The Lazy Genius Podcast - BONUS: How to be a Person, Part Two with Aundi Kolber

Episode Date: March 23, 2023

Is there a way to compassionately experience stressful situations? There actually is, and author and licensed trauma therapist, Aundi Kolber, is on the show today to talk about how. Learn about the flow of strength (a mind-blowing concept), the difference between triggers and glimmers, and how honoring your body's pace is just as important as the healing itself. Aundi's first time with us was one of the most downloaded episodes in the history of the show, so I can't wait for you to hear from her again. Helpful Companion Links Strong Like Water by Aundi Kolber Find Aundi online and on Instagram Listen to Aundi’s first time on the show here No transcript for this episode as its a conversation. Thanks for understanding! This podcast is hosted by Kendra Adachi and executive produced by Kendra Adachi, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't. One of the most popular episodes of the entire life of the Lazy Genius podcast is an episode called How to Be a Person. In that episode, I talked with author and licensed trauma therapist, Andi Colbert and she gave us the most beautiful, small, helpful tools to help us navigate what it means to be a person in a world that is often quite out of our control. Well, today, Andi is back with the creatively named How to Be Person Part 2 episode,

and we are going to talk about her new book, Strong Like Water, a beautiful handbook of how to move through difficult times in a way that's compassionate to yourself. It released this past week, March 21st, and I highly recommend it. Today, Andi talks about the difference between triggers and glimmers, the different kinds of strength that are sometimes necessary, depending on what we're going through. And she's going to make you take so many deep breaths because of how comforting for Words are. I hope you love this episode. So here's my conversation with Andi Culver.

Your episode, I have 300 in two, three, four, somewhere around there when this comes out, plus a lot of bonuses. Your episode, How to Be a Person with Andy Culver, is number seven. That title, though, so great. I love it. And what an honor. I mean, truly, I just feel so grateful to have, to be with you and just for your support and your endorsement of the book, you, yeah, it just means the world. This is, I'm not going to, I'm not going to try to fix something that's not broken. So this episode is super going to be called How to Be a Person Part 2. Absolutely.

Well, you have a new book that at the time that this releases, I believe we'll have been out two days called Strong Like Water. And I cannot wait to talk to you about it. But really, this is like the next phase. of how to be a person, this book, compared to TriSoftor. And TriSoftor was like preparing us for how to see ourselves and just the process. And now you're like, and now here's your process. And I'm super pumped. So I want to ask you for as we begin, though, as a refresher, you talked about this in the last episode, but that was a long time ago. Will you give us a refresher on the window of tolerance?

Yes. I have forgotten. The window of tolerance is a concept that was primarily coined by Dr. Dan Siegel. And the way I teach it is very much also influenced by the work of Dr. Stephen Porges, just to say. But basically what it means is that we all have a range of arousal in which we can feel our feelings and go through an experience and have emotions and recall a memory. And in that range, we are able to tolerate that experience.

But when our body sort of begins to detect that it's too much or that for any reason it's threatening, we will typically go up into our sympathetic nervous system. So our fight, flight, sometimes fawning, which can look a lot like people pleasing. And if that doesn't resolve the threat, then we will go down into sort of like a dissociation, a numbness. And there's a whole range with that that can look all the way to the point of someone losing consciousness if the threat is perceived to be dangerous enough. And so this window of tolerance concept, when we go back to being in the window, this is really where we feel the most like ourselves. And part of why that's so important is because, you know, a really important

part of our, well, all of our brain is important, but particularly something called the prefrontal cortex, and that's at the top of our brain. And when we are in our window, the prefrontal cortex is essentially getting blood flow. And that blood flow, that part of our brain integrates all the other parts of our brain. So on a functional level, what that means is when we, when we're going outside of the window and if the prefrontal cortex goes offline, what happens is that we are existing from our survival brain. And that survival brain, it's really important to understand that literally the only sort of aim is truly survival. So we make a lot of decisions that in those moments that our body experiences as potentially life or death, we might make a decision that at the

time might have actually been needed, but ultimately might not always be congruent with really maybe who we are or how we would maybe do things if our full brain was available to us. And so this is such a key concept. There's, you know, there's lots of nuances to this. So I'm talking about this from a very high view. But the big idea is that everyone has a window of tolerance, no matter your history, no matter your story. But for folks who have a history of, for example, unresolved trauma, their window of tolerance, our window of tolerance, because I will say as a trauma survivor, can be smaller. And the reason for that is that our body holds these past experiences of pain in unresolved, you know, unresolved trauma.

