This Week’s Guest
Honor Schauland is a community organizer, anthropologist, director of our local community center, master apple tree-climber, and my real-life best friend. She hates being called an “expert”, but in matters of community, she is an expert in my opinion. I have learned so much about community and doing life with people and navigating conflict and differences and community planning just by knowing her and following her lead. Honor orchestrates community conversations, serves on the board of our local food cooperative, and plays an integral role in the establishment of our local food system. She lives with her partner, her daughter, and a flock of cold-hardy chickens in Northeastern Minnesota.
Links
- FREE Training: How to Hack Your Nervous System with Cold Plunges
- The Long Descent by John Michael Greer
- The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible by Charles Eisenstein
Show Notes
This is the second half of my IRL conversation with community organizer and BF Honor Schauland. We’re zooming in on our discussion about community to focus on cultivating close friendships.
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In this episode Honor and I…- share more about the importance and necessity of community during the Apocalypse (hint: we’re already in it!)
- give listeners a glimpse into our own trauma-informed, real-life friendship
- talk about navigating conflict, establishing safety, and moving past our differences
- share why, on paper, our friendship doesn’t make much sense
- explain how our shared understanding of trauma has given us the ability to custom-design a close, intimate friendship
- share how we’ve thrown out the checkboxes of identity when it comes to cultivating close friendships
- explain why shared experiences isn’t necessarily the main ingredient in a healthy, thriving relationship
Transcript
Hey guys, welcome back to part two or the second episode of my conversation with my very good real life friend honor. Shoreland. And you haven’t listened to episode 61 yet. I highly recommend that you hit stop on this podcast and go back and listen to episode 61, because that is part one of our conversation.
And this episode, we’re zooming into the close. Friendships. So last episode was about larger scale community. This episode is about cultivating those close friendships and navigating boundaries and communication and differences and love. Um, so honor, and I are talking about.
Our differences and how if we went by our checkboxes. Of what we think we need and a friend then we most likely wouldn’t be friends. Um, when we met there probably couldn’t be two more different people. Um, Then we are like, the contrast is very, very stark and thankfully the longer we’ve been in friends, the more we have not only retained our own individual identities, but we’ve also rubbed off on each other in really, really positive ways. And I’m thankful for the ways that honor has rubbed off on me. Um, so in this episode, we’re talking about different being safe.
Okay, beautiful and necessary. We’re talking about having the ability to address. Difficult things and our relationship differences, conflict without ending the relationship. We are sharing that experience provides depth and intimacy, but we can’t always rely on shared. Excuse me shared experiences.
To dictate how close a friendship or relationship is. We’re talking about establishing safety in close relationship. And that the ultimate goal of any conversation we have, even if it’s a conflict, is to understand each other better. It’s not about one of us being right. And the other person being wrong.
We really have to check our egos at the door when we have these conversations, because we have had differences. We have had arguments and our friendship, we have had conflict and it hasn’t ended our friendship. And that’s because our safety is already established going into those conflicts. Like we already know that the outcome of our conversation or of our conflict.
Is that the relationship stays intact, even if we don’t reach an agreement. Um, we’re also talking about. Developing capacity and building capacity to handle more. And how, when you build capacity in your nervous system, Through healing trauma through nervous system work, um, through establishing safety and your body coming back to your body and then also safety and community.
That, that really does give you even more capacity for the types of friendships that are really, really supportive. In you feeling like you have your inner circle of people you’re like ride or die. In it for life kind of people. And I know with the pandemic. Um, some relationships among friends and family have even been destroyed because of differences in beliefs about the pandemic or about the election. For example, like these types of things have the potential to tear relationships apart. And this conversation with honor, I hope gives you some hope.
That you can have differences. You can make different choices and you can still be really close friends.
We do talk more about the apocalypse in this episode, and that’s more of a bigger picture community thing, but it’s still really relevant to the conversation.
And then we’re also talking about just having intimacy and relationship. Um, the fact that at this point, I don’t really feel like there’s any sort of topic that’s off limits. Um, and we discuss, uh, the cost benefit analysis, which is like that there’s a willingness to ignore or detached from the things that you find annoying and other people, or that bother you because the benefit of having their friendship add so much richness to your life, that it outweighs the.
Annoying things. And I really love that. We talk about this because I have seen. Friendships family relationships, people on social media being ripped apart for the annoying things they do or the things they do that other people perceive as wrong or bad. And there’s. It’s like treating that person, like they’re disposable, like, because I don’t agree with what you say or believe about this thing. Then that means that you’re a shitty person and you can’t be in my life at all. I have to unfollow you and block you and cancel you and all this kind of stuff. And we talk about how, like, that’s actually not okay.
It’s not okay to treat people like they’re disposable. And, um, I just really hope you enjoy this conversation. And it is a very vulnerable look into one of my real life relationships. Um, You know, this person is with me all the time. We’re involved in each other’s families. We’re involved with each other’s children.
Um, we do a lot of fun things together. We also do a lot of hard things together and my hope for each and every one of you listening to this episode is that, you know, that if you haven’t found a close friendship like this. That it’s possible. I just want you to know that it’s possible. And I didn’t find a relationship like this until I was in my early thirties. So it may be something that you have to wait for but i promise it’s worth the wait and i guess without further ado i’m going to welcome back my friend on her Sharlin to the podcast.
Okay. Round two, we’ve replenished our T all the things. And, um, so welcome back. We are going to continue our conversation about community, but the last episode was more about the larger scale community. Um, you did know that you don’t feel like we talked about the apocalypse enough, so I want to leave room in this conversation to talk about the apocalypse whenever you need to, and community’s role for sure.
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So why don’t we, what if we talked about that first, briefly, and then we’re going to go into the, um, I guess like how you and I, in spite of how neither one of us really checks off our check boxes for each other, like we’ve still managed to cultivate this really beautiful friendship.
So, um, So, yeah. How would you like to go on about the apocalypse and the importance of community? Well, the thing that I remembered that I had wanted to say was that I was talking about, um, reading, uh, the long descent by John Michael Greer. And I just, I like, I, I know this morning I was looking at parts of it and I like underlying this part that was about, well, first of all, like I think about, I write a lot of grants for my community work and stuff like that because I live in a, you know, a community without a lot of financial wealth.
And so we write grants to get funds, to do things. And, um, but that leads me to think about wealth differently. You know, like, uh, wealth is not just money. It’s like. Resources and access to resources and people are a huge resource and a huge, like part of the picture, like that’s why we’re doing the things that we’re doing because of people their needs.
But then also because people have, you know, skills and talents and just interests and things that are necessary. And so, um, I guess, like one of the things that I was struck by, in when I was reading this morning, um, about like, again, this, his book specifically talks about how, um, how the apocalypse is not like one big thing, but like a series of kind of small, uh, smaller events that kind of leads us into like a different sort of society than what we’re used to.
And he’s specifically talking about like peak oil and climate change and how that’s going to like, uh, you know, bring about the end of most of what we’re. Currently living under, but not in the way that people think, you know, it’s like a slower, longer term descent. That’s why it’s called belonged descent.
That’s the name of the book anyway. Um, and he’s, and so anyway, I’m like thinking about wealth as like, you know, the people that you need to survive and the skillsets that you need to survive and you know what those are, and they’re not exactly, you know, I mean, I think we had mentioned because this came from a pretty specific incident where it was talked about in, at a community event, but like needing to know the guy with the bucket truck.
Well, okay, cool. But like, people need to know how to operate the bucket truck and, and what are you doing with the bucket? You might be cutting down trees. So you need people who know how to do that. Both with and with. Uh, power like motorized tools. Um, you know, like again, the bucket truck we have access to is very janky.
So you need someone who knows how to repair hydraulics and at a certain point, like things like that are really literally going to become obsolete. But like, you need these like skill sets of people who are at the very least know about the stuff we’re dealing with now. And maybe the stuff like things like the old ways of doing things, or thank you.
Um, how to do things with very little, you know, that’s one of my partners, families, uh, many talents is like knowing how to like rig up, uh, I don’t know, machinery or band equipment or cars or whatever to make them work when you don’t actually have. Part and, um, some people are just like really good at that.
That’s, that’s a, that’s a skillset. That’s like, you know, you need to know people like that just in general. Like I think, but like when, you know, with the decline of civilization, it’s really important. Um, I mean, just that that’s, I’m, I’m making a lot out of that, but like, you know, people who know how to make your basic things like food, clothing, and shelter, you know?
