she probably doesn't want to hear. She said the things that I don't want to hear, but I'd rather be told the things that I don't want to hear than have them kept from me.

unknown 13:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:53

I think a deep fear of ours is to be in connection with someone who's actually not being honest with us.

SPEAKER_02 13:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

So let's take a little bit of a rewind because you talked about the difference between fitting in and belonging a little bit. And can you can you break apart really like what's the difference between just trying to fit in versus truly belonging with the the people in your life?

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Yeah. This one actually might be good to explain from a from a social media level because people might understand it a little bit better. And what I call it is the wrong audience problem. A lot of people they end up getting um being seen by thousands of people for one thing, and they they, you know, I don't know, I'm trying to think of an example, but maybe they just uh okay, for example, for me, um, you know, breath work was the thing that blew up for me and was the thing that the world was wanting me to talk about. And, you know, years later, people call me the breathwork guy, but that's only one part of me. And then my whole audience is built around built around breath work. And if I want to talk about other things, then no one really wants to listen to me. So there's the aspect of if I'm if I'm not like we get the wrong audience when we're only showing certain parts, and then we get hammered into this little box, right? And then we own and we think that the world only wants to see us as a certain way, and then we spend the you know, I've spent years trying to break myself out of this box because I'm so much more than just that.

SPEAKER_02 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Right. So the the ways in which we change ourselves to be liked by other people is the um is the amount of armor that we're gonna have to break through to actually be felt by other people. So however we chameleon ourselves to fit in in a certain way is the the the more padding we create around ourselves to actually feel a sense of belonging. If I just it reminds me of kind of Rick Rubin's idea of creating art, where like real art is created from just expressing what you like in the world, not what anybody else is wanting. What is it that you actually like that's true for you? And then what's gonna happen is if you do that long enough, then your people are gonna find you, and then you'll feel a sense of belonging. But if you try to look at what the world is wanting and morph yourself into that, then you'll never actually feel a sense of belonging. You'll always be hungry for more because the part of you that's inside that wants to be felt, it'll never be able to be reached because you created a bunch of padding around it by trying to chameleon yourself to fit in.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Yeah. I remember you in one of the last trainings, you brought up this idea of belonging. And in that moment, as you were explaining, I had this like aha in my mind of like part of belonging is being yourself, right? But if you're not being yourself and you take be out of belonging, then you're just left with longing. And I know I've felt that in my life many times around certain social groups and things like that, where I was boxing myself in to just fit the persona that they could accept. And therefore, I wasn't honoring myself. And in that, anytime I showed a different aspect of myself, it was like that group kind of distanced a little bit more and then distance a little bit more, and then distance a little bit more until it's like I don't even communicate with those people anymore. Because now who I truly am and who I show myself to be is so different than the person that they knew that there's no longer a relational dynamic there.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah. Yeah. And that's why the the internal journey of connection is what's going to change your external world of belonging, right? We we did a podcast on the difference between solitude and isolation. And a lot of the times, what happens is we find ourselves belonging in a group that is no longer uh who we want to be, right? You are the average of the five nervous systems that you spend the most time with, and you're going to become that. And so if you look around and you look at the groups that you're belonging to and you feel a deep sense of disconnection, it's the worst feeling when you're around people, but you feel alone.

unknown 19:04

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

And what happens is it's going to force you into solitude. A lot of the times, I mean, the worst possible feeling is when we feel isolated when we're around people. But a lot of the times, what that's, there's an intelligence behind that because it's telling you to go spend time with yourself, not in isolation where I'm disconnecting from people, but I'm spending actually time deepening my connection to myself. Because then when I go back and find belonging, it's gonna, it's going to actually be from a connected place inside of myself. And I'll find myself belonging in the right crowd. If I'm not, you know, the only reason why we try to fit in is because we don't know who we are and we're not connected to ourselves.

unknown 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

I try to fit in because I a person that's filled with love internally for themselves is not going to seek that love externally. A person that is deeply connected to themselves and their own values and virtues inside of them is just going to look for other communities and people who are aligned with them. And it's not going to try to morph themselves into wanting to feel validated. And it's this, it's this big illusion that we have of I want attention, I want approval, I want validation, but I don't want to expose myself emotionally. I don't actually want to expose my truth inside of what I actually believe.

