The farther we get down the road of polarization, the more that becomes true.
Like I only need to know one thing about you and then I'll know everything about you, is sort of how our brain works, and that's also like kids' cultural works on social media.
I saw one picture and one line and one caption and that's everything I need to know about who you are, and that's a dangerous place to be, I think.
But our ability to relate on a human level of understanding with how people have arrived at certain frameworks and certain behaviors, again, is going to do us a great service as we move forward in whatever work we're trying to do.
So, have you ever found yourself torn between standing firm in your own beliefs and values while still wanting to keep certain people in your lives, even when their views profoundly clash with your own?
Maybe it's an extended family member who just continues to spout offensive rhetoric that you vehemently disagree with or a close friend who just can't seem to evolve their thinking on a particular social issue that deeply matters to you, it can even happen in work.
These situations, they force us to wrestle with challenging questions.
How do we hold people we love and have no intention of abandoning accountable without completely writing them off?
Is there space for redemption and reconciliation when the gap feels too wide?
My guest today is Britt Barron, renowned speaker and author of the thought -provoking book, To Be Still, Talk to Grandma, When the Problematic People in Our Lives are the Ones We Love.
And Britt dives deep into this universal struggle of how to navigate relationships, strained by conflicting beliefs and backgrounds, and her ideas and personal journey have garnered national attention, making her a highly sought -after voice on the complex interplay of identity and spirituality, race,
and human connection in these polarized times.
And as Britt so powerfully conveys, truly living with integrity doesn't mean cold indifference or burning bridges when confronted with belief clashes in our closest circles.
It means having the courage to stay present, to extend empathy when it's appropriate, and to hold space for the beautifully messy reality that we're all at different stages on our own journeys of growth and evolution.
So imagine if you embraced the mindset of patient compassion the next time you found yourself at odds with a loved one's unexamined beliefs or hurtful rhetoric.
What if you led with the humble curiosity to truly understand where they're coming from before ever attempting to change their mind?
Or held that same humble curiosity and compassion out for yourself?
So excited to share this conversation with you.
I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.
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Gain insights from more than 800 world -class speakers.
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It's interesting. I feel like we live in times where there's this feeling that so many people are walking on eggshells and we have an inner sense of what's right and wrong, but in different contexts in different relationships, whether it's friends, whether it's family, whether it's work colleagues,
whether it's community.
People are just really confused about how to respond to relationships when they feel like the relationships are in some way fraught or problematic or the views that people are holding are really just not their views.
And at the same time, they don't necessarily want to jettison that person or feel like they can jettison that person from their lives and you really dive into this.
So I want to dive into a lot of the ideas around it, but I'm also curious, you know, this topic feels personal to you.
Yeah, it's deeply personal.
And the timing of the book releasing is interesting, but I'm sure, you know, as you know, that's sort of a byproduct of just timelines and publisher calendars.
And so this is actually a project I started working on back in 2021.
And I sort of had multiple experiences in that time of having friends, people close to me, sort of be on the receiving end, what we now so commonly know as cancel culture, right.
And in feeling sort of torn between these ideas of what do I do with people that I care about and people in my life make mistakes?
Is there a way to sort of hold both to stand with integrity in the things that you believe in?
And not to compromise that, while also acknowledging that everyone is at different stages of different journeys and every relationship doesn't have to necessarily be exactly where I am at the same time, because I don't think that's something I even want to have every single person in my life believe
the exact same thing about everything I do.
It doesn't sound like a good time.
So those sort of started some of these ideas of working on this project.
You brought up the phrase cancel culture, which has certainly been a topic of conversation, I would say over the last five years, six years in particular.
Take me deeper into this because it's a term that we hear thrown around a lot.
What's your sense of what cancel culture is and isn't and what's really going on here?
I mean, I think we've seen it evolve in a sense, right, as the terminology became more familiar to us.
And how I feel like it exists now is cancel culture sort of the blanket term we use for what happens when someone in a public sphere, which public sphere is a lot more wide now with social media, everyone in a sense has an audience, it's our reaction to that person no longer fitting into whatever belief
or ideals that our group ascribes to.
And I say our group because as someone who is more progressive, and you would say, okay, this cancel culture only exists in this context, but it doesn't, right?
You have sort of everyone in every group in every sphere of politics and society, they have their own group rules.
And so cancel culture is a result of people sort of stepping outside of that.
And then we we unleash all of our wrath on them.
What I think is actually happening, and what I think is behind a lot of cancel culture, is I think that the Internet, in particular, social media has given us a clean opportunity to sort of export our own emotional labor on two strangers in the Internet.
While it's maybe harder to sit with some of the nuance of our own lives and beliefs and how they evolve in different levels and things we used to believe or subscribe to, that's actually really hard.