And what happens is is that our body starts to get a little bit like it's being protective. And in order to be protective, it sort of gets a little bit hypervigilant around what things could be threatening. So things that may not in the present always be ultimately unsafe, our body may perceive them that way because in the past, something similar has actually been unsafe. So there is a lot of implications for what this means, you know, when we think about this title, like how to be a person. well, how our nervous system is responding to the world, to ourselves, to our emotions, to our memories.

This has really big implications for what it means to be a person. It makes me think of when I had my first kid, I didn't have a lot of, I was new in therapy. I hadn't done a whole lot of work at that time. And my ability to see things like rational. like to see those sort of normal new parenting, new mom situations, I just would like lose it in a minute and would really surprise myself. Like in hindsight, think what's wrong with you? Like, why are you reacting to that so strongly? And I think that that is such a, it's such a key thing that even if you take, even if like you said, if you take trauma out of it, like this is why

when we are tired, like when we are compromised, like when our bodies are compromised in some way, when we are tired, when we have not eaten, when we are hormonal and we are not sort of paying attention to what our body's cues are, like all these different things. If you have things that are impacting your body and then you are hit with a threat that could be as simple as you cannot find a parking space to pick up your kid at this practice and you have to get the next kid to the next practice or whatever it is and you're running late, that it's like the rational part of your brain is like, I'm so sorry, we are not going to be here for you anymore.

And it's like, no, this is what I need to do the most. Like, where are you going? And but knowing that that is the actual science of your brain is so helpful. Because then we can know, okay, okay, okay, okay. If I'm feeling, if I'm feeling stressed out, I have to, I can know. then I am not going to be able to move through this challenging situation, whatever the challenge is, with the same kind of calmness and intentionality and wide-eyedness that I would if I was not compromised, if my body was not compromised in some way.

And so then my question to you is, because I know the answer for me, but my question to you is like, there is a somewhat simple response to that. when we're in that place somewhat somewhat you talked about in our last like that's probably a really general general way of saying that but i remember you talking about in our last episode and i got mad at you because you said to go outside and touch a rock and i was like aunt hondy what are you doing don't even with me and also you're right it's like these grounding practices of breathing of being outside of touching the grass of just something where we are we are going back to the rootedness of who we are. And it's like we have to tell our body that we're okay. And, and that's easier said

than done. And it's broad in its application based on someone's experience. But it's just really important. So how about you say like smarter words than I just did about that response to when your brain's like, bye. Well, I'm just remembering that part of our conversation. And that makes me a goal. But no, I do understand that feeling of, um, you. Yeah, first of all, how sometimes the ways that we try to work through these things, it's kind of like, I think it can feel a little bit like, that's it. Like, after all of this. So I actually, I want to honor, I want to honor that because I think like it's often that.

It's not that it's only that, but more that we have to begin in a place that is tolerable. to our body. And so, and a thing I would maybe even add that I'm not sure how much I talked about last time, but is the underlying thing that brings us all together. And something, you know, I talk about so much in Strong Like Water, this newer book, is that really what we're needing to return to that window essentially is cues of safety. I mean, if we're talking about the thing that is really undergirding the whole idea. It's that our body is picking up so much cues of threat, whether that's about the present or the past or both.

And the response to that, the repair, is that we need our body to get some level of safety in order to be able to return to a level of integration, which is what's happening in the window of tolerance, is that we have more access to integration. And so, you know, that's like something like grounding or going outside. I do teach about a lot because it's sort of simple. Like it's sort of like you can be a little bit like, oh, pick up a rock.

But it's also something that wherever you are, whoever you are, most of us can do something like that. But the thing that makes that possible is that we are trying to communicate to our body. Like essentially, if I'm talking to my body, it's almost like, I know it feels like the world is ending. Can I show you that it's not? Right, right. Which is so kind. It's such a compassionate way of moving through something that feels, again, challenging on any level.