SPEAKER_01 20:43

What I'm hearing is that this is all coming back to that whole like fear of being vulnerable, right? Fear of like truly letting yourself be seen in everything that you are. So, like, if vulnerability is so scary, what makes it actually worth the risk to be vulnerable?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah. Well, I can give you an example in a relationship or a romantic relationship or even a business relationship, and it's counterintuitive. But a lot of the times we have to say the thing that risks the relationship to actually have a relationship. Versus if we don't, then we don't actually have a relationship to begin with. Like and be absolutely honest with yourself. So what happens is you start to break free from the illusion that I have all of these relationships in my life, but actually they're not relationships if I'm not willing to be myself and risk them in the beginning. So when Happens is, you know, and I've done this for myself, is all of a sudden I start telling the truth to everyone. And then my life feels like it's falling apart. But it's actually not falling apart, it's realigning. And it can be very painful and it can feel very isolating in a moment in a moment. But if you continue to express yourself from that place, you'll wake up a year, two years from now feeling incredibly fulfilled by the people that you're surrounded by because you spent the time deepening your connection to yourself and expressing from that place. So the risk isn't actually the risk that you feel in the moment of saying the hard thing. The risk is that I will drain the shit out of my nervous system being connected to a bunch of people and not actually being connected to myself.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

Yeah. And trying to constantly uphold this persona that you are one way when you're actually a completely different way.

SPEAKER_00 22:56

Yeah. And you know it inside, we um, but you know, our minds are are very sneaky because we'll create all of these reasons why we shouldn't say the thing or we should just continue being the way that we are, when at the end of the day, it just requires a real stern look in the mirror to be like, wow, if I'm not able to actually be myself fully, then this relationship isn't worth it. Because we only have so much time. I I you know, I think before knowing that I'm going to be a father and I'll see if this is true, but my life feels so much shorter because I'm measuring my life in the in the amount of years, you know, when my kid's 20 years old, I'm gonna be uh, you know, almost 55 or something like that, you know? And so I'm like, wow, there is no time not to actually be me. There's no time to be in relationships where I'm not myself because of the amount of um emptiness that you actually feel.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

Yeah. Well, and and not just fulfilled in how you're showing up, but also in the relationships that you're in, because if you're actually showing up from that place of truth, then so are those relationships as well.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Yeah. So and it goes back to the podcast that we just did on imposter syndrome, where we're all um we're all imposters because we're putting ourselves in new situations. And if you're doing anything like that's big in the world or that's expanding you in a way, you're going to feel like an imposter. But imposter syndrome means that you're trying to fit in or morph yourself or show up from a disconnected version of yourself and not actually being honest. So it's a they're just different words of speaking to the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:56

That brings up the question for me now of like, is the fear actually the fear of being vulnerable, or is it actually the fear of truly being honest? Especially if you've spent most of your life not being honest with who you are and just trying to fit in and belong to whatever group that you can, just so that you feel like you have people in your life.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Yeah, the um I personally believe that one of the core human fears is not feeling like you're enough. Which is like, you know, and you take that sort of you expand it a little bit, then there's the the fear of rejection or the fear of judgment or the fear of being cast out, really the fear of being alone. But if I'm alone, that means I'm not enough to feel belonging, right? And inside of us, we are connection-based humans, like we have to, based on our survival, feel that we're connected to a tribe or we're not gonna survive. So the adaptive pattern is to morph myself to feel like I'm connected to a tribe in a in a certain way. But if I'm connected externally and I'm not connected internally, then I'm gonna continue to suffer inwards. And so it'll never feel like enough. It's like the the metaphor of the the hungry ghost, where I've heard Gaber Mate talk about this. It's a it's it's he talks about it in addiction, but the same thing happens with us like needing approval and needing this um this connection externally because we're not connected internally. Where a hungry ghost is um, they have these big bellies and little, tiny, tiny little mouths, and they always want to just eat more because they're never going to be able to satiate because their mouths are so tiny and their bellies are so big. So we're always going to feel like this hungry ghost of we need more validation, we need more approval because we're actually not connected inward or and and then we're belonging in a place that's actually not right for us. We're not actually seen and heard inside. So there we're always going to be needing more because our bodies are craving that safety. We're craving that deep connection. And so it might look incredible on the outside, but it feels terrible on the inside. And you see this with so many celebrities. I mean, there's celebrities that have all the validation in the world, have made millions and millions of people laugh their asses off, but they commit suicide.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

