When "I'm Fine" Isn't True

“I’m fine” is one of the most common things we say… even when it’s not true.

In this episode, Michael and Shannon talk about what’s really behind those two words — the habit of pushing things down, avoiding the conversation, and convincing ourselves that everything is under control.

But what we don’t deal with doesn’t go away.

It shows up in our tone.
 In our patience.
 In our relationships.

Because sometimes “I’m fine” isn’t honesty.

It’s protection.

And over time, that protection turns into distance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Unloaded the Podcast. This is Michael Seahorn. Shannon Morrow. And I hope all of our listeners out there are doing well. Shannon, how are you doing? Good. All right. We're getting into the the daily grind, if you will, just kind of the talking about some of the things that we deal with on the day-to-day basis and and how it relates to uh what we talk about here on Unloaded, the weight, the truth, and all of the good stuff that we've talked about for the last, oh, I don't know, 12-13 episodes. Um, so it's always exciting to continue on to the next one. This week, um, I'd I'd like to talk a little bit about something that um there's a lot of memes out there about this. There's a there's a lot of um there's just a lot of stuff out there about when you're passing somebody in the hallway or uh on the street or wherever the location, location doesn't matter, and in passion, you're just like, how's it going? Fine. Yeah. You just keep walking.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah. Because right? I'm walking this direction, you're walking that direction, neither of us really want to break stride, and you're gonna ask me how I'm doing. Right? Like, I'm fine, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Let's just keep going. Right. And it it it's uh there's some comedical value comedy value, or what was the word? Com comed. I don't want to make up a word, or Shannon will tell me. I'm making things up. I know there's a word. What is it? Can you can you can you come to it? I'll I'll figure it out and I'll I'll bring it to the next episode. But um there's some comedy, if you will, in that because so many times that's exactly what happens. You're just impassing, hey man, what's going on? Nothing. Or hey man, how you doing? Fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

I'm good, man. It started it happen sorry to interrupt you. It happened at the beginning of this episode. You in fact, at the beginning of most episodes. Hey Shannon, how you doing? I'm good, man. I'm fine. Yeah, right? Because it's very I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

It's it's almost just it's just something people do. It's an answer to a question.

SPEAKER_02 2:18

Uh it's a quick, uh, concise because we're here to do X, Y, and Z, and this this is just for like the little social habits most people have of just I'm acknowledging you, you're acknowledging me, we have to say something to each other. Hey, what's up? How's it going? All the oh, I'm good, not much, you know, and then fine. Okay, let's get on with it.

SPEAKER_00 2:46

Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's an unusual thing because uh I have in past times um when I'm not quote unquote doing fine, whatever that means, um, somebody has asked me, hey man, how's it going, Mike? And I'll just literally say, eh, I've had better. And I'll just keep going. And you want to talk about like throwing kind of a wrench into the normalcy, if you will, of just normal, you know, back and forth. It trips people up. They're not I I don't know, subconsciously, maybe like Shannon's saying, is it's just something that we we do in passing, or it's just I don't know what it is. Maybe that's just where we are in a society. This is what we've always done, and that's what people continue to do. I don't know. It's weird. Try it on, man.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

What's up? Not much. What's up? Not much. What's up? I feel like hell. Wait, what?

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Yeah, no, don't say that. I I didn't even actually want to.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