and in some ways that sometimes it feels impossible where it's like I'm not I'm going to feel like this forever or I can't get out of this or you know I just need to I need to shut down like you were saying that these sort of stronger responses the survival response and then this dissociative response that we just swing from you know if this one doesn't work then we'll go way over here and and there is such a a there is such a smallness and such a kindness to that message

and that's part for me that's even part of my own personal integration, that I am recognizing, that saying to myself, hey, we're okay. I say that to myself all the time, hey, we're okay, we're okay. Let's take a breath together. You know, like that that is, that's integrating all of these different parts of me. Like it's the, you know, my, my nine year old self is the most, she's the most traumatized and she's also the most vigilant, which would make sense. And she's the loudest. She's been the loudest in my chorus for so, so long. And so that's been part of my own personal integration is like caring for her,

befriending her, nurturing her, parenting her. You know, like, hey, we're okay. We're okay. And that's another thing that can feel kind of like picking up a rock. Like it can feel a little simplistic, maybe even silly. And yet that is another thing that is accessible that we can show compassion to ourselves in those moments and that we can say. say, like we're safe. I'm going to show you.

Well, and the thing, absolutely. And I think that's beautiful. And it's beautiful insight from your own experience of seeing these. Oftentimes, I think there are these little shifts that you notice over time that, yeah, like sometimes it's the work at the beginning is, wow, I'm out of my window again. How do I get back? I'm out of my window again. How do I get back? But the work, the big picture work is that we are developing internal relationship with ourselves, internal trust even. And certainly we can't just do this all alone. You know, often we need, we need others around us.

Sometimes that's even like we need to start in therapy or we need to find like one person that we actually feel like we can just exhale. And for many folks, you know, I often work with trauma survivors. And I just want to name that that is not a small thing. That there are people, there are many, many people who have never experienced safety and relationship. And that even beginning to try to find that is a risk. But all of this work, and it's a worthy risk, but I want to name that that's not just like,

oh, it's a given. because for some people, it's not a given. And what I love about this perspective is this is for all of us. Like, because we all have a body, because we all have a nervous system, because we all have needs to be seen, because all of our bodies have the capacity to metabolize pain and to move towards integration. And so whatever our stories hold, whatever our body. are still holding whatever beliefs we carry, there are on ramps. And so for some folks,

the on ramp is, you know, like, man, can I just begin to work to do some regulation even a little bit? That would be great. For other people, they're like, okay, I've been doing a little bit of regulation. That's good. I'm figuring that out. And now they're beginning to listen a little bit more to their internal experience. And they're even more beginning to, to realize, you know, when I have this experience, these big emotions are coming up. What do I do with that? You know, and what's cool about this work is, is that as it builds and as the safety, both externally and internally begins to build, we have a greater capacity to process, for example, those emotions in a way that is really in alignment, right? When we talk about that idea of staying

integrated, like we can feel the feelings, but we're staying with ourselves. So it's not like I'm feeling the feelings. And then I'm like, wow, what did I do? Like I just made a bunch of horrible decisions. Instead, it's like, oh, no, you know, the person who hurt me got in contact with me and it brought up tremendous grief and I set a boundary. And then I allowed myself to feel the emotion that I needed to feel. My body was able to move through that. And I can sort of allow that to be what it is rather than that experience now just being another thing that is stuck in my body. We'll be right back.

Aw, isn't something we need to travel for. it's something waiting for us in everyday life, whether in a city street or a moment with a work of art. I'm Dr. Keltner, host of the Science of Happiness podcast. Join me for Cities of Aw, a special series on how our public spaces can spark awe, wonder, and enhance the quality of public life. You can find us wherever you listen to your podcasts.

So this is a quote from your book. You said, you find ways to be strong and this is a this is an audience it's real good real good of the you find ways to be strong but it often comes at the cost of never finding and being yourself and this feels like a really good first of all it's like let's take a moment process that sentence the freedom of that sentence everyone um what the ramifications of that and then um leading us into kind of a conversation about a pretty extensive bulk of strong like water, which is this idea of the flow of strength. You talk about there are different kinds of strength.

There are situational strength and integrated strength. And this is one of those when I read it. There were some things about it that felt a little bit intuitive, which was very affirming, you know, to my own experience. And then in the same way that the window of tolerance was like light bulbs everywhere. I was like, this makes so much sense. That happened too with reading about the flow of strength and the self-compassion that exists in that.

And so I feel like that can be a really freeing concept for people to hear. So I would love for you to explain and define that for us what the flow of strength is. Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah, first, thanks for sharing that quote. And I think that quote is really relevant to actually that first category that you name, which is that situational strength. And this is, I'm glad we talked about the window of tolerance because there is a very much, like a dovetail in terms of the flow of strength with the window of tolerance.

