Garret: Hello everybody. I am super excited today. Here we are on next chapter Alliance. I've got none other than Liz Green Field. With
Elizabeth: That's right, Greenfield.
Garret: functional wellness and Nicole with soul medicine. And I'm super excited to see where the conversation goes today. thank you so much for joining me. I want to throw it out there to everybody listening. What we're going to be discussing today is courage and finding your meaning. It's a it's a very light topic for those
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: listeners. I hope that we can shed some light on our own experiences and and what has helped us and and what we've seen work for for others and different books and resources. Let's let's kick it off with Nicole, and we're just gonna discuss, maybe argue a little bit and and talk about a variety of different topics. But what did you you shared with me yesterday something that you did on LinkedIn
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: and and I'd like you to to kind of kick us off there if that's all right.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Sure, it was kind of a big one and the way that I phrased it to you is that I came out of this psychedelic closet. And especially
Garret: I love it.
Nicole Alexander, MA: the platform that I s placed it on is LinkedIn, you know, which previously I always kept very separate. Even my business before quitting the corporate space. I didn't share that I had a business, that I did energy healing, that I did breath work, that I did these things that are kind of on the outskirts of traditional ways of living. So and psychedelics was definitely the one that you had to know me and you had to pass some tests before I shared that information. So it's kind of a big deal that yesterday I just said, hey world. This is what I'm into.
Garret: And what was the response like? What have you what have you heard back?
Nicole Alexander, MA: It was a it was a very positive response. I also shared on you know some other social platforms and you know people close to me know this about me already. I'm actually very passionate about it when you get me one-on-one to talk about it. but lots of comments and hearts and messages and interest and some, you know, calls that are gonna come of it. So I'm I'm glad to do it because I know the curiosity is there. And so I feel like this can kind of open the door to people who have that curiosity.
Garret: That's amazing. Was there any negative feedback?
Nicole Alexander, MA: No, not really. my partner, he's always worried that like, especially when it comes to the internet, once you put something out there, like that information's out there. And so sometimes, you know, he's in data. So that's something that he's like concerned about. He's like, well, you know, they're gonna take the keywords and this information's gonna be used. And like, okay, I'm worried about that.
Garret: Okay. We're good. We're walking we're walking in our authentic path here, huh? We're not we're not worried. let's let's jump over to Liz. We'll we'll close the psychedelic chapter for a second before we open that one back up. we've talked a number of times, and you you help a lot of women nutritionally. What what is it that you would like to share with the audience that you've seen? in a pivotal moment where people really take that big step to to make the change in their life in involving their nutrition.
Elizabeth: That's a great question. And since today's topic is courage, that is definitely a required element. So for better or for worse, what has to happen a lot of times is people really have to kind of hit rock bottom from a health and wellness perspective before they're able to make that real lasting change. And that's what we're really here to walk. people through is like once they reach that point of understanding I just can't live like this anymore. What is the next step to begin digging out of that and starting to really honor what their unique system needs. Everyone's body is different. There's a lot of confusion online with influencers and things like that, talking about protein or keto or fasting or whatever it may be. And you know, not any one of those things is perfect for every person. So, you know, that that's a lot of it is just the courage, the willingness to say, I need to make a change, the ability to put one foot in front of the other and get that personalized guidance on how to do it.