What's easy is saying like, oh, you did that, you're out and on to the next, right?
It is so interesting, right?
Because we live in this moment where so many interactions happen in some kind of public sphere, whether that's 10 people in a local community group, you know, that's online as a group or something like that, or whether it's thousands or millions of people.
I'm curious what your take is on this also.
Like, I find what's fascinating about the phenomena is it doesn't often stay in that initial space.
If there are affinity groups that have any kind of access to the space, whether let's say even Instagram account or Facebook account or something like this, right, you know, it's very easy for sort of like people outside of that space, groups and communities outside of that space often to have some
sort of exposure to it.
So there can be the initial group, which maybe they're like, you feel like there's more opportunity to say like, hey, wait, wait, not so fast.
Let's have a natural conversation about this.
But then there's this sort of like acceleration, there's an amplitude effect of like a pile on of all these people coming out of the woodwork who you never know, you never will know, and you never like thought that they would have any role in a conversation.
And it's something that I think we've never really experienced or like in our human relational condition before.
Totally. The feeling I always feel is like frenzied, you know, it's sort of like there's, oh, my gosh, something's happening, we all need to sort of jump on it.
And I think that does such a disservice to our own human growth and change and transformation, right?
So, you know, if the two of us are having a conversation, and we've been friends, you've been in each other's lives, I say something, and you're like, hey, Britt, walk me through how you said that, because that doesn't sort of align and said, well, something I believe, and maybe we'll resolve to that conversation.
Maybe we won't, maybe we'll pick it up again, right?
And so we will have this thing.
But you're exactly right.
What happens when things happen to social space, maybe it is just a conversation of the two of us, but maybe it's not about us.
And now you have sort of people who maybe they had the whole context of conversation, maybe they didn't, right?
But now they feel invited into the critique of that moment.
It makes sense to me.
One of the quotes I use in the book is from a man named Richard Rohr.
And he always says, if you can't transform your pain, you transmit your pain, right?
And so if we're all feeling like we're walking on eggshells, and we feel uneasy about our place in the conversation, of course, we're gonna take the first opportunity to make sure, okay, get this off me, I'm gonna put it on someone else.
Yeah. And you said something really interesting also, which is like this notion that it's often easier for us to just basically, like, hit the button that says, no, you're canceled, you're out, than it is to actually say, oh, let's do the hard work of seeing if we can tease this out and understand it
a bit more. So the default, I think for so many people, probably me included, I think we're all sort of like, we're all in and out of this mode, like, no matter who we are, is to just want to take the easy option out, because we either feel uncomfortable with the hard option, or we have no idea how
to actually step into it.
Totally. And I think in some ways, that's fine, right?
Okay, I'm following Michael Jordan on Instagram, and he said something I didn't like, and I unfollowed him.
It's a really thing of no contrast to me or Michael Jordan.
But the problem is, I think what's been hard is we have this way of operating on the internet that is very clean, it is very black and white, it's cut and dry.
But the reality is most of us exist in these real life relationships, where, okay, well, now these people, we're talking about our cousins, our partners, our grandparents, our parents, our co workers, our friends from church, whatever it is, that we can't just say like, oh, you're out of my feed.
And so now we're forced with, wait, I don't know that I have like the tools or the context to navigate this because I'm so used to just clicking a button and something is resolved.
Yeah. I believe that you know, social media is where nuance goes to die.
Totally. And it's interesting sometimes when you see folks trying to have a more nuanced conversation in that public way and on social media when there are like factions on either side that don't want it to happen, that just want to dig in and say this is, there's no room for nuance here.
There's you're either with us or you're against us and can understand there are really big, important divisive issues where people feel strongly understandably so and yet it's really hard to ever find bridges or any sense of resolution or, and this is, I'm curious about this and you write about this,
like the notion of cancellation in the context of redemption or reconciliation, effectively you're saying those two things don't exist anymore.
Like there is no coming back from anything which is kind of terrifying to me when you think about the human condition, if those are the rules of the game.
Totally. You know, what's hard is we're seeing a lot of that play out because you're exactly right.
We have some huge social and political issues that are of massive importance that are impacting people's everyday lives.
And I think the question that we need to be asking ourselves is, okay, well, what do we actually want?
What are you moving towards?
Because if what we want is to say, we want to offer a road to liberation and transformation that includes everyone, right, even people who are on the other side.
If we think, okay, this is actually a good way of life, or we think we have found something worthy of sharing, then our response to say, and if you don't understand that, then you're out.
It's not actually reflective of that belief, right?
If we do believe that, hey, there's a way forward where every human has dignity, and I believe all these things, and that's why I'm fighting for these things, then it has to include those people too, or else it's not true redemption and reconciliation.
