It’s a story about a shocking marriage that didn’t go as planned, the truth that shattered everything, and the beautiful unfolding of a woman who decided that saving her marriage wasn’t worth losing herself.

Today’s episode is a thought-provoking conversation with Allison Fallon — author, speaker, and creative coach.

As Allison shares her journey about a difficult marriage, its ultimate divorce, the different versions of herself that unfolded over the years and a faith she’s still grappling with, she provokes each of us to think through where we go with our questions when we find ourselves in difficult places, how we can show up in our lives in really honest ways, and how accepting “I don’t know” as a valid answer can be the most freeing thing we ever come to grips with.

“It was really important to me to feel like I had gotten it right, like I had landed on the right answer. And now, the today version of me is much less concerned about getting the right answer and much more concerned about: ‘Can I be honest about where I am right now?’ cause I kinda think that that might be the only right answer. It’s like, here’s where I am today. There are the honest questions that I’m struggling with. Here’s how the faith that was handed to me doesn’t seem to fit my experience of being human in the world.” —Allison Fallon

Episode Quotes:

* One of the things we tend to do, whenever we recognize in our life that there was a version of ourselves back then that didn’t know something that we know now, our first instinct is to disassociate from that version. … For me, part of the work has been learning to forgive and accept and receive that version of myself who got me here because, there’s no way that I would be here without her. —Allison Fallon

* One of the best things I’ve done and hardest things I’ve done is come to the place where I look at that version of myself in the eye and say, “Thank you for everything — all the ways you’ve fought for me.” —Allison Fallon

* I used to think it was about balancing the opposites within me, but slowly I have learned that it is actually, “holding” things in their seemingly unreconciled state that widens and deepens the soul. We must allow things to be only partly resolved, without perfect closure or explanation.” —Richard Rohr

* The practice for me is, can I show up today, exactly where I am today, and tell the truth about myself the best I can? Can I be in my life with my whole heart? —Allison Fallon

* One of the things I’ve really had to let go of is the security that comes with that sense of certainty, where you go, “I know the answer!” … There are a couple of things I know to be true, and the rest of it, I just have no idea. —Allison Fallon

* Faith is not the opposite of doubt; it’s the opposite of certitude. —Richard Rohr

* Fear is a really powerful motivator but a really terrible motivator, and so much of my life has been dictated by fear. All of the worst decisions I’ve made in my life, the decisions that have gotten me the most off track, have all been made from that place of fear. They’ve been made from a place of trying to grasp at a love that I have always had. And then the best decisions I’ve made have always been from a place of knowing that I have nothing to prove to anybody. —Allison Fallon

* One of the best-kept secrets, and yet hidden in plain sight, is that the way up is the way down. Or, if you prefer, the way down is the way up. —Richard Rohr

* I told myself I was going to tell the truth about everything because I had been keeping secrets for so long. —Allison Fallon

* It’s so easy to tell the truth about someone else and so hard to tell the truth about yourself. —Allison Fallon

* Failure can become our most powerful path to learning if we’re willing to choose courage over comfort. —Brene Brown

* All the striving we do to get the love we want, it’s there,