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Love Means Mostly Having To Say You're Sorry (May Lil' Guy)
106 Plays6 months ago
Welcome to the latest episode of "Friendless" with your host, James Avramenko. In this insightful and introspective episode, James delves into the art of making genuine apologies and the importance of direct and clear communication. From outlining the six steps of a meaningful apology to discussing the impact of social media on connections, James shares wisdom on navigating relationships with authenticity and self-awareness. Join us as we explore the nuances of forgiveness, personal growth, and the value of human connection in the ever-evolving landscape of communication. Stay tuned for a blend of heartfelt reflections, humorous anecdotes, and a sprinkle of bagel-related musings, all delivered with James' signature sincerity and wit.
Check out Sorry, Sorry, Sorry (but please don't buy through the link 🩵)
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Transcript
Introduction and May 2024 Recap
00:00:08
Speaker
Well hey there sweet peas. Welcome back to Friendless. It's your pal James Avramenko, back with the end of the month little guy wrap up for May 2024. It has been a real roller coaster of a month for
00:00:26
Speaker
Seemingly everyone, I don't know. Is anyone out there doing okay? If you are, what is it that you know that the rest of us don't? And why aren't you sharing? As usual with these little guy episodes, I'm gonna go a little deeper into some concepts I've been thinking about in therapy and then get some really fun listener questions. So strap in, it's gonna be a great episode. Let's get to it.
Personal Struggles and Mental Health
00:00:47
Speaker
Do you think that Justin Timberlake knew the cultural impact he was going to have when he missung me? It really has been May. And I, for one, am really looking forward to June.
00:01:02
Speaker
I was out the other day with a friend of mine and we were discussing, uh, our mutual lack of mental health. And they said something that really struck me because it's something that I have been experiencing over the last, uh, month or two is this idea of like, when you are diagnosed with something, you know, in my case, I was recently diagnosed with BVD. Previously I'd been diagnosed with ADHD. I've self-diagnosed autism, yada, yada. Um, but when you get a diagnosis,
00:01:32
Speaker
something really frustrating happens in that all of a sudden it feels like the symptoms that are associated with that condition suddenly get exponentially worse. You know, for me, ever since I got this diagnosis at the start of April, I have been in just a really steady decline in terms of my mental, emotional stability. My coping skills are just out the door.
00:02:02
Speaker
And I just, I feel like I have been in a perpetual pit. Even though I also know that I am doing really well. And a really similar thing happened to me when I was diagnosed with ADHD. I became suddenly so acutely aware of the symptoms and of the maladaptive behaviors that were coming out of this condition.
00:02:26
Speaker
I do remember at the time, and this is what I said to my friend, you know, I remember the time reading about, um, there's a term that I of course don't actually remember the name of, and I've frantically googled since and have come up with nothing. But essentially it's this, um, experience you have where it's not that your symptoms actually become worse. It's, it is in fact that you are now more aware of them and you're realizing that these behaviors that you've been enacting, you know, daily, um,
00:02:54
Speaker
are not normal, they are conditions or their symptoms of the condition. I remember reading extensively and seeing so many accounts talking about how after they had their ADHD diagnosis, they suddenly felt just a hundred times worse. And so
00:03:14
Speaker
I tried to offer some comfort to my friend and I'm now in turn trying to offer some comfort to myself that it isn't necessarily that it's getting worse, it's just that you're becoming more aware of it. And awareness, if used correctly, can lead to much more enthusiastic, maybe is the word, integration of
Living with BPD in Society
00:03:38
Speaker
um, reforming these behaviors and of, of addressing the maladaptive nature of some of these behaviors and instead flipping them and, and, you know, rectifying. I'm trying really hard to be cautious around and mindful around using words like, you know, wrong or, or fix, right? Because, you know, it isn't that I am broken. It isn't that my friend is broken. It's that we have these conditions that cause us to struggle in, uh,
00:04:06
Speaker
what is termed neurotypical society, right? So like, yeah, like BPD is real fucking hard. And the more I've read about it and the more I've learned about it and the more I've reflected on myself, you know, I have the really fun version of it that they call quiet BPD, which is that you don't tend to get very outwardly hostile. You don't tend to get very outwardly
00:04:30
Speaker
explosive as the sort of like stereotypical BPD from a movie you know would be but instead you channel all that rage inside and it is just it's it's it's so fun it's so fun to just uncontrollably hate yourself as I say that with a laugh and then pause the recording cry and then just try to pick things back up again
00:04:59
Speaker
It has been an incredibly chaotic month for me externally, internally, and I've been spending a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to say on this episode, how I wanted to say it, what I wanted to share, what I wanted to keep kind of close to the chest. And, you know, it really stems from
The Nature of Personal Stories
00:05:20
Speaker
I have really found a lot of personal peace and a lot of personal expression through not only podcasting, but also through the sort of the framing of being an autobiographical artist, you know, using my personal experiences and using my personal perspectives and trying to channel that into something
00:05:42
Speaker
that is not only personally satisfying for myself but also potentially connective for an audience and that at times can be you know a razor wire of a tightrope because when I'm talking about a personal experience of mine I inevitably am talking about other people who are involved in these stories and I do try to be as vague as I can be
00:06:08
Speaker
Whether it's a good story or a bad story, I try to not identify people. I try to not point fingers at people. And yet at the same time too, through that vagueness, that ends up causing a lot of tension for people because either, you know, they know it's about them or they think it's about them. And that's been a really big cause of tension for me this month.