And I understand that that's hard, you know, some days I'm like, it's easier to sort of sit and say, all right, well, at least me and my group are in.
But I think what we've done is we've made those lines so harsh that even in the own groups that we're a part of and the beliefs that we ascribe to, we still feel like we're walking on eggshells, right?
So, the belonging, the community, the reconciliation, the redemption, those things all sort of go up on the chopping block when the lines that we draw on the sand are so harsh.
Yeah, it's such an important point, right?
Because in that last part especially, we may be part of a group or call it a family even, right?
Like your immediate family, your extended family, and so like everyone takes a hard line on something and you kind of agree with their point of view, but at the same time, it's not a black and white thing for you and you really want to actually engage so you can see like, is there a way for us to bridge
a gap or have a conversation, hold people to account, but also feel like we can breathe, we can be who we need to be and those immediately around you who you really want to belong to and support are basically saying no, the social pressure on you to actually not voice your own personal desire and willingness
to say no, let's engage.
I mean, it's got to be stifling and I would imagine this happens more often than we realize.
Yeah, and there's, you know, a story I talked about in the book and this was back in 2020.
I was having dinner with a group of friends and one of our friends had mentioned that their grandmother had voted for Trump and a lot of the friends at the table sort of gasped and one of our friends said, do you still talk to her?
And there was like an air of like a little condescending in that question and she was like, my Nana?
Yeah, I still talk to her and it was a moment where I realized, oh, we don't even want to let her hold the complexity of everything that her Nana has represented in her life.
We want to say if you have this political division, if your Nana has chosen the opposite side, then she is now on the top and back.
And if you want to stay a part of our group, then you can't sit in that nuance with her.
Right? And that was startling, but I think you're right.
There are a lot of people who belong to families and friends who want to sort of work things out and come to the table, but the social pressure to sort of say true to whatever way you have aligned yourself with keeps us from engaging in those conversations.
You know, the way you just described that story also, it's when you have history with people and when this is somebody where they're either part of your family and you're supposed to love them, or you genuinely do love them.
There's a point of view, a behavior, an opinion that you really don't agree with, but at the same time, this person has taken care of you.
This person has been there for you.
It's complicated. I feel like often we tend to conflate behavior with identity and we make the person wrong for existing, not the point of view.
I'm I think that's exactly right.
And part of it, I think, you know, social media has done a lot about our understanding around identity, right?
But we sort of exist within the world of our politics in a lot of ways because that's what we see and that's what people experience us as.
And you're absolutely right.
We have conflated some of these ideas with identity.
And so in the example of my friend, she has this grandma who made her spaghetti after school and picked her and went to her dancer's saddle and snuck her cookies where her parents weren't looking and had all these things.
Now this this vote that she's made, is that who she is, right?
Or are these some ideas that she's ascribed to and all these different things.
And I think the farther we get down the road of polarization, the more that becomes true.
Like I only need to know one thing about you and then I'll know everything about you is sort of how our brain works.
And that's also on social media.
I saw one picture and one line and one caption and that's everything I need to know about who you are and that's a dangerous place to be I think.
Yeah, we're really evaluating people as you sort of like just one trait or one state or one statement or belief and saying that is the entirety of you.
And because of that one thing, I don't just cancel the belief or the idea but like you as a human being aren't worthy of being in my orbit anymore.
It is dangerous. On the one hand, I understand especially if there's current harm being done to you, you know, like you've got to take care of yourself first and foremost.
But if you're resourced to kind of like be in that moment still and then engage and then you feel like you can't, it just reinforces and deepens the harm and the pain I would imagine.
Yeah, and I'm always an advocate.
I tell people you know the situation.
If this is something that was causing you harm and this is something that is unsafe for you, get out.
And I think there are a lot of us who want to be engaging in those ways and feel the social pressure not to, right?
I don't want to be seen with my super, you know, conservative cousins or I don't feel like I'm allowed to have this relationship or hold this nuance or sit in those things.
And to that, I'm like, that is the exact place you need to be diving in.
Any place that feels that sort of tension and you are choosing your belonging to sort of this amoeba, you know, this like never -ending group up here over these relationships of these real people in your life, that is the tension that I think you need to go straight into because that is where so much
of our learning and growth can actually happen.
That makes sense to me.
You write early on actually in the book, you know, don't cut these people off but hold them to account because within if you can do that, if you can engage, that's where the growth edge is for both of you actually which begs the big question like how?
Like it's a statement where I'm nodding along, I'm like, well yeah, that makes sense to me.
But the practical realities of like the how, the strategies, that's hard.
Yeah, it's super hard.
