One Hard Thing Substack Podcast

This is such a tough video for me to rewatch. I find myself slowly tensing up in sympathy, or empathy, or just plain old neurophysiological co-regulation. It’s so easy to get sucked into Kyrie’s awful world where she is being “hard done by,” for obscure reasons that nevertheless become less important the longer this drags on. I start to want to do whatever it takes to get away from this source of deep tension.

And that is the thing about being with someone, in any capacity, who is anxious. It is such a contagious, destabilizing, and generally confusing state that one starts to want to just get away, or have the other person go away, or give in to demands, anything to make the anxiety STOP.

I’ll dig deeper into this skill set in this Substack, though - one I certainly never wanted to build, but have anyway.

I think for now, the first thing to really try to observe is how there is this warring set of realities whenever I or you voluntarily stay with someone (Kyrie, in this case, but her anxiety is so palpably relatable that you can sub in any human you’d like) who feels that there is danger, lurking, about to spring, requiring evasive action, now! If I look around, I see nothing but safe, calm, contentment, and even soft, warm surfaces. There is no cause for alarm in my reality. Yet for Kyrie, the whole context is terrifying.

So…I can continue to believe in my world, or I can choose to temporarily suspend my own senses, and agree with hers, and get her the hell out of danger! As she is so clearly asking me to do with her whole appealing, appeasing manner.

This is so very tricky. And, as I said yesterday, it is not something to “help,” without a very strong rapport and built up trust. It comes down to asking her to suspend her perceptions of what is going on (her “internal reality”), in favour of what I’m telling her - surely a large leap of faith. I have to have that faith myself first, which means allowing her to continue in the anxiety, while I almost “wall myself off” and then check the surroundings, objectively, for threats. If there are really none present, then I’m going to go back and let her know that we are safe to stay…

…and she is not going to like it.

If she can just hang in long enough for her nervous system to drop down from one storey (the Edgy or even the Scared storey) of the “tall building of stress,” she will begin to see what I see, and then it will be so much easier to believe that we can walk (not run!) out of here, without remembering that this was such an awful place.

So there’s a lot of stuff I’m looking at that she’s not. And I can’t judge her for not seeing it. If she could see it, she wouldn’t be anxious, now would she?

But the thing is, if she can let go of some tension, she will see a bit more of what I see. And there’s the magic. If she perceives that reality does include some safety, and less threat, she will be able to turn this whole cycle of fear feeding fear into calm feeding calm. That’s a whole lot more powerful than me just “saving” her and cementing her self-image as a victim of her surroundings.

But boy oh boy. I do not enjoy this 20 minutes!

Anyway, take a look at this video and let me know if this relates to any of your relationships.

I’m determined to stay with her until she figures out that she is braver than she knows.

First off, here are links to stories that I allude to in this podcast, by my very much admired friend, who lives far away, but is definitely a kindred spirit, Elizabeth Lamont

The Incinerator

The Neighbourhood, Fall 1976

January - July 1977

The Blackout

The Foot

Your Money or Your Life

She has more, but this is the series in order (to date). Amazing.

Anyway, this podcast is possibly approaching a bit of a manifesto, as it relates to care for each other. And care for other others (the four-legged innocents who populate our world and show us exactly who we are, Really). I hope you can join.

I am appreciative to so many people who have inspired this shift in my thinking - not least my husband, who still does not want a Cast of Characters intro, being very private and also leery of social media, even Substack. However, without him there would be no me, at least not in this safe enough form doing what I do, writing what I write.

Karen Gibson, from Gibson Collaborative Care, is a trusted person for me and has done a lot to help me clear my head and calm my heart, and then practically do something about it, in the real world. I found you exactly at the right time, Karen.

And Deborah Marshall, from Generation Farms, was instrumental in changing my perception of life enough that I don’t think it’s a stretch to say she did change my life. Thank you.

I don’t want to start with friends and family members, because this is a post, not a thank you speech at the Oscars. However, I have to say, that the work involved, the costs, and gifts and love and unconditional positive regard that it takes, and upon which I am still drawing, to get from there to here, is immense, and un-repayable.

These days I am learning, and growing, and no longer (often) in a place like “the Districts;” more often in a place like “the meadow.” (And thank you, Suzanne Collins, for that brilliant “fictional” work which I have drawn so much from as well…)

Happy Friday. May you be safe enough.

This year is going to be about the issue/barrier/experience of compassion fatigue - that recently described phenomenon that Covid made apparent to most of us, as we struggled with small bubbles, reduced access to our regular networks, and fear. Lots of fear.

