November 15, 2024 • 41 mins
Ryan and Nicole talk about why their new podcast is called CLOSER, including the notion persons who help others for a living are perhaps naturally more opaque, so the podcast allows them to present a different layer of themselves and their shared life and relationship.
Discussed: doing relationships (apparently) differently, levels of awareness, honesty, congruence, basic orientation to relationships, the nature of information and language relative to talking and knowing, enneagram, evangelical background, shadow work (how knowing what's happening for you relates to what you do or do not see in others), and more.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is Ryan Thomas Neace.
(00:03):
And this is Nicole Neace.
This is the Closer Podcast.
This is episode one of our podcast.
Very first episode.
Very first one.
It's titled Closer?
Question work?
(00:26):
It's just like a little bit about why we're going to call it Closer.
And sort of the notion that as people who help others for a living, therapists on the
one hand and the other stuff that we do.
Yeah.
Even with our friends who know that we're therapists, that it's always a little opaque.
(00:47):
It's like hard to see us fully.
Yeah.
Or feel seen maybe too.
Yeah, probably.
And so this episode just sort of indicates what this is primarily an endeavor in for
us, which is allowing people a step closer or a step differently close.
(01:09):
That there's just a way to see us a little bit more clearly.
And this is that.
Well said.
We hope?
We hope.
Here it is.
Episode one.
Closer?
So we decided to call whatever it is that we're doing here.
(01:37):
Recording, talking, something we've been really wanting to do for a long time.
We decided to call it Closer.
Name of our California based sort of psychotherapy and beyond work that we do is Juxta, which
(01:58):
is a prefix in the English language.
It's like juxtaposition is probably the word people know the most or juxtapose.
Juxta the prefix just means close by, alongside.
And so I don't know, like closer as a podcast name or as a name for a series of discussions
(02:32):
sort of is about this idea that in the work that we do, we can only be known so much.
Like the nature of the work that we do, even as a therapist and the sort of a, you know,
(02:54):
I do think of us as doing mental and spiritual work with people like I, as a disclosing one
of those, like I am among the most disclosing like worker of this type that I know.
Agreed.
Huh?
Yeah, agreed.
(03:15):
Yeah.
And I say more about what's going on with me and it's because I am using everything
that I think, feel, experience in the moment and I'm sort of putting it at the disposal
of the person in front of me as like a foil or a barometer for what's happening in the
room.
And then we sort of sorted out, you know, what the barometric pressure is together on
(03:38):
the basis of what, okay, I'm experiencing this and you're experiencing that.
And then somewhere we funnel it down to the truth.
But even as a person who's really disclosing, you know, you're just aware people can only
be so many concentric circles inward.
So this feels like another step in, like letting people hear conversations between you and
(03:59):
I, which are sometimes the types of things that I'm disclosing in the work that I do,
but people don't always know that like you, you know, they only hear from me essentially.
Right.
So that's one thing about Closer to me is like another concentric circle forward.
(04:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think part of that circle or sort of what you're alluding to or directly speaking
to maybe even is the conversations that I think that you and I have a lot of times like
you I'll reference my side or the conversation in session or with someone or something.
(04:45):
But so often it doesn't hold everything that we've said.
And I'll try and like as hard as I can go back and be like, what was it?
What was that one thing he said?
Or what was the thing I said that I thought was really great?
I can't access it because it was just like a fleeting moment, but it felt very powerful
(05:09):
and sometimes so powerful that it changes like something that I say or do with you.
But then I like don't lock on to what the thing was that got me there.
And so I think by like for me, part of this is getting to like one memorialize that to
(05:30):
potentially see it through a different perspective.
Three just entering into what it is to have a conversation with you.
What's number one again, they'll say it again.
To memorialize sort of like these conversations that I often have felt so moved by.
(05:54):
I feel very powerful.
Right.
And as I get older, I think my memory is not as great as it once was.
So to be able to like listen back and reflect on that.
Also what might I take from it the next time?
We certainly rehash a lot of conversations, say things multiple times and each time new
(06:18):
iterations of self come out of those conversations.
So just to be able to like listen to it again, share it in a new way.
All of that feels sort of relevant.
Yeah.
I also think that as all of all the times that we've thought about doing this, that
(06:45):
I have the impression that a lot of the things that are sort of like very implicit to our
relationship are like people find them all at once like, you know, just thinking about
like circles of our friends or, you know, people who are almost friends or, you know,
(07:05):
acquaintances or it's like people are sort of both compelled by them and also kind of
like they like, yeah.
Halfway can't believe that, like they halfway don't believe us that we really talk like
this to one another.
And then some of the time people are definitely like, ew, I would never want to like, you
(07:31):
know, like, and it's usually like, I think it's a lot of that is like around levels of
disclosure.
Like it's there's so much honesty.
Yeah.
Where honesty equals a lot of disclosure a lot of the time that I think people don't
(07:52):
necessarily again, they find it sort of strange and fascinating, not necessarily always the
thing they'd want.
And the feeling is kind of mutual.
Like when I hear them, when people talk about our levels of disclosure indirectly or directly,
and they sort of say that they're not compelling, and then I become aware that we do things
a distinct way.
(08:14):
And in thinking about that, I consider that they must be doing it some other way.
Usually then I look at their, whatever I think of the relationships that they have in their
life and I'm usually like, yeah, I don't want to do it your way either.
So yeah.
(08:36):
Yeah.
So it'll be interesting.
Are you rubbing your chin right now because you're trying to see if there's a no, I am
bump there or a hair or what's going on.
My chin.
It's like you were and I'm like, Oh, I cut myself and I was being tender to myself for
(09:01):
a moment.
Thank you for trying to make it sound like something else.
I thought you were searching for a chin hair.
No, nice, but thank you.
Okay.
Such sweet nothings.
Such what?
Sweet nothings.
(09:25):
So I think that's the gist of it then.
Yeah.
Sort of let people be party to another layer of conversation and what that's really like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as a, as we're sitting here saying that I'm thinking to myself, something I've said
(09:46):
a bajillion times, I feel like when I talk about even why I became a therapist, right,
was when I was younger, always liked to like look in people's houses when we drove by,
I watched a shit ton of television and movies to try and gauge what this kind of relationship
or that kind of relationship look like.
(10:07):
And then as I got into those kinds of relationships, I realized how much of a disservice media
does to show you what like a real relationship can look like.
And so much of our dynamic has opened me up to a world that I didn't even know existed.
(10:29):
And I think that bringing people in closer this way hopefully does give a peek into what
relationships can look like.
Like if that would be a nice takeaway, it would be that, yeah, people who love each
other and are committed relationships can have dynamics like this and conversations
(10:53):
like this.