00:06:29
Speaker
I don't want to like grandstand here and I don't want to like pontificate endlessly about like woe is me. I just, I think that, you know, at the very baseline of it is I'm just some guy, right? I'm just some guy and I'm just living this life. And this is my first go round. This is my first time doing any of this. Every time something happens that is like,
00:06:49
Speaker
the first time I've experienced that, you know? And I'm trying to make sense of it as best I can. And one of the outlets I have found is talking about it, is telling other people about my perspective on things. I get it wrong all the time. And I get it right a lot of the time, too. And either way, it's my perspective, you know? I don't believe my experience is the truth. I just think it's my truth. And I think that's what's really fun about life is that, like,
00:07:18
Speaker
10 people can be in the same room at the same time and have 10 different stories about what happened in that room. And I find that fascinating. And when I try to share my stories, I don't intend them to be seen as gospel. I don't intend them to be seen as exactly divine truth. I just intend them as a perspective.
00:07:37
Speaker
And that kind of leads me into these ideas I've been exploring recently.
Accountability and Communication
00:07:44
Speaker
There's this sort of the concept of accountability, the concept of what is an apology and how to apologize. And then the sort of the baseline behind all of that is really like, what is communication and who should you be communicating with and why, right? Just like, you know, in my interviews, you know, I use these
00:08:06
Speaker
uh really mundane terms right friend community these these words that we use all the time and they're really innocuous and yet they influence every choice we make and they influence every single facet of our life every day and we never really stop to really consider what they really mean to us you know we we take other people's definitions on
00:08:32
Speaker
almost through osmosis, like subconsciously, you know, we just, we think we know what community is because we see how other people use community, right? We think we know what accountability is because we follow some self-help accounts on, on, on Instagram. And we think I probably do that. And then we just move on and we, you know, and so.
00:08:48
Speaker
I am really trying to personally stop and unpack and really dig into these concepts. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to provide any answers within 45 minutes.
00:09:04
Speaker
I think that it's really imperative that before we really dive in that everybody recognize that, you know, this is not the truth. This is just one facet of a truth. And that if I learned anything through my DBT therapy,
00:09:22
Speaker
Yeah, which is an oxy redundancy. I realize you know, it's that multiple things can be true at once and just because other people have different perspectives doesn't invalidate yours.
00:09:38
Speaker
and also doesn't mean that you have to validate theirs. I think there is this push right now in a lot of sort of self-help mental health communities to sort of like validate across the board.
00:09:55
Speaker
And while I agree with that conceptually, I also think that there's a slippery slope between giving validation to somebody who needs help and then giving validation to someone who is repeating
00:10:15
Speaker
And that doesn't come with any fingers pointed at anyone directly I just mean, you know, I would, if I was going to point that finger at anyone it would be to point at myself first right. One thing that I have grown to really recognize is that the way I remember things.
00:10:31
Speaker
isn't always how things happened. It's why I really rely on things like I rely on text messages and I rely on emails and and and other kind of communications because I can go back and I can look at it and I can say okay this was said this was said this was said this wasn't what happened because in my brain it becomes so muddy and especially once I become dysregulated if I get myself in an episode and I'm just completely like just out out to lunch and my brain is somewhere else I stop
00:11:00
Speaker
basically having the ability to create short-term memories, right? I become so disassociated that I lose track of reality. And so to go back and to see these things in black and white and understand, this is where you fucked up and this is what you said. And this is where, you know, this is what they communicated to you. This is what you can see plainly.
00:11:22
Speaker
Um, don't make assumptions, right? You know, don't try and read minds. Just look at what was said. Um, that really helps me anchor myself in some kind of objective reality, even though I recognize that even that is an objective because, um, you know, swinging into this communication concept, like,
00:11:42
Speaker
It's not just that people lie because I don't think that people will as often as we think. I don't think that they actively and maliciously lie. I think that more often than not myself very much included in this.
00:12:00
Speaker
trick ourselves into believing the lie before we've even said it. Because of ingrained defense mechanisms of subconscious shame and all these different reactions and emotions going on in our nervous system, we say things with the expectation that
00:12:21
Speaker
I could say one sentence, know what is going on behind that sentence. I'm trying to think of an example. I could say, I'll just go with this because I love you. And behind that sentence, three words is a novel in my brain of all the thoughts that are connected to that. I love you because of this and because of that and because of that and because of that and despite of that.