And you know, something I think about a lot is my own trajectory.
Believe it or not, I'm not a person who was born knowing everything I know today, right?
I have had a huge journey of so many evolving beliefs and ideologies and understanding around the way the world works.
And they have been massive, someone person who grew up deeply religious, who grew very evangelical and ended up working in the church and the more I understood more about my own sexuality and my own identity, those things conflicting and then I've been on such a journey of evolving beliefs.
And the temptation for me is to be where I am now and to say like this is common sense, you know, and this should be easy and I should be able to have one conversation with someone and they should see like the light, you know, or whatever it is that I feel like I'm offering.
But the reality is that's not even how it worked for me.
I always joke that when I came out to my parents, I sort of expected something immediately from them.
And that same thing took me three years of therapy to find.
I thought about the fact that I was gay for three straight years every single day and imagine this conversation with my parents.
So when I have that conversation with my parents and I'm expecting in the first five minutes that same narrative arc, it's unrealistic.
And so when I talk about holding people accountability and staying relationships with these new ones and strategy, I think the you have to take into account your own story and take some of the expectation off that you're going to have like a magic bullet in one conversation that is going to radically
change the trajectory of someone's life because that's probably not what happened for you either.
I mean, it's such an interesting point, right?
We hold people to a standard of transformation of thought that we don't hold ourselves to.
You totally. I've never read a tweet and then been like, wow, I'm not changing my entire political ideology.
Yeah, that's it. I'm different.
Yeah. That's such an interesting point.
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So like reflecting back then on the earlier conversation that you mentioned about your friend sharing sort of like the story about the grandmother.
In that moment, let's say you're sitting across from your grandmother and you find out this thing or the grandmother says like this thing that is just offensive to you or problematic to you.
Is there sort of like an opening move that you feel is like fairly good and fairly universal for somebody to like respond rather than just recoiling and being shocked what you're going to be.
If you don't want to disengage and you're not going to walk away from this relationship like what are some of the immediate things that you might think about exploring with that person.
One of the first things I like to always try to practice myself and recommend is making it personal right because probably the reason I are even having the conversation with this person is because there is some sort of personal connection and so using I -statements and acknowledging the experience of okay
I know that your church may telling you this maybe telling you this or you're experiencing this however this makes me feel ex and as someone who loves me I would like you to know this about me and sort of leverage not in a manipulative way but in an honest way saying this relationship is important to
me and this is how this hurts.
I think sometimes especially politically we get caught up in like you know our parents or grandparents will say something and you'd be like did you know that these three legislations got into this you know I mean and then if you want to have an argument effect you absolutely can but I think a lot of times
it's not going to get you far as sort of exposing some of the truth behind that.
I think I've had conversations with friends where we finally get to the point where they say this church may preach things that I don't agree with but this is the community that I build a home in and I'm like well now we're having a different conversation so we're not sort of like argue when the Bible
says this the Bible says this and I'm saying that's hurtful to me as a friend because my identity is blank and it feels that you're preaching me so I feel like there's it's always good to ground and we are two people with feelings having a conversation about feelings about hurt about belonging and not necessarily
two political figures debating.
Yeah take it that back down to just two people and you brought up something really interesting also just now which is the notion of belonging you know we're driven so much by affiliation and status and the need to belong you know and when we find that I think it's also it's harder to find these days
for a lot of people you know a lot of places a lot of people looked for it now aren't really providing that anymore so when we find it we're like we just lock onto or like this feels good I want to stay in this feeling and then when the group to which you find that sense of belonging and affiliation has a set
of beliefs and if you don't kind of toe the line of those beliefs you fear no being cast out basically even if you kind of don't really believe it you'll tell yourself that you do because that need to belong is so strong I wonder what your sense is and how much that plays into these dynamics too.