And like, it's not just sort of, you know, the way TV makes it look like you don't have
to talk about your feelings and everything will go away by the end of the episode and
you'll start over tomorrow.
Yeah.
(11:14):
You're wanting people to know that?
That seems important.
I don't know if other people feel that way, that they are like, oh, our relationships
really do, is that what they're like?
They have this kind of disclosure.
They talk like this.
Yeah, that's so strange to me that people would think that, but yeah.
But certainly in the work that we do, I mean, gosh, I have people come in and talk about
(11:37):
the relationships and I'm like-
Well, my sense though is that they, I'm sorry, I'm going to cut you off.
No, you're good.
But they like, they are sort of vaguely aware that relationships are supposed to contain
and then sort of creates a shadow too, because they know it, but they kind of don't do it.
(12:02):
And they're aware of that and they kind of keep that quarantined.
So you kind of don't have access to that either.
Because it's like, you're already under two layers, now is supposed to be having discussions
that I'm not, and I'm covering for the fact that I'm supposed to be having discussions
that I'm not.
And supposed to be is also like a misnomer.
(12:23):
It isn't that like the type of high disclosure, high conversation, which by the way, it isn't
always positive.
It's just one way of doing it.
And there's a way that I have needed you to help me walk back.
(12:43):
Because some of the time I am working on something else by having lots of disclosure.
But my sense is that people know it, then they kind of know that they don't do it, then
they kind of got a shadow around that.
So then, but you're right though, something experientially is that like when they start
(13:07):
figuring it out, there is a kind of like, oh, oh, is this what it is?
And it's like, yeah, just saying what's going on to the best.
I mean, admittedly, to the best of your insight, I don't know what else you could do, but to
the best of your insight, and then let others around you, somebody you trust help you expand
your insight so that you see more and more and more and more about reality as a part
(13:31):
of any discussion.
Yeah.
But like, once they start seeing it, it's like, yeah.
The amount of clients that I talk to where the thing is just like, they're so bound up,
they are feeling terrible, their relationships are in trouble.
(13:53):
And then you find out that they just, in a way that I don't mean as a moral or character
statement, I mean this as a factual statement, what I'm about to say.
They just aren't honest about anything.
Whatever the facts, sort of like plain facts appear to be, they're just not like taking
(14:16):
those facts and mobilizing them in their lives in any kind of active way.
I feel XYZ, and then there's sort of no disclosure about feeling XYZ in the context of family,
who they spend most of their time with.
So let me get this straight.
You're feeling this kind of way, right?
And you haven't told your family at all, right?
(14:39):
Correct.
And how are you feeling?
Not good.
It's like, yeah.
But now the trick of course is that they have reasons why they don't.
And sometimes those reasons are very real.
It's not just like in their head.
It's that it amounts to a tremendous risk and sometimes a risk that is actually not
a productive risk to become more honest.
(15:01):
And yet, if that isn't kind of like a general aspiration, honest maybe is the word I keep
using here, but it's really about being congruent.
What's going on on the inside is what's going on for me on the outside as well, even though
they don't exactly look the same.
(15:23):
Yeah.
I mean, you and I are like, you know, we talk about this often about the different ways in which we
learn, interpret, experience the world.
And you know, I think you have access to certain things that take a little couple extra steps
for me to get to at times and vice versa.
(15:45):
But I've always been like a visual learner for the sake of like what I'm trying to say here.
And so this would be auditory, not visual, but being able to hear or see or listen to
what that looks like and really having something to pinpoint it to.
(16:08):
What looks like?
Disclosure.
Disclosure.
If in a safe space to be able to talk to the person that you say, hey, here's what to be
congruent.
How do I do that?
If you've never had that, if you grew up in a household where you couldn't do that or
it was you tried to do it, but it wasn't received well or any of those sorts of things, to start
(16:33):
doing it, especially in adulthood, you know, and granted, I met you in my late 20s, but
still a fair amount of life lived prior to meeting you.
There are a lot of things that I had never learned just about being in relationship with
people, not just relationship with you, but I learned a lot about being in relationship
(16:56):
with people, just people, by being in relationship with you.
And I learned about being in it with myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is something that's interesting too, that last statement you made about being in
relationship with, you know, with one another has helped you learn things about relationships
in general.
I think because, you know, growing, coming of age in the sort of evangelical Christian
(17:20):
world, you know, accidentally, there was a lot, there's a lot of stuff in the era that
we grew up in.
We're both 45.
And so, you know, think of, you know, becoming sort of middle, elementary aged in the late
80s, 1980s, 1990s is high school.
(17:43):
And there was a lot of self help borrowed and sort of baptized in Christian words or
in words that Christians use, evangelical Christians use, such as, I mean, the amount
of times I was told that like I needed to figure out a bunch of things about relationships
(18:03):
so that I could be sort of like healthy to be in one.
As a matter of fact, you remember that somebody told me, you know, Ryan, I just really think
you need to stop dating for a while.
Yes, I do.
And I was, you were the next person I, I ignored that advice.
You were the next person I met and we got married.
But yeah, so, so not only do people not know maybe and don't have any context for what
(18:29):
it looks like to do certain things, especially trying to attempt them after, you know, living
20, 30, 40 years on the earth without doing them with any level of intentionality, sort
of just what you stumbled into.
Also, we've been given, depending on, you know, and I'm, we come from that sort of background,
(18:52):
but a lot of people don't.
And whatever background you come, came from, you do have a lot of ideas, whether or not
you recognize them.
Yes.
You know, about what things are supposed to be.
And again, if the litmus test though, and I really think of this as being something
that's really specific to like a, like, well, specific to my outlook, the thing that seems
(19:18):
to be fueling a lot of my current things that feel positive about my development at this,
it's like that the locus of control there, the locus of how am I doing in the world is
really an internal barometer.
You know, you spend most of your young life, adolescence, childhood and adolescence, 20s,
(19:41):
30s, being told so much about, you know, this is what it's supposed to be.
And a freaking dude, it's epidemic in our culture with, and this is the true sort of
wayward byproduct of the information age.
There's such a glut of information to digest about things.
(20:06):
And all of this keeps the, like, the standard, the locus of the standard by which we will
compare ourselves and to which we will hold ourselves, it's all outside.
And then meanwhile, so that, so again, in client work, a lot of the work that I do is
helping people pull that locus inside because you can perform to spec with what, you know,
(20:29):
some person or some group of people is saying, some church or something, or your family,
right?
And you can be freaking deeply miserable on the inside.
But as long as your implicit belief is that the locus of the standard is external, well,
(20:52):
it doesn't matter what you think on the inside.