00:12:48
Speaker
But all I've said is, I love you, and a form of modern social communication is expecting other people to understand the implication of what we said, not just what we said. And this, I'm realizing, has become a major, major point of frustration for me.
00:13:12
Speaker
I'll often blame it, I guess, on my autism. But at the same time, too, I think it's just a source of bullshit is is at least in Canadian society. I don't know if this is the norm across the board. I know in Canadian society, there's this expectation for pleasantries and an expectation for subtext of of I'm going to say one thing and expect you to know, you know, I'll say A and you're supposed to know B C D E F.
00:13:41
Speaker
Right? And that is such complete horseshit because people then will use that to be mad at the person that they're clearly not communicating with. Right? And that's where I want to spin into the sort of first element of the Trinity I discussed is this idea of accountability and what exactly is accountability.
00:14:04
Speaker
And I think, you know, using this example of like, I said this, but I really meant that, I think you should be expected to be accountable for that, not the person who misunderstood you. You need to be accountable for that miscommunication because you didn't say exactly what you meant. And now obviously people are human. Communication is sloppy. We're going to fuck up.
00:14:27
Speaker
And it's really imperative that we offer each other kindness and softness and empathy, and we try our best to hold those miscommunications and understand those miscommunications. But I think it's imperative on the speaker to take accountability for not actually communicating. So that brings me to the statement, accountability. What exactly is it?
00:14:53
Speaker
Because, you know, in my experience, accountability has been a manipulation. And I think for the most part, it's been a manipulation on my part. I think I've tried to take accountability for things, not just to simply take accountability, not to simply say I fucked up, but to continue the connection. And I recognize
00:15:20
Speaker
Now, this is actually what has put me into such a deep black hole recently, is that my need for connection and my really deep rooted loneliness is really an offshoot of my personality disorder, of my BPD.
00:15:42
Speaker
And to have that shown to me so clearly that all the years, all the agony that would spring up in my body when I became disconnected from the people I didn't want to be, when I was begging for connection from people who couldn't or wouldn't connect with me, and the actual physical pain that came out of that has just left me feeling so
00:16:09
Speaker
sad for those past selves and I've misconstrued accountability with a chance to stay connected to the people that my body was telling me it needs to be connected to when the truth of the matter is
00:16:29
Speaker
Accountability starts with yourself for yourself you talk to yourself and you take responsibility for what you did and you know like i've talked in past episodes you give yourself the validation you want from others you give yourself the love you want from others you start with you and you take accountability with yourself and you recognize that you know.
00:16:49
Speaker
this need that I was putting on someone else was something that I was actually denying myself. I don't have the textbook dictionary definition of accountability, but for me, what it represents is the idea of taking ownership of your actions, no matter what the circumstances around that choice or that action might have been.
00:17:13
Speaker
So it could be really easy for me to say, well, I have BPD, well, I have ADHD, well, I have autism, well, I have trauma. I could say, I did this because of those things and it would be easy. And I could say, let me off the hook, understand. And I think that there is a facet of that within the story. I think that these things lend to understanding.
00:17:37
Speaker
And the hope is that they will lend to the listener or the other person to soften and try to understand. And at the same time too, I think that they can't be used as excuses. This isn't to be like, you know, bootstrap yourself and stiff upper lip. What I mean is I think genuine true accountability is recognizing that whatever your intentions, whatever the conditions within you are, you still
00:18:06
Speaker
hold responsibility for the impact that your words have on others. It doesn't matter if you were dysregulated. If you said somebody should go die, then you need to take accountability for that, right? It doesn't matter if you were dysregulated. It doesn't matter if you remember or not. If someone remembers you doing it, then the onus is now on you to make amends for that, right? And to take responsibility for that.
00:18:31
Speaker
Reparation of these kinds of breaks comes out of a desire for personal accountability, not through shame, not through capitulation, but through the removal of that competition. It's by realizing that we are not solitary creatures.
Attachment and Relationships
00:18:52
Speaker
I have been alone for, I mean, basically the whole year I've basically spent in part of the term borderline solitude, you know, seeing friends here or there, but mostly being alone. And I've really come to realize that we are not built to be alone. We are built to be social creatures.
00:19:13
Speaker
We are built to have conflict. We're not supposed to agree with our friends all the time. We're not supposed to placate and enable each other. We're supposed to challenge each other and want more for each other. And so we have to learn how to exist within conflict with the people that we love. We have to learn how to tolerate
00:19:35
Speaker
them fucking up and us fucking up. We have to be able to be in connection with people that we can fuck up with and still not be abandoned. And again, it is, you know, life is just a series of paradoxes because, you know, the best way to connect to people is by first connecting to yourself, right?