So like it’s important to know people who, so it’s important to know people who knit and crochet learning those skills yourself is not a bad plan at all. Like I think, I think people get real caught up in like the idea that they need to, um, know all of the things themself and like, it’s not about idea to have, um, Like a certain amount of knowledge.
It’s really a good idea to specialize in something or many multiple things, even if you have the time and energy, but that’s the point of community is that you don’t have to specialize in everything. And you can’t, you specialize in certain things that you have the interest and access and ability to do.
And then you associate with other people who have other skillsets and interests, and they have, uh, uh, skills that are going to help you in and you trade and you, you reciprocate and you, you know, you have a relationship and you help them with this they’re woodpile and they help you with your woodpile or whatever, you know?
Um, People used to build houses like in groups, um, for very good reason. And then that was just kind of what happens. Like people would, you know, build any time. There was a new house built, like a group of people from the community would come together and help build the house. And it wasn’t always the people building that were like the most important people.
Sometimes it was the people who were like, ha everybody had their role. You know, like every, there were people providing childcare, there’s people making food for the people who are building there’s people who are like, you know, actually doing the hammering and there’s people like handing them the stuff, you know?
I mean, there’s like, you know, you can get way off into, um, you know, the ways that that’s happened and gender roles and all kinds of stuff like that. But the fact is, is like people need food, clothing, and shelter, and, um, you know, different people have these skillsets and different people should have these skillsets and we should be able to be in relationship and community with other people who have, um, You know, skill sets or abilities, or just time or energy or whatever that we don’t have ourselves personally, that we can make an exchange of some sort.
And, um, and that’s going to be vital if that’s always vital in a crisis. Like it just is, you know, um, like during the, like the summer of 2020, um, like, I don’t know, I have chickens and I can food and I have a garden. And so many people, I sold a lot of live chickens because so many people were interested in learning how to have chickens.
And I spent a lot of time like telling people, like sharing knowledge about, um, you know, small scale backyard chicken stuff, which I was like happy to do. Um, because I just like really enjoy. I don’t know, I like talking about chickens and I really, I have my like, method for doing it. It was like, it worked out really good, but it’s also like, I enjoy helping people like become more self-sufficient and I think that it’s, even if they take these chickens and they like decide at this time, like maybe it was just a simple thing that they tried during the pandemic, and they’re not going to be able to do that long-term or whatever they had that experience.
And thus, they have a little bit more knowledge about it than they did before. And that’s really only going to serve all of us better if you know, things where the pandemic is to worsen or whatever, you know, like I’m not trying to be like doomsday about it, but like if crises happen, which they do, like people have people having more skills and knowledge and even like equipment in general is like really not about idea.
Yeah. I’m curious. So we’re talking about this right now, from the perspective of living in a really small rural community. I’m curious. What would your thoughts be on people who are living in bigger cities? Where they like can’t have chickens or they don’t, you know, they maybe only have an apartment balcony, so it’s not like they can grow all of their own food.
Like how would you see them pulling together and pooling resources and trying to be self-sufficient? I mean, I think like, sure. I can see where like, for some folks options are limited, but they’re also are in many, many places, thriving, local food systems, even in urban areas. In fact, sometimes more so in urban areas, you know, um, community gardens.
Yeah, yeah. Or like, yeah. I mean, just places where people have gotten innovative and, you know, and I know it’s, it’s not always been an easy thing to figure out, but like getting, like, finding, you know, abandoned plots where houses have been torn down or something like that. And building, building, growing food, building gardens, people like, um, there’s so many people with like backyard fruit trees in cities that.
Do anything do anything with the fruit? And oftentimes we’re even just like really happy to have people come take it. Like, I know there’s people who are weird about that. Like, like they don’t eat their apples and they won’t let anybody else eat their apples, but we’re the girls who go get apples from the side of the highway.
Right. But there’s also so many people who have, and they’re just like, they’re willing to share or like they know that they’re not going to use them all or whatever. There’s so many things like that. There’s so much like, I don’t know, like I’m just amazed at sometimes about the ways that you can like hunt and gather in the city.
Yeah. There’s always squirrels, right? Yeah. Well, that’s true. Actually, I had a friend who was like teaching her kids how to like trap squirrels and eat them. And I was like, wow. And I was like, kind of like, God, I mean, are you worried that they like eat nasty, toxic waste or whatever? And she said, I mean, a lot of deer that you guys are dealing with eat like GMO corn, you know, like what’s, I don’t know, like we’re not gonna be able to be picky in the apocalypse.
Well, not only that, but I think we have like an X factor that sometimes is like, related to like the worst that could happen. Like I’m not sure squirrels are actually eating toxic waste. I think animals are a lot smarter than we are about avoiding that shit. Right. We have the perception that they are because you know, but we’re not necessarily right, right.
They might be eating like really well, like, I don’t know. So, I mean, I guess anyway, I think there’s like there’s opportunities to do all of this stuff in cities. There’s a lot of cities are allowing backyard chickens. Now within certain regulations there’s you can do it under the radar, right. Illegally just don’t have a rooster, you know, Uh, I mean, that goes back to the fruit tree thing.
You can jump the fence and steal those apples. Like you might want to ask first, you know, like, but there’s lots of places where there’s like fruit trees on, you know, in, in, I don’t know if they’re like public land, but like abandoned land or abandoned fruit trees or whatever we’re in. Like, and that’s the thing.
I mean, I have a friend who, you know, like literally like used to like sneak onto like, like land and like prune old apple trees so that they would have more apples, you know, which I thought was like super amazing. And like, I don’t know. I mean, that’s just like one example, like apples and squirrels and whatever, but there’s also lots of ways people, I don’t know.
I mean, I think once you start to get into this stuff, people want the connection. So like bartering with people that, you know, in cities or anywhere is like people get into that. Like it’s, it’s weird. It’s like a thing that we’re not real versed in how to do all the time. We don’t have like a, you know, in other places, other cultures, they have like a market where you sit there and like haggle on purpose.
And if you don’t haggle, there’s something wrong or something weird or something rude is happening. Like it doesn’t have to be like that. It has it’s can be as simple as, you know, if that’s what, not, not if people aren’t comfortable with that, but it can be as simple as just saying like, you know, like a bulletin board where you’re like, I have extra such and such, does anybody want to buy them or trade me something I need, you know, I need this.
I have, you know, everybody always has too much to CUNY. Right? Some people like Suki, some people don’t grow zucchini and they want your zucchini. Trust me. Yeah. Um, and zucchini is something just FYI for anyone who’s interested in growing your own food. Even if you have an apartment balcony, like if you have a pot, you can grow zucchini and apply it on your apartment balcony at 1.1 plant, right.
Right. With ones have KT plant will get you through and probably your neighbors too. And then I would also add like, food is a really good way to get interacting with people. Like, not just like, I mean, growing and discussing and like, you always have an extra and you’re like, what am I going to do with all these things?
Whatever. How do you know, like learning recipes from other people, eating with other people, making you have extra, so make, so you donate it to the food shelf or, you know, and meet the people there when you do that, you know, or, um, you know, I don’t know, like, like, I don’t know how often there are like community potlucks and other places.
Like it’s a big thing here. Um, Like it ha if you have an abundance of some random food, you make it into something and share it with your neighbors somehow, you know? And like, even if you don’t ever have another conversation with them again, that’s still, you did a nice thing like that. Amazing. The point of it is not to get something back.
Sometimes the point is just to like, use up this thing and not let it go to waste and, and have a pleasant interaction and feel like you like did the best you could or whatever. Like, it’s, it kind of goes back to like putting yourself out there, like you can try. And you’re not always going to get anything out of it, you know, you’re, you can try putting yourself out there and you can try being vulnerable.
Maybe they’re going to think that your zucchini casserole sucks, but like, they didn’t have it’s better than nothing. Right. And you had an interaction you didn’t have before. I think that’s great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, what else do we have to say about the apocalypse and knowing people? Um, just, yeah, the. I honestly think that if we make it, if we make, if we start being like intentional about food and the basic needs and the skill sets that are needed, that enhance our lives and then the relationships that enhance our lives altogether, like, and build community wealth in those ways.
Like we’re no matter where we are, that we’re going to have a heck of a lot better chance of like surviving and helping each other to survive, whatever it is. Like I said, whatever crisis, it doesn’t matter. Yeah. I mean, cause even if it’s not a large scale crisis, like, um, like a, a wildfire or even a bigger than that, um, you know, like there’s a good Jillian shipping containers, like sitting out in the ocean right now and like things are, they’re not coming in as fast as they normally do.