But if you pull it inward, you know, like how I'm feeling on a day to day basis is relevant
to my life.
Like a lot of people don't seem to know that if you want to feel better, you have to look
at your life.
Like, what you're doing currently is set up perfectly to get you what you have.
(21:14):
And if you would like something different, you have to do something different.
So for me, part of this too is about exposing how we evaluate things in our lives.
And how, you know, we have tried to pull a lot of the
(21:41):
control center interior to an interior place.
I mean, I guess that's not that unusual for me.
I certainly have, you know, Enneagram type 8.
Don't control me.
I hear myself saying that.
I'm like, oh, is this what you really want to be saying?
I guess it is.
But there is a positive side to that.
(22:02):
It can become an absolute tyrant in its own right.
What do you think?
Yes, absolutely.
No, some of that attitude, some of that approach, that perspective, however you want to say
it, is the very thing that I was just sort of like alluding to.
I learned how to be in relationships with people, with myself, with you, because of
(22:25):
our relationship and because the way that you are oriented towards things, some of that
being, which feels like an unkind way of saying it.
Always the thing with Enneagram where they would say it kind of in this like, you don't
like to be controlled.
It always felt kind of negative to me.
It's your core fear, is what they would say.
(22:45):
But I'm just like, also, it's the very thing that has helped equip you and is the reason
that you have the perspective and the orientation that you do.
And it is different than mine.
I do have a similar like part of me that's like that.
(23:05):
But I just come at it from a different side of the prism, right?
Like I just come in through the back door, you go into the front door.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I have needed to understand, and it really isn't other, right?
Like I'm glad to use that prism metaphor.
(23:27):
There's about 500 ways to refract the light, but it's like I've needed to learn other
things.
And I don't really feel like principally that orientation is the only guiding force
in my life anymore.
I've had to learn how to see things from other angles.
(23:54):
What would you say it is that yours is, if that's mine?
If mine is about thinking about the ways in which the locus of control, locus of a standard
by which I will compare and live my life, that's sort of my orientation is around those
(24:15):
questions.
What do you think yours is?
No pressure just to pull it off the top of your head.
Oh, darn it.
There it is again.
There's what?
The ways in which you can access things so quickly are like, I mean, sometimes your questions
cause me to be like, oh shit, let me think about that for not a minute, but like, can
(24:38):
I get back to you in a day or two days or like, let me, because I really need to sit
and think about it.
I don't know if what I'm about to say answers your question.
It doesn't say we could do that here.
My initial reaction to what you're saying is I want to say that like what drives me
a lot is this idea of being like received and understood.
(25:07):
Like that feels like a large drive for me.
And so I look for ways to connect with people on some sort of common plane that says maybe
not identical, probably not identical, probably not even maybe close to identical, but I can
(25:29):
tap into a thing and then I can connect with you and you will then know me better and I
will know you better.
And then I can be at peace, right?
So there's the peacemaker of the nine of the Enneagram is like, I am, my belly is centered
when all is understood, which as I say that recognize that like that feels like an impossible
(25:56):
task as well, because I don't know if I can be fully interested if I don't even fully
understand it myself.
So this is why I need to think about it.
Can we come back?
Because as I'm saying it out loud, I'm like, refine, refine, refine, refine.
Well, but that is, I mean, from an Enneagram perspective, that is part of your orientation
(26:19):
is that you don't know right away.
Yeah.
Well, and it's speaking exactly to the thing that I'm saying is to be understood.
And I'm like, Oh, I don't want to say it if if what I'm saying isn't going to like drive
the point home, like if you aren't going to get it right away.
Right?
So one of the things I've learned with you, which I did not enjoy doing at the very front
(26:39):
of our relationship was to process out loud all the things that would help me get to that
point.
Yeah.
And part of that was because my core fear was that if you were to hear those things
and they weren't exactly right, I couldn't have a take back to quote, goodwill hunting
famous scene with many driver and yeah, yeah, what's a take back?
(27:00):
What a take back.
Do you remember that scene in the movie where many drivers are at the door and Matt Damon
is there and it's at the very end of the movie and he's like, she's like, he offers her a
take back.
He's like, I don't know if you want to take it back.
And she's like a take back.
What's a take back?
I don't want to take back.
I loved that line.
(27:21):
And that is a good mine.
I forgot about it.
It will be good.
I'm not very good at it.
I'm like a generally does not issue take backs to anyone ever.
I'm like, Nope, you said it.
It reveals your interior.
That's really great, so then I should just continue to process out loud.
Yeah, it's not very like really motivating to me.
(27:45):
It's not very, it's not a catch 22 at all.
We swear.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Well, I see that.
I also see that you didn't have like in hiding from some things about myself that I like
didn't want to see.
Like there are things about me that when I hear them, this is one of them that's happening
right now.
I realize that I'm different.
(28:06):
Yeah.
And, you know, I like in a way that's that is powerful for me to even still sort of experience
it as I'm experiencing it right now emotionally.
I like have shame about that.
Like as soon as you know, there's a great, great quote that my one of my clients said
(28:27):
to me the other day that I was talking to my friend Rob about, but it's a Kafka quote
and it's something to the effect of I discovered that like life is a costume party and everyone
else, like I, I, I went, everyone else was in costume and I went with my real face, you
(28:49):
know?
So in sort of like wanting to avoid some things about me that are like, Oh, it isn't that
no one does them, but like that that's kind of different about you.
I then didn't see in not seeing my own difference.
I was unable to respect the ways in which you, you were you.
(29:15):
And so I was like demanding and I, and I can still be this way as, as we're both no doubt
aware that like you do this thing because it's productive to do.
And it's sort of like, you know, like you're just saying here, I don't kind of do that.
And then I'm telling you to do it.
(29:36):
And then you're also offering me the feedback that my reactions to that can be, you know,
also contra indicating.
I would like to believe that while a lot of what you just said is true, are you kidding
me right now?
(29:57):
You hear this.
So what you're saying is, you know, that's one perspective.
Another perspective that's totally different than that and more correct is the following.
Not more correct, but more developed from the original statement, which is you were
(30:25):
like that and can still be like that.
I think that just as I have learned a lot of things about myself and relationships,
you have learned a lot.
So you have come toward me in that like, Hey, if you want me to talk about this out loud
(30:46):
and it's not fully developed and you're not a take back kind of person, you've had to
learn to like offer me room to just do it even if I don't know yet.
So that like, we both have grown in that area.
(31:07):
It's not just, you said it, you meant it, that's it.
Which is also oddly what I'm saying I had was because once I would say it, I'd be like,
well, I've said it now I can't unsay it.
It's that stupid.
What is that co-oculism from when we were kids?