No, no, no, no. I'm just kind of like just that standard greeting, man. Hey, what's up? I don't actually actually don't really I'm not worried about how you feel, actually. No, just saying hi, man. Just then just say hi.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Shannon is right though. I've done that in the in the past where I've I just tell people uh I've had better days. You know, and some people obviously the people who know me will say, oh man, are you you know you are you good or you know, everything alright though? You know, and like I said, it's there's I I think it's uh man, I always have to be so damn careful. When I look at how I'm doing as a human being depending on where I'm at and who I'm around, my responses are always going to be a little bit different. Because of what we've talked about in our past episodes, is I don't want to unload on people that I really don't want to unload on, and B I don't want to unload on people who don't have the bandwidth for it. And I don't want to unload on some people because it's just not fair to them. Right. So there's there's a lot in there, I know, but um If somebody asks me, let's just say my office, if I'm having not too bad of a day or too good of a day, and somebody says, Oh, hey Mike, how you doing today? And I say, I don't know. I'm all right. Most of the time I'll I'll get an honest feedback from them, and they'll be like, hey, you you know what's going on, man? You want to talk about it? Are you are you good? Most of my staff knows I don't talk about a lot of stuff, especially on the personal side of the house. So most of the time they'll be like, Well, hopefully you have a better day. And I'm I'm good with that. I appreciate that. You know, just that just that nice little, hey, I acknowledge it what you said and I I hope your day gets a little bit better. To me, that's pretty good, man. Because they know I'm not gonna dive into it with them. So that's not gonna happen, you know what I mean. But do you think, Shannon, uh sometimes as humans we we use that as a mask in a way, like a like a masking device in a way, just oh I'm good, I'm fine.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Well, yeah. Um and that's just one of I mean that's just one pretty little paint stroke on the mask. You know, I mean it it starts when we get up in the morning, you know, most of uh just shower, try and get our hair just right, put on the right clothing for the day, you know, just all the things we do just to be quote unquote presentable when we step out, when we enter the workday, when we're in public, when whatever we're doing, you know, it's okay, all the social norming and all the expectations, and okay, here we are out in the world trying to get along with a bunch of other uh human beings out here. And um who am I? What do I want? What's expected? Who are you? What are you after? You know, and it's yeah, it gets quite complex, quite quick. Um, so yeah, to your question about masks, uh that's a common analogy. Um, I mean, we're not gonna run around out here naked or anything, but um I think what you're driving at is when it's not authentic enough, when it's actually maybe we are steering too far from the truth, maybe we are losing our own um authenticity, we and we're yeah, doing ourselves a disservice and maybe others by really, to your point, masking or hiding or denying our true uh feelings or experience.

SPEAKER_00 7:32

Yeah, and it I use the term mask just because it relates to my story, but what I was I think more referring to is it's kind of a cover, cover up, if you will. It's it's like, man, I'm not doing okay today, but I'm just gonna hold on to the weight, I'm gonna pack it in the pack, I'm gonna put it in my safe, and I'm just gonna just put put the hey man, how are you? Fine, I'm good, and you know, just and just keep moving.

SPEAKER_02 7:55

Sometimes we need that cover-up. Sometimes we wanna have that have our pants on, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Do you do you think that if you continue that for a long duration that there could be maybe uh, you know, a negative to that? Well yeah, yeah, of course. Right? Yeah. Where we're just keep saying refine, refine, refine, refine, and uh, you know, maybe you're not, maybe you're really struggling that week and maybe they maybe you just don't feel like you have a spot or a place to to do the unloading.

SPEAKER_02 8:28

Yeah. So you just give the pet to answer.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

Right, and you just keep moving along your your way. And that really goes back to what this this whole thing is about is booking that one hour with somebody, man. You know, book the book the hour, book book one session with somebody just to have an outlet. Because if you don't if you don't feel like you can be honest with uh whatever group or circle you're in, I don't like to use those terms uh very much, but whether it's the family or the or your friends or your work or whatever it is you do, maybe you're just a maybe you're just a solo, you know, lone wolf out there, and that's okay too, man. I've had my days of being a lone wolf. But I do recommend just if you're getting to the point where you're just masking, if you will, or you just don't feel comfortable enough telling somebody like, man, I'm not doing fine. I'm just I'm it's been five days. I've just been telling people I'm fine, and it's just eating at me, eating at me, eating at me, and eating at me. You know, and that's what I worry about with people. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