And at some point we’re going to feel the effects of that. Um, so that’s going to be like a big thing. The pandemic was like a worldwide apocalyptic event. Um, but. Closer to home. Like I remember you telling me about times growing up, where in the winter time you guys would lose power sometimes for two, three days.
And like, that’s like a small apocalyptic event that people need to be able to pull together for. Yeah. And they would like, if, you know, it’s, I think it’s the thing where, well, and we’ve seen some of that stuff. I don’t know it wasn’t there something where like, I’m correct me if I’m wrong. I can’t keep track of the news stories these days, but like, didn’t a whole bunch of Texas lose power.
Like kind of recently, like last February they had a massive snow ice storm and like people’s pipes froze and like flooded their house and they weren’t prepared for the houses aren’t built for weather. Like, and again, like, okay, so that’s happening. I’m going to guess that there were people who had, you know, food and people who didn’t or people who had power or, or, you know, resources available and people who didn’t.
And I think that. You know, having people that you can reach out to, to help you get your needs met, whatever they are is is, is a good idea. And I also want to point out that like, you know, probably a lot of people in Texas, whenever that happened, like if they had family members somewhere else, like they could drive and go stay with family members if they needed to, if they were out of their homes.
But like, I mean, I just, I want to point out that at some point, leaving and going and staying with family may not be an option. Right. It totally depends on the situation and leaving and going and being with, with family is it may not be an option. And that’s really what you need to make sure you’ve built that group of people around yourself that you guys are, um, equally contributing and helping to make each other’s lives easier.
Yeah. Yeah. The transition towns movement is a whole nother thing. That’s kind of about the same sort of thing about like transitioning. It’s meant to be about like transitioning to like a lower impact, more sustainable sort of lifestyle on a municipal level. So like a small city, a small town scale kind of level, um, as a community.
Um, and I just think that’s, that’s another resource for people. There’s lots of, is that a book? It, I think it, I CA I think it might’ve started well, I think it started as like a, it started into like a little town in England, I want to say. And, um, and it’s called the town transition. No, it’s like transition towns.
It’s it is a movement. So there’s like books about it. Um, I want to say it’s like Rob Hopkins or something like that. I it’s been a little while since I read it, but I was kind of big into it for awhile, because it was like, while we were doing a bunch of community planning work or hear about like the future of our community, which was what ultimately led us to like build the community center where I work.
I don’t know, I ran across this book about the, uh, transition movement and this, and it was about this little town in England who I think they were setting out to very purposely, like let’s scale back our carbon emissions. Let’s how can we do something on like the scale of our town to like, do something about climate change and peak oil and like the coming issues, you know?
And they got together and had these like community meetings and talked about it and was like, really, they got everybody involved, which is essentially what we did when we were talking about like the future of our town and how we wanted to build this community center. It was just like with a different, slightly different focus, but it struck me at the time, like how similar it was and how, you know, it, it was like the community coming together for a common purpose, but really this like kind of broad visioning of like how creative can we get about this thing that we need?
And it, um, And there was a lot of S like common threads. And I remember being really struck by that, and it was really cool. And since then that has blossomed. Like, there are, there’s a website and like a listing and like, I mean, they have, like, there’s probably tons and tons of resources now that I’m just not aware of, because I haven’t looked into it for awhile, but like, it was a thing.
And there were a bunch of different places that were kind of like in, in that like network of transition towns. And it was really just about very consciously planning for a future with like, you know, uh, changing climate and, and like trying very purposely to use less energy and how to do that. And it, and it worked, it was a really good idea to do it on a, on a small scale like that, of like towns, just because like, when people pool their resources, they do use less energy, or it’s quite possible to use less energy.
If you can figure out how to do that as a group. And, um, And to be more, uh, self-sustaining and resilient in that kind of thing. Um, it doesn’t mean you’re cutting yourself off from everybody else. That’s not like what we’re talking about was not possible in our, the way our cultures work anymore, you know, like, um, but definitely just kind of trying to plan for a future when, you know, they might have to feed themselves a little bit more than like there was a supply chain issue.
What do we do? You know, that kind of thing. And I don’t know, I don’t know that anybody’s really arguing against that anymore after the pandemic, but it was really a big thing even before that, that was where that came from. And like I said, I haven’t checked into that, but it was a cool, um, a cool resource.
Um, I wrote it down and I’ll try to link it. Can we find anything, I guess a lot of stuff like that about enhancing local economies and there are tons and tons of resources about that. I can’t even name them all and I’m kind of out of the loop, but I used to, I used to like collect them. Yeah. That doesn’t surprise me about you actually.
Um, so last question about the apocalypse. Is that cool? Does it feel complete for you? Okay. My last question is, um, what would you say to anyone listening who like here’s all of this and thinks that it we’re like trying to send out a message of fear or like this is conspiracy theory or like, you know, they want to bury their head in the sand and pretend like this isn’t happening.
Um, like what would you say to that? Um, I don’t think I, yeah, I don’t think we need to argue about what’s happening or not. I think that we all want like, We all, we all need connection anyway, whether there’s something awful happening or not, we need it. Um, I think most people can like look around and agree that there’s a lot of stuff wrong.
We don’t all agree on what it is necessarily or what is causing the things that are wrong. But we all look around and agree that there’s, it’s like as Charles Eisenstein says, there’s the better world that our hearts know as possible, you know? And how do we get there? And I guess I believe that relationship and community is the way to get there.
And that’s essentially what Charles Eisenstein is talking about. There’s a whole book about, he had written a bunch of books about that anyway. Um, but like, yeah, I just, I, yeah, I’m really not trying to fearmonger I really, I feel like that’s, that’s the issue already is that too many people. I’m afraid for lots of, you know, a pretty good reasons.
Um, but you know, it and anxious and there’s so many reasons to be anxious, but, uh, being able to step out and like be vulnerable and build those connections and feel more secure in your situation is like really valuable, no matter what is happening, I guess that’s my take on it. I think people need that no matter what.
So I just think, I don’t know, in some way it’s like a question I get asked. I feel like, like I said, it’s a common thing to talk about. Like, what’s the next thing? What’s the, when’s the shit kind of hit the fan or whatever. And, um, so I feel like it would be remiss not to touch on that in like a community, a conversation about community, because it is, that is when community comes up is when things go wrong.
But you have to have, you want to have a strong community anyway. Just because you don’t have a strong community so that when things go wrong, they’re there. You have a strong community regardless. And if things go wrong, you’re a lot and much better off. And if you don’t have a strong community, when things go wrong, or if you don’t think you have a strong community, when things go wrong, you may notice that your, you may change your mind.
You may notice that people come together when there’s something going wrong. And sometimes that helps a lot. Like when things start to get better, to retain that, to like, think, Hey, let’s be conscious about this. Let’s like, not let this just go away. Like, let’s continue having a neighborhood meeting or a whatever, you know, community potluck.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. Does that feel completely? Yes. Okay. Um, so then I guess the next thing that we wanted to talk about is we started off in the last episode with like larger scale community. We kind of wrapped up that conversation just now. And we’re going to kind of scale inward and talk about like your inner circle and your chosen family, your best friends, whatever you call those people.
Um, and of course, everyone, I think knows that their community too. But I also think that sometimes, especially if you’re just going off of what is happening on social media, which is a really bad idea, but if that’s what you’re going off of, it can feel like. I can’t put myself out there because there’s nobody in this world that is going to accept me.
Or if they knew this about me, they would reject me, you know, like things like that. And so, um, what we wanted to talk about next is just to share with you guys some about our friendship and how like on paper honor and I being friends doesn’t really make sense. Um, in fact, I think it would be really fun if you wanted to tell them about the first time you met me.
I was actually just thinking that that’s really funny. Okay. So let’s see. I, um, a woman who was raised in the woods and like in a very, you know, kind of like survival, practical, I don’t know. No frills can wait. Yeah. Right. That’s a good way. And, um, I work at the community center and I, I run across all kinds of people.
Like, you know, it’s fine. Like people come in and ask me questions, people call and ask me questions. I’m the one who gets like, when the media calls or something like that, they’re like, you can talk, you talked to her. I had like random hikers coming in. Yeah. Like all kinds of people. So I guess I kind of, I have this, like, I can talk to anybody.