Robin Williams comes up to mind in that case of just the uh from the outside looking in, you know, it looks these people look like they've got everything that you could ever possibly want. How how could you not be happy? And yet, how many of us are still only showing a portion of who we actually are? It's Heath Ledger is another one that I think of. Um, you know, got stuck in the role of Joker and couldn't get it out, like stuck so much in a persona that it just completely took over his life.

SPEAKER_00 28:14

Yeah. And you're seeing this nowadays with the modern epidemic of being an influencer, right? So many people become an influencer in a certain topic or area, and then they start to make their livelihood from it, and then they're stuck in that box and they have to continue to morph themselves over and over again. Then you end up with things like autoimmune issues because it's the self attacking the self, and there's an internal warfare going on, and you don't see behind the scenes, obviously, because it's social media, but no wonder they're depressed, feeling isolated. And you know, I've worked personally with a lot of these people, and it's it's it's really, really painful on the in on the internal. Yeah. The last thing you want to be is connected to thousands and thousands of people from a disconnected place inside of yourself, or a uh from a place that you're not actually congruent and you don't have the spaciousness to be who you are. I talk about this with my partner Rachel because she's uh she works with people and specializing in personal branding, and there's a difference between having a personal brand and being an influencer. An influencer is stuck in a specific area where when you create a personal brand, the personal brand people like you because you're you, because you actually have your own flavor to it, and you're not trying to persuade somebody by morphing yourself in some sort of way, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. It, you know, it it makes me think of how often we see from social media and all of these various influencers, like you're just seeing the highlight reel. You're not actually seeing the truth of what's happening in the background. And I think that's where we're seeing almost like a huge division within social media now of the stuff that's actually really going viral is the stuff that's real. It's not the AI stuff, it's not the perfectly edited or perfectly tailored stuff. It's the things where people are just clicking record, showing up and speaking what's actually on their heart versus having the script and and everything to kind of guide the whole process along.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

Yeah. It reminds me, I read this quote this morning as I was kind of doing a little research for this podcast. It was by a man named Carl Rogers. And what he said is, what is most personal is most universal. And we forget that. And you see, we see this all the time in Sematic Breath Work. The thing that we hear over and over again is we realize, you know, no matter how different we are, we're all craving the same thing. And we want to see what's personal because that's what's universal to us all, right? And it reminds me of another um quote, or uh uh I heard um Elaine Elaine de Bouton speak about this, who runs the school of life. He talks about in the mind of a genius lies a normal person's rejected thoughts. Meaning that in a mind of a genius is a person who has the courage to express something that we're all thinking inside of us in a different way, but we actually never had the courage to speak it out loud or to express it, right? And a lot of the times, the modern geniuses of our world were often rejected for so long or abandoned because they didn't morph themselves and try to fit themselves into a place where they actually didn't believe or didn't belong, but they continue to speak what they felt was true. And people call them a genius, but it actually is a because it's it's not anything new, but it's the thing that we're all thinking, but we just haven't spent the time to actually say it and in an authentic way that's natural for us, right? Of Nikola Tesla.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