Like if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
Like if God that hadn't been like the theme of my entire life before I met you, like I
(31:32):
just would like keep everything inside and I only said the really nice things.
And then if I, God forbid said something that was remotely hurtful to someone else or myself,
whole world imploded.
All right.
Like it just, so to learn to be able to say out loud, Hey, I don't know that this is fully
formulated yet.
(31:53):
This is how I'm feeling in this moment, or this is what I'm thinking in this moment.
Can I give you draft one, draft two, draft three, draft four?
And for you to be like, yeah, let's work on draft one, draft two, draft three, draft four
together.
Right.
Like you have, you do come towards, which is not what I think Minnie Driver and Matt
(32:20):
Damon were saying in that movie, cause it was a different version of a take back.
But nonetheless, I still like the phraseology of, I don't want to take back.
I think it was meant to say, I accept you regardless in that movie scene.
But well, he's just saying also it's no, I think it is the same in some ways.
(32:42):
It's just saying it's no big deal.
Yeah.
You can get a take back.
It's fine.
Yeah.
Say I didn't actually mean that.
And certainly you've done that plenty.
I think again, the thing that I'm aware of though is that like, I don't know that like
people can't, you couldn't immediately identify what is happening for you.
(33:04):
Like I didn't know that that was not a thing.
And it isn't that I can't ever like say it and then need to refine it some more later.
Or like, Ooh, now I'm in touch with new information, but actually not a lot.
I usually know right away and I still think it three days later.
Yeah.
And I didn't know that you couldn't do that.
(33:26):
And no doubt part of how I came toward you in the evolution of our relationship was,
you know, eventually being able to give you time to process.
On the other end, I didn't, I had an extreme like lack of tolerance, like for like an extremely
(33:47):
low distress tolerance for I need time to process because I was scared that you would
not come back.
And sometimes that fear has been founded in our relationship.
You would like...
I'm still thinking about some things.
Exactly.
You're all, no, no, no, I didn't forget.
I'm just, I'm all bullshit.
You forgot.
I know it's been 15 years, but it's still in process.
(34:10):
But also to be fair, just for standards of comparison, whenever I have reported your
typical processing time, you know, for situations we would come up on over the years, when I
have reported them out to like therapists, they'd be like, dude, that's pretty fast.
Yes.
Thank you, therapists.
Thank you.
Vindication at last.
(34:30):
I'm like, dude, she came back really quick.
Like why are you...
And I'm like, quick.
But again, recognize that my standard of comparison, and that's where I don't really get it.
I have some lightning rod inside that I'm always, can't not be in touch with, that I
actually at times wish that I could not be in touch with.
I can feel it right now as we're talking.
(34:52):
Like it's from like my, like middle of my sternum all the way into the pit of my stomach.
There is like a field of energy that feels like a solid rod and that I can, that has
got white electricity all over it.
(35:13):
And if I want to know where, like where I'm at with something, all I have to do is reach
out and grab it.
And it's like, and then I can discharge that interior knowledge, interior experience into
verbal knowledge.
And when I say it with words, it very much loses something.
(35:36):
But it is as, I can do that as closely to...
This is what the words version of my interior life is like right now, as anybody I know.
I did not know that was weird.
And so my standard of comparison with you was like, why can't you do this?
Which I guess is like so much of your early relationship is like, why can't you do the
(35:59):
thing that I'm doing?
Why can't you just...
I mean, Lord, it is the basis of 80% of our arguments over time and space.
Why won't you do the thing that I'm asking you to do, which seems really easy and doable
if you're me?
And it makes me want to cry.
(36:19):
I mean, I like hate how frequently that is the subject of difficulty.
And it's because I did not understand that being with another person did not iron everything
out.
Like I thought that it was like you got together and it kind of...
(36:42):
And I find that apparently I thought this about so many things, not just relationships,
that like there's struggle and turmoil when you're young, primarily because you're inexperienced.
And then as you get older, you figure stuff out and it all works out.
And it's like, no, you just keep fucking it up and then looking backwards and be like,
oh, I know that now.
(37:03):
Hence why the phrase, youth is wasted on the young.
It's like, oh, this would have been really good to know back when I was doing that.
But you didn't know until after you did that.
And that's the sort of bitch about experiences that you kind of have to learn your way into
it.
And then you know, here we are at midlife and then you know that older people look at
(37:31):
you who are 30, 20, 30, 40 years older than you and they're like, yep.
And it just keeps right on happening.
And there it is again.
So everything we were just saying is exactly what I'm talking about.
You just said, I thought, you know, didn't know that being a relationship wouldn't iron
(37:53):
everything out.
Why didn't you think that, well, whatever you read, watched, experienced up until that
point gave you some other narrative for what relationship is.
Yeah, but I don't think just everything is given to us though either.
A lot of it is no like, it is in other words, just somebody told you wrong, right?
(38:13):
Which is such a common refrain in our culture.
And I remember it's like, you know, with talk shows in the 80s and 90s, you know, I remember
my parents sort of having this attitude like everybody gets on TV to complain about their
parents.
And it's like, right.
So it's not just that we're complaining about the sources of information that we had.
(38:34):
It's like, no, this is just actually being alive is thinking it's one way and then discovering
it's another way.
Agree or no?
Agree.
I agree.
I was just doing the thing that I normally do, which is I have a separate sideways point,
like just slightly diverted from the pathway, which was us having this conversation and
(38:59):
making this public to other people is an another way for someone to see that.
And maybe here at 28 or 29 that no, it's you're going to figure it out as you go through all
this crap.
It's actually kind of normal what you've seen up until this point or however you've interpreted
that.
Right.
(39:19):
Well, I'm glad that whenever you deviate from the path that I'm here to bring you back into
the fold.
Well, you know, it's all important.
It's all relevant.
No, your point's good too.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
(39:40):
So I think that's good for today.
Yeah.
So this is a, this is a good introduction to, um, you know, a sort of relational purpose
that like, I think we'll have more words to wrap around it as we get, go along, but like
it also sort of feels important not to like, if you've listened to this podcast episode
(40:04):
and you think what we've said is interesting and compelling, then you're likely to find
wherever we go from here, interesting and compelling, which is to say it follows a certain
relational thread, but naming that thread too precisely.
If like that's a thing, this is probably not the one for you.
(40:27):
Not because it can't be done, but because of what we were saying earlier, it's like
these, the danger of living in a worded world is that we think the words we use to describe
things are really, really, really super real.
And they're not, they're metaphors for, you know, you and I sit together and look at a
(40:50):
sunset or really experiencing it.
I turn and say to you, XYZ, boy, isn't that sunset fill in the blank.
It has automatically lost something, even if you find the words that I'm saying to be
accurate.