Compassion is critical, and especially when disaster threatens, or when disaster (as it sadly does) happens. I tend to think of compassion as a sort of life-giving fluid, maybe stored in a reservoir somewhere in our souls, and drawn on in large or small amounts throughout each day. Usually, this reservoir is not totally emptied in a given 24 hour period, and usually, hopefully, ideally, we keep on replenishing it, also on a daily basis, and so stay in some sort of homeostasis, even with the troubles around our various loved ones.

Compassion is like oxygenating blood, or energy-providing fuel, or the catalysts provided by our hormones, or the communication of neurotransmitters. And like all of these inputs, it can do its job, do its job, do its job…run out.

And then - we experience a deep, soul-level, destabilizing and disorienting fatigue.

So I’m going to be drawing on all of the concepts that I’ve described, explored, and played with in this last fun year on Substack, towards a goal of providing some concrete, sensory, accessible, and effective strategies for me, and you, as we work to continually refill those continually necessary containers of our care. I believe all of us are care-givers, at some level. And I believe care is crucial, and taps into magic, or love, or the energy that makes this world go round (which is not power, or money, or sex, contrary to many media-driven beliefs).

We need caregivers, and we all (sigh - yes, this is true, too, Lynn) need to receive care. Probably in some sort of proportional amount.

Anyway, this “walk and talk” is an experiment in sharing one of the ways I am currently replenishing my compassion “cup.” I don’t know if it will travel through the interweb to your cup of grace and softness and space and love, but I really hope so. My animals seem to have consented to share their rich well of peace and steady contentment, and I felt my nervous system descending down, down, down to a home base, even as I simply aimed the phone at their rhythmic munching.

Welcome to my barn. If you’re feeling even a little bit depleted, maybe this is a tiny shot in the arm that can top you up, or help you find your own ways to tap into the magic all around you, which is there for our benefit, too. Even those of us working hard to care for those around us.

Even you.

Here is the note I reference in today’s podcast…thank you to atom for some truly incredible immersive art. Kind of a complete departure from “normal.”

Anyway, I had to link to this because the visual so exactly captures how I have imagined (without any conscious work) the way I see Reality, vs how you do, or they do, or really anyone does. It’s all through little round windows, and it’s not precisely that we distort the view, as that we are looking at a “view” at all, and never really the whole thing.

And I really am wondering if one can ever truly leave one’s “spaceship.” The jury is out. I pull from so many stories in my Imaginal Realm, which is how I navigate the stories I tell myself, which then inform my actions, observable behaviours, and in turn, what I see out my window as I steer through the cosmos. I love the Pern novels, and so when I talk about the possibility of “landing,” and “exiting,” I’m probably thinking most fondly of Anne McCaffrey’s Dragonrider world. Ah well. I digress.

Hope you enjoy this podcast, and that it sets you to wondering what more you could see, or become aware of, if only you had access to a few more portholes? I sure do. Meanwhile, enjoy atom’s art, and have a great and well-protected (maybe through other means than armour??) weekend.

Ahh. Grace, softness, space…my 2026 words. Not so easy to embody, every day. In the real world, I struggle for balance and sometimes have to pick myself up again…

May as well not write too much here as I certainly had a lot to say on my walk. Join me! It’s sunny and you can’t feel the wind chill (which is a nice thing for you!).

I really hope you can find time to listen to this one. I’m getting closer to the real deal here. I have always struggled with leaving home, coming back home, and how I feel (at times) safer, more congruent, and just plain old more authentic when I’m out and about rather than in the four walled structure that I have tended to think is where I reside.

I’m playing with the terms “real,” and “imaginal” here, too. It seems to me that “real” could mean what is scientifically observable on our outsides - the shared environment which has form and texture and hue and so on. However, “real” could also refer to that which is most essential to what happens next - the causes that create effects, rather than just those obvious effects.

As it relates to home, I am challenging the idea in my own past and deep neural architecture that it is an insecure possession, a container of things, a sort of disappointing and vaguely shame-filled conceptual ideal where “love” should happen, and so often does not.

What if HOME was available, deeply and richly present, all full of love, beauty, intention, identity, and magic already? What if HOME was not just for those with lots of money, or skills, or emotional energy and intact relationships and identities that others find inoffensive? What if HOME was something we each carry, can build without objects, or scarcity of any type, and where we most accurately work from, rather than towards?

What, in that case, would be the most REAL home we could label, and what would simply be the best compromise we can come up with between what we can envision, and what our bodies and pocketbooks can afford?

Hope you get a chance to follow along, and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, feelings, and even sensory impressions of this particular take on a concept we often take for granted, but all deeply, clearly, need.

