Me and We

Bonnie and Mallika look at how we can apply the "Me & We" frames to the characters, Lily and Ryle, in the movie version of "It Ends With Us." 

How might Lily's friend or therapist support Lily with holding both her desire to stay in her relationship with Ryle and our own desire to protect her?

How might we accept perfection in Lily? 
How might we accept perfection in Ryle? 

Listen in for how we can apply the frames and tools for less suffering for ourselves as well as for others! 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

Another "Real Life" application. 
Let's look at what we know about the current context between Blake Lively and Juston Baldoni. 
Bonnie and Mallika are not looking at who is "right" and who is "wrong" in this context. Instead, they are looking to apply the frames and skills that have been presented on this podcast to what Blake or Justin might have tried. 

What could Justin have said in response to Blakes protest about what was happening on set? 

How could Blake have approached Justin in a way that might encourage his cooperation? 

How might Justin have stepped through his shame and hung onto himself? 

How NOW take some action to get out of the suffering they must be in now? 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

The big question about protests - how can we respond that is NOT a counter protest?

Bonnie and Mallika act out some examples of these skills using listener questions.

Pause: How to pause a protest someone is sending (in a way that doesn't feel like you're avoiding or deflecting)

Owning and Asking: Is there a part of the protest that you can agree with? That you can "own" as something you did?
Then, ask a question back to the sender (sending the energy away from you).

Resonating: Reflect, validate and empathize with the protester. Nothing settles a protest like resonating with the other person. 


What protests come your way often? 
Email us at [email protected] with your protest examples and we will discuss them on a future episode!

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

There is protest happening everywhere, especially in the last 10-15 years.
We don't have to be on the receiving end of blame and shame EVERYWHERE we go. But, it is important to open up this channel to receive when someone is daring to let us know that something isn't working for them.

How can we work with protest to find something else that's possible, rather than what typically happens - which is a counter protest.

How is a protest a "call to respond?" 

The best way to influence how someone is protesting is to actually welcome them to protest. "Bring it on, babe"  "I'm ready in this moment to hear what's important to you." 
Receive the protest with the skills, which slows it down. 

This is a slow, building process, getting these Building Blocks in place. Be kind and gentle with yourself as you learn and grow. 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

This is a turning point in this work.
Everywhere we go, there are protests coming our way, protests from our partner, from our boss or our friend, or that we have sitting under the surface.

This Building Block helps us STOP trying to STOP  the protests, but rather learn how to accept them, and, when possible, work with the protest energy.

Bonnie and Mallika explore this important part of being in relationship with others . . . the protest.

Receiving protests is like a BULL HORN - we loose our balance. The goal is to regain our balance and work with the energy that's coming our way.

Sitting inside our protests are either a feeling of "justice" or "are you there for me? Do I matter?" a dependency need.

On-going protest actually mean there is safety in the system. When protests get shutdown, your partner isn't confiding in your anymore and you're living a parallel life, it feels like a death.
It behooves us to tolerate protests, in our relationship or in our organization.

"If I'm going to send a protest, well, I better be able to receive on too."
 
******************************************************************************************
Upcoming skills in this Building Block are:
The Pause
Owning and Asking
Resonating

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

It's healthy to want belonging and to communicate our care for others, and shame might play a role in how we work together with others. We don't want to hurt others. And we expect others to orient to the "we" to some degree. When they don't meet those expectations, we might find ourselves asking "Have you no shame?" 
What happens to shame/shaming when we communicate our dilemma? or when we see another in their dilemma?
What role does compassion play? How do we access compassion in the face of shame?

For more info on this, you can look at Bonnie's book. 
Or look more at Al Peso's work (Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor) regarding needs for care, belonging and dependency. 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

There are important differences within the "we" to pay attention to. When we do pay attention to these, we can get a better sense of how to work with the "we." 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

Getting out of shame is hard to do on our own. We do automatic, repetitive patterns with people, and they do it with us. We are so influenced by the context and those patterns, we all can use help from others to get us out of those hard places, and to plan how to experiment to do it differently next time.
 

Declarations: "I am _______"
The good parts of ourselves and the bad parts of ourselves. Claiming who we are, parts of ourselves are not all of who we are, but they are part of us.
Best said out loud in the presence of someone else claiming/saying parts that are difficult for them to say.
We can use these phrases to help us reclaim parts of ourselves:
"That's me!"
"oh well."
"So what!"


Stepping Through The Shame Wall:
When we are seeking to be with important parts of ourselves, parts that have wisdom and emotions, we can work with specific parts.
Rather than focus on the hiding of shame, the feeling of not enough, there is a shame wall there.
Can you step through the shame wall instead of getting caught in that puddle of shame?

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

How do we reclaim the disowned parts that get linked with the feeling of shame, so we can have our emotional wisdom and our true selves, ready to go, with less suffering.

How can we make use of our life-force energy (desire) and undo our defenses so that we can reclaim those disowned parts?

We all have desire:
to be free
to be all of who we are
to have a meaningful life
to make a difference
to connect deeply with others, as well as ourselves.


In this episode Bonnie and Mallika explore "conflation errors" and "queen archetypes" as helpful frames for undoing our defenses to shame.
We confuse, conflate and put together things that would be helpful to separate.

Some conflation errors are:
Ideal/Real
Primary Emotions/Secondary Emotions
Exploring/Explaining
Whole/Part
Moment/Generalization
Impulse/Action
Caregiving/Caretaking 


Mallika shares an example from her group of a caretaking moment the group members had towards her, having just gone through Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. 

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content. 

We all experience shame and it feels BAD! We don't even want to be seen. And we hide parts of ourselves that we associate with experiencing shame; we put them behind "the shame wall." Even good parts of ourselves can be disowned.

How do we navigate the places around where we feel shame?
What are our defenses against the shame place?
Can we let go of shaming ourselves and trust that we will still change or grow?
What ways can we reduce our feelings of shame and our defenses against shame?

Differentiate between impure and action! Yes, some of our disowned parts are "bad" to act out, but not bad to feel!

Mallika shares about how her shame gets activated in her role of "mother" and the sinking place of shame that she experiences. Bonnie's shame sounds like "You can't even show up. You're so bad! And you just look stupid!" 

(We had some Internet issues, as this episode was recorded after Hurricane Helene hit Mallika's area in western North Carolina.)

Bonnie's book is available in paperback!
"Me And We: Finding Your Voice and Influencing Relational Interactions"

Find out more about our work:
Bonnie's Website: bonniemacbride.com
Mallika's Website: rootedrelationships.com

Thank you to Jessica Carson Chen for the use of her music.
Listen On Spotify

Thank you to Positron Productions for producing and editing the content.