So like in a sort of intentionally unworded way, you know, this is what it is.
(41:17):
Yeah.
Good job.
Good job.
High fives.
High five.
Colin Robinson.
Colin Robinson.
I'm by your side.
This is Ryan Thomas Neace.
(00:03):
And this is Nicole Neace.
This is the Closer Podcast.
This is episode one of our podcast.
Very first episode.
Very first one.
It's titled Closer?
Question work?
(00:26):
It's just like a little bit about why we're going to call it Closer.
And sort of the notion that as people who help others for a living, therapists on the
one hand and the other stuff that we do.
Yeah.
Even with our friends who know that we're therapists, that it's always a little opaque.
(00:47):
It's like hard to see us fully.
Yeah.
Or feel seen maybe too.
Yeah, probably.
And so this episode just sort of indicates what this is primarily an endeavor in for
us, which is allowing people a step closer or a step differently close.
(01:09):
That there's just a way to see us a little bit more clearly.
And this is that.
Well said.
We hope?
We hope.
Here it is.
Episode one.
Closer?
So we decided to call whatever it is that we're doing here.
(01:37):
Recording, talking, something we've been really wanting to do for a long time.
We decided to call it Closer.
Name of our California based sort of psychotherapy and beyond work that we do is Juxta, which
(01:58):
is a prefix in the English language.
It's like juxtaposition is probably the word people know the most or juxtapose.
Juxta the prefix just means close by, alongside.
And so I don't know, like closer as a podcast name or as a name for a series of discussions
(02:32):
sort of is about this idea that in the work that we do, we can only be known so much.
Like the nature of the work that we do, even as a therapist and the sort of a, you know,
(02:54):
I do think of us as doing mental and spiritual work with people like I, as a disclosing one
of those, like I am among the most disclosing like worker of this type that I know.
Agreed.
Huh?
Yeah, agreed.
(03:15):
Yeah.
And I say more about what's going on with me and it's because I am using everything
that I think, feel, experience in the moment and I'm sort of putting it at the disposal
of the person in front of me as like a foil or a barometer for what's happening in the
room.
And then we sort of sorted out, you know, what the barometric pressure is together on
(03:38):
the basis of what, okay, I'm experiencing this and you're experiencing that.
And then somewhere we funnel it down to the truth.
But even as a person who's really disclosing, you know, you're just aware people can only
be so many concentric circles inward.
So this feels like another step in, like letting people hear conversations between you and
(03:59):
I, which are sometimes the types of things that I'm disclosing in the work that I do,
but people don't always know that like you, you know, they only hear from me essentially.
Right.
So that's one thing about Closer to me is like another concentric circle forward.
(04:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think part of that circle or sort of what you're alluding to or directly speaking
to maybe even is the conversations that I think that you and I have a lot of times like
you I'll reference my side or the conversation in session or with someone or something.
(04:45):
But so often it doesn't hold everything that we've said.
And I'll try and like as hard as I can go back and be like, what was it?
What was that one thing he said?
Or what was the thing I said that I thought was really great?
I can't access it because it was just like a fleeting moment, but it felt very powerful
(05:09):
and sometimes so powerful that it changes like something that I say or do with you.
But then I like don't lock on to what the thing was that got me there.
And so I think by like for me, part of this is getting to like one memorialize that to
(05:30):
potentially see it through a different perspective.
Three just entering into what it is to have a conversation with you.
What's number one again, they'll say it again.
To memorialize sort of like these conversations that I often have felt so moved by.
(05:54):
I feel very powerful.
Right.
And as I get older, I think my memory is not as great as it once was.
So to be able to like listen back and reflect on that.
Also what might I take from it the next time?
We certainly rehash a lot of conversations, say things multiple times and each time new
(06:18):
iterations of self come out of those conversations.
So just to be able to like listen to it again, share it in a new way.
All of that feels sort of relevant.
Yeah.
I also think that as all of all the times that we've thought about doing this, that
(06:45):
I have the impression that a lot of the things that are sort of like very implicit to our
relationship are like people find them all at once like, you know, just thinking about
like circles of our friends or, you know, people who are almost friends or, you know,
(07:05):
acquaintances or it's like people are sort of both compelled by them and also kind of
like they like, yeah.
Halfway can't believe that, like they halfway don't believe us that we really talk like
this to one another.
And then some of the time people are definitely like, ew, I would never want to like, you
(07:31):
know, like, and it's usually like, I think it's a lot of that is like around levels of
disclosure.
Like it's there's so much honesty.
Yeah.
Where honesty equals a lot of disclosure a lot of the time that I think people don't
(07:52):
necessarily again, they find it sort of strange and fascinating, not necessarily always the
thing they'd want.
And the feeling is kind of mutual.
Like when I hear them, when people talk about our levels of disclosure indirectly or directly,
and they sort of say that they're not compelling, and then I become aware that we do things
a distinct way.
(08:14):
And in thinking about that, I consider that they must be doing it some other way.
Usually then I look at their, whatever I think of the relationships that they have in their
life and I'm usually like, yeah, I don't want to do it your way either.
So yeah.
(08:36):
Yeah.
So it'll be interesting.
Are you rubbing your chin right now because you're trying to see if there's a no, I am
bump there or a hair or what's going on.
My chin.
It's like you were and I'm like, Oh, I cut myself and I was being tender to myself for
(09:01):
a moment.
Thank you for trying to make it sound like something else.
I thought you were searching for a chin hair.
No, nice, but thank you.
Okay.
Such sweet nothings.
Such what?
Sweet nothings.
(09:25):
So I think that's the gist of it then.
Yeah.
Sort of let people be party to another layer of conversation and what that's really like.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And as a, as we're sitting here saying that I'm thinking to myself, something I've said
(09:46):
a bajillion times, I feel like when I talk about even why I became a therapist, right,
was when I was younger, always liked to like look in people's houses when we drove by,
I watched a shit ton of television and movies to try and gauge what this kind of relationship
or that kind of relationship look like.
(10:07):
And then as I got into those kinds of relationships, I realized how much of a disservice media
does to show you what like a real relationship can look like.
And so much of our dynamic has opened me up to a world that I didn't even know existed.
(10:29):
And I think that bringing people in closer this way hopefully does give a peek into what
relationships can look like.
Like if that would be a nice takeaway, it would be that, yeah, people who love each
other and are committed relationships can have dynamics like this and conversations
(10:53):
like this.
And like, it's not just sort of, you know, the way TV makes it look like you don't have
to talk about your feelings and everything will go away by the end of the episode and
you'll start over tomorrow.
Yeah.
(11:14):
You're wanting people to know that?
That seems important.