Um, especially that’s like my work persona, I guess. Like I also have like an introverted side of myself that, you know, maybe it doesn’t show as much, but like I get drained by all that. Sometimes I need to like recharge. Well anyway. Um, maybe that’s neither here nor there, but like, I just, I don’t, I literally don’t know how to put on makeup.
Well, um, I don’t wear it. I wear it on Halloween and I spot it or something like that, you know? Um, I’m, I’m probably a sort of stereotypical, like final shirt wearing. Lady lumbersexual. Yeah, I’m very lumbersexual that’s so God, that’s so good.
Yeah. I am so much more comfortable with like, yeah, big hurry. Men who smell like jeez diesel or whatever. Um, it’s sought us. Um, anyway. Yeah. Uh, so this, this person comes into, and also, I should say too, that this is a thing about the town I live in, where we’re kind of laid back. Um, and kind of like, not into, I mean, like, you know, like I consider myself a professional, but like, when I say that I don’t mean a professional, like I don’t get dressed up really to go to work.
Like I do, I don’t wear my pajamas to work. I try not to wear clothing with holes, but I definitely go to work barefoot. That’s all, I’m kind of like known for that, but like, I do put on like nice shirts for meetings and stuff, but like nice shirts for me is quite a bit different than people who go to a boardroom or an office every day.
I just it’s, it’s diff different. We have different culture and timelines or, you know, it’s not very chop chop around here. There’s just nothing like that. No things take time. Yeah. Anyway, so, um, I think, I think what had happened was a friend, um, had maybe you had email, like someone that you would, um, another local chicken person, right?
Yeah. This is true. Had you had contacted her maybe before you moved here, even to get some information about like where you were moving to and, you know, I think she was trying to be nice about that and give you as much as she could. And then at a certain point was. You should talk to honor and like had sent me an email and maybe we had exchanged emails.
Maybe, maybe I’m not even sure she told me about you. I don’t think I did email you though. It was like driving around town with my kids one afternoon and happened to come upon the community center. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean like two weeks after we moved here, so you’re like totally new on the scene, really brand new and yeah, there’s just, this person comes into the community center and it is, you know, she’s wearing makeup.
She’s wearing, I want to say like turquoises you’re wearing that day that matched the necklace, a necklace and the shirt, maybe like a vest, maybe that you had, you had this, like, it was very, it just matched her. So matching and shiny. And, and I probably had like painted toenails and like maybe even heal.
Yeah, I’m not sure about, I mean, I don’t know if I would’ve seen your toenails. I don’t remember if it was, if they matched and everything, I would have probably been like, dang. It was like in the may. Yeah. Anyway. Um, but I just, I think it was probably it, so it was like, it was maybe like how I remember being like, okay, this is this person that’s very put together.
Like, that’s the way I like think about that. And again, it’s not meant to be a judgment. It’s just different than what I’m normally confronted with. Especially like the hikers, the people who come into the community center that I don’t know are often like hikers or ATV riders or snowmobilers hampers.
They’re dressed quite a bit differently than they’re not put together in the same way. Like they can be in a way, but. In their theme. Yeah. Basically nobody in our town dresses the way I was dressed that day, but I was so new. Those were the clothes I had. That was who I was at that time. Um, yeah. And, and yeah, and I think, I don’t remember quite what you wanted, but you, you wanted to talk and meet and that was cool.
And that’s super great. I was in there and just trying to like, get more information about the community. Um, are you like asking about the youth program? Cause you were interested in your kids going to the youth program and you were like, You wanted to know about like the curriculum or something like that.
And I was like, well, it’s, um, it’s they play? It’s, it’s self-directed play. They, we just put them in a room with some balls and some stuff like, and they, and they play with it. And I felt really, like, I felt like you were expecting something. I was, and I wasn’t sure what to give you. And I’m just like, I wanted to like reassure you, you know?
Anyway. And then I think I was like, you can talk to the youth program director and she’ll reassure you. And I’m like, oh, is this really going to work? You know, was this lady needs some reassurance? And, and I don’t, I mean, that’s fine. Like we, like I said, if you’re new and you want your, you want to feel safe leaving your kid somewhere, like, that’s all we want to provide you is reassurance that that’s okay.
You know? So like, I understand what you’re going for. I just was like, I don’t know how to provide this on this level. You know, I think it was like, you know, think back to what I said in the last episode about going into a new place and sort of having that wall of protection. Yeah. You were doing that. And I was too, like, there was like some unsure, well, definitely when it, when it, when it’s that like something is expected here, but I’m not sure what it is.
Yeah. And I’m not sure I can actually legitimately provide it. You know, like I’m doing what I do, I’m doing what I, you know, we’re, we’re just doing the best we can. Um, and there’s nothing wrong with what we’re doing. Like I’ve, I’ve had to like work on that a lot too with just like my R w my work, my work personally, but like the work of my organization, what we do in the community is, again, like sometimes there is this like expectation of professionalism in quotes that like, we’re a tiny community.
Like we can be professional, we can do a good job at what we do, but we’re not going to maybe do it in the way that it, we don’t have the budget to do it in the way that it’s done elsewhere. We don’t have administrators and we don’t have. You know, right. And that sort of thing. So it’s just not, and you’re definitely not doing it in a suit.
Right. And I just, I work really part time the people who work for the youth program are very part-time, you know, it’s just like, there’s what, how do we provide? I mean, the goal, you know, is like, we provide a quality program with the resources we have. And I think it’s amazing. Um, and we’ve done amazing things, but like, that’s a thing that like, we’ve had to almost like grow into being comfortable with when confronted with someone who expects it to be a certain way.
Okay. It’s such a metaphor for like how we are as individual humans. Like we’re expected to be one way and we’re like, but, but this is the other way that I am, and it might not be acceptable to you. And then you sort of like, as you learn to be more and more authentic, you like grow into yourself and then you’re like embody your full self.
Unapologetically. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s totally it. Like, I feel like I have had a bunch of experiences that have kind of led me into that of like being more comfortable. I mean, I don’t know. I feel like I’ve always been on a certain level, my authentic self. Like I have a hard time, not being honest. Uh, but I mean, like you’re saying there, there are times when we put up walls, you know, like that’s just a fact.
And I think I’ve grown a lot in the last couple of years of like learning how to feel more confident about that, that that’s legit, that that’s like, I don’t have a problem being who I am, but sometimes being who I am and doing what I do, I run into people with different expectations and that’s, I like, again, I, I always feel sort of.
Bad for not meeting their expectations, but I also can’t be other than who I am and my organization and my community are who they are. And honestly, I think we need to lean into it and be more authentic. And when we do it works really well, you know, like it’s good for everybody when we are authentic, rather than trying to be something that we’re not, you know, and I think you’re right.
It’s like that works on a personal level and on like a higher, you know, organization and community level too. And, um, that’s really funny that the, our, our meeting is one of those, like, kind of like juxtaposition like that. That’s funny. Um, and I mean, I don’t know, like, I guess other than that, like, I, I don’t remember a whole lot about that interaction.
Yeah. I don’t remember a whole lot about it either. I just remember like, Noticing the stark difference in us. And that’s what I mean, like I was this like prissy put together, like matching makeup, wearing hair, done, like, right. And I’m like the Savage and you’re like messy, dirty, like, you know, your hair hasn’t been washed in a week.
Like the last time you took a bath was in the river, which is like, I never met anyone. I mean, I’ve never met anyone like anyone here in our community. Like it was a whole new world for me. And I’m really happy to say that it’s rubbed off in a lot of really good ways. And it’s helped me actually be my more authentic self.
You know, I think that this community has that effect on people. I totally agree. That’s what people like about it is. They’re like, okay, these people are doing their thing and I. My thing with these people and be accepted and like, I think that’s all anybody ever wants. And if you can find a community that you can do that in, that’s amazing.
And, and I think there are many communities where people can do that. I just think there’s different ways and levels and I don’t know. Yeah. Um, and we still have a lot of differences. Oh, for sure. Like, I’ve been saying every year for six years, that this is the year I’m going to get chickens and I still have no chickens.
And you’re like the chicken lady up here. I mean, you have this amazing like breeding and I mean, your system, your operation is just incredible. And like, I can’t even manage to like, build a small coop and like get a few birds in it. It’s just, we are still so different. So that’s what I mean by like on paper, your check boxes for the kind of friend you might want.
