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Jamie Roddy: So my really good friend is going through a divorce, one that she had no say in. On the outside, she seems to be actually handling it well. But honestly, there is no way for another to know the depths of what she's going through, the nuances of pain, relief, guilt, that there's relief, worry, stress. New anxieties, a laundry list of new tasks to coordinate, and entirely new life. And it got me thinking about all the different ways that life can fall apart for us. And although while every single experience of those is singular, no one's divorce is the same as another's. No one's getting fired or laid off is the same as another one's. No one's financial crisis or health crisis is the same as another's. There are certain things. Threads of relief and tactics to resiliency. We are in no way talking about toxic positivity here. There is no everything happens for a reason, or every cloud has a silver lining. Just stay positive. No, that's bullshit and how negative emotions actually metastasize in your body. But I'm hoping by the end of this episode you will feel a little more supported in your experience and a little more empowered. Watch if you know someone going through something hard or if you yourself are. And if you don't know anyone like that and you're not like that, what are you doing here? This is Earth. You might be in the wrong place. That's kind of the whole fucking point of this place. We go through hard shit. Everyone does. If you're here, you're meant to be here. This is the Staying Aligned podcast, and I am Jamie Roddy, your deeply fallible cohort through the chaos of life. We draw on wisdom from all spiritual sages, ancient and modern, but we leave any patriarchy or homophobia completely the heck out of the equation. Because ew. Now, back to when things fall apart, which is by the way. The title of a book by Pima Shodron, a wonderful modern Buddhist female sage. This book is little and powerful and might be a comfort to you. And while this episode is not a summary of that book, I will tell you a little more about her work later. Actually, let's talk about it now because what I want to discover with you are the threads that connect us all in these times of radical change or hardship. Pima talks about the sense of groundlessness, like When the ground drops out from beneath us, we are no longer safe in our health, in our finances, in our career, in our relationship. Though everyone's experience is completely unique therein, that is certainly a common thread. And what feels safe to humans certainly is a sense of gravity. And when things fall apart, we're free falling, and it's terrifying. No idea where or when we'll land and if we'll like where we land. This feeling of maybe we'll be floating ungrounded forever is absolutely terrifying. And again, this is one of the singular types of experiences that every single human on earth has or will experience. So there is the tiniest bit of solace in that, but not that much, honestly.
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It's like I don't give a shit if everyone else lost their job. I'm worried about how I'm going to survive, pay rent, feed my kids. It's not like when the stock market crashed prior to the Great Depression and that one guy jumped out of the window and everyone saw that one guy and said, ⁓ there's other people in this same boat. I feel much better. Tra la la. Not at all. They all had their unique and varied versions of groundlessness, which was terrifying. What Kima gently encourages us to do in these cases, again, read her book, because I can't do it justice here, is not toxic positivity. It's something a lot easier. The question she asks is: can you slowly learn to be okay with mystery, with not knowing? No. Because the whole point of staying aligned. Is helping us all to have a better life via our connection to God, source, spirit, Buddha, sun god, Ra, whatever you want to call it. I must gently state the obvious. It's a lot easier to deal with a free fall into mystery if even a little part of you knows that you're going to be okay because your connection to God is like a net under a tightrope walker. Now, the more you practice and sustain your connection to God. The tighter the weave on that net. Your faith can not only move mountains, as they say, but it can catch you when your spouse of 20 years decides they really want to try their hand at shagging younger women. Your connection to God can be the net that you know is there while you're still free-falling from the horrible diagnosis you received. This is why I make these episodes to be truthful, guys. I have A very good friend who is pragmatic and delightful and wonderful and aging and does not believe in any kind of higher power. Death and mortality of friends and loved ones is so incredibly hard for him. Every year on his birthday he is gutted with despondency because all he sees is that he's much closer to some ultimate actual finish line. And after that, there's nothing. I've tried to convince him of spirituality. I try to convince him to have a mushroom type journey, as he is a curious traveler, or he was before he turned. I mean, gosh, I think he's 80 now. And he was actually down only if his wife would travel with him, and she was not about to do that. Anyway, not just me preaching hallucinogens