00:19:54
Speaker
And so, you know, one of the is it is the term modality? I don't know. One of the concepts I've been working with that I've talked about lots in past episodes is I've been doing a lot of shadow work and I've been really reflecting on myself and in how I show up.
00:20:11
Speaker
In a negative light right you know shadow work is the idea of like what are your bad qualities what are the things that you do that upset others what are the things you do that hurt others why why do you hurt others right is the sort of simple version.
00:20:27
Speaker
And it's really trying to unpack and recognize that you're just a person. You're not special. And that's what's beautiful about it is that you're just some guy. You're just some gal. You're just some person doing the best you can, right?
00:20:43
Speaker
And there's no shame in having these quote unquote shadow traits. There's actually quite a beauty in it to recognize that you are fallible, to recognize that you don't know everything and to be powerless. You know, I often quote Saul Williams.
00:21:00
Speaker
Very simple line, vulnerability is power, right? And so if you open yourself up and if you work to stay soft and to stay vulnerable and to stay curious, first and foremost about yourself, this shadow work is staggeringly healing. So, you know, for me, you know, I'm really impulsive, especially emotionally, and I get desperate for connection.
00:21:26
Speaker
especially with people who don't want to be connected to me. I find safety in people who have hurt me. That's the root of my BPD is that I was raised with a nervous system that was comforted by chaos because that was the system that I was raised in.
00:21:47
Speaker
So I am most familiar with disconnect. I am most familiar with contempt. I'm most familiar with people telling me why I'm worthless and then trying my best to earn some degree of love and connection from them, which is just staggeringly dysfunctional on so many levels.
00:22:12
Speaker
and something that I am working really, really hard on addressing. A really broad example, but one that does personally touch me is this idea of, you know, there's the different attachment styles, right? There's anxiously and avoidantly attached, there's securely attached, and there's disorganized attachment. I'm disorganized, but I lean much more towards anxiously attached. And the shadow side of the anxious attacher is manipulation.
00:22:38
Speaker
People pleasing isn't kindness. It's being nice, right? You be nice to people so that they'll do what you want for them, right? People pleasing is not a good trait to always be pliant, to always placate other people's needs, to always give and give and give and give until one day you explode and you scream and you yell and you hurl all the built up
00:23:04
Speaker
uh, insults at the person who's suddenly not doing what you want them to do, right? Um, that's manipulation. And so people who are anxiously attached, um, or, or call themselves people pleasers, that can be really
00:23:19
Speaker
dangerous and I have put others in really dangerous emotionally situations because of my tendency to people please, my tendency to just roll over and take it and take it and take it and take until I finally absolutely cannot, which loops me back to this concept of accountability. You know, I have to be accountable to myself for what I didn't communicate. They couldn't have known I wasn't doing well because I didn't say
00:23:49
Speaker
I said, Oh yeah, all good. No worries. Fuck yeah. Let's do that instead. Oh yeah. No, I didn't want to do that. Right? Like, so it's, it's recognizing that you are not the hero of the story. It's just, you're the perspective of your story. That's all. Nobody's a hero. Nobody's a villain. Everybody's just, again, coming back to this thing, everybody's just some person doing their best and their first go around the planet.
00:24:14
Speaker
And I think the sooner we can recognize that, the sooner we can stop calling everybody monsters, heroes, angels, all these hyperbolic terms, the sooner we just can say like, oh wow, that's a person. That's not a hero. That's just some guy. You know, I think that the healthier we're all collectively going to be when we remove this pressure of this, like,
00:24:35
Speaker
It's like the stratification of the human experience or it's
Social Media and Apologies
00:24:41
Speaker
like putting tears or classes on to the human experience of like, you're not worthy unless you're a hero or likewise, you're not worthy until you're a villain, right?
00:24:53
Speaker
The example that pops in my brain is like serial killers you know like like nobody. Well i should say nobody there are people who like them but nobody like likes a serial killer but they become infamous right and that becomes its own version of.
00:25:08
Speaker
Fame and notoriety and you become known throughout the ages and your name gets echoed and I think, what the fuck am I saying? My brain is going into one of those ADHD spiderwebs. I think I'm at point F when I should be at point B.
00:25:28
Speaker
Are we following this? I really hope so. I'm going to just keep continuing down that thread. Um, but it's, it's this idea that like, um, we are only worthy if we receive the next tier of exposure to the community, right? No matter what we do, as long as we become exposed, then we are worthy of, of, um, attention. When the truth of the matter is nobody's worthy of attention. You don't, I don't deserve you to listen to this podcast just because I did it.
00:25:56
Speaker
I don't deserve any of it. You know, I had these random, I had a TikTok last month hit 2 million views because I made a joke about how you should flush with the toilet seat down at a friend's place. And, and it's like, I don't deserve that. I didn't earn that. I just made a dumb comment for 15 seconds and put it up on the internet. Um, and so like, that doesn't make me special. That doesn't mean, Oh, I tapped into something incredible. That just means I made a dumb joke and people laughed at it.