I don't know if other people feel that way, that they are like, oh, our relationships
really do, is that what they're like?
They have this kind of disclosure.
They talk like this.
Yeah, that's so strange to me that people would think that, but yeah.
But certainly in the work that we do, I mean, gosh, I have people come in and talk about
(11:37):
the relationships and I'm like-
Well, my sense though is that they, I'm sorry, I'm going to cut you off.
No, you're good.
But they like, they are sort of vaguely aware that relationships are supposed to contain
and then sort of creates a shadow too, because they know it, but they kind of don't do it.
(12:02):
And they're aware of that and they kind of keep that quarantined.
So you kind of don't have access to that either.
Because it's like, you're already under two layers, now is supposed to be having discussions
that I'm not, and I'm covering for the fact that I'm supposed to be having discussions
that I'm not.
And supposed to be is also like a misnomer.
(12:23):
It isn't that like the type of high disclosure, high conversation, which by the way, it isn't
always positive.
It's just one way of doing it.
And there's a way that I have needed you to help me walk back.
(12:43):
Because some of the time I am working on something else by having lots of disclosure.
But my sense is that people know it, then they kind of know that they don't do it, then
they kind of got a shadow around that.
So then, but you're right though, something experientially is that like when they start
(13:07):
figuring it out, there is a kind of like, oh, oh, is this what it is?
And it's like, yeah, just saying what's going on to the best.
I mean, admittedly, to the best of your insight, I don't know what else you could do, but to
the best of your insight, and then let others around you, somebody you trust help you expand
your insight so that you see more and more and more and more about reality as a part
(13:31):
of any discussion.
Yeah.
But like, once they start seeing it, it's like, yeah.
The amount of clients that I talk to where the thing is just like, they're so bound up,
they are feeling terrible, their relationships are in trouble.
(13:53):
And then you find out that they just, in a way that I don't mean as a moral or character
statement, I mean this as a factual statement, what I'm about to say.
They just aren't honest about anything.
Whatever the facts, sort of like plain facts appear to be, they're just not like taking
(14:16):
those facts and mobilizing them in their lives in any kind of active way.
I feel XYZ, and then there's sort of no disclosure about feeling XYZ in the context of family,
who they spend most of their time with.
So let me get this straight.
You're feeling this kind of way, right?
And you haven't told your family at all, right?
(14:39):
Correct.
And how are you feeling?
Not good.
It's like, yeah.
But now the trick of course is that they have reasons why they don't.
And sometimes those reasons are very real.
It's not just like in their head.
It's that it amounts to a tremendous risk and sometimes a risk that is actually not
a productive risk to become more honest.
(15:01):
And yet, if that isn't kind of like a general aspiration, honest maybe is the word I keep
using here, but it's really about being congruent.
What's going on on the inside is what's going on for me on the outside as well, even though
they don't exactly look the same.
(15:23):
Yeah.
I mean, you and I are like, you know, we talk about this often about the different ways in which we
learn, interpret, experience the world.
And you know, I think you have access to certain things that take a little couple extra steps
for me to get to at times and vice versa.
(15:45):
But I've always been like a visual learner for the sake of like what I'm trying to say here.
And so this would be auditory, not visual, but being able to hear or see or listen to
what that looks like and really having something to pinpoint it to.
(16:08):
What looks like?
Disclosure.
Disclosure.
If in a safe space to be able to talk to the person that you say, hey, here's what to be
congruent.
How do I do that?
If you've never had that, if you grew up in a household where you couldn't do that or
it was you tried to do it, but it wasn't received well or any of those sorts of things, to start
(16:33):
doing it, especially in adulthood, you know, and granted, I met you in my late 20s, but
still a fair amount of life lived prior to meeting you.
There are a lot of things that I had never learned just about being in relationship with
people, not just relationship with you, but I learned a lot about being in relationship
(16:56):
with people, just people, by being in relationship with you.
And I learned about being in it with myself.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Which is something that's interesting too, that last statement you made about being in
relationship with, you know, with one another has helped you learn things about relationships
in general.
I think because, you know, growing, coming of age in the sort of evangelical Christian
(17:20):
world, you know, accidentally, there was a lot, there's a lot of stuff in the era that
we grew up in.
We're both 45.
And so, you know, think of, you know, becoming sort of middle, elementary aged in the late
80s, 1980s, 1990s is high school.
(17:43):
And there was a lot of self help borrowed and sort of baptized in Christian words or
in words that Christians use, evangelical Christians use, such as, I mean, the amount
of times I was told that like I needed to figure out a bunch of things about relationships
(18:03):
so that I could be sort of like healthy to be in one.
As a matter of fact, you remember that somebody told me, you know, Ryan, I just really think
you need to stop dating for a while.
Yes, I do.
And I was, you were the next person I, I ignored that advice.
You were the next person I met and we got married.
But yeah, so, so not only do people not know maybe and don't have any context for what
(18:29):
it looks like to do certain things, especially trying to attempt them after, you know, living
20, 30, 40 years on the earth without doing them with any level of intentionality, sort
of just what you stumbled into.
Also, we've been given, depending on, you know, and I'm, we come from that sort of background,
(18:52):
but a lot of people don't.
And whatever background you come, came from, you do have a lot of ideas, whether or not
you recognize them.
Yes.
You know, about what things are supposed to be.
And again, if the litmus test though, and I really think of this as being something
that's really specific to like a, like, well, specific to my outlook, the thing that seems
(19:18):
to be fueling a lot of my current things that feel positive about my development at this,
it's like that the locus of control there, the locus of how am I doing in the world is
really an internal barometer.
You know, you spend most of your young life, adolescence, childhood and adolescence, 20s,
(19:41):
30s, being told so much about, you know, this is what it's supposed to be.
And a freaking dude, it's epidemic in our culture with, and this is the true sort of
wayward byproduct of the information age.
There's such a glut of information to digest about things.
(20:06):
And all of this keeps the, like, the standard, the locus of the standard by which we will
compare ourselves and to which we will hold ourselves, it's all outside.
And then meanwhile, so that, so again, in client work, a lot of the work that I do is
helping people pull that locus inside because you can perform to spec with what, you know,
(20:29):
some person or some group of people is saying, some church or something, or your family,
right?
And you can be freaking deeply miserable on the inside.
But as long as your implicit belief is that the locus of the standard is external, well,
(20:52):
it doesn't matter what you think on the inside.
But if you pull it inward, you know, like how I'm feeling on a day to day basis is relevant
to my life.
Like a lot of people don't seem to know that if you want to feel better, you have to look
at your life.
Like, what you're doing currently is set up perfectly to get you what you have.
(21:14):
And if you would like something different, you have to do something different.