to octogenarians. We have other fish to pry. Back to the threads that bind us when things fall apart. And again, They just do and they just will again. As much as your girl loves to laugh and dance and love and make art, life ain't just that. And we're gonna need a net. I have a whole episode about how if you don't make God universe source a constant in your life, the net will have some pretty big holes in it when you need it. Now, my friend I spoke about in the beginning has a pretty good net. But she certainly isn't not still free falling. She has a connection to the universe. There's a tiny piece in her that knows she's going to be okay, and that helps tremendously. But it's still frickin' really, really, really hard. Sometimes when things fall apart with your job, health, or family, you free fall for months or years. And again, it's Knowing God has you, knowing there is a net cannot be overstated as the number one thing that will help you. But there are other things too, other things to remember, to realize, or to practice. And we're gonna get into those now. Because I know you're all saying, Jamie, we wouldn't be here if we didn't believe in universal love, source energy, obviously. So give us more. Fine, antsy pants. But just a last little bit. If your life is going fine right now, or even if you're Lucky and doing pretty damn fine. Remember that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. So trying to pick up a spiritual practice while you're in free fall, trying to weave a net with God while you're flailing through space is not ideal. If life is going good right now, now is the time to dedicate your time to strengthening that connection. You don't get a health crisis and decide now is the time I'm going to start cardio and lifting weights. It's Hard now. You're sick or hurt. But let me get off this soapbox that I low-key never get off of. Because the episode is about what to do now. You're in it now. Things are falling apart now. One thing that is the second most important tidbit in this episode is that you gotta feel it is so un Comfortable and new age BS and kitchen art from Home Goods and Dory from Finding Nemo tell you just keep swimming, just keep laughing, stuff all that darkness way down and only think about sunshine. And man, that is going to kill you. There is a book I read a few years ago that completely changed my life. It's called The Greatest Secret by Rhonda Byrne. She also wrote that wildly successful bestseller, The Secret, that also completely changed my life. But that's another episode. This one book, The Greatest Secret, had this particular chapter in it. I want to say like chapter seven. She gets into the profound importance of and exactly how to release negative emotions. And I got bad news for you, kittens. The only way out is through. And we're just repeatedly taught exactly. Ingregiously erroneously that negative emotions are to be avoided. Here's the spicy nugget you need to chew on. Earthly experience, life, as it were, is not just rainbows and sunshine. When life falls apart and the ground is no longer beneath you, here is a short list of real emotions you are going to feel. Profound grief at a loss of what you expected or actually had, acute anxiety, dehabilitating dilemma, anger, rage, restraint, sadness, and so many combinations therein, because there is only one thing on earth as diverse as each human experience, and that is the emotions that they experience within it. So you might feel rage with powerlessness, fear with grief. Sadness tinged with anxiety, laced with decision, fatigue, etc. infinitum. Here is the thread that binds all crisis life moments of unwanted change. These emotions
must be fully, fully felt. So let's say you just found out your mom or your spouse that you deeply love has a terminal illness. You have to know you're gonna have to take time to process and release emotions. Because if you don't, they're gonna come out in a business meeting or some other place where it's just not appropriate. I have one of those auras that strangers want to wrap up in when they feel out of control. I've had multiple vendor meetings. Where someone has started crying in front of me over their father passing or their animal passing or their recent diagnosis. And I have to be honest, I don't always handle it well. I'm not always in a position to drop everything and offer the protection and compassion they're requesting. And you don't want to be on the requesting comfort end of that in a place that doesn't belong. So You have to make sure you're allowing space for all the big, terrible feelings when you're in a safe space. If you're not ugly, shuddering, crying in the shower, what are you even doing? You just lost your 20-year career, and not to mention pension. You're 39 and your fiance of five years just left you out of nowhere. You just got a terrible, terrible diagnosis. You can't just keep swimming. You must take the time and privacy to feel and acknowledge the waves of emotions. Sometimes we feel numb, but we know we do not want to break down in sobs in the break room or in front of a seemingly super compassionate client. We don't want to lash out in rage at the checkout stand trying to return something. If you ever see a Karen type person just incredibly off their gourd over something tiny, you must know that there is something. Huge that they're holding