And basically how I theorize situational strength is that it is the strength required to survive. So anything that we have to do typically when we're outside of our window. Right. So you've left your window. And I think there's so many ways this shows up. You know, it's like the ways we overwork, the ways we're hypervigilant, the ways we say yes when we mean no, the ways we please people, even though it goes against our better judgment, the ways we hustle way past our exhaustion. I mean, there's a ton in the book that I named too. But for folks who are listening, I actually really encourage folks to get curious about your own version of thinking through how how do you survive like what does it look like for you to be only in survival mode and how is that sort of showing up in your own life and and one of the things that I say is that usually one of the ways you can tell if you might be in situational strength is if something in you feels like this situation is life or death. Now, with that said, you may cognitively be like,

well, no, of course, going to my kids school is not life or death. But I'm not talking about that so much. Certainly, like our cognitive processing matters. But so much of the work that I do really works to acknowledge the role of our body in this process, because our body, again, is constantly picking up cues of safety or threat. And the sort of information pathway in our bodies is that we get information sort of top down, and then we get information from the bottom up as well, and that's from the body. And I want to say that we get 70, percent of the information in which we sort of react from. And it comes from the bottom up. So this is really important because when we don't acknowledge that our body plays a role,

we're basically bypassing the reality of 70 percent of that information. And so it's like, it's basically like a form of pretending, right? Like we're like, it's there. It's shouting at us. you know, your heart's beating like it's going to come out of your chest and we're like, no, I'm totally fine. And I'm sure, you know, I'm sure all of us, I know this is a pretty common thing to happen. And that's common for different reasons. So I share that about situational strength because, you know, especially as a trauma therapist, part of what I wanted to create was a framework to say, you know, the ways

that we show up with situational strength are valid. Like, meaning it's not necessarily that we want to continue to live from that, if possible, if we can change that. But it's important to acknowledge, like in my own story, I lived so much of my life from situational strength. And nobody really mirrored that back to me or acknowledged that they acknowledged that they saw that that might be true. In fact, I got a lot of praise for the ways that my situational strength showed up. That's confusing. Your body thinks the world is ending. And from like a relational

standpoint, people are praising you. And that is a very weird thing to to try to navigate. And I think I just want to honor folks that might be listening that might be part of their story too they might be praised and even that quote right like that that you read that people might be benefiting or liking or enjoying your situational strength because of the ways they either think it fits a paradigm or it benefits them but this work takes that different perspective and says no no no let's start by honoring our internal experience because the goal here is not for you true strength. I don't believe ultimately, not true strength, but the most expansive strength isn't about harming ourselves. And so with that situational strength, it's like we can honor that we need to survive and yet

what would it look like to move to move through. And so with that flow of strength perspective, the way, you know, so the place that it goes to next is transitional strength. And the mechanism that I sort of have imagined or theorized within the book that moves us is compassionate resourcing. So compassionate resourcing, I sort of, I love the work of Dr. Ariel Schwartz. And she talks about resourcing as anything that communicates safety to our body in the present. So essentially, the way that we move along that flow of strength is truly by the compassionate resourcing that is available to us. And that is what allows us to begin to move towards

that transitional strength. That transitional strength is, in many ways, a lot of tri-softer is transitional strength. Because it's very much about the fact that our prefrontal cortex is beginning to come back online. We're beginning to be able to think about thinking. Like we can notice like, oh, when I think about going to my kid's school, I get profound anxiety and my throat starts to feel like it's going to close up. And it's that ability to begin to get curious about that and to be able to have some compassion about our experience because then now we have even more choices. This is where we can begin to say, well, what else is available to me?

What other supports would I need? Who else could be on my team? And then as we have access and gain access to that, we internalize that safety and we begin to move towards that integrated strength. And that integrated strength, I imagine as it's not so much a finish line. And I think that's really important to me that people know that. That it's not like, oh, I'm an integrated strength. and so I will never again experience situational, you know, strength or anything like that. Instead, it's more like, it's more like our body is able to complete a cycle, right?