Oh I think it's huge I think it's everywhere this there's a another story I talked about in the book of watching a documentary about um flat earthers you know some folks who believe the earth is flat and this man is doing interviews with people who are at this conference and he sits down with this one
man and is you know the interviewer is sort of saying what are all this data and these nuances of the earth being around and and the man sort of stop and said listen honestly it's really hard to make friends and being a part of this group I go to two conferences a year we're on a facebook group these
are the people who feed my cats when I go into town and there was no arguing with that I don't know this man really doesn't care what shape the earth is he's like who's going to feed my cats when I go out of town and I think we severely underestimate our human need to belong and the ways in which rearrange
the theological and ideological furniture in our brain as much as we need to to stay in that belonging and so I think in some ways we have experienced that in helpful ways when we physically gather I think when we understand ourselves as trying to belong to a virtual community or a a political ideology
then we find ourselves drawing harder lines of okay well I can't be seen talking to you or it can't seem like I'm unsure about that or I have to repost this or everyone in my group is saying this I have to say it because I need to belong to something I don't want to be on the outside of this group and I
think that drives far more of our behavior than any of us I think want to acknowledge yeah I so agree with that which makes me wonder if you're going to have a conversation with this other person I wonder if part of that is like you asking yourself a question which is something along the lines of what am
I asking them to say no to in the name of saying yes to me and like trying to wrap your head around it because it we probably don't ever really go deep into that yes and I think that is I think that's a great question to ask and I think that's a hard question and I think that would create a lot of empathy
as we move into some of these difficult conversations just being the person that I am I'm in my experiences in life and coming out and getting married to a woman and all these things I've had incredibly supportive parents who have been on this journey of evolution and arrived at this very very supportive
area but as it has definitely cost them belonging in communities that they're a part of and that was really hard for me to sort of navigate and so I think sometimes when we are quick to say hey drop everything change everything yeah I think it's it's it'll be really empathetic and compassionate to ask
that question what will coming on this journey with me require of you and that is that's a beautiful question what am I asking you to leave behind also that you value it is and it brings up the topic of empathy also which you speak about and you write about it's such an interesting topic in this conversation too
because I've had a conversation with folks saying in a dynamic like this they don't actually deserve my empathy like they don't deserve compassion for me especially if they're causing harm to me like current harm to me like why is it my job to try and empathize with them why is it my job to do the emotional
labor of finding a place of compassion for them when they're causing me harm talk to me about this dynamic because I think it comes up more than we probably voice yeah well I think being able to find compassion and empathy for people who are on the other side of whatever line that we've drawn isn't
only something that we do in service to them it's something that we do in service to ourselves as well and I think we're not always the ones right because I have found that compassion and maybe that empathy doesn't mean that I need to necessarily be the one in the conversation with you there's a certain amount
of harm being done and my ability to still empathize is going to serve me in my journey towards liberation and freedom and and wholeness I think the number one thing that has been able to help me in my journey of finding empathy for folks who disagree who believe things that I feel to be deeply problematic
and and troublesome and hurtful to the world is my ability to have empathy for the version of myself that believed those things the versions of myself that existed before this one the version of me that was very comfortable sitting in seats where people sit now and that's the work that I do is to try
to get them out of those seats right and so I think there's a an author and I can't remember their name right now but they talk about the reality that people who have been liberated from something do have more responsibility when it comes to the act of liberating those who are still under that oppressive
structure is it fair absolutely not but is it true that if what you want is liberation and freedom and wholeness then you are proudly experiencing something that those people that you are still in contact with their community who hurt you or whatever the situation is you have experience in something
that they haven't experienced and so their responsibility falls unfairly on the person who has experienced freedom and liberation I go back and forth right I'm saying all these things as like this is the ideal but I'm also believing in passion maybe tomorrow but when I can find that empathy for those
versions of myself it's easier for me to find for someone else and to know why is the responsibility on me because I'm the one who has found liberation and who is seeking transformation and freedom and I want other people to have that experience most of the time I think what I see a lot on the internet
when I go into comment sections they may be saying different things about different topics but what I hear is I feel shame and I want you to feel it too right so I'm hurt and I want you to hurt too when the reality is what I hope we might say is I have found liberation and I want that for you too I
have experienced freedom and I want that for you too and I think that would change the trajectory of the work again it doesn't change the work at hand but it would change our approach to the work if we sort of fundamentally wanted that for a broader humanity you know that one of the things that you
would sometimes do is sort of look and say well that was me not too long ago so like how did I feel like can I sit in that seat as like back then when I was that person with those beliefs in that sense of identity and try and understand empathetically from that point I think it's helpful when you were that person but oftentimes
you weren't you've never actually had that experience to draw from to try and find empathy I understand your beliefs I'm just I'm really curious like not in a judgmental way but like where do they come from like what tell me where like what's underneath these for you which again is sort of like a you
know like a stab at empathy but I also feel like if we can understand what's underneath those oftentimes we can find more commonality than we realize exists I'm curious what your take is on that yeah I think so my you know my daddy's always say the three strongest words in the English language are I