just beneath the surface. So, how do we go through to get past? Man, you got to pull up all the stinky, foul, terrible emotion and not be afraid of it. You have to completely feel, feel, feel it in all its terrible glory. The fear of the emotion will keep it stuck. In your body, and it will metastasize in terrible ways. Sometimes that looks like journaling down what you think your emotions are and then choosing one at a time to truly, truly feel. Sometimes it looks like knowing you need to cry, but you're numb. So you put on a very sad movie and allow it all to shudder and release through you. Whatever you can do to get yourself in this space of Truly feeling, you'll be surprised at how quickly it actually moves through the body. Okay. And listen, this neuroscientist, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, talks about something called the 90-second rule. And this is actually really good news. She says that when something triggers an emotional reaction, the initial chemical response in your body takes about 90 seconds to move through you. Now This does not mean you're gonna grieve your divorce for 90 seconds, splash some cold water on your face, grab the visine, and be like, well, that was terrible. Now what's for lunch? Obviously. We can keep re triggering that physical response with our thoughts and memories. And when you're going through something huge, you're going to probably experience these waves again and again and again. But the point is that a wave can move. You can give yourself a few minutes somewhere private and actually let one of those waves come through instead of immediately stuffing it back down. Feel it as profoundly as you can. Let your body do whatever it needs to do. Cry, shake, be pissed, and then notice that eventually something shifts. Maybe only a little bit. But what you might see is a couple of things. One, you you might have to do several, several rounds of this. It's like popping a huge pimple, and you get a good chunk of the gunk at first, but then you might have to do a couple rounds more and more. And each time it's less and less. And two, not being afraid of your emotions is incredibly empowering. It takes a lot of chutzpah to look your terrible emotion in the face and say, okay, you want to be felt? Let's feel you. You're not bad. I'm not going to repress you, no matter what it is, without guilt or shame. Let's feel it. And then via one or several, several rounds of of actually allowing it to be, it says, okay, thank you for listening to me. I feel heard, seen, validated, and now I can go on. Go read Rhonda Burns' book on this process as well as the inherent nature of God and life and reality. It's in the greatest secret. I will never stop recommending this book to everyone, always. But it really is so, so empowering to be brave enough to feel your deep feels because it's scary. The analogy I've often used is that emotions of of all types are like toddlers having a tantrum. They need to be seen and heard. Imagine sitting on a bench, scooting over a little, patting the bench with your hand for the raging toddler to come and sit and emote and tantrum while you listen and validate and see and hear. And then it tantrums itself out. Then it can go off and play Legos or whatever and feel lighter. Man. This episode is a bummer. But I hope it's hoping. If you know anyone who would benefit from this, send this to them. And if you like spirituality content in general, check out my other episodes. But be fair warned, they are all mostly much more lighthearted and fun than this one. But life isn't all EDM festivals and abstract art and cool clothes and rad friends and cuddles and ice cream. So here we are. Okay, so so far we've got the preemptive connection of God as prevention. And we've got the absolute necessity of allowing your emotions to exist and pass through. These are things you can do yourself that you have power over and can find tremendous power in. But guess what, kitty cats? You're not on this planet alone. And we talked about earlier the one true thread of human existence is that at some point everyone, everyone's life completely falls apart. I am a mountain of a human, a rock. ⁓ I don't need nothing from nobody until I just do. And a lot of people have a tremendous support system, a loving
spouse, a family who cares and shows up, lifelong friends who will always be there for you to go through whatever you're going through. And some just do not. Or, as was the case of myself. We just don't know how to be anything other than rock solid. Brene Brown's work here can be of assistance. Her work on the power of, hear me, the power of vulnerability can be incredibly helpful here. It's being strong enough to say, I am not strong right now, I need help. And To add a whole other layer of bullshit to your travesty, you might reach out to a friend and find them unable or unwilling to truly be there for you. That happened to me when my life was falling apart, or at least was becoming unbearable to go alone any further. I told a good friend how I was feeling unsupported and needed help. And she literally said, Well, I guess we're all just going through life alone, just beside other people. And that can happen to you too. If you're going through something truly, truly hard, you will find out very quickly who deeply loves you and who was just there for the good