It moves the situational strength all the way through to a place of completion. So that means we can, you know, we might feel a sense of solidness. We feel a sense like I can reflect on that. This is over now. it's okay for me to think about and it feels good for me to think about what I learned from that, for example. And again, it's more like we might do this multiple times a day. Yeah, totally. And that would be great. Honestly, I think that's a beautiful picture of what it means for us to be human. I think that a lot of people have such a distance between, it feels like

there's such a distance between where they are and what you just described, the ability to go through the cycle, the whole cycle. And I think that I just sort of feel compelled to see that distance and remind everyone that it is a distance that is slowly shortened. You know, like it's lifelong work. And like I this week, there has been a situation that has, you know, I think often like, if this had happened to me two years ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago, the, the just vast difference in all of those timelines of how I would react to this, how I would process this, how long I would hold this, how I would sit with this. And, you know, I have been like, in therapy, like capital, all caps in therapy on a regular basis. I have joke before,

but I go every other week. And she's like, you sure you don't want to come every week? And I'm like, listen, Cheryl, you need to calm down. I'm fine. Thank you so much. Thank you. Um, but like, I, I love, I love therapy. And I have done a lot of hard work in therapy. And I would say just in the last two years have I do I experience more integrated strength than transitional or situation situation and so and it's worth every drop of soft effort try softer that's why try softer is so good and that this analogy of being strong like water not strong like a wall not strong like a stone no no and I want you to actually like unpack that analogy for me. just like it but um but it does feel important to say like I there's I hear I feel in my own body

when you said that that what a gift to be able to go through that cycle on a regular basis even multiple times a day and live and be centered and integrated and congr like aligned in who we are that we feel like we are ourselves in these challenging situations and we don't lose ourselves in whatever those things are that feels so hopeful And if it's not something that you're in a fairly common practice in, perhaps your resourcing feels incredibly limited or you are going to certain compassionate resources and those are not there for you anymore or they did not serve you in the way that you wanted or whatever it is.

So I just I just want to say like it is this is not a like on off switch process. You said that. It's not a finish line. And yet I think when we hear hopeful words, we see. so desperately want it to be. We so desperately want it to be, can I just get there? Can I just get there? And that's why I love this concept of the flow of strength that you will, it's not that you're in situational strength. And then you'll, once you have like one time in transitional strength, that you'll never go back. That's not a thing. You know, like this is a flow. And our hope is that we

move, we can continue to move toward integrated and that we stay there more often. and then we leave it, you know, that we begin to trust that process and all those things. But I just want to, I understand the like simultaneous holding of tremendous hope and also like, oh, but it takes so long and it's so hard. And that's hard. That's a hard thing to hold. It's hard thing to hold. It is.

It is. And I, I love, I love that you emphasize that. Because I think, you know, when I wrote this book, I felt the weight. of I didn't want to write another book about how to just be better. Right. We don't need more of those. We're good. And no offense.

No offense to folks. You know, I mean, yeah, I'm sure for some folks when they hear that, I don't know what you'll take from that. But for me, like my location is a trauma therapist who is a trauma survivor. Like I have seen some things. and how hard people have to work to build safety in their lives. And I do not for one second take for granted the deep work, the deep courage that that requires. And I think that's even why for me, like even the words like strong.

like water, it feels like a reclaiming for me or, you know, a redefining of strong because I have seen so many people make so many courageous choices. And then I've seen them try to figure out what to do with the cultural narratives that tell them being gentle is weak. That it's actually, you know, selfish to take care of themselves. That, you know, You know, if you're coming from a faith culture, some of the messages about why you shouldn't be able to listen to your own self. There are all these messages culturally about strength. And frankly, it makes it harder. In my opinion, it makes it harder to do this work well because it's literally countercultural to say that it's things like love and safety that makes us.

the most truly strong because all the messages around us say well pick yourself up by your bootstrapped well just suppress that a little bit more well pretend that you're fine well you know just do x y and z and then you will finally be loved and i hope that when folks read this book one of my deep hopes experience the sense of their profound value no matter where they are on the flow of strength. Like, no matter. And to me, I really believe that every single place that we are on the flow of strength, including the situational strength, is worthy of honor. And I think for folks, I think, again, this feels like such a paradox.

because so often we're like, oh, just get rid of that, like just get through it. And for me, I say, oh, that's there for a reason. Yeah, totally. And you at some point in your life have needed that. And so what does it look like for us to come alongside that experience in your body so that it maybe for the first time can actually be witnessed and given what it deserves. And I think for me, I often work through the lens of saying, I think it's a miracle that we have the ability to have situational strength. I mean, if we didn't, gosh, when