And my check boxes for the kind of friend I might. Six and a half years ago, like it wouldn’t have worked if we had expected each other to check those boxes. Yeah. I mean, if I needed someone who looked and thought and acted and dressed and behave like me well, and like, I remember because I guess I’m trying to like, think of like how that progressed.
So then I feel like maybe our mutual friend Corey sort of adopted you guys first, he started our training program first. And then I remember thinking that was really funny. Cause he’s even just as much of a wild, just as much as a Savage. You know, and I just remember being like, how does that work? Like, aren’t those, aren’t those, I mean, I remember kind of asking him about it.
Like, aren’t those people kind of religious, how’s that going? You know? And he’s like, oh, they’re fine. They’re coming along. You know, like I got them to, I got them to go in the sauna, you know, they have a sauna, like, and they need to learn how to use it, except we wouldn’t go naked at first. Remember. Okay.
See, I don’t, I think that was before I never came over. Oh yeah. Like the first time we took a sauna with Corey, I think David May have gotten naked, but I was totally wearing a swimsuit like I did for the first few months. Like rude, like public nakedness or, well, and he’s a strange guy. You don’t know. I mean, it just, that was just bullshit leftover from like religion and modesty and, you know, I don’t know.
Like, I just feel like with the way we’re talking about this, like, again, it doesn’t sound weird to us. Some other people confronted with a wild Savage man, make want to wear a source.
Yeah. And, and when I say salvage, he’s like the most gentle kind of human being.
Yeah. He really is. Um, so I guess like, as our friendship has grown, um, I think we’ve both rubbed off on each other. Um, I think that we still have a lot of differences. Like one, for example, we don’t want you to spend any time on this at all, but like one example that I want to share, because I feel like there’s a big rift in community because of this.
A lot of othering of people is like, I’m not COVID vaccinated and you are. And like, I mean, I’ve taught, I talked to people, I have coaching clients, even that they’re like, I’m not allowed to be around my friends anymore. I’m vaccinated and they’re not, or they’re vaccinated and I’m not. And like I wrote that down because what I think is really incredible is that this, this vaccine thing has been a non-issue in our friendship.
Like it hasn’t come up really. You know, it hasn’t been a point of contention there hasn’t been in a lack of safety. Like, it hasn’t been something that we’ve othered each other for, you know what I’m saying? Yeah. Which I really appreciated, I think, but I mean, I also think about like, I don’t know. I mean, sorry, I’m just being devil’s advocate for a minute, but like, that might be different if you were like, not vaccinated, but like going out and putting yourself in situations where you were more at risk to be infected or something like that.
Whereas like, I know that you have a very isolated life, you know, I don’t know. But I also think the main important thing about it has to do with communication and like clearly communicating boundaries and then deciding what is like acceptable or not acceptable, what you can live with or what you can’t live with or whatever.
And I think, I think people have like maybe set, I think what I saw happening with the pandemic with a lot of folks, and this happened with me too, with other group of friends was like boundaries being set without the communication happening, you know? And, and, and I, and maybe it felt like it was necessary.
Um, for, you know, I feel like there’s been a lot of like the pressure of the situation. Like things have felt like they were escalating quickly sometimes, or, um, got really scary. Or I don’t know, maybe at this point it feels a bit different because it’s, we’ve been in it for a while and people are. They have their job or their elderly parents or whoever it is, whatever that they’re like, I can’t, this is my, my thing that I can’t, I can’t violate this for in whatever way, you know?
And so at this point it’s like, maybe those boundaries are really where people are at or what their limits are, is more clear. But at the time, at the beginning of the pandemic, very harsh. Yeah. Well, it felt like, you know, we, we, here in Minnesota went into like lock down that wasn’t the case everywhere, but like it happened here and it really felt like you weren’t supposed to talk to anybody outside of your household and even within your household, it felt sort of like, like, it wasn’t clear what was going on, you know, like that was terrifying and upsetting.
And like, and then it felt like we were kind of like slowly starting to figure out, like, I remember my sister-in-law and my niece came over one time, like right at the beginning of the whole. And we went for a walk on the highway and there was just like picked up trash, you know, it was like this normal spring day.
And we were like, let’s pick up trash. And we’re like doing this good deed and like having a nice time. But we were also having, we were like nervous because we, you know, we’re like, is this okay? Are people gonna like judge us for like doing this? And now it’s like, at this point here anyway, like being outside in a place where you’re not around a bunch of other people with kids and you’re picking up trash would be a great activity to be socially distanced and like not wearing masks and you know what I mean?
Like that would be great. Like at this point, I think we’ve established that that’s okay. You know, but at the time we weren’t sure. And I think people were nervous about that. Well, I just feel like anyway, I feel like the times when. I think like relationships have felt like they were getting broken or there was the possibility of that was when like people are like setting these kind of like harsh, scary boundaries.
And without the like, upfront communication about like, okay, I’m worried about this. Here’s why here’s what I think I might need where you at, you know? And like maybe there wasn’t time to do that with everybody and maybe everybody’s relationships. Meaningful enough to them to do that or whatever. But I feel like, I don’t know if I’m not sure that we necessarily specifically sat down and did that together, but we know we definitely like talked about it at times where it felt like, okay, what do well, I think we went, I remember at the very beginning of lockdown, like I think we went three weeks without seeing each other in person.
And I remember we like zoomed once at the very, very beginning. We did. Um, we like zoomed once, but we went like three weeks without seeing each other. And I think that was when, um, you and me and my partner, David, and, um, you know, we were just like, okay, this isn’t working for us. Right. Like we can’t keep not seeing each other.
Right. And that’s when we sort of. You know, formed are like micro pod or whatever, you know, and we had a few people in our pod that, that, that was safe and we all decided together, like this is okay, and we’re going to keep being together because we need each other. And like, we’re all going to go fucking nuts if we don’t have each other.
So yeah, we, we did communicate about that. And I, and like, I guess the point of all of this is, is like, um, and we have this written down, so it’s worth talking about is we have written down that there’s like a cost benefit analysis to, I mean, I guess to every relationship, but if we’re talking specifically about your like really close, inner circle people, um, the cost benefit analysis is that there’s a willingness to ignore or detach from the things and other people’s lives that annoy us, or that we disagree with because the benefits and the richness we get from that relationship outweighs those annoying.
Yeah. Anything else you want to say on that? No, that’s really good. Um, yeah, I remember when we wrote that thinking, that was really good. And then like, just, I think in relation to the pandemic, I think it’s hard for people to apply that stuff, but I think that the pandemic has had a way of making it really, I don’t know, helping people refine what’s important and what important relationships are.
And I don’t know. I mean, I do think that people communicate differently or have different needs sometimes that aren’t always easy to get around. Well, and I think too, it’s like, you know, like I was saying or different levels of safety or yeah. That’s what I was actually going to talk about is, is like, if, if you and I, at the time of the pandemic, cause we’ve been friends for six and a half years now, so the majority of our friendship has not been spent in quarantine.
Right. So, but like if we have. Let the walls come down and like establish safety, boundaries, curiosity, openness communication. Like if that hadn’t been in place, then I think, I mean, for a lot of people, like they experienced the loss of friendship and there during the pandemic, you know, because views and opinions were so polarized.
Um, and I’m really grateful that we had already built this really amazing foundation where like now, honestly, I don’t feel like I, like anything is off limits to talk to you about yeah. You know, like I’m comfortable, like sharing pretty much anything, you know? And, um, and it’s messy. Yeah. Well, yeah. Cause sometimes yeah, like I think we touched on that earlier.
Sometimes something happens. You’re like, what? Wait, wait, wait, wait, what was that? You know, like, why would you do that? And like, but you have to also be like willing to hear the answer. And so like, it is messy. Sometimes people do stuff that you don’t like, or you don’t feel comfortable with, but like, if you can stay with it and like create the conditions of safety of like, okay, we’re going to talk about this, but like, we’re going to agree that no matter how this conversation goes, we’re still friends.
Right. You know, like, that’s, that helps a lot to like, cause I think a lot of people like, you know, if you don’t set that up at the beginning, it feels sometimes with these like really loaded issues that like you could come out the other side, not being friends and that’s not anybody’s goal or it shouldn’t be terrible.
Um, so we actually wrote notes. Yeah. I mean, we all have like abandonment. Yeah. Wait. So we made really good notes and we said like, we have to establish safety before we talk about this thing that we’re disagreeing about. And then it’s like, okay, we have a thing to talk about. Like I’m offended, I’m hurt, I’m confused, whatever the thing.