You know, in his time, like he was way ahead of his time. Most people looked at him as just like a wacko making all of these crazy different instruments and things like that. Yet if he was in our time period, we would look at him like one of the most intelligent people. Why wouldn't we have wireless power? Why wouldn't we want to invest into all of these technologies? So it's interesting how sometimes being ahead of your time also makes it more difficult to actually show who you truly are because of that lack of understanding.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Yeah, but it's the courage to just continue with what you know is true for what you're feeling. And I I remember when I first started this journey of even you know 12, 13 years ago of becoming or going into holistic health before like this was before it was was kind of trending and it was a very woo-woo thing. And you know, my family and friends were like, oh my God, are you gonna be a fairy? Like, are you gonna be like, are you gonna uh like you're you're you're never gonna have a family or be successful. But I listened to that voice inside of myself that was so strong, but was so easy. It was like I remember this fork in the road where I could have just gone a completely, I could have gone the other direction and did what the world told me to do to fit in. But like I see in so many people, 10, 15 years of doing that, the amount of exponential pain and disconnection inside of yourself, and then you're not able to hear that voice inside of yourself because you haven't developed the connection to it. This is where you know we talk about intuition and um developing this sort of internal compass for yourself. When you don't listen to the voice inside of you that's saying, This is your truth, this is what you need to do, or this is what you need to tell the people inside of your this is what you need to tell the people around you, that voice just becomes quieter and quieter. And then you feel stuck or you feel unclear because you can't hear the voice because you haven't been in truth with yourself. And then you find yourself belonging in a place where the voices are loud telling you what you should do or who you should be or what you become. And it's a really painful place to be in. But I don't think that, I don't think as a human, we're ever going to be able to get out of this human struggle, this modern paradox of the desire to be seen, but at the same time being scared to showcase our emotions. I don't think we're going to be able to get rid of it. We just become stronger and we see the benefit over time when we do start to showcase those parts of ourselves and we find ourselves in true belonging. There's no greater feeling than that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

It's it's interesting. The more that I have slowly let go of the versions of me that I used to be, or the versions of me that everyone else wanted me to be. And the more I continue to lean into who I truly am and showcase that, the fascinating thing is there's always been, like we've talked about many times in this podcast already, this fear of judgment, this fear of people not actually accepting me for who I am. The paradox is the more that I showcase who I am, and the more that I'm vulnerable, the more I'm actually accepted, and the more I get messages of like, oh my gosh, me too. Thank you so much for sharing that. So it's like, how what would be your advice to people to overcome that paradox, to recognize that the vulnerability is actually wildly courageous and shows so much strength. And that vulnerability is actually what's going to shift you into being accepted and being seen and being felt the way that you desire to be.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Yeah. I think that you know, a lot of this is speaking to a similar pattern that's like people pleasing, or we could call it the fawn response inside of us. We're morphing ourselves to try to get connection. And what like what's helpful, what's been helpful for me, but also there's no way to it besides going through it. And like, there's just no, I mean, I don't know any other, you know, quick hacks or or like easy ways to try to do this besides you just have to do the scary thing, you have to go through with it, but it becomes addicting. I tell a little bit of vulnerability, and just like you said it, then you see the response from people, and it's like, wow, um, I actually feel more connected, or I feel seen and heard, and it's like, well, I want more of that, I want to be felt. I want like it becomes addicting. But what I would say is the path for me that's been really hard to break out of the people pleasing, to actually be seen and heard for what it is that I want, is to stop trying to curate my language to make sure that other people um don't get hurt from it. Which is scary, which is like it, it it there probably will be some necessary destruction that has to happen because when you've when you've built a life from a scaffolding of disconnection, destruction has to happen. And so it might feel like there's certain aspects of your life or relationships that are crumbling, but there is no such thing as loss or gain within that. It's always an exchange because you only have so much space in your life. And when you start to see when things get cleared out, well, I'm actually just it's painful, but there's space that's created for what's actually more in alignment. But for me, a lot of the times I've I've the pattern that's come up for me is I will try to hedge or I will try to curate my language in a way that is like trying to get the truth to this other person, but at the same time, it it it's it's I'm watering it down and I'm not actually expressing myself. So I've had to practice just saying the thing that's on my mind and heart, not worrying about it hurting or causing pain to another person. And once I've done that enough times, then I can start to figure out how to how to speak in a way that's staying my truth, but doesn't come off with razor blades on it, you know? Yeah, yeah. Um, but you can't, but the thing that blocks us is worrying so much about the other person and how they're going to receive it that it dilutes my truth. So you have to almost do the opposite of telling your truth over and over and over again until you built up that muscle. Then you can start to figure out how do I tune in my timing and and and and doing it without, you know, causing a full-on catastrophe.