emergencies, when crises happen, when trauma is happening, without that, things could actually be a lot worse. And so not that we necessarily, again, want to live. there. But I just think there's some profound complexity and just things that are, yeah, again, just so worthy to be honored. We'll be right back. I mean, we could talk for 17,000 hours. And really what you guys just need to do is go and get the book because it's like in the world now. It's in the world. So, so lovely. But there was one part of the book that just felt so like simple and sparkly and lovely that I would love to kind of end on, which is you talk about, you talk about triggers and you talk about glimmers. And I would love for you to share the, the hopeful difference between

those two words. Yeah. No, I love that. You brought that up. Yeah. So triggers, most people may know, but triggers are really anything that is activating our nervous system in a way to the point that we feel like we are currently being threatened and may often be connected to past experiences. And so it's a typically not a fun experience. It's typically disturbing to re-experience even briefly, something that reminds us of something that has been highly difficult, overwhelming, terrifying, that type of thing. So the opposite of a trigger is Deb Dana, who is a therapist. She coined this term glimmers.

And glimmers are those things that even for a microsecond give us sort of a sense of, it's sort of like a moment in our what's called our ventral vagal. So the ventral vagal is a different way to describe our window of tolerance. And that ventral vagal, like other ways to talk about is like we're pro social. We're pro connection. We are like we are open. We're like, again, it's like sort of like our whole heart space. Like there's the possibilities that are available to us. And so from like a body sense, a glimmer, I often think of it like when you have a moment, an experience, maybe it's even like a taste of really good food. Maybe it's I love sunsets. Like I love them in a way that is like so corny, but like I won't give it up. I love sunsets.

And they are glimmers for me. And when I stay with that, I can feel. feel literally in my actual heart a sense of even just like a brief opening. And so for folks listening, I think what's really, there's two things I would say. If you are a person who has had to mostly organize yourself around things like situational strength and threat, things like glimmy. may not feel intuitive right away. And this is because our nervous system and our body and brain shapes itself around what we pay attention to.

And this is really appropriate. Like our body just says, oh, here's what's important. Okay, let's give all the energy here. However, what's so hopeful about this is that just like our body can get wired around threat, it can begin to be. wired around goodness. And really, in many ways, that's what I think of glimmers as. Like, it is a compassionate resource. It is a way that your body is taking in a queue of safety. And so this is, you know, as you're able to begin to notice, like, are there even teeny tiny

moments that you are aware of? And if you can stay with them longer, wonderful. but if it's even just briefly to begin to notice like oh i love the way the light is coming through that window or the way that i was with that person and i was able to really exhale when i was with them or you know the way that i love the way that sun sparkles on water like there's something about that that like just lights me up um and again this can sound sort of on in one sense, it can almost feel a little toxic positivity-ish. So I just want to acknowledge that the work here is not to take these things to suppress our experience. What's different is that we are learning to be with goodness in an embodied way. And that ultimately is always the difference between something that is

just a band-aid that's going to fall off versus something that is truly a resource, is if we can be with it in an embodied way. And I have had many, many experiences, especially in my, like in high school and in my 20s, where I felt threatened by glimmers. like the the um the the well of emotion that goodness was so startling because i was a suppressor of things all the things my situational strength was like put it in a drawer shut the drawer bye go live do it impress everybody be dependable and responsible and whatever and so even when there are things that would move me it was embarrassing

It was scary. It was like, what's happening? Where are these tears come from? Like, it just was like, it, it, I wasn't able. I did not process it as goodness. I processed it in the same way that I, it felt unsafe just like everything felt unsafe. Because emotion was unsafe, just categorically. And so I, I, I want to offer that experience to anyone who is sort of,

when Andy was talking about these things and you feel that heart open. up, if you resonated with that in a way that was like, oh, I don't like that either. That there's a, there can be a reason. Like, there's a reason for that. That if you have, if your situational strength and the, and the way, I love that you said that our, that our nervous system, it shapes itself around what our bodies pay attention to. And so if your body is wired to see any sort of emotion as unsafe.

then seeing sun on the water watching like one of mine is um and i get to experience it every day which is so fun is walking walking watching my two youngest um walk up the sidewalk to school together and just seeing the back of them and the little backpacks bouncing on their butts and i don't know they're together it's like so dear and i'll just stare at them and smile and i'm like this is this is this is it like this is something that is just I want to sit here and just like have this surround me and and it can be like you know those glimmers can be anything like they can be silly things they can be which I don't even like calling it that but like whatever there's no rule right of what those things can be and I just want to offer to people who are like that's also uncomfortable

that you can take small steps that's why you said even for a micro second that you just allow that thing to sort of like glimmer and it goes glimmer and it goes and you can learn it's like a it's it's it's like a muscle that you it's practice that you believe that you are safe yeah yes and i think that is so important and i'm so glad you said that because i think that's actually really common it's really common because it's it's not like most people are like you know what I don't really want goodness. Like, you know what I mean? Like, it's not a decision, right?