help me understand starting off a conversation with yeah help me understand not a judgmental way but truly help me understand how this became the framework through which you understand help me understand this you know I have people in my own life through which I don't speak to anymore that were a harmful
relationships that I felt as though a boundary was needed and I can totally look the more context I have in their life and understand oh my gosh that is how you got that framework and that is why you're doing it and then does it mean that there again is no accountability that there are no consequences
for people's actions but our ability to relate on a human level of understanding with how people have arrived at certain frameworks and certain behaviors again is going to do us a great service as we move forward in whatever work we're trying to do and so I think help me understand context is everything
we always say you can't understand content without context and so yeah who is this person talking to me and where did these beliefs come from and how might that impact how I understand the way you are moving in the world hmm I love those three words yeah it's so powerful right because I think sometimes
we have the impulse to want to understand maybe not but sometimes we do and but it doesn't come out as help me understand it's sort of like a kind way it's sort of like tell me why this is true or prove to me that like your point of view it's like it feels like an attack rather than a genuine inquiry
and I wonder whether that's because sometimes we forget that there is actually a human being with like a heart and a soul and a mind and all the things beneath the point of view that is tender just like we are and nobody likes to be attacked but people really love to be understood yeah I mean I think
we all want to be understood right I think sometimes I can look at certain people who exist in the world in different way than I do and experience it in different way and it would be a lot easier instead of help me understand it'd be a lot easier to be like why are you like that right why do you just
stop you know I think I probably hurt myself yes literally but there's so much beauty in and again this is all assuming that there's a context in which there is enough safety to sit down and engage in this and when that exists and when you can I think there's no more beautiful experience than understanding
and getting more context for why a person feels the way they do even if you don't agree I remember sitting with someone who was a friend of a friend and we sort of had this little interaction at a dinner party that didn't go super well it was a political conversation came up and you know I took it back
and was like I would love to to circle back to this conversation and so we ended up grabbing coffee and I listened and he different social identity than me he was a straight white man and he was telling me how it felt to be him and I struggled to at first understand what that was and I had to remind
myself I just asked him to tell me this listening to him and empathizing it and realizing that this is real for him doesn't mean it I also think it has to be true in what's happening in the world but I can acknowledge that this is his real experience and if I can do that then we can actually continue
and have this conversation and I think sometimes our fear is that if I understand someone then I agree with them um when I'm happy to just say oh I understand that that's real for you and that's not my understanding of the world and those two completely opposite things can both be true yeah this is an important
fear I think you've identified like if if I understand them then I agree with them and that's not true but sometimes we do conflate those right we're kind of like I can't go all the way in understanding because then that means I accept I agree and it becomes a barrier and we'll be right back after a word
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.hk use promo code welcome for 10 percent off join us at Hong Kong fintech week on October 28th through November 1st you also brought up the notion of boundaries just before which I think is something that everybody struggles with in all different contexts in life but especially in these contexts and especially
in the context of somebody you want to keep in your life like that grandma example we started out with right but you also need to feel okay you need to feel safe talk to me first when you use the word boundaries because I think that's one of those sort of like nebulous words that people kind of mean different
things when they talk about it sometimes what are we actually talking about like when you talk about boundaries what are you talking about yeah so I think boundaries are the ways and the the rules in which you have set for yourself in the way you will engage with certain relationships I always say because sometimes
people will say they broke my boundary or they didn't respect my boundary and I think on some level obviously that's possible but more often than not the boundary is something that we are responsible for so we have created and we uphold and we stand to so a boundary and this isn't relational right but this example
during this election cycle because I don't want to be overwhelmed I have a boundary that I have said that I will engage with the news one time a day I will read only no video and then I will wait until the next day and the next news cycle and I will not get sort of like second so that's just that's
a boundary that I have that has a timeline on it this is for election season how I will engage with the news and so it's just parameters that we create around relationships or behavior I mean that's interesting right because the one with the news I think a lot of people think about boundaries as this is a boundary
and it's got to be in relation to other people but your example is interesting right because it's like no actually they're probably all sorts of different domains in our lives where boundaries would really be helpful and they don't always have to be in relation to specific other people or conversations
or relationships like with news having apps on your phone like social media those are really interesting what's not present in those though is okay so that's a boundary that you set for yourself and what's not on the table with that is communicating them and interacting without somebody else around
them so when we actually are talking about other people take me into how that changes things well that's a very layered dynamic right the news isn't going to text me and say why aren't you watching me you used to watch me all the time and so I think communication around boundaries is incredibly important
and I think this comes back to sometimes we have this idea it comes from societally it's reinforced a lot that if something is like difficult or uncomfortable it equals bad and I think our rejection of that idea is going to be incredibly helpful in how we navigate boundaries right because there's a lot