SPEAKER_01 39:50

Yeah, for sure. Well, there's so to piggyback off of that, there's a question that just came through that I'm realizing that being seen isn't about adding something. It's often about letting go of the survival identity that kept me safe. So, how do you support people through the in-between space where the old self no longer fits, but the new self hasn't yet fully landed?

SPEAKER_00 40:15

That is a painful place to be, and we will continue to like I don't think that we ever like we're never fully free of that because we go through seasons in our life of feeling very sure of ourselves and our identity, and then something happens where we're like, Oh, this isn't me anymore. And we like we are a verb, we are a process, and we are a change. And the you know, what what that's called is being in a transitional phase, and a transitional phase is often very, very uncomfortable for us. But what we have to do is we have to protect our internal process of self-discovery and of connecting and healing our wounds, right? It's we have to protect the process of us healing, which is actually just doing self-discovery work and reconnecting parts of ourselves, we have to protect our internal space. So it requires us to have really strong boundaries during that time. Like we have to have really strong boundaries for ourselves, what you will accept and what you won't accept. And it does take some energy to protect that space. But inside of the space of being in transition, when you protect that space for yourself, what you're doing is you're creating more sensitivity to your internal compass, meaning that as I'm moving through the world and I'm not really sure what my identity is or what I'm doing in the world or what career I'm having. When you protect that space for yourself, you are able to feel and sense what is the next direction and what does feel good for me. And then I can go into that route a little bit more and I can take the rabbit hole down a little bit. I can feel when there's a yes or a no inside of my nervous system. And that internal compass for ourselves requires us to sometimes have a hard boundary for the external world. Like for me, being in that phase, like I can always, I can always tell when there are people in my life from previous chapters like thinking about me or thinking about me in a certain way. I can feel it in the ether. They're like, um, oh, well, this is how you used to be. And this is, you know, this is who I know who you are. And I'm like, actually, I'm changing. I'm going through a different process and I'm becoming someone new. And I hope you are too. But I have to protect myself from that space because a lot of the times when people are are not allowing themselves to be a verb, or if they're stressed, or they're they they have more trauma or defense systems, they'll want to cling on to the past. And they'll want to cling on to past versions of you as well, too. So you have to protect your space, even if you have a partnership. Like being in a partnership is witnessing your partner die a thousand times, right? The morning you wake up and you think you know your partner is the day that the relationships died because you've now collapsed the space for their becoming.

SPEAKER_01 43:39

Yeah. And in essence, you're putting them in a box. And if they want to get out of that box, they can't without sacrificing the relationship.

SPEAKER_00 43:51

And then you've created no choice for them to create a boundary with you. It's like that feeling of always need, you know, I've been in relationships. Where I need space from this person. And it's actually not physical space. I need space from the way that they're thinking about me. Because it's the collapsing the space for my becoming.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:14

So there's I've been in I've I'll just say one more piece on that is I I've been in I've been in enough relationships, business and both romantic and with friendships. And um, you know, I thought for a while that I am just a person that needs a lot of space. I'm just a person that, like, I'm an only child, perhaps, and I just need a lot of space in my relationships. And in my current one, um, we're around each other all the time, but there is a spaciousness in the field because I can feel that she is creating this spaciousness for me in my becoming, which is an incredible feeling. If you've like, because we want to be in connection, but we don't want to have the connection collapse us or people putting on certain identities on us or putting us in a box, right?