Typically, it's that it has not felt safe enough to receive the goodness. Because at other times in your life, that has been a threat to receive the goodness. Like doing that opened you up to something that was unsafe. And so your body begins to say, nope, no more of that. Can't have that. And so all of this work is, you know, something I think is so important to me is just pacing. And we honor the pace of our body. And we honor, you know, as you're talking, I'm thinking about even glimmers, even goodness, we pace that.

Because again, it comes back to affirming our dignity. And that's to say the goal is not to reach the finish line of some thing that we think we need to be. to matter. We matter because we exist. Exactly. And as we are able, we can learn to be with goodness. We can learn to build self-trust and self, you know, internalized safety. And, and so I just, I love that you brought that up because, yeah, I mean, this work is so, it's so individualized. It's nuanced. And we each bring our individual stories. And so that's why I always try to just bring a lot of compassion.

Because it's really good work. But it is, it's deep work. And it can be, it can be hard work, which is why we need even more compassion. The harder it is, bring on that compassion. Exactly. Exactly. Did you all hear that that you matter because you exist? You matter because you exist.

Like I think about that with, I think if you're a parent, you can experience this, that sentence without being a parent. I don't want to dismiss the experience of people who do not have kids. That has been one of my, one of my own avenues and context for experiencing that because my kids matter to me because they just exist. Because they're my kids. Like, there's nothing else on that list. Nothing. They just are. And what a beautiful thing to see ourselves that way.

And the more that we do that and believe that, we can see other people that way. You know, it's just, it's, there are so many, there are so many implications, so many beautiful implications when we slowly, whatever pace, at an honored pace as we move through this process of how to be a person. One of my favorite consequences is personally is how it impacts the way I see other people. It's just because I'm naturally real judgmental. So it's so good. It's so good to have like good words and experiences for being like, hey, everyone has a story. Everyone deserves compassion. does that mean that there are not consequences necessary for things? Of course not. Or they're not,

you know, like justice is real. All of those things are true. And that's one of the difficulties of being a person is to be able to hold things that are seemingly dissonant, paradoxical, at the same time. And I think so much of that begins with compassion, with self-compassion. Because it just, you can't not, I can't not have compassion for others if I'm doing it for myself. Well, strong like water is so good, you guys. I did endorse it. And I read every word of every book I endorse. That is not true of all people.

There is a recent situation where that has been brought to the forefront. And that's one of the reasons why. Because it matters to me what my name is on and what I say, hey, I want you to, this is worth it. And so there have been books that people have asked me to endorse and by like people that I love, people I've had dinner with. I've peed in their bathrooms. And I've had to say no because I couldn't, I didn't have time to read the whole thing. And I'm like, I have to read the whole thing.

I want to know. I want to be sure. And so, y'all, I have read every word of this book and it is a beautiful, safe book and absolutely worth adding, putting on the shelf the next two, try softer, read it with a highlighter, all the things. You'll read it again and again. You'll go back and you'll go back. And I mean, it's just a, it's just a beautiful resource.

Well, I received that. And thank you so much. It means the world. Like, I just respect your voice and just the way that you show. up in the world so very much. And so, yeah, just the fact that you have made space for these conversations. It is so meaningful to me. And I just am so grateful to sort of be coworkers in this. Yep. We got to find them. When you, when you do this work, you don't have co-workers. So you just have to be like, hey, you're one. Cool. Let's do this, guys. It's just the way it goes. So, well, Strong Lake Water is out now,

wherever books are sold. Andy, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much for listening. Again, Strong Like Water is available now, and it will be a wonderful resource for your life as you enjoy it at whatever pace you need. We'll also have resources for Andi's work

and some companion episodes in the next issue of the latest Lazy Listens, which is a bi-weekly email that goes out every other Friday with a robust summary and extra resources for those of you who want them. You can sign up that at the link in the show notes or at the lazy genius collective.com slash listens. Thanks for being here today and I hope this episode encouraged you. Until next time, be a genius about the things that

matter and lazy about the things that don't. I'm Kendra. I'll see you on Monday. Have you ever felt like you were living just a B or B plus life? It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A-plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.