00:26:24
Speaker
Right. That doesn't earn me some new spot. And I think this is really the, one of the roots of this social anxiety is that we think we have to earn respect and we have to earn these accolades in order to be worthy of just living our lives. Oh boy. Okay. I have spun myself away from the point accountability.
00:26:46
Speaker
I think once you've kind of looked at yourself and you've really explored yourself and you've recognized points of damage, points of rupture in connections, that's where apologies come into play.
00:27:02
Speaker
and apologies are real, real tricky as I am learning lately. I started reading this book called Sorry, Sorry, Sorry, and it's literally just all about how to apologize, what makes a good apology, what are examples of bad apologies, and all that kind of fun stuff that comes along. And the book has just radically opened my eyes. I am absolutely loving it. And I got
00:27:31
Speaker
way ahead of myself. One of the things it talks about literally in the book is it literally says, if you're reading this and you're feeling compelled to apologize, finish the book. And I, of course, being the impulsive neurodivergent that I am, did not take that piece of advice. And I reached out to somebody who I felt deserves an apology. And I tried to structure my communication around the book's suggested method.
00:28:00
Speaker
And it went well at first and then it all collapsed, which is not to be unexpected. And at the same time too, I'm happy I tried. I feel like I did the part that I could and the rest just is what it is. There are other factors to that connection that are just not going to be repaired through this type of communication, if at all.
00:28:29
Speaker
And you know what, that's fine. I accept that. Um, but what I really wanted to talk about was that at the very start of the book, they give you six and a half steps of what make a good apology. And I wanted to just like kind of flash through them because I think that this is really incredibly useful information for everyone. Obviously you should just go read the book, but if you don't have the time or, you know, the access to it, um, this is at the very least a little cheat sheet of the core philosophy behind it.
00:28:59
Speaker
So the six and a half steps are, number one, say you're sorry. Just say it. Say you're sorry. Really communicate it. Don't say if, don't say, but don't say, you know, don't, don't coach it, right? Just say it directly. I am sorry. Number two is for what you did. Name it. Don't dance around it. Don't be vague. Be clear. I am sorry for what I did and say what it is you did. Number three is show that you understand why it was bad.
00:29:29
Speaker
Again, it's all about taking that accountability, right? Taking responsibility directly for what happened. And I think this is a really key element because, you know, I know in my experience, it's scary to name the thing because it feels like you're losing some semblance of power. And we have to realize that by being vulnerable, we're actually engaging in the most powerful behavior we can.
00:29:55
Speaker
by releasing this fear of control, this shame that really manifests in these moments, by just releasing it and allowing yourself to be soft and small. Those are times when we heal the most. Now, obviously, this also comes with a lot of caveats. There are people who you are not safe to be small around. There are people who you are not safe to be soft around. I learned that firsthand.
00:30:23
Speaker
And that's okay. These are moments of learning. I talk often about there's no right or wrong decision. There's simply the decision you made with the information you had at that time. And now that you have new information, you get the chance to make new choices going forward. So if you've learned in the past that you cannot be safe around this person, then maybe this advice isn't for you. And that's okay. That's no failing on anybody's part. It's just showing that you can't be connected to those people.
00:30:52
Speaker
Um, number four is only explain if you need to and don't make excuses. So, um, when you're apologizing, when you're talking about what happened, it's not saying I did this because of, or you maybe do this or, you know, this was going on in my life. It doesn't matter. Um, be direct, be clear and own your part in things.
00:31:14
Speaker
Number five, say why it won't happen again. And I would almost add in and demonstrate that it's not gonna happen again. Explain what you've recognized in yourself that has led to this choice being made and what you're doing about ensuring that it doesn't happen again.
00:31:32
Speaker
Number six is offer to make up for it. Now you are not entitled to forgiveness. You're not entitled to a continued connection, but make the offer to make up for the mistake if possible. And the 6.5, again, you're not entitled to, but is this idea of listen. So once you have done your apology, once you have explained just, you know, you've explained why it's not going to happen again,
00:32:00
Speaker
Give space to the other person to talk and allow them to express themselves and don't try to push back. This is something that I learned and this is, you know, funny enough is I could very easily slip into an excuse of, you know, I just regulate the drop of a hat. My emotions, you know, a factor of BPD is I have very, very
00:32:23
Speaker
big emotions. I don't have that kind of middle of the road. Oh, this is a little comfortable. It either becomes my body's going to die or I'm in ecstasy. And that's just how my nervous system works. But again, that is no excuse. So so if I'm going to offer space to listen to the other person, I need to make sure that I am able to regulate myself. And if I'm not able to do that, then I need to not offer that. And so the the listen step
00:32:53
Speaker
A, you're not entitled to, but B, you need to not offer it if you can't hold it. So you have to be really, really aware of yourself, aware of your triggers. Again, this is why these different concepts, I think, build upon each other. You know, this idea of know yourself, right? Do that shadow work. Understand what your triggers are. Understand what your issues are. Take accountability within yourself for yourself and build towards that apology and recognize that if you can't hold it,
00:33:20
Speaker
Don't offer to because that is another factor of people pleasing is over giving of yourself draining yourself and then Blaming the other person for the choice that you made and all of this falls under the umbrella of that third term I brought up which is communication, right? Who are you communicating with? Why are you communicating with them? How are you communicating it with them? Why do you want to communicate with them?