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Both need the same things: respectful dialogue, presumed competence, manners, clear signals, and some chances to learn. You know, just the basics. Decent common sense stuff.

It’s nice to have a horse to model what my nervous system is likely also feeling, this Wednesday. I am noticing that routine, repetition, slowing down the conversational “pace,” and also allowing my Heart to tell me all the stuff she’s noticing that’s good about my life, are all fairly calming and organizing practices. I’m inviting you along, as usual, just in case your own nervous system lacks a handy 1000 lb avatar.

Have a great day, even though it’s still January, and still cold. We get through these wintry seasons, one task, one meal, one walk at a time.

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I’m just about at a one year mark in this Substack project. I’ve tried to just describe what I see, keeping a bit back (well, I’ve kept a lot back, actually). However it is starting to be apparent even to me, even in the middle of it all, that I’ve come from one place, and am now in another. And it has been tough slogging, with a lot of doubling back, checking each step for traps, and pausing, to catch my breath; gather my courage.

I appreciate you quietly reading along, reaching out with little encouragements here and there, and offering support in so many ways. That has meant a lot, even when I haven’t taken you up on the offers (mostly because of all the stuff I’m still holding back). However, I do have more confidence in the perspective I’m building as having some merit in real time, in the physical world of cause and effect and milk that spills and snow that falls. The seed of an idea: that I could have a home; that I’m entitled to a place in the world, and that this place, this space, is my primary job to both inhabit, and also enliven, has taken hold and is growing.

So much so that I can afford to finally take a look back, to where I spent most of my life, to the country of what was, for me, homelessness, and a sort of soul wandering, and compare it to this rooted, grounded, tender but stubborn sort of faith.

This is better. I’m happier here. Think I’ll stay on this side of this fence.

But, it is okay to take one last look, and then move ahead, keep going, resume the good work of home-building. Or building a way to work from home. Or just becoming a home for my work, my play, my self.

This was a fun one. And gave me a ton of emotional information. I’m working on getting better at paying attention to what I’m paying attention to!

Anxiety in my animals really does cause me a cascade of internal alarms, and depending on how well I’m doing, it can cause me to escalate into care, or into vigilance, or even into irritation at their “neediness.” And that there is instructive, isn’t it? Using “neediness” to denote another’s general low character, weakness, or simple lack of will or drive or what-have-you is quite embedded in our Western culture. It’s almost the worst descriptor I can think of, a kind of soft slur that denotes nothing good.

How do I feel when I am “needy?” I feel weak, ashamed, like I’ve failed. I desperately want and crave and…need something. Maybe attention, maybe resources directed thoughtfully and skillfully my way. Maybe I’m not sure what I need, just that I don’t feel adequate for what’s being asked of me.

Placing that description up against the fact that we all need help, sometimes, and that asking for help requires a successive chain of events that is entirely under the category of fighting to live…makes me wonder if we haven’t inherited a prejudice or two that disincentivizes us from self-care in the most logical sense. If I don’t think that being needy is morally okay, I’m going to do everything I can to hide my neediness. Because I sure can’t stop being needy, just because my culture thinks it’s shameful. I need a lot. So does everyone. It would be so much better if we could normalize and even value the polite and clear requests for help that would allow us to actually support our most vulnerable, and even our apparently less vulnerable, group members.

So…I’m trying something with Tundra, once again, that may help me dislodge some very stuck thinking that I no longer agree will help me in becoming the person I want to be. I’m going to respond to slightly anxious behaviour, not as a behavioural problem, but as if it is indicating a need for more….support.

Come along and let me know what you think!

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It’s nice to be back! I missed this (the last two weeks) but was following my own new principles of self-care and care of my inner team and all that jazz. Only so much that I can do, even though I have so many words, and I process oh so verbally.

This one is about the difference between my story and yours. As defined (here in the middle of Canada in the middle of winter) by the small circular light thrown by my toque. As I try not to get hay in my nose and willow branches in my eyes.

I can see a little, but not a lot. I see the outsides of you, and you see the outsides of me, but neither of us can really inhabit the centre of the “light” the other one is throwing. We are just ourselves, taking our own small steps and actions, seeing what we see, and usually kinda making up the rest.

However, it is possible to shift perspectives within our own small selves, and that is really what I’m talking about today. Join me on my comfortable fence, looking around at the various views - this side, that side, this way, that way.

(Also there are some beautiful sunrises to notice…)

Thanks for reading One Hard Thing Substack! This post is public so feel free to share it.

One Hard Thing Substack is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.