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, absolutely. So we've got a couple more questions that came through. Um I tend to be too open and vulnerable with people. I'm learning that not everyone needs to know everything, some things I'm allowed to keep to me. What is your advice on finding the balance?

SPEAKER_00 45:29

Well, yeah, this is a this is a really good question.

SPEAKER_01 45:33

And or is there such a thing as being too open?

SPEAKER_00 45:41

Yeah, that's a really that's a really, really good question. I think there is a there is there is no such thing as being too open, but there is such a thing as being too open without having a connect, a deep connection inside of yourself. So for example, um something that was vulnerable for myself and my partner was telling people that we're pregnant. And we were trying to figure out, okay, when do we actually share that? Well, we came to the point where it was like, when are we open to being judged for it? When are we when when at what point do we have the capacity to actually handle the outside judgment? Because remember, vulnerability is just allowing yourself to be judged by the outside world. So there is such a thing about being too open if you're not ready to handle other people's judgment, right? If you're not able to handle what the world is going to communicate back to you. So if you don't have enough solid, and for us, we talk about this in the training, is there's no such thing as having too open of a heart, but there is such a thing as having too open of a heart and not a strong enough spine. Meaning, and the strong enough spine is I'm deeply rooted and connected to myself and have established that where the outside world is not going to be able to throw me off of what I know in myself to be true about me. So, you know, the only times that I felt like not everyone's ready for me to be vulnerable is actually me not ready to handle what the world is going to react or judge me on. So if I'm not open to that, then it's probably time for me not to be vulnerable about that. But that's that's what I got for you.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

I love that. And and like hearing you say that it the sensation that I'm getting is that really these setting these boundaries or whether we're open and vulnerable or or not, none of that has to do with other people. It all has to do with our capacity, what we're willing to handle in that moment or not willing to handle in that moment. And that should actually be the litmus test on whether or not we share something or not.

SPEAKER_00 48:02

Yeah, like a boundary is not about what the other person has to do. It's about what I'm going to do if you cross the boundary. So if it's like Adam, I don't want you to ask me any more questions. Like I'm setting you a boundary. I'm setting a boundary. Don't ask me any questions. That's not actually a real boundary. The boundary is, Adam, if you ask me another question, I'm going to step outside of the room. It's about what I'm going to do.

SPEAKER_02 48:32

Yeah. Yeah. Love that.

SPEAKER_01 48:35

So we got one more question. Um, well, this is more of a comment. I'm going to try and phrase it in the question. So, what would your advice be to somebody who entered into a relationship when they were in a certain alignment, but as they've done more self-development, more work, come into their own alignment, realizing what they need and realize that that relationship's no longer in alignment.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Yeah, that's a tough one. Um well, there's two ways out, and there's two ways through. And those ways are maybe that the relationship is not right for you anymore, or maybe it's that the way the relationship is right now is not right for you anymore. So there's a death to the old version that has to happen. There's a destruction to how things are that has to happen for things to realign. It's like when you, you know, sometimes if you broke your arm, but the arm, but your your bone uh uh healed, but it didn't heal properly. Sometimes you have to go back to the doctor. They have to rebreak it to set it in alignment for it to grow properly. So there's always a necessary destruction that has to happen. And that does not mean that the relationship had like you guys have to break up. Maybe that's true, maybe it's not. But what it is saying is that there is a death that has to happen to the way things are right now. And a relationship is something that requires both parties to be on board. So it it's hard when there's one partner that is on the path of realigning themselves. And if the other partner is not on the path of realigning themselves, but they're clinging to the old version of how things are, then you know, there, there, there's some difficult conversation that has to happen. And there's no such thing as a good or bad conversation like there's no such thing as a bad conversation. There's a difficult conversation that has to happen. But a lot of the times, those difficult conversations are the thing that have to happen for the relationship to um to begin anew in a way. So, I mean, this happens with all aspects in our life, like especially with relationships, because we're we're choosing a person who is guaranteed to change, and we're and we're deciding to do life with them. So, what we're really signing up for is I don't know who this person's gonna be, but I trust that their internal compass, like my partner and I talk about this, is it's not that I want to be in a relationship with the person that she is right now, but it's I I trust that her internal compass is connected in a way that she's gonna continue to grow and better herself. Like that's a non-negotiable for us, is that um for me, I'm not gonna be the same person I am today as I am a year from now. But she trusts that my internal compass is gonna continue to grow in a direction that she can um, you know, be in connection and ride alongside with. So it's a it's it's a tough one, but those difficult conversations and you have to just be vulnerable. You have to be willing to risk, you have to be able to say the thing that could cause you guys to break up so that you can have a relationship. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