That now you're getting there if it starts really eating at folks. Right. Yeah, that's because most people aren't ready for just have the time and space for a true conversation around. I mean, okay, toward your example, say someone's having a really difficult week, some pretty tough stuff has happened in their personal life, and at the same time, work is excessively demanding and they're just getting their ass kicked on, you know, multiple and uh but in the hallway or you know, at you know, on the on the way out the door in the morning, you know, there's not, hey, okay, hope you have a good day, see you tonight. Or, you know, work, you know, hey, hey, how's it going? I'm fine, you know, but it inside, of course, that's not the truth. You're you're getting your ass kicked. Um, so there's not there's often just not a lot of opportunity to say, you know, uh, can we actually slow down? Can I actually just unload? I was man, I'm I'm getting my ass kicked. I got some shit to talk about. I'm I'm really struggling. Can I just vent for a while? You know, there's there's not a lot of opportunity for that at work, at home. Um, that is why you are encouraging and through your very own personal experiences, how valuable it is to go see a professional. It's worth it. It's sometimes can take a little doing to set up, find someone, schedule, of course, paying for it. Um, but then man, that is so often what we are really needing to have that time, have that space, walk in, sit down, close the door, and then you got that full hour to just actually I'm not fine.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Yeah, and I know sometimes, and this I'll just use my own experience so I'm not just making things up, but there are some times when things start stacking very fast on on the on the heavy side of the coin, right? And I know that if if you're not practicing some type of self-help, that when those things start to stack, sometimes they feel like they become too much, too fast. And then you really start getting into where everything starts stacking, because now you're having a hard time differentiating between just normalcy that maybe you have already dealt with in the past versus everything feels like a problem. And then next thing you know, you got a thousand things stacked up, maybe comparatively to ten. So that's what I worry about, and as a leader, that's the some of the things that I look at in my own inner circles is you know, is there a difference in my inner circle? Whether it's in the office or in my family, you know, am I getting those canned? I'm good, I'm fine, and you know, maybe there's no other context, but maybe that person is generally very talkative, and now they're not very talkative. So as a leader, I think it's very important for the leaders that may be listening to this uh episode today, is I take it very personal uh as a leader. I I don't shy away from admitting that to people. I think when we're in a leadership role of any kind, that comes with a great responsibility. And this is just my opinion on the matter. I take it personal because I know that I can have influence both ways on the positive or the negative, depending on how my interaction with the with the with that person goes. But I like to know my staff to the point where if I see a a day or two or three days of withdrawal or there's just not what I would say is normal, that's generally when I'll pull somebody in. I I'm I'm just concerned about you. You know, and sometimes that's all it takes. Right? Because you gotta build the trust first, right? And once that trust is built, sometimes they'll be like, oh man, I've you know, I I've been I've been struggling, man, or or this happened and I'm trying to deal with it. And and other times people are like, nah, I'm okay, man. It's just I just had a rough couple days, but you know, I appreciate you noticing and you know, and you move on, and uh, you don't make a big deal out of that. You gotta own it. But I think that's what I worry about with people is when the when it starts stacking so fast, it can be so overwhelming so quick, man. You just don't know what to do.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

Nah, yeah. And you can see that in others, as you just described, and that underlying message, hey, I see you. I I know you well enough to know that something's off. And I I care about you, and so I'm going to inquire. I'm not going to avoid this. I I care about you enough to pull you aside and let you know, hey, I see something's going on. And I care. And if you want to talk about a little, I'm here for you. If not, all good, man. It's um just letting you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

Yeah, I think I think the I'm fine or I'm good or whatever the whatever the verbiage you want. It could be a million different things. I think it uh for me personally, I I used to hide everything under that. Man, I was a I was probably an expert.

SPEAKER_02 15:31

Yeah, yeah, and sometimes that's okay. Some I don't have time to actually explain to you why I'm so grumpy right now. So, dude, I'm good. Just leave me alone. Let's just finish the day, and maybe tomorrow, you know.

SPEAKER_00 15:43

But which is funnier because you know, as they're asking you, it's just making you more frustrated. Dude, stop it. Exactly. I was fine, but now I'm oh you can tell I'm off, huh? Yeah, I'm off now. Keep asking. Yep, yep. It's I I know we laugh about that, but it it is how it feels. Yeah. I mean, it is how it feels, and it's crazy. It's crazy to think about life life can be heavy, man, and and um you know, when when people don't know what to do with it and they don't know where to go with it, it it um there's just so many negative paths that that can take people down. You know, and I feel like you know, could it have changed, you know, if they had someone to talk to? Could it have changed if if there was an outlet? Could it have changed if if they were able to recognize that they were at a place where they're just I'm too stacked up, man, I got too much. I need to I need to unload something here, but I just I just don't know what to do with it. I don't know where to take it. So I was uh saying Shannon is you know, there's when you get to that point where you're just overloaded, man, and people need someone to talk to. There needs to be an outlet for for something. You know, in in do you know of an outlet where um you know people can maybe get talk to somebody for free or just talk to somebody in a crisis moment?