And then like the, the bigger safety, isn’t just that like, I’m going to be heard in this conversation, but the bigger safety is this relationship isn’t over. Even if we don’t reach an agreement, you know? And so, um, that has been really, really special to me because I have had friendships where like, we couldn’t reach an agreement or compromise on something and the relations.
You know well, and I think there’s a little too much willingness to do that in the world, you know, like to do that, like, okay, if this doesn’t, if they don’t agree with me, it’s over kind of stuff. They’re disposable. It kind of is. I think it’s, like I said, I think there’s a bit of a mentality in, again, it seems to be in more populated areas.
It happens everywhere, but, uh, where people are just kind of like, whatever, whatever I’m done now and, and act like you can do that. Like you can cut somebody entirely out of your life and it’s just, it’s not entirely realistic. Like there’s a lot you can do with that, you know? And I realize that sometimes it’s out of necessity, if somebody is like violent and hurting you, but like, it’s actually not real most of the time, like, especially with like, like lesser items of lesser seriousness, I guess, like, uh, Not to minimize them, but like, you know, even in, even in cities, like the circles overlap, you know, there’s, you all have mutual acquaintances and things like that.
Like it’s a small world, like everywhere you go. And, uh, and so, yeah, just like that, that I, I mean, I, and again, I think it also comes from capitalism, like acting like people are disposable and you’ll just get a new one, right? Like really? Yeah. Like, I mean, sure. Sometimes friendships change. Sometimes you leave people behind in a certain way, but like, it shouldn’t be, it shouldn’t be a thing that you just do, like at the drop of a hat, it should be like last case scenario or whatever.
Like it should be like, that’s, that’s the, that’s the last possible option option. Like leaving people behind is not, it shouldn’t be done lightly ever. And I’m not trying to act like people are doing that. Through the pandemic or anything. I feel like people feel like it’s not being, you know, like it’s not lately, there, there really there’s some serious like anxiety or safety issues or whatever going on in order for people to do that.
But I also just think that we’re kind of con we’ve been kind of conditioned overall by our culture, our overall culture to like, act like that a little bit too much to act like people are disposable. And I just it’s it’s it hasn’t helped. I also think we tend to go into conflict with people. And I almost think that sometimes we have a tendency to do this more with people we’re close to than with people we’re not as close to because sometimes we can like be on our best behavior whenever we’re not close to somebody, you know?
Or like if you’re in a quote unquote professional environment or like a community environment where there’s a lot of people you don’t want to make a scene. So you’re more on your best behavior, but like with the people that you’re super close to, like your partner, your best friends, your kids sometimes, like you’re not always on your best behavior.
And sometimes whenever you experience conflict with those people, um, you can go into that conflict with like being completely closed off to understanding them and their perspective at all, because you just want to be right. And you just want to like air your grievances and tell them how much they’ve hurt you and how wrong they are and be right about it.
And I think what I mean, other than with David, my husband, like you’re the only friend I’ve ever had, that I’ve been able to go into a conflict with and be like, I am like, my goal here is not to be right. It’s to seek, to like understand you and to make our friendship better. Ru I dunno. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Well, just that it’s really powerful. Yeah know, um, and it’s, it’s really powerful when both people are on that same page when it’s not just like you wanting to understand me, but I still need. Right. Right. Well, but it, but it’s also disarming, you know, like when someone is genuinely, like, I want to understand and I’m willing to, like, it starts with me, I’m willing to try and hear this and whatever I might still need to be, you might be saying that, and I might still be, need to be right.
But when you’re saying it like that, I’m like, okay, why, what do I need to be right about? It kind of changes the, it changes the whole, uh, narrative of what’s going on, you know, because it does, it’s a different story. It’s, it’s a story about how we’re connected and we’re trying to understand each other rather than.
One of us being dominant over the other one or something like that. Right. And like, I feel like in the conflicts that we’ve had, um, it hasn’t been like, I’m right. And you’re wrong. It’s more been like, even if we don’t agree on this, like our friendship is still going to be okay, but it’s not even like, we agree to disagree.
It’s not even that, like, to me, that can be really shallow sometimes and almost dismissive, you know, of a topic, but like, it’s about, even if we don’t end up at the same place, like I’m going to understand you better. You’re going to understand me better. That’s going to create another level of intimacy and vulnerability and our relationship because now we’ve navigated this conflict safely.
And, um, definitely. Yeah. I feel like as we do it, we gain more confidence about it. And I feel like that about every friendship that I’ve ever had. That’s like deepened in that way. You know, where you, if you. You have like a positive experience of like, you know, like I said, sharing your vulnerability and then, or, or having a disagreement that you’re able to resolve or whatever, a conflict, or like, once it goes good, then you’re like, oh, that it doesn’t have to stuck.
yeah. Or, or it’s like uncomfortable, but because I love this person and I’m committed to this relationship with them, I’m willing to be uncomfortable. Like I’m willing to walk through that because I know that no matter how uncomfortable I am, like I’m still not going to be abandoned or rejected or shamed or canceled or disposed of.
Right. I still matter, you know, and I think that’s what everyone wants. Right. Like I still matter. I matter. Yeah. Um, so I guess like, I want to shift into, cause this is a little holistic trauma healing podcast. I’m like
so I’m curious. Um, if you could share maybe cause I have like, nobody can see it, but I have this amazing. I have this amazing graphic here, this diagram that I’ve made on my notes here and it’s it’s about capacity. Um, and like the more healing you do, the more capacity you have to hold difficult things.
Um, like the more capacity you have for the things that trigger you or whatever, the more healing you do. And, um, The graphic is like, I know it’s really tiny bowls and a huge bowl basically. It’s like, I like a little water dish comparing to like what you would like a tank, a tank. Yeah. Um, but yeah, so, so your capacity in your nervous system, which equals the capacity and your feelings, the capacity in your thoughts, because you’re taught your thoughts, reflect the state of your nervous system.
Like your capacity, your window of tolerance is very small. Um, when you have experienced the kind of trauma in relationships, where one, you had to always show up with a guard like you weren’t able to be curious because curiosity requires vulnerability and maybe that wasn’t reciprocated. Um, you had to go through conflict and disagreement where you did end up losing the relationship.
Um, and so all of those things like create a very small capacity to tolerate, um, intimacy or laying stress in a relationship. But then the more, I think, what heals that isn’t necessarily going to therapy and talking about it, to me, what heals it is, is allowing yourself to try being in a relationship that’s vulnerable to like teach your nervous system.
This is safe. Like we can do this. And then that builds your capacity, which allows for more intimacy. And that builds your capacity even more. So it’s like this amazing reciprocating thing. Am I making sense? Yeah, totally. And like, the way that that applies to community is that we can’t build strong communities with people who have very limited.
It’s hard because people have sometimes limited capacity to connect, but the, the thing that’s going to heal them is connection. Right. It feeds into itself, you know? So like, um, so again, one of the ways to build strong communities is for people to heal work on their own healing, but one of the ways and individually, I guess, um, but one of the ways to work on your individual healing is to make connections with other humans.
And well, not just other humans, like with anything, like have relationships, um, with nature, with animals, with land, with other people, like everything around you. And that is it that’s that is healing. And as people heal, they are able to contribute more to that community. It becomes greater than the sum of its parts.
And, um, that’s, you know, and, and, and, and there’s also like, you know, I just going back to like, we’re all kind of broken, you know? And, uh, we’re all trying to heal. And so you may, people may individually feel that their capacity is limited and maybe it is to some extent, but everybody’s is somewhat. And like, we all do better by, we all are going to heal by like, sharing those experiences too.
Like, those are ways to connect. Well, we get hurt in relationship, but we also heal and relationship. Yeah. It’s just the way you don’t get hurt in relationship. And then like go live on the top of a mountain by yourself and never get hurt again. And well, you may never get hurt again, but also we’re like, you don’t have connection, right?
Like that’s what you’re trading off. That was like a huge realization for me when I. I kinda like in therapy made the unders, came to the understanding that like, all of my trauma has been caused by like people that I loved. Oh yeah. You know, and like we’re, and then I’m just like, oh, what does that mean?
You know, but it’s, it’s just the thing I had to realize, but it’s also like just a thing that I’m never ever going to get around, you know? Like you love people and then they, you let them in and they have the capacity you’re giving them access basically. But you need to do that in order to lead a rich and rewarding life.