00:33:43
Speaker
These are all really important factors that I think we go into autopilot regarding and I think we could really stand with being a lot more mindful of what it is we are subconsciously trying to get out of these communications. Something I've been thinking about a lot over the years of doing this podcast is this idea of
00:34:02
Speaker
Social media has forced us to be in connection to far too many people and it has actually started to build this social shame to not be in connection with people from our past.
00:34:18
Speaker
this is never been the case it used to always be up until literally the 2000s it used to be you know you went out of your house and you couldn't be reached right because there was no cell phones you you made a plan you went did it or you got stood up and even longer before that you know before cell phone before telephones even you know before communication
00:34:37
Speaker
You went about your life and you weren't in connection to everyone all the time. You had no idea what your ex from high school's second child was named. You had no idea what your old English teacher's daughter was doing at the dancer's side. There was no reason to know these things and social media has put this pressure on us.
00:35:01
Speaker
to know everything about everyone all the time. And I think it's making us really, really sick because it's forcing us to perpetuate connections that are not good for us. And it's making us think that that is the healthy choice to communicate with everyone about everything all the time.
00:35:18
Speaker
Which, to be perfectly frank, is one of the needles I'm trying to thread regarding this podcast, you know? Am I oversharing? Do strangers deserve to know the inner workings of my brain? Do they want to know? Is this me making a mistake? I don't know, right? I'm following an impulse and I'm seeing where it goes. But, you know, it all plays together into these concepts of what is health communication, what is over communication.
00:35:47
Speaker
And that roots itself in this concept of self knowledge, knowing who you are, doing the internal work, understanding where it is you are coming from, where it is you want to go, how you're going to go about doing that and how you're going to say that to people.
00:36:02
Speaker
Again, I understand that the vast majority of social interaction is nonverbal. Words are limiting. All words, in essence, are lies because they are not the truth. When I say a chair, that word is not chair, right? It's not a chair. It's describing a concept. So words in a certain light are all lies. So they're clumsy and they're sloppy and they're imprecise. And at the same time, too, the only way we're going to truly
00:36:33
Speaker
try to understand each other is through these words. Um, I shouldn't say the one of the only ways, um, uh, at least one of the most direct ways. And that's something that I'm really valuing in the connections that I'm building in my life is direct communication. No implications, no room for ambiguity, just really truly owning what we want, saying it, asking for it, telling each other where we're going, why we're going there.
00:37:01
Speaker
And then, of course, leaving room to fuck that up because, as I said, life is messy. We fuck up all the time. We think we want this. We find out new information and then suddenly things change. That happens. That's what life is. That's what being alive is. And that's OK. And so it's about understanding that you need room to make
The Value of Communication and Self-Discovery
00:37:20
Speaker
mistakes. That's what I'm always telling my students at work is that you have to allow yourself the risk of failing if you ever want to potentially succeed.
00:37:30
Speaker
Yet another paradox. You have to be able to fail if you want to succeed. And that's scary as fuck. Which is the baseline of life. Life isn't fun.
00:37:44
Speaker
It can be at times, but that fun ends just like it can be really scary at times. And that fear ends. Um, you just, you just have to allow yourself the potential to have the outcome you don't want. If you are actually going to achieve the outcome you do.
00:38:01
Speaker
I find journaling to be life-changingly helpful in this regard you get the idea of something you might want you write it out you read draft it you rewrite it bullet point it you know you kinda play with the concepts you ask yourself deeper questions you you know
00:38:16
Speaker
You ask, why did this point resonate with me? Why do I want that? You get deeper into it and you really explore yourself and you explore what your desires are, what your goals are, what your end goal is. And then you find ways to communicate that with the people who are safe to communicate with.
00:38:34
Speaker
People don't need to be safe. They don't need to maintain a connection with you. There's no imperative. There's no obligation, right? It's purely do they want to do that? And recognizing that if somebody doesn't want to be in connection with you, that doesn't make you a bad person. That's no reflection of your quality as a human. That's a reflection of that person's desires and they just don't want you around. And that's okay. If anything, that's their loss, right?