SPEAKER_02 17:21

Oh yeah, yeah. Level one, man, nine eight eight. Yep, yep. 24-7 national hotline, you can text, you can call. There's trained professionals, it's free. Um in English, Spanish, um, yeah, very valuable resource. Um, please, we are not as alone as we often perceive we are, and when we are hitting our limits, when we just are things are getting pretty dire for us, please, please, please reach out to whether friend, family member, co-worker, therapist, counselor, hotline. You know, there's we're all pretty joined as a human species. We're all hoping to support each other, helping get us all through this together as best as we can. And it's man, uh often a misperception that we're all alone because uh it just takes just reaching out.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

Yeah, that's good. So nine eight eight, and we'll we'll add that into our our normal repertoire, if you will, as we move forward. You know, nine eight eight's a good option because you know it's it's anonymous, if I'm not mistaken. I'm assuming it's anonymous. I've never called it, but I'll I'll do some more research on the 988, just what it entails, and and I I'd like to know just a little bit more personally, just so we have a little bit more information to share with our our listeners out there. But it's good to know um when you are feeling to the point where you're just like Shannon said, you just feel like you're the only person on the planet, man. There's eight billion of us, you're not alone. You're not feeling probably something that you know a couple other million people probably aren't feeling in very similar fashion. But it's easy, so easy, man, to feel like you're on that island by yourself, man. Because I've been there. I have been there. It's not a good place to be for a duration of time unless you're putting yourself on the island for whatever reason, that's a different story. But the island we're talking about is a very dark, very cloudy, very isolated um place to be. And when you feel like you're in that space, that's when you really need to reach out to uh to somebody, man. Yeah, reach out for some help. Yeah, you know, get some clarity or just shoot unload. Man, unload it right then and there over the phone, man. Just let it out, you know. Again, I I I'm on I don't want to talk too much on the 988, because uh unfortunately I'm gonna be honest with our listeners. I don't know a lot about it. I've heard about it, I just haven't done any deep dive into it, but I'm going to just so I can understand the platform and uh where it's at, how it came about, and things like that. So I think that'll be good for all of us. So well, uh this might be a little bit shorter um this this session or this um session. I'm so used to sessions. Um this recording's probably gonna be a little bit shorter. We've we've run to just a couple technical snags here and there, and I don't want to uh make it make it more difficult than we need to.

SPEAKER_02 20:31

Uh you're just uh anxious to go to Hawaii. That's too, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:34

Well, actually, after this recording, we'll actually I'll actually be back. Oh yeah. Yeah, so we'll have to talk about that. That'll be a good chat, man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:44

Good idea.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

What happened? How I feel, and what's that reset look like? You know what I mean? I'll I'll share some of that. Cool. Okay. I'll I'll put some some definitely some feeling and some thoughts in there, man. We're at the 25 minute mark, so I think we're we're okay for this episode. Um it's a it's a this was a good episode. Uh it went it went in a different direction that I could be honest. I don't think I was anticipating it to go. Um that's the lovely thing about being organic with Shannon and I is we just don't know where it's gonna head. Um and I feel like this was very important, man.

SPEAKER_02 21:22

I agree. Yeah. It we often don't know where things are gonna go. And so thank you for just the openness to like, oh, okay, it's going this direction instead. And okay. And just allowing for that more natural flow, if you will. And uh then where led, what it uncovered. And so, okay, trust in the process.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

Yeah, definitely trusting in the process. And as as our our um podcast continues to move forward and we talk about so many different things, it's it's gonna be a good time, I think, for everybody. I'm excited for the future for unloaded. Um, especially once I get some things set up on the back end where uh maybe we can I don't know, maybe maybe we have a QA episode one day where where people maybe um load us up with some questions, that'd be fun. I think that'd be a great episode to have. Um I know I know we've talked about and Shannon's gonna help with um getting some uh a female guest on the show from the mental health world, if you will. I look forward to that. Um so as we continue to be organic and we're gonna continue to try to grow our podcast, and I think we're gonna try to to grow um internally here um on trying to make this the very best thing that we can make it and make sure we're covering everybody we can and just be all inclusive so we don't leave people out. I think that's important to Shannon and I. I don't want to speak for Shannon, but I I'd say he's probably on the same boat. So you never know what's gonna happen here unloaded. So that's kind of the excitement, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:06

We'll keep it exciting.

SPEAKER_00 23:07

We'll keep it exciting, man. I don't want to be boring. I don't want to be boring, man.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

I'll keep throwing those curveballs.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

Yeah, he does he does well. Shannon should have been a pitcher for the major leagues specializing in curveballs, man. Well, like always, uh, we're coming to the end today. Uh I appreciate each and every listener out there. I appreciate the support people are giving Shannon and I on on the on the uh private side, but also on the public side. It means the world uh to me. I'm sure it means the world to Shannon. We're gonna continue to do our best at what we do here. Um I hope everybody has a great week this week. And uh for Mike Seahorn, Shannon Mora, we will catch you on our next episode.