Like yeah, really. Yeah. And I mean, you can do it, it, it can happen in so many different ways. Like some people, I don’t know, you know, some people humans have like really screwed them over. So they become into getting into animals, you know, or whatever, like animals don’t betray them the way humans do. And maybe that’s true, but.
A horse can kick you in hurt you pretty bad that might hurt your feelings as much as it hurts your body or a dog can bite you or, you know what I mean? And like, I don’t know, it’s different for different people, what they can tolerate, I guess. But those are, I just, I’m thinking about like important trauma healing, uh, programs where they like put, you know, traumatized kids with working with horses because it’s like easier for them to develop a safe connection or whatever, and like what a cool thing.
But then I’m also like struck by that where I’m like, wow, like, no matter what we’re doing, it’s always, you always have the potential to get hurt. Yeah. There’s always risk. Yeah. Yeah. And like, um, you know, it is a pretty common trauma response. Like definitely a lot of my clients have this. I’ve had this, you’ve had this where we do get hurt by the people that we love.
And people that we think are safe and, you know, sometimes the hurt is worse than other times, but, um, that gives us the tendency to going back to what I was saying earlier about how you develop this like wall, um, where you don’t let people pass a certain level of closeness. There’s like parts of yourself that you won’t reveal to them.
There’s like a vulnerability that you don’t feel safe having. So what would you say has been, um, something that’s helped you like in all of your years of being hurt by people you love? Um, and like, you know, I mean, because I do, like, I did sense for probably the first year or so that I knew you, like, I still sense that you had a wall up sometimes.
Like I sensed sometimes that like, There was still like a little bit of a barrier that I couldn’t break through. I don’t feel like it’s there anymore, but obviously it just took a while to trust me because I was somebody new, you know, just like it took me a while to like trust you and get to know you.
Cause you were somebody new, but like, what do you think has helped to expand your capacity to be able to, even though you’ve been hurt and you’ve, you have a lot of fucking trauma, like your ACEs score is higher than mine and mine is pretty high. So like, what do you think has, has helped you get to the point where like, sure you’re not like best friends forever with everyone, but you have a handful of really rich, fulfilling, amazing friendships.
Like how do you think you were able to start to put your walls down and learn to trust and be vulnerable and curious and open again versus staying closed off? Um, that’s a hard question to answer. I mean, I think, like, I think that learning about trauma has helped a lot and learning about it with the people that I care about, like you and I talk about this stuff all the time.
And so it it’s like fun because, you know, you can dance back and forth between the, like a hypothetical or the theoretical and the personal, you know, so that makes it easier to, you know, like wander from like scary, unsafe feeling things to like, okay, this is, what’s like the nuts and bolts of what’s going on here or whatever.
Like maybe that’s one way of putting it. Um, uh,
She didn’t know I was going to ask this question. I totally thought no, no. That’s okay. Um, so I think like, just like actually learning more about it has been a big thing for me. And like I said, I feel like I learn better. I mean, I, I feel like therapy is great and everything, and I w I’ve learned things with some of my therapists, I would say in a certain way as well, but like it’s far less of that kind of relationship.
It feels really cool to be discovering, um, personal stuff together with my friends, you know, like, and I would say that at this point, like, you know, both of my like super close, but all of my like close friendships involve that in some way of like, we all, we recognize that we have. Some kind of trauma in our past.
Some of it’s similar. Some of it’s not exactly, but like, we talk about the ways that it’s affected us and that it’s like, I don’t know, like learning about it as a part of the basis of our friendship. And I don’t, I, I don’t know if that’s, you know, feasible for everybody, but it’s fricking great for me, but how, I mean, what, like, think of how it could change people’s experiences of relationships.
If we all went into relationships, just with the knowledge that like, there’s no way I’m ever going to meet somebody who doesn’t have trauma. Yeah. And also I think recognizing that people aren’t perfect, you know, just that like, like, I mean, I don’t know, maybe that’s you, maybe you snuck up on me because you know, like we knew that we didn’t check each other’s boxes or whatever.
So I guess I didn’t have any kind of. Expectation about like how that was all gonna end up. Um,
yeah. And like, I don’t know, like, I’m always kind of around here anyway. I’m like sort of interested in, you know, like meeting new people and like, but it, it, but it, it feels like it kind of like I meet new people, just there’s something different or it’s like, you know, to test out if I still know how to talk to people or the outside world is still there or whatever.
Anyway, sometimes our world feels really small here. It doesn’t it. Yeah. Sometimes. Um, and don’t get me wrong. I love the people that are here, you know, so I like meeting new people, but I feel like I often meet new people and it only goes to a certain distance, you know, or whatever. And, um, I feel like with, and then I also feel like.
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In this community. Anyway, I have a tendency to sort of like try to adopt new people or like I try and sort of like, teach them how it works here or whatever. Like, Hey, you just moved here, you need wool socks or whatever. And like, I feel like I sort of did that with you and David, and then you guys kind of like turned it around and adopted me because I had my daughter and I was like, sort of, you know, almost like a single parent at the time.Cause my partner was always gone. Um, and so like, I don’t know. I just feel like that was like an interesting, like you flipped it around on me. Well maybe, maybe I gave you, maybe I gave you the chance to see that somebody who is like really put together and like maybe puts on airs, like can still be really.
Oh, for sure. Helpful. Yeah. And that’s the thing that you have at freaking adorable kid that we fell in love with. She, she adopts people too. I mean, she’s like always done that. So like that helps too. But, um, I mean, I just think that like, yeah, I think that like kids and food are like good ways to get through people’s walls.
Yeah. And then like, sometimes that yeah. Leads to, I don’t know, like in some ways I feel like if I get to a certain point with people I’m not gonna not have, if it’s, if I get to a certain point, there’s no point in not having real personal conversations, like, or I’m just like not going to not do that or something or share how I, I don’t know, but I think neither one of us has really.
I don’t think either one of us is very good at like surface level conversation. Like we’re not very good at shooting the shit, like chat, chat. I feel like we share that in common. And I think that that’s helped us in our friendship because we’re able to like pretty quickly bypass all the surface level shit and like get into like, tell me about your childhood, you know?
Right. Which, you know, if you do that to the stranger at the coffee shop, it’s no wonder you think they’re your soulmate or whatever, or, I mean, I just, I don’t know. Like sometimes people do like, yes, I agree with that. Um, yeah. I don’t, I don’t, excuse me. I feel like it’s like a thing where like, yeah, I have a wall for a while, but then it’s almost like you get past, you get to the certain point and it’s like, we’re all in because what’s the point otherwise or something like that.
I don’t know. And, uh, I don’t know, not everybody’s like that I’m or I’m aware that not everybody’s like that other people can continue with kind of like surface level crap for a really long time. Yeah. I just have never been good at it, but I mean, I don’t know. I mean, I just, yeah, I guess I haven’t either.
I just feel like if I’m like inviting people into my house, which is a pretty normal regular thing that they’re going to see who I am. Yeah. And I’m not gonna, I’m not, I’m not necessarily gonna like lay it all out there all the time, but I’m also not going to like hide it into, you know, like yeah. Or it it’s, it, maybe it’s a gradual feeling out of like, do I need to hide things from these people if they, if I do, maybe we’re not.
Yeah, because I can’t be me. Right. If I can’t expose myself. Right. Yeah. Um, I mean, my partner is very much about that with like, You know, it’s taken me. like, if I can’t leave my pipe around, like, I don’t know. And I’m like, honey, just tone it down. Vermin it. Yeah. Well, I mean, your partner has been a tough egg for me to crack like, oh, for sure.
Friendship wise is the tougher, but I feel like I’ve cracked it. You know, like I may have snuck up on him just as much as he snuck up on me. Yeah. Um, okay. The last thing that we have on here to talk about is not to be fooled by shared experiences. And then the note is that you said when we were writing all of this out was, uh, because of your shared experiences, you didn’t realize the effort required to understand each other.
And we don’t all have. The same checkboxes. So we’ve actually had to be more intentional and make more of an effort to understand each other. So like you and I specifically don’t really have shared experiences before six and a half years ago. We don’t because we didn’t know each other. Right. So like, you have a lot of shared experiences with people around here because you grew up around.
Yeah. And I think in particular, I was talking about like a previous friendship that, where we had very, very shared experiences from, for like a really long time. And I guess I feel like that allowed us kind of like, well, I mean, we were just like naive about it. I think like, we didn’t realize how much work real friendship actually is.