00:39:03
Speaker
So yeah, those are the tent pool concepts I've been working with this month. And that is a very surface overview of some of the thoughts I've been having. I really feel like I could just talk endlessly about it, but I think I should probably button it here for the month and jump into some listener questions.
00:39:25
Speaker
If any of this really resonates with you and you want to explore it further, read Story Story Story, Google Shadow Work. I'll put some resources in the show notes about some of the material I've been working with, better communication skills, these kinds of things. But I really think it is beneficial for everyone, not just somebody healing from trauma, just
00:39:50
Speaker
just anybody who wants to show up a little clearer in the world. I think it really behooves us to explore this material and explore ourselves and see what else we can come up with to be more in connection with ourselves and then build stronger connections with the community around us.
00:40:16
Speaker
So let's put the pontificating away for the month. And now let's move to some listener questions. I got an absolute flood of questions over the last couple of days when I put out the call. As a reminder, if you ever have a question that you'd like answered on the show, email me from this pod at gmail.com or message me on TikTok or Instagram. I'm always collecting questions.
00:40:39
Speaker
I got so many questions this month that I don't think I'm going to be able to get to all of them. So I'm going to backlog those and try and figure out what to do with the extras, whether they go to next month or I think I might actually make a couple of these questions into a bit of a longer form thing because there was some really, really interesting questions about stuff about self-publishing and things like this that I think
00:41:03
Speaker
could merit a little bit of longer explorations. So I'm gonna backburner a couple things, but let's dive into the ones that we can't get to. So first question, are you going for the JTT hair? Because it is working.
00:41:18
Speaker
Yes, yes I have. Now I realize on podcasting, podcasts aren't exactly a visual form, but if you follow me on TikTok or Instagram, you will see that I absolutely have been rocking the 90s Dreamboat hair. I think of it more as the Sean Hunter hair from Boy Meets World, but I will absolutely take JTT. Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I try.
00:41:41
Speaker
A little bit more in line with the subject matter of the month. Someone asks, do you have to forgive just because enough time has passed or can you move past it and not go through the actual process of forgiveness? And this is such a great question that I ask myself endlessly about all kinds of people from my past.
00:42:00
Speaker
And where I have landed lately is this idea that forgiveness can't be performative. Forgiveness starts first and foremost within yourself. And I think that more often than not, at least in my experience, I think I've rushed to forgive others so that I can settle down these unresolved feelings within myself.
00:42:24
Speaker
But when I actually reflect on those moments, I still haven't forgiven myself, which is really the core of it. You know, I talk often about unconditional self-love, right? And that comes with forgiveness. And I think that more often than not,
00:42:41
Speaker
Forgiveness has to start with yourself. And whether or not you forgive someone else kind of doesn't matter, especially if you're not in connection with them. So I think this idea of like sort of performing forgiveness or giving forgiveness, I don't know how necessary it truly is.
00:43:02
Speaker
If someone's not in your life, then it sort of doesn't matter what they think of you. And in a lot of ways, it's probably healthier to just let them be wrong rather than to reconnect and try to explain, you know? I think forgiveness really is more about reflecting on how you showed up, forgiving yourself for it, and learning from that.
00:43:20
Speaker
If you want to connect and if you want to apologize, that's something. But I don't think that you need to prompt forgiveness. And in a lot of ways, I think if somebody has hurt you and they're not reaching out to apologize, I think prompting an ask for forgiveness is or even an offer of forgiveness is actually going to more often than not backfire because
00:43:47
Speaker
Um, you know, people are out here just living their lives and more often than not, they're not thinking about what happened with you. So I think reinstigating these things without first really considering them and, and sort of testing the waters and seeing where these people are.
Closing Thoughts and Humor
00:44:02
Speaker
I think that, um, that is a recipe for disaster to probably make things worse. Next question I've been pondering endlessly. What is a weird combo that you enjoy?
00:44:14
Speaker
And that's such a tough one for me because it's like I go in a few different directions. I think about food. I'm a big fan of like sweet with bacon. I was going to say salty, but realistically, it's just like I put like I've started putting bacon bits on my waffles in the morning, which has been a blast. The thing is, when I hear the word combo, I think about other directions like, you know, I am a massive fan right now of
00:44:43
Speaker
getting as many different colors as I can in my outfits. And I was always told that there are, you know, clashing colors and things like that. And I've kind of stopped giving a shit about that. So I think, you know, comboing just random colors together has been a source of great joy for me recently.
00:45:02
Speaker
And those are just sort of like off the dome thoughts. I've been really trying to think of like, what is a weird combo? And I sometimes have trouble discerning what I like, but would be perceived as weird to people outside of my brain, right? And so it's like, I don't know, like come over and watch me and see what I do and see what weird connections I make and things I pair together and tell me, is that weird? Is that unusual? I don't fucking know. It just makes me happy.