So for me, part of this too is about exposing how we evaluate things in our lives.
And how, you know, we have tried to pull a lot of the
(21:41):
control center interior to an interior place.
I mean, I guess that's not that unusual for me.
I certainly have, you know, Enneagram type 8.
Don't control me.
I hear myself saying that.
I'm like, oh, is this what you really want to be saying?
I guess it is.
But there is a positive side to that.
(22:02):
It can become an absolute tyrant in its own right.
What do you think?
Yes, absolutely.
No, some of that attitude, some of that approach, that perspective, however you want to say
it, is the very thing that I was just sort of like alluding to.
I learned how to be in relationships with people, with myself, with you, because of
(22:25):
our relationship and because the way that you are oriented towards things, some of that
being, which feels like an unkind way of saying it.
Always the thing with Enneagram where they would say it kind of in this like, you don't
like to be controlled.
It always felt kind of negative to me.
It's your core fear, is what they would say.
(22:45):
But I'm just like, also, it's the very thing that has helped equip you and is the reason
that you have the perspective and the orientation that you do.
And it is different than mine.
I do have a similar like part of me that's like that.
(23:05):
But I just come at it from a different side of the prism, right?
Like I just come in through the back door, you go into the front door.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I have needed to understand, and it really isn't other, right?
Like I'm glad to use that prism metaphor.
(23:27):
There's about 500 ways to refract the light, but it's like I've needed to learn other
things.
And I don't really feel like principally that orientation is the only guiding force
in my life anymore.
I've had to learn how to see things from other angles.
(23:54):
What would you say it is that yours is, if that's mine?
If mine is about thinking about the ways in which the locus of control, locus of a standard
by which I will compare and live my life, that's sort of my orientation is around those
(24:15):
questions.
What do you think yours is?
No pressure just to pull it off the top of your head.
Oh, darn it.
There it is again.
There's what?
The ways in which you can access things so quickly are like, I mean, sometimes your questions
cause me to be like, oh shit, let me think about that for not a minute, but like, can
(24:38):
I get back to you in a day or two days or like, let me, because I really need to sit
and think about it.
I don't know if what I'm about to say answers your question.
It doesn't say we could do that here.
My initial reaction to what you're saying is I want to say that like what drives me
a lot is this idea of being like received and understood.
(25:07):
Like that feels like a large drive for me.
And so I look for ways to connect with people on some sort of common plane that says maybe
not identical, probably not identical, probably not even maybe close to identical, but I can
(25:29):
tap into a thing and then I can connect with you and you will then know me better and I
will know you better.
And then I can be at peace, right?
So there's the peacemaker of the nine of the Enneagram is like, I am, my belly is centered
when all is understood, which as I say that recognize that like that feels like an impossible
(25:56):
task as well, because I don't know if I can be fully interested if I don't even fully
understand it myself.
So this is why I need to think about it.
Can we come back?
Because as I'm saying it out loud, I'm like, refine, refine, refine, refine.
Well, but that is, I mean, from an Enneagram perspective, that is part of your orientation
(26:19):
is that you don't know right away.
Yeah.
Well, and it's speaking exactly to the thing that I'm saying is to be understood.
And I'm like, Oh, I don't want to say it if if what I'm saying isn't going to like drive
the point home, like if you aren't going to get it right away.
Right?
So one of the things I've learned with you, which I did not enjoy doing at the very front
(26:39):
of our relationship was to process out loud all the things that would help me get to that
point.
Yeah.
And part of that was because my core fear was that if you were to hear those things
and they weren't exactly right, I couldn't have a take back to quote, goodwill hunting
famous scene with many driver and yeah, yeah, what's a take back?
(27:00):
What a take back.
Do you remember that scene in the movie where many drivers are at the door and Matt Damon
is there and it's at the very end of the movie and he's like, she's like, he offers her a
take back.
He's like, I don't know if you want to take it back.
And she's like a take back.
What's a take back?
I don't want to take back.
I loved that line.
(27:21):
And that is a good mine.
I forgot about it.
It will be good.
I'm not very good at it.
I'm like a generally does not issue take backs to anyone ever.
I'm like, Nope, you said it.
It reveals your interior.
That's really great, so then I should just continue to process out loud.
Yeah, it's not very like really motivating to me.
(27:45):
It's not very, it's not a catch 22 at all.
We swear.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Well, I see that.
I also see that you didn't have like in hiding from some things about myself that I like
didn't want to see.
Like there are things about me that when I hear them, this is one of them that's happening
right now.
I realize that I'm different.
(28:06):
Yeah.
And, you know, I like in a way that's that is powerful for me to even still sort of experience
it as I'm experiencing it right now emotionally.
I like have shame about that.
Like as soon as you know, there's a great, great quote that my one of my clients said
(28:27):
to me the other day that I was talking to my friend Rob about, but it's a Kafka quote
and it's something to the effect of I discovered that like life is a costume party and everyone
else, like I, I, I went, everyone else was in costume and I went with my real face, you
(28:49):
know?
So in sort of like wanting to avoid some things about me that are like, Oh, it isn't that
no one does them, but like that that's kind of different about you.
I then didn't see in not seeing my own difference.
I was unable to respect the ways in which you, you were you.
(29:15):
And so I was like demanding and I, and I can still be this way as, as we're both no doubt
aware that like you do this thing because it's productive to do.
And it's sort of like, you know, like you're just saying here, I don't kind of do that.
And then I'm telling you to do it.
(29:36):
And then you're also offering me the feedback that my reactions to that can be, you know,
also contra indicating.
I would like to believe that while a lot of what you just said is true, are you kidding
me right now?
(29:57):
You hear this.
So what you're saying is, you know, that's one perspective.
Another perspective that's totally different than that and more correct is the following.
Not more correct, but more developed from the original statement, which is you were
(30:25):
like that and can still be like that.
I think that just as I have learned a lot of things about myself and relationships,
you have learned a lot.
So you have come toward me in that like, Hey, if you want me to talk about this out loud
(30:46):
and it's not fully developed and you're not a take back kind of person, you've had to
learn to like offer me room to just do it even if I don't know yet.
So that like, we both have grown in that area.
(31:07):
It's not just, you said it, you meant it, that's it.
Which is also oddly what I'm saying I had was because once I would say it, I'd be like,
well, I've said it now I can't unsay it.
It's that stupid.
What is that co-oculism from when we were kids?
Like if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all.
Like if God that hadn't been like the theme of my entire life before I met you, like I
(31:32):
just would like keep everything inside and I only said the really nice things.
And then if I, God forbid said something that was remotely hurtful to someone else or myself,
whole world imploded.
All right.