of uncomfortable conversations and situations where you say hey for where I am right now this isn't a healthy pattern of relationship for me and I've had those uncomfortable conversations with friends with family members where I've said hey and I'm 100 % take the onus I am choosing this boundary because I
think it's what I need right now I think it's always helpful to to understand that responsibility it gets a little tricky when we put it out like because you're like this I'm doing this and so when we simply say this is what I'm choosing because it's best for me and then we have to hold to our boundaries
which can also be difficult and the last thing about boundaries that I feel like sometimes we miss that I think is incredibly important is we make boundaries we act on them and then we should be in the in the business of regularly reassessing our boundaries is this still something that is good for me
or I actually thought I wanted to come to the table and navigate and sit in this new one to this person it's actually turned out to be incredibly harmful I need a stronger boundary or okay I set that really strict boundary but I'm missing this person I feel like I have what it takes to sort of be at the table
once it then nuance I'm gonna loosen the reins a little every time we get new information we feel like we are experiencing I think boundaries are something that we should always be reassessing to say does this still feel right to me I wonder if sometimes we don't do that because we want to be perceived
as being consistent people you know like rather than oh you're so flaky like yesterday said this wasn't okay and today you're saying it is now or like what's right like who are you just shape -shifting to meet the moment and we like to be perceived as sort of like being a person who has certain boundaries
certain lines in the sand and like that we're reinforcing them and also I wonder if part of it also is we feel like oh if we loosen up a boundary or something that we're quote caving in that we're not we're not strong enough to support this thing even though we still believe in it and we still need
it so we just kind of hold rigidly to it I feel like so much of this is you know it's about other people's perception we get so wrapped up in that yeah and I think it goes back to the conversation we were having earlier right is I'm sure we want to be perceived in that way and maybe even perceiving
that way from ourselves as well and sure maybe if every single day a boundary is different then again maybe stop reassessing for a minute and have have a season but at the same time I think there is something beautiful in being able to acknowledge and appreciate that something about you has changed
and therefore the framework through which you see the world has changed and the way you experience things has changed and the way you can show up in relationships has changed and I think sometimes we say oh well I drew a line in the sands and now I just like have to stick it out on this decision when you
know I'm one of those people that was like if the election goes a certain way I'm leaving the country and like I did it I'm literally still here and you know we just we sometimes we make these statements and if we get into the the pride center of our brain that says well I already dug my heels in the sand and I
don't want to let them go so I'm just going to dig them deeper then what even example are we setting of what we believe about the ability to change minds and to transform and to believe something and then to change our mind is part of what it means to be human and that's the work that I want to invite
people in my life to so I have to be true to that as well.
Yeah it seems like it would be a good idea to regularly when you think about your boundaries ask is it still serving me and if it's not then revisit it you know I could imagine a scenario also where you set a really strong boundary because you just maybe just you're going through something you're really
not well resourced and you have you're depleted because you're burned out you're overwhelmed or maybe just there's a lot happening or maybe you're struggling with mental health and you're like I need to put up boundaries like there's a conversation about a topic I care about but they actually am not in a place
where I can actually be okay in that conversation right now so I need to put up this boundary and then maybe six months later you know like you're you're in a different place you've been working with a therapist you're easing away back out of mental health and actually you really now you really actually
want to engage around this you feel like your research you're well prepared for it and it matters to you and you're like oh I don't need this boundary anymore like it's no longer serving me now I actually want to step into the conversation does that make sense to you yeah 100 % I mean again to use the example
of the news right it'll change in a less heightened climate but to say right now I'm so already overwhelmed with information that I need to have some kind of information boundary or I mean a perfect example of this is parents I mean you everything has to shift when you have a newborn everything changes
every single part of your schedule the conversations you have the conversations you even have the capacity for you're like I'm on three hours of sleep my friends with newborns they're like respectfully don't call me about your problems you're either dropping up dinner or I don't want to hear it and that makes
sense to me because that is sort of where they are and so if we are able to then say yeah where am I and does this boundary still make sense for me I think it would be a great thing to practice yeah that makes sense one of the things just coming up as you're describing that um I wonder sometimes we
do you think that there are moments where we use boundaries as justification for just not wanting to be uncomfortable in a conversation that actually would probably be important to have yeah and also I have definitely done that you know I think I'd done that before and I think a lot of us have I think
we're in a funny era of time where we have the most information around mental and emotional health than we've ever had relational health like there are so many experts so readily available I think there are a lot of ways to in a sense bypass some things that might be actually for our health and our
benefit but that we don't like and I think boundaries is one of those things where we can say hey this is a boundary for me you're not respecting it and that may be our way of avoiding a conversation that we really should have totally I get asked a lot of questions about like okay just lay out for me
when is this when is the boundary when do I reassess when is it right when is it harm when isn't too much harm and the unfortunate reality is that we don't live in an algebra book right where I can say oh okay let me just put it into my algorithm so your grandma was this nice but then she said something
this offensive looks like you can still go to holidays with her you know there is no sort of afs v equal c and so you really have to get comfortable with trusting and understanding your own intuition with having wise people in your life with having people in your community who you believe in and who you