Garret: This is to both of you. Do you remember a point in your life when you felt it was okay to ask for help? Do you do you remember this this point where you realized that you needed to raise your hand and ask somebody to show you a different way or share new information? And if so, we'll start with Nicole. Would you you remember an event I I think by By the nodding of the head. Can you share that with us?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah. Sure, and it's one that's really challenging to share because of fear of judgment, but My daughter, I can't remember exactly how old she was. She was probably about a year and a half. I was working full time, going to school in the evening. You know, my husband at the time and I were barely making it financially, you know, paycheck to paycheck between mortgage and child care. you know, say, okay, we went overdrawn. Don't spend any more money, don't buy anything else, you know, and living that way, which i is very stressful. And I was going up the stairs, carrying my daughter and one. arm and carrying groceries in the other and she's crying for one reason or another and I just opened the door dropped everything and I covered her mouth and it was not something that I consciously thought about. It was just I need this to stop. This is stressful. And then I caught myself and realized what I was doing and I just was like horrified. Horrified that there was this moment that, like, my biology, the stress that I was feeling, took over and did something without my conscious thought because I would never want to hurt my children. And I grew up in a household that had a lot of anger, a lot of fighting, a lot of sometimes physical repercussions. So That was when I was like, okay, I don't want to repeat any patterns. I need to make whatever changes I need to make. I need to get whatever help I need to get to make sure that this stops here. I don't hurt my kids and I can be the best mom I can be.
Garret: Thank you for sharing that. I w you know, we have I think most people listening and all of us on the call have had moments, but but where I believe the courage comes into that is what you did next. Right. Because a lot of us have had many of these kind of moments that caught our attention. And then whether it was shame or guilt or whatever emotion accompanied it, we were embarrassed to tell somebody.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Do you remember the first person that you said, Hey, this is what happened and and I don't know what to do?
Nicole Alexander, MA: well, I think I knew what to do. I was already in school for psychology and I got an appointment with a therapist and I worked with him for many, many years. And I was very lucky that I just happened to be put with someone who aligned with a lot of the beliefs that I have, which is not necessarily like medication first and and things like that. So that was my first step was
Garret: you guys are both really fascinating, right? Because Nicole, you you came from like a corporate setting and Liz, you came from a hospital setting, right? And they're they're the same, but they're very different. Right. From a stress perspective. And it's just I think it's really cool that we're here talking and and sharing these experiences, but that's enough. out of me. Liz, what do you think?
Elizabeth: There there were lots of moments that sort of led up to a a real almost breakdown where I just could not keep going without help. As a functional medicine practitioner, I was still giving anesthesia and I was doing functional medicine on the side and I was watching myself get burned out in the hospital setting, teaching other people how to take care of themselves and still really not doing it for myself because I didn't honestly know how to. And one of the moments that really made me realize I I'm just completely out of alignment and I can't keep doing it this way. was a an emergency C section that was called on labor and delivery. I I was the only provider. I knew I was the only one who was going to be able to respond. And the weight of that, knowing that, you know, I was gonna have to do it all by myself, it was an emergency. We were gonna have to get that baby out as fast as possible and ran over to labor and delivery. You know, there were 50 people in the operating room. It felt like everybody getting ready to save this baby. And it was a bad outcome for the mom. And in that moment, instead of doing what I normally would have done or thought that I should do, which is to comfort the mom and really go by her side at the head of the bed and ask her what she needed and take care of her, I turned my back on her. And it was just I could not really focus on anything that was happening in the room. It was like my nervous system just completely shut down. And it it did make me realize I cannot keep doing what I'm doing this way. I'm not serving myself. I can't serve my patients this way. And, you know, it was a step in a series of things that happened that really made me realize I had. I didn't have a choice. I had to get help and figure it out, but it was a big one because I I hated that that happened. I hated not being there for that mom that way.
Garret: Interesting how, you know, these pivotal moments in our life are it's great suffering, right? I can just kind of bucket it that way. It's painful, it hurts. But they can be converted into these beautiful outcomes. And so I I read this the other day and I love it, but I want I'll I'll start with Nicole, I want your guys' take on this. So I'll speak for myself. My past is my past. Right. And I'm the only one with access to my past. So with that being said, can I go back and change the story? That's that's kind of my question. And and I don't know if you've heard this before, but here I'll share my belief. My belief is that the story that I've told for a long time about certain events in my life has changed over time. It it has changed based on where I'm at in my life and what emotional state I'm in. And and so and who I'm telling the story to, right? Whether it's verbal to people or it's in my head, right? I can make it sound more grandiose than it probably was. but with it, with that being said, if it's just my story and and I'm the only one with access to it, why would I choose to feel shame and guilt over it if I have the ability to convert that event into a gain? Because I mean, you guys shared some. Some tough times, right? Both of you had had these moments, right? But but they end up being these pivotal moments that that lead you to a more productive, happier life, right? And so that's where I'm at with it. But Nicole, let's start with you. so what do you think about can I go back there and change my past and change my story?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Hundred percent. And I think it changes throughout your lifetime. I think there's themes that tend to happen with people where there's some point in their life where they start examining and then they say, well, this is my parents' fault. This is my dad's fault. This is so-and-so's fault. And then you grow past that and you know then maybe there's people that think, it's society's fault, or it's because this happened and that happened and you're like a a victim of your life. And then hopefully Hopefully you get to a point in your life where you realize that everything that happens to you, you have the ability to frame it how you want to and allow it to impact your future the way that you choose to. your past and your story changes with age, with wisdom, with more life experiences. And I think when you have enough of those moments where you feel like, my God, this happened to me and I didn't have control over it and it's ruined my life. And then things turn out better than expected, you stop feeling that way. You're like, okay, I'm being divinely redirected. I'm being protected. And that's how I choose to look at things especially those that are outside of my control.
Garret: Yeah, well said. I like the idea of nothing really happened to to me, but it happened for me. And and I think we take language for granted sometimes in the words that we choose. Right. And it's it's the difference between a want and a need. I think if we look up the definition of those things, a want is a healthy desire. Where where a need requires someone else to fill that need. And I'm not okay unless I get it filled. But just
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: the the change in that word. Liz, what do you got on can we change our past?
Elizabeth: Absolutely. And I think that shift out of the victim role is probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. I spent at least the first 40 years of my life really comfortable in the victim role, without even realizing it. Everything was happening to me, and it was always someone else's fault. And kind of shifting out of that was not pleasant. That was really painful to take a look and say and realize, ugh. A lot of this was actually my fault. I remember actually reaching out to my ex-husband and admitting I can now see that this was partially my fault and really taking responsibility for that. And it feels like it has shifted our relationship into a really positive place. So it was pain with a purpose. And now when I look at can we change the story? Just being able to look at what I've done through the lens of self-compassion and really realize, hey, there was actually a reason why I did each and every one of the things that I did, and knowing it wasn't because I'm a bad person, I'm not necessarily proud of the way I acted, but I can see it through a different perspective and know that I was going through a lot. I was hurting or, you know, without making excuses, maintain that level of responsibility for the choices I made, but know that I'm a human too. I'm going to make mistakes. And at the end of the day, we can change our story and we need to remember it actually is a story. There's a lot of evidence out there that the way we remember things is nowhere near the way it actually happened. So that gives us the opportunity to recreate any story about our past that we want to.
Garret: Yeah, heard this the other day that in until I convert it into a lesson learned, it's gonna have some power over me.
Elizabeth: Hm.
Garret: And and so I I did some writing on a number of things in the past. And I wrote down specifically what is the lesson that I've learned that I take with me today. And it was pretty a pretty cool exercise to to just be able to go, Maybe everything did happen just as it was supposed to happen. And it's okay. Right. It's just, it's okay. There's there's freedom, I think, in in what you shared when you when you went in and made the your apology or your your amends there to your ex husband because it sets us free. You know, I mean, all and it doesn't even matter if they accept our apology or not. I'm not doing it for them. Right there, and and this goes back to our topic of courage is the so the book The Courage to be disliked, okay, by Ichiro Kashimi and Fumataki Koga. Okay, it's brilliant. And the the big overarching theme of having courage to be disliked is that you will never be free until you have that courage. You will never be free because the assertion is that. All of our challenges in life are interpersonal conflicts. They're conflicts with you and I and with them. And and if I don't have the courage to be disliked, and then he talks about this, which I absolutely love. Have you have you guys ever read anything about horizontal and vertical relationships?
Elizabeth: No.
Garret: So your teacher or your parents, right? You would think of that relationship being vertical because they are telling you what to do and guiding your actions, right? Because they're your parent or your teacher or your boss at work. Okay. And a horizontal relationship is your good friend. So the book talks about if you have one vertical relationship in your life, it's a lifestyle choice, and all of your relationships are vertical. So I am either better than you or I am worse than you. We're on a vertical relationship, right? I either know more or I know less. And I'm constantly living my life in this state of comparison. And it's terrible for me. And and in being introduced to the topic, I really realized how much of my relationships are on this vertical plane. And so I'm really working hard to be horizontal. But being on a horizontal plane means that I don't get to criticize you anymore. Gone. I don't get to make, you know, I don't get to do that because that puts us on a vertical relationship. If I criticize anyone else, I am asserting a superior position over that person. Because I don't know what's best for you. You know, so I don't get to criticize you. It's very, I mean, it was just eye-opening to look at my life in that lens of horizontal and vertical and go, God, that. That's uncomfortable. No wonder it's been so uncomfortable telling people what to do. It it just created this space between them and I. Yeah, Nicole, what is on your mind when it comes to the word courage? Where do you I guess where do you see that? And I know you you made that big step on LinkedIn to tell people about your practice and and how it's helping people in your own belief there in this different setting. But But where else is do you really find like you have to use courage to show up today?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Hmm. Well, I really wanna read that book about the courage of being disliked because I think that I've spent the majority of my life wanting to be liked. I think it's pretty common, but I feel like it may be a bit stronger in me. My gender may have something to do with it. Just wanna be, you know, she's so nice. And and want to be seen as smart and, you know, successful and all the things. And you're not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. So I think showing up authentically and overcoming that there will be people that aren't gonna like what I have to say or aren't going to even want to hear what I have to say. So yeah, showing up more authentically and knowing that that's going to come with opinions and dislikes and unfollows and things like that.
Garret: Well the the most the most people that are gonna view our stuff are either gonna like over the top love it or over the top hate it. Right.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: And you probably get more more gas when they hate it. You know, this is just and I think this culture that we live in with social media, it's never been so easy to control a mass of people. Because they set a message. Let's I heard this about social media. You're the consumer. You you're the product. They're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: the third-party advertisers are paying to manipulate our decisions. And they do so a handful of ways, right? And it's and it's really powerful and it's really working. Right. Which probably
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Garret: makes it even harder to to have courage about what other people think because of the amount of time that we're it was something like 90% of people that consume social media. they wish they had the lives of the people that they're consuming. So it's
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: very much it, it's very much a vertical relationship, and it and it makes them feel like shit.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Uh-huh.
Garret: Because everybody's a little prettier, everybody's got a little more, everybody's doing more fun things, and it's constant. And I think that we have to really be careful for ourselves, first and foremost, and and probably for those people that we care about in terms of. what you watch that anxiety level go up if you consume, you know, a couple hours of social media every day.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Liz, where's courage showing up for you today? Either either professionally or personally or both, whatever you'd like to to jump into. The water's warm.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I I would entrepreneurship is always the best platform for personal growth and development that I've experienced. It there's always an opportunity to reevaluate and ask myself, like, can I keep going with this? Is this serving me? Am I serving other people in the way that I really want to on this venture? And it has required a lot of courage for me. I've had many, many times when I I think back like is the right thing for me to do to actually go back to the hospital setting and be employed? Or do I have the courage to keep going as a business owner and
Garret: Mm.
Elizabeth: really trying to offer the highest level of service that I can because when I jumped ship from my hospital job in 2023, I honestly didn't know the first thing about running a business. The thing that made me do it and kept me going was getting good client outcomes. And as the layers of the onion have been peeled away and really revealing what I didn't know, I've had to rely on courage just to stay in the game and keep going.
Garret: Yeah, I love thank you