times. Luckily, I told another friend, again, I am a mountain who needs nothing from no one. So for me to even say this was profoundly hard. But I'm glad I did. My other friend rose the fuck up. Holy shit, she rose up while she was going through chemo, no less. And now we've been experiencing this really beautiful give and take of caring for each other, and both of us feels very supported and loved. It's really deepened our longstanding friendship to an even higher level. Depth to new heights. It's the name of my next album for sure. So the brave thing you gotta do here. Is to ask for help. This is particularly harder for men as they historically have been taught that the only emotion they're allowed to feel is joy and anger. This is changing, thankfully. But men and women, it's okay to ask for help. And if they can't help you, ask someone else. And if no one you love is able to help you go through whatever you're going through. There is power and knowing when to go to a trained therapist. If that isn't financially feasible, there are support groups, YouTube videos, and even Reddit threads that you can read about how other people are dealing with something similar. Sometimes just knowing someone else got through it can be another patch of woven mesh that can support you in your freefall net. I don't know where you're gonna land. And I'm not going to insult you by telling you this happened for a reason. I'm not gonna promise you someday you'll be grateful for it. I mean, maybe you will. Maybe you won't. Maybe five years from now you'll look back and see some incredible new life that grew out of the rubble. Or maybe you'll still wish with your whole heart that this particular thing never happened. We don't know. That's the mystery part. That's the groundlessness. But while you're falling, there are things you can reach for. There is something beneath you. There are feelings that can move through you instead of setting up permanent residence within you. There are people willing to hold part of this with you, even if you have to be brave enough to tell them you need them. And maybe staying aligned right now. Doesn't mean feeling good. Maybe it doesn't mean being positive or finding a lesson or figuring out what God is doing or turning your absolute shit show into an inspirational Instagram carousel. Staying aligned with things fall apart simply means staying connected while everything else is changing. Connected to God, connected to yourself. You can be completely fucking devastated and still be aligned. Alignment isn't the absence of falling. It's remembering that there's a net. All right. Okay, friends, per usual, let's ground this in our bodies with a short guided meditation. Don't skip ahead. This is our weaving of the net together in real time. So wherever you are, if you can, close your eyes. Take a slow breath in and let it out. Another one in through the nose, hold it at the top, and just release it all through the mouth. You don't have to change anything right now. Keep breathing. You don't have to figure anything out. You don't need the answer today. While you keep breathing, just notice where your body is being supported right now. The chair underneath you, the bed, the floor beneath your feet. Whatever is physically holding you in this moment. Let yourself notice that you are quite literally being held. Keep breathing. Now bring to mind whatever feels uncertain, whatever has changed, whatever you lost or might lose, whatever future you thought you understood that suddenly disappeared. You don't have to make peace with it. Keep breathing. You don't have to like it. Just let yourself acknowledge this is hard. This hurts. I don't know what happens next and I am still here. Breathe. If there is a sadness there, let sadness be there. If there is anger, let anger be there. If there is fear, let fear be there. If there is relief somewhere in the middle of all of it, even relief you feel guilty for having, let that be there too. You don't have to organize your feelings into something pretty. You don't have to spiritually perform for this moment. Just feel what is here. And now, while you're still breathing, just for a moment. Imagine that beneath all of this uncertainty there is a net. You don't have to see it perfectly. You don't even have to completely believe in it today. Maybe your faith is enormous right now, and maybe it's hanging on by one tiny little thread. That thread is enough. Imagine that thread connecting you to something greater than you. God, source. Spirit, universal love, whatever name opens something inside of you instead of closing it, and breathe into that connection. You are allowed to fail without knowing. You are allowed to fall without knowing where you are going to land. You are allowed to be afraid while still being held. You are allowed to grieve and still have faith. You are allowed to need other people. You are allowed to not be strong today. And you do not need to know how the rest of your life works out here. Just this breath, this moment. Just this tiny piece of the nut. Breathe in. Let it go. Whatever is falling apart around you, come back to what remains connected underneath it. God, yourself, love. You are still here. And for today that is enough. Take one more deep breath in. Let it out so slowly. And stay here in this peace as long as you want. This is how we stay alive.