00:45:30
Speaker
which is really my almost entire goal of my day lately is just like allow myself to feel joy as often as possible because I have tended towards denying myself that. Here's a good one.
00:45:46
Speaker
What accent do you think crows would have if their speech was translated to English. Recently I put up a tech talk talking about how I desperately want to befriend the gang of crows or is it the murder of crows that live across the alley from me and crows I find just so fascinating.
00:46:07
Speaker
I forget the exact precise fact of this, but I mean, I learned it years ago and probably it's made up, but I remember hearing once that crows have different dialects and like different accents. So like a crow that grows up in Vancouver won't actually really be able to speak to a crow that like lives in Calgary or something like that, because they have these different dialects and I guess you could call them accents.
00:46:33
Speaker
So in one direction, I think if crows were able to speak English, they would have all kinds of different accents. It would just sort of depend on where they grew up. I imagine they would have a speech impediment because of their beaks.
00:46:47
Speaker
But, um, I think my preferred accents would be something like direct, but still smooth and confident, you know, something like a French accent or like a German accent, something that would be like very, very direct speaking, but still kind of romantic and like kind of swoop you off your feet a little bit, you know? Right? Wait, that's a pigeon. I don't know. What does a crow do?
00:47:10
Speaker
I don't know. I just watch them. I don't listen to them. And the last question of the month is an important question, one that was asked by a dear, dear friend of mine. The question is, bagels.
00:47:29
Speaker
That's it, bagels. And I really think that this is a genuine exploration that deserves so much more time than I'm gonna give it on this episode. I fucking love bagels. I don't eat enough of them. There is no truly good source of bagels near my place. There's like, there's sullies on main, but it's far, you know? There's nothing in Marpole and so,
00:47:56
Speaker
I don't get nearly enough bagels in my weekly life as I would like. And also, even the best bagels in Vancouver just don't hold a candle to the bagels out east, you know? I'm also a bit of a picky bageler. I ate far too many everything bagels in university, and now just the thought of an everything bagel makes me slightly nauseous.
00:48:24
Speaker
Um, I do still love, uh, herb and garlic cream cheese though. Give me like a, give me like a cheddar, like a cheddar bagel. Ooh, just cheese. Just give me something. Just give me cheese. Oh, just give me cheese. But I will admit bagels, just like ice cream, just like donuts. Um, you don't need to be fancy. I don't need you to dress it up and toss 10 different ingredients in and call it some exotic name. I just want.
00:48:53
Speaker
I just want a plain old bagel with a little bit of salt, you know, right? You know, just like ice cream. I'm like, just give me chocolate. I don't need all the explosion melange, right? It's already a treat. Ice cream is enough of a treat. I don't need it to be an adventure.
00:49:11
Speaker
But yeah, what an incredible question. Bagels, what do you think? When I ask the question, bagels, let me know. Write to me, friendlesspot of gmail.com. Bagels, what do you think? Thank you all so much for your questions. As I said, all those other questions are noted. They are not being ignored. They are going to be answered in a future episode. I just have to figure out what.
00:49:33
Speaker
I'm gonna do with them. It might be an extra bonus episode. It might be just pushed to next month. We'll see. Lots of different factors at play there. But if you think of a question in the meantime and want it answered on a future episode, another reminder, email me friendlesspod at gmail.com or message me on TikTok or Instagram at friendlesspod. And I have nothing else to talk about this month. So you know what? Let's hit that wrap up music.
00:50:09
Speaker
That's it for
Episode Conclusion
00:50:10
Speaker
another month. Thank you all so much for listening. These little guy episodes are such a blast to record. I hope you enjoyed them. If you did, please be sure to leave a five star review anywhere you listened. It is so helpful to me and it's completely free to you. Speaking of free, if you want more friendless content, why not sign up for my weekly sub stack.
00:50:28
Speaker
You're going to get a curated playlist for the month. You're going to get curated poems every week from the challenge I've set for myself to read a book of poetry every week this year. You are going to get five fun things to check out that I've enjoyed that week. Anything from movies to YouTube videos to
00:50:48
Speaker
articles, to just all kinds of fun distractions that have brought me joy and I'm trying to pass along to you. It is all completely free. There is going to be a subscription launching soon. It has been delayed, unfortunately, but I am aiming for a mid-June, early July. We're going to see about that, but it is going to be so much freaking fun. There's going to be
00:51:10
Speaker
mini courses, there's gonna be a private discord, there's gonna be live episodes, there's going to be so much more involved, I cannot wait to show you the plan, it's going to be an absolute blast. But all that, along with the next episode coming out next week, does not need to be worried about right now, because that is all then, and this is now. So for now, just try your best to live in the moment, enjoy yourself, enjoy your friends, and do your best to take some of that pressure off, because it is just
00:51:40
Speaker
It is not worth it. Anyway, I love ya. Fun and safety, sweeties.
00:52:22
Speaker
you