Like it just, so to learn to be able to say out loud, Hey, I don't know that this is fully
formulated yet.
(31:53):
This is how I'm feeling in this moment, or this is what I'm thinking in this moment.
Can I give you draft one, draft two, draft three, draft four?
And for you to be like, yeah, let's work on draft one, draft two, draft three, draft four
together.
Right.
Like you have, you do come towards, which is not what I think Minnie Driver and Matt
(32:20):
Damon were saying in that movie, cause it was a different version of a take back.
But nonetheless, I still like the phraseology of, I don't want to take back.
I think it was meant to say, I accept you regardless in that movie scene.
But well, he's just saying also it's no, I think it is the same in some ways.
(32:42):
It's just saying it's no big deal.
Yeah.
You can get a take back.
It's fine.
Yeah.
Say I didn't actually mean that.
And certainly you've done that plenty.
I think again, the thing that I'm aware of though is that like, I don't know that like
people can't, you couldn't immediately identify what is happening for you.
(33:04):
Like I didn't know that that was not a thing.
And it isn't that I can't ever like say it and then need to refine it some more later.
Or like, Ooh, now I'm in touch with new information, but actually not a lot.
I usually know right away and I still think it three days later.
Yeah.
And I didn't know that you couldn't do that.
(33:26):
And no doubt part of how I came toward you in the evolution of our relationship was,
you know, eventually being able to give you time to process.
On the other end, I didn't, I had an extreme like lack of tolerance, like for like an extremely
(33:47):
low distress tolerance for I need time to process because I was scared that you would
not come back.
And sometimes that fear has been founded in our relationship.
You would like...
I'm still thinking about some things.
Exactly.
You're all, no, no, no, I didn't forget.
I'm just, I'm all bullshit.
You forgot.
I know it's been 15 years, but it's still in process.
(34:10):
But also to be fair, just for standards of comparison, whenever I have reported your
typical processing time, you know, for situations we would come up on over the years, when I
have reported them out to like therapists, they'd be like, dude, that's pretty fast.
Yes.
Thank you, therapists.
Thank you.
Vindication at last.
(34:30):
I'm like, dude, she came back really quick.
Like why are you...
And I'm like, quick.
But again, recognize that my standard of comparison, and that's where I don't really get it.
I have some lightning rod inside that I'm always, can't not be in touch with, that I
actually at times wish that I could not be in touch with.
I can feel it right now as we're talking.
(34:52):
Like it's from like my, like middle of my sternum all the way into the pit of my stomach.
There is like a field of energy that feels like a solid rod and that I can, that has
got white electricity all over it.
(35:13):
And if I want to know where, like where I'm at with something, all I have to do is reach
out and grab it.
And it's like, and then I can discharge that interior knowledge, interior experience into
verbal knowledge.
And when I say it with words, it very much loses something.
(35:36):
But it is as, I can do that as closely to...
This is what the words version of my interior life is like right now, as anybody I know.
I did not know that was weird.
And so my standard of comparison with you was like, why can't you do this?
Which I guess is like so much of your early relationship is like, why can't you do the
(35:59):
thing that I'm doing?
Why can't you just...
I mean, Lord, it is the basis of 80% of our arguments over time and space.
Why won't you do the thing that I'm asking you to do, which seems really easy and doable
if you're me?
And it makes me want to cry.
(36:19):
I mean, I like hate how frequently that is the subject of difficulty.
And it's because I did not understand that being with another person did not iron everything
out.
Like I thought that it was like you got together and it kind of...
(36:42):
And I find that apparently I thought this about so many things, not just relationships,
that like there's struggle and turmoil when you're young, primarily because you're inexperienced.
And then as you get older, you figure stuff out and it all works out.
And it's like, no, you just keep fucking it up and then looking backwards and be like,
oh, I know that now.
(37:03):
Hence why the phrase, youth is wasted on the young.
It's like, oh, this would have been really good to know back when I was doing that.
But you didn't know until after you did that.
And that's the sort of bitch about experiences that you kind of have to learn your way into
it.
And then you know, here we are at midlife and then you know that older people look at
(37:31):
you who are 30, 20, 30, 40 years older than you and they're like, yep.
And it just keeps right on happening.
And there it is again.
So everything we were just saying is exactly what I'm talking about.
You just said, I thought, you know, didn't know that being a relationship wouldn't iron
(37:53):
everything out.
Why didn't you think that, well, whatever you read, watched, experienced up until that
point gave you some other narrative for what relationship is.
Yeah, but I don't think just everything is given to us though either.
A lot of it is no like, it is in other words, just somebody told you wrong, right?
(38:13):
Which is such a common refrain in our culture.
And I remember it's like, you know, with talk shows in the 80s and 90s, you know, I remember
my parents sort of having this attitude like everybody gets on TV to complain about their
parents.
And it's like, right.
So it's not just that we're complaining about the sources of information that we had.
(38:34):
It's like, no, this is just actually being alive is thinking it's one way and then discovering
it's another way.
Agree or no?
Agree.
I agree.
I was just doing the thing that I normally do, which is I have a separate sideways point,
like just slightly diverted from the pathway, which was us having this conversation and
(38:59):
making this public to other people is an another way for someone to see that.
And maybe here at 28 or 29 that no, it's you're going to figure it out as you go through all
this crap.
It's actually kind of normal what you've seen up until this point or however you've interpreted
that.
Right.
(39:19):
Well, I'm glad that whenever you deviate from the path that I'm here to bring you back into
the fold.
Well, you know, it's all important.
It's all relevant.
No, your point's good too.
It's good.
It's good.
It's good.
(39:40):
So I think that's good for today.
Yeah.
So this is a, this is a good introduction to, um, you know, a sort of relational purpose
that like, I think we'll have more words to wrap around it as we get, go along, but like
it also sort of feels important not to like, if you've listened to this podcast episode
(40:04):
and you think what we've said is interesting and compelling, then you're likely to find
wherever we go from here, interesting and compelling, which is to say it follows a certain
relational thread, but naming that thread too precisely.
If like that's a thing, this is probably not the one for you.
(40:27):
Not because it can't be done, but because of what we were saying earlier, it's like
these, the danger of living in a worded world is that we think the words we use to describe
things are really, really, really super real.
And they're not, they're metaphors for, you know, you and I sit together and look at a
(40:50):
sunset or really experiencing it.
I turn and say to you, XYZ, boy, isn't that sunset fill in the blank.
It has automatically lost something, even if you find the words that I'm saying to be
accurate.
So like in a sort of intentionally unworded way, you know, this is what it is.
(41:17):
Yeah.
Good job.
Good job.
High fives.
High five.
Colin Robinson.
Colin Robinson.
I'm by your side.
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