feel like you can trust to sort of navigate each situation as it yeah that makes sense to me as much as we all want the universal formula that's just like this applies to everybody the same way right no matter how different we are no matter how different the circumstances we just we want the system
the formula that just makes it all okay i'm curious also i mean kindly shared your experience coming out with your folks who came from you know like this deeply religious evangelical background and but eventually came around and can you share a evolution like how that unfolded because i'm curious you
know that's sort of like a macro lens of what we're talking about here and was it through a series of conversations was it just slowly over time was it their own sort of like inquiry and contemplation or some blend of all of that yeah it was definitely a blend you know it started those conversations
between me and them and i think those were helpful but also limited and just we have such a specific parent child dynamic right because they are my parents and my child and something that really moved the needle for them was they actually found a couple people it was actually some co -workers of my dads
who were also very religious whose children had also came out and they said hey we actually meet with a group of parents who are working through this then they did that they read books we continue conversations and they're so loving and they have always loved me and and they've always had such a a kindness
and a love towards me but the ideology of it did take sort of this art to go from okay we love you right all the way until like oh my gosh we fully like support and stand by and are happy for you and sammy's my wife and you know the life that you're building together i think there were a few times where i
could say right could have said like okay this is your chance be fully on board or get you know the name or get out and i think i want to acknowledge that there was effort also being made that i could see but yeah it was totally a journey that was me that was other people their friends this little group
they became a part of books they read things they experienced conversations they had and they had people in their lives who were pushing back on the other end saying what about this you know and they sat in the middle of that and and worked through that tension so it was definitely a long arc of change
yeah but i mean it sounds like there is that there was always that underlying fabric of love that was motivation to try and to stay in the conversation right i wonder also circling back to the earlier part of a conversation whether them finding this other small group of parents who had similar beliefs
and yet were grappling with the same question it almost like maybe gave them a new place to find like a new microcosm of belonging of folks who shared that fundamental belief but also were in the same question where they could have affiliation and belonging with them instead of solely relying on the community
at large which wasn't in that same place and whether that really helped them sort of like solve for that part of the human experience while they were grappling with this yeah i think so and i think that and now hearing you say that i'm like i'm sure that was actually a maybe a bigger gang changer for them
than i thought right because what was at stake for them in accepting and becoming affirming and supportive of us was their community and i recognize how hard that is and was and has been yeah i want to come full circle earlier to our conversation we were talking about this no we started talking about a lot
around cancel culture and also redemption and reconciliation and i feel like underneath so much heat that's being generated in conversation now especially in conversation around tight communities and families where we don't want to opt out of those but we don't see an easy path to reconciliation or a path
to redemption when you're in that circumstance like is there anything any are there any practices or questions or explanations or conversations that you feel have been super helpful and maybe just starting to open the door to that yeah i think how we frame is is everything right i mean we talked so much
already about people wanting to be understood about wanting to belong and i think even opening the door to some of these conversations can look just like saying hey something has been on my mind i would love to share with you all and maybe you don't have just found right now it doesn't have to be a whole
thing i'm not trying to startle whatever this is just something that i've been thinking of that's been heavy on my mind or heavy on my heart i think it's a reminder that i know so many things feel very urgent but change almost never is change never bends itself to our timeline and so in starting these
conversations and engaging them with our family i think it's good to first put down expectations of okay i'm going to bring this up at sunday dinner and so that monday warning we can all be on the same page i think it's just so good to remember that you're doing just that you're just starting the conversation that may just
go in and out for years and i think you know i've had this conversation with a lot of friends but we're like it's okay to hang out with your family and just keep it to the topics that everyone agrees on sometimes like i think it's bring these things up stay true to what you believe start those conversations
and it doesn't have to be every single time you see your mom i think there are times where you can just say hey for this dinner for this holiday for this thanksgiving we're going to keep it in the things we agree with because again i belong to this and i'm in it for the long haul and so that doesn't
mean that every single time i need to be like drilling this conversation down it can be a slow burn and i think that's also very okay yeah i love that sort of yeah like there's grace in creating some space right and giving some some time to let things unfold without walking away but just like extending
the window of time that you're sure like in this feels a good place for us to come full circle as well so in this container of good life project if i offer up the phrase to live a good life what comes up wow i think the first thing i can remind you is to live a good life is to be fully present hmm thank
you yeah thank you hey before you leave if you love this episode safe bet you'll also love the conversation that we had with princess hemple about finding wholeness in your relationships and the world around you you'll find a link to princess's episode in the show notes this episode of good life project
was produced by executive producers lindsay fox and me jonathan fields editing help by alejandro ramirez christopher carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to shelly dell for her research on this episode and of course if you haven't already done so please go ahead and follow good life project
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