And so we weren’t intentional about that. We didn’t put in that kind of effort or I don’t know. Um, that’s the way I see it right now anyway is just that, like, I think if we had come out. Our friendship with the, like, knowing that we’re like very different people coming from very different backgrounds or something like that, like you and I did that.
It would, it just, I don’t know. I feel like it’s just the need to communicate about differences or questions or conflict in a specific way when it comes up just as kind of obvious or if it didn’t happen, we wouldn’t be friends. Like just, you know, but like in this case that I’m referring to, um, it felt like we had all that behind us.
Like we had all been, we’d been through these things together. We’ve like checked off all the boxes together, like in a lot of ways. And that led us into this kind of like, misunderstanding about like, I don’t know what was really important to both of us. I think. Um, and, and how to communicate about it and how to deal with it.
And it’s, it’s really been distressing. It’s like, uh, I guess I consider, I don’t consider it a total loss. I feel like that friendship could, you know, there’s always a chance for something to change and it, for it to revive in a different format or something like that. But I really do feel like it for right now has gone away.
And I find that distressing because again, I don’t want to treat people like they’re disposable. I don’t want to feel disposable. And, uh, it just doesn’t, it feels, yeah, it feels crappy. Um, but that that’s like that, you know, like that’s a thing, at least for me, that I navigate all the time is growing up in this small town with the same people around for the most of my life.
I. Have a lot of shared experience with folks and in a certain way. And I can’t have that. Like I can’t, you know, and so like, I mean, I know a lot of the people around, like I know their family histories, I know, you know, how far their trauma goes back sometimes. And I have like a lot of sympathy and understanding about that.
Um, and I’d probably give people more leeway than they would get in other situations with other people who don’t know them as well, or haven’t known them as long. And that kind of thing, you know, and that’s valuable. It’s like really amazing in some ways to just know that I have that to that history, that shared history in this community to fall back on with, with people and you know, some of us it’s like, yeah, we just, no matter what happens, we were like, we were kids in this one place together at this one time and we just have that.
And it’s an amazing thing. Um, But I think it obscures or it can obscure. Um, or, I mean, honestly, sometimes the differences are right up front. Like, like the one, the friendship in particular that I’m talking about kind of caught me off guard, I guess. But like, I guess I have friends, many friends or people that I grew up with that I know without, without doubt that we have very different like political ideology or whatever.
Um, and that’s in no matter, no matter despite that we still have this shared experience. So like, that’s the benefit of this type of community. It causes me a certain amount of anguish at times, too, where I’m just like, I just know that, you know, whatever they’re Trump supporters and I’m not, and, or whatever, you know, like this is a crappy example.
Yeah. And like, and like, I just, I guess for me, It probably having all that shared experience, humanizes them. So I’m not able to just write them off for being for just, I don’t just, I disagree with them, but I can’t just write them off because we have all this history together, you know? Um, but there’s a Gulf there, nonetheless, and that’s kind of hard.
That’s hard. Um, but at the same time, like, I don’t know. I also feel like I don’t want to get overly into that. Like I feel like there are the common things that we share are actually probably far greater than the things that we don’t share. And I think it’s important to remember that I guess the thing that really threw me for a loop was that, you know, I had a friend who we had all this shared experience and we thought we agreed politically and all that stuff.
And then we got to a point where we just like didn’t and we had no precedent for that. And we had no like way to deal with it, you know? Walked through some of that with you and like what I have so much admiration for her, which I’ve never told you, I don’t think, but what I have so much admiration for is like, despite how you were hurt, despite the fact that there’s this rift that may never be mended and that it was a deep loss for you.
And like, you had a lot of reasons to be really hurt and pissed off and to hold a lot of resentment, but I’ve actually like, you have not treated this person. Like they’re disposable, even though there has been this like deep level of hurt, you know, like you still honor that person and your friendship with them, you still, like, you don’t talk bad about them.
Like you still honor them and you honor your shared experiences. You know, you still point out like places that you guys used to play together, you know, like you still honor that. You guys have this, these differences and maybe you haven’t been able to resolve them and maybe you never will, but I still have really admired how you haven’t just written them off and disposed of them.
Yeah. I just, I don’t know. I feel like that would be like exercising a piece of myself or something, you know, like I just don’t, it’s just not, it’s not real or it’s not realistic. Like, I guess I’ve just like come to see, you know, it through a lot of that being really painful and hard, like kind of come to see it as, um, I, that was what I needed or are had even just, you know, like some of it, like in small towns, I mean, there’s not a lot of choice sometimes about who you get to be friends with.
Your options are pretty limited. There were like five kids that were born in the same. You’re as me in the small town that I grew up in. And, um, like one of them was a girl, the other four were boys, you know, or I guess, sorry, maybe I’m not counting myself. So maybe two of them were girls and that I’m one of them.
Right. And like, and like, we all played together as little, little kids and, you know, and then just, I don’t know, like as things change and people grow up and, you know, we got to a certain point where like the boys didn’t think it was cool to hang out with the girls anymore or something really dumb. And like, I remember being really annoyed and offended by that.
And I was still annoyed and offended by that. And I can’t like, I don’t know. Um, anyway, I just like, yeah, the, the friends and then the same thing, like going into high school, like my high school class was like 40 people, you know, like. You just, again, you get what you get. And, and I remember having friends that were just sorta like my friends by default and I feel sort of bad that I didn’t appreciate them more, you know, or like, I don’t know.
And maybe they didn’t even, maybe they didn’t appreciate me that much either. I don’t. I know what I carry. I feel like you’re having really high expectations for the high school version of yourself. Oh God. Probably. Yeah, but it’s just an, it’s just an observation, but like, I also just think that that’s yeah, some of it is just like, this is who is in our life at this time.
And, and then it’s funny also as like things evolve too. Like I was thinking about this with, um, one of my partners, like coworkers that he used to be like fairly annoyed by, on a regular basis. And it’s been like, I don’t know, like 10 years or something like that. And he’s like, anyway, he he’s like, it’s been 10 years and he’s like, I don’t know.
They’re fond of each other now in a different way. Like, I don’t know. Sometimes you realize over time, especially when you’re living in community with people and you’re like, and this happens too, when people die here too, for me, where, um, you deal with somebody day in and day out sometimes. And sometimes they’re like, like, I, I find that like cranky, negative people are some of the people who have the most effect like this on me because they make waves being cranky and negative.
And you’re just like, oh wow, here they come again. And then they die and you’re like, oh, I miss them. You know, isn’t that weird and crazy. It’s just like, people grow on you. I think like that’s a big thing. But you have to give them the chance to grow on you and you have to tolerate some weird
you know, I don’t know. I just, I think about like some of the recent people who’ve died in the community and just like in the last two years, but even in, just in the last, some of them were like crazy old drunk guys, you know, but, and they were dysfunctional as hell, but like everyone has something to offer, you know, like I remember them, you know, giving me ridiculous words of wisdom as like a young person being out in town and like running into them and, you know, like, and some of it was like completely silly and some of it was like totally profound and just like recognizing what they like just, well, I don’t know, that’s their contribution, you know, like everybody has something, I don’t know.
Um, is there anything else we need to talk about? No, I think we’ve like really? Oh yeah. Um, so yeah, I don’t know if everyone listening has gotten anything profound out of this episode, but, um, I do talk about community a lot and healing and, um, how relationships are necessary and having your people as necessary.
And like, if you’re, if you’re on a quote unquote healing journey, like I hope that you realize that the majority of your work is like solo work, but you gotta have people to practice on. You got to have people to like, um, to show you safety and relationship. Again, you gotta have people who will like take care of your kid while you go to therapy.
Like you need your people. And even though people suck sometimes and they hurt you sometimes. You know, it it’s important to like always have that openness. And like, I guess my challenge to everyone is like, after you’ve heard these couple of conversations between honoring me, um, you know, I hope maybe we’ve shared something that like shifts your perspective and how you show up with your friends and your community.
Like that would be the only thing that I would hope. And, um, I can’t tell you how to find honor on social media or how to work with her, because unlike me, she’s not online in her life as much, but, um, yeah, so we’ll have links to the books and stuff that she mentioned in the show notes. And I think we’re going to go take us on it and make dinner.
Okay. Let’s do that. Okay. Thanks for being on the show. 📍 Thanks for having me. did you enjoy the show? I’d really appreciate it. If you took a few moments to rate the podcast,
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