This this really lands with me because I went through something very similar in my relationship. And our seventh year of marriage, my wife and I went through a death portal. And it was a point where we didn't know if we were going to survive it. But when we came back together and made the decision that we wanted to work through it and we wanted to make it happen, we made a decision to let the first part of our marriage die. That was marriage 1.0. Now we're on marriage 2.0, and we sit down and we have difficult conversations. We sit down and have check-ins, like we're and really that death portal happened because I was too afraid to voice how I was feeling, she was too afraid to voice how she was feeling, and that led to in not having the conversations, things fell apart.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Yeah. And what I've heard from, you know, I've been, I've I've had some powerful um like relationship therapists, and one of them one time said to me, like, I was in a very similar position where my partner knew that I wasn't telling her the truth that was going on inside of me, and she wasn't telling me the truth that was going on inside of her. And so what the therapist said is like, you guys don't have a relationship, so you might as well just go grieve the relationship and act like it's it's it's over. But then we both actually did that and we went and grieved the relationship of how it was, which allowed us to move into the future in a clean way.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

Yeah.

unknown 53:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:46

What a powerful, what a powerful combo this is.

SPEAKER_01 53:50

Yeah. It it makes me think of the quote that Alan Watts said of you're under no obligation to be the same person you were five minutes ago. That to recognize in every relationship there is always going to be change. As you always say, we're we're a verb, we're a process. And if we're not allowing that to happen, that is always going to lead us down the road of things breaking down.

SPEAKER_00 54:10

Yeah. We're verbs. And I just I'm full of quotes today as well. There was a quote that I read the other day by Pima Pima Chodrin, and uh it was open yourself up to annihilation so that you can see the parts of yourself that aren't broken or that can't be broken. And that really feels like what the desire to be seen is that you have to open yourself up to be annihilated. Open yourself up to be absolutely broken so that you can see what happened, what the parts of you that are that are remaining. And those are the remaining parts that allow you to feel seen and heard when people can see that, when they can see that you've been annihilated, all of the masks, all of the external stuff that you've tried to do to fit in in certain ways, when all of that stuff gets annihilated and you're left with the purest essence that is you, and you have that part loved to the deepest like core of your center, there's no greater feeling than that in the world. And I hope everyone gets to be able to experience that at some point in our in your lifetime, because it it is an essential nutrient for our for our humanness, for our being. And the amount of safety, not just safety as the absence of threat, but safety as the felt sensation of being deeply connected, both internally and externally, is what I think we're craving more than anything.

SPEAKER_01 55:42

I think that is the absolute perfect way to end this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 55:46

What a great combo, Adam. Thank you so much for showing up on these Fridays, brother. And thank you for everyone who's tuning in, whether you're tuning in live from our school community or whether you're listening to this on Spotify. It would mean so, so much to us if you can go and give us a five-star review on Spotify so our little podcast can grow and get out into the world. It would mean so much. And if you're not already in our school community, we do these live every other Friday. You can tune in, you can ask questions with an incredible community. And I just feel so blessed to be able to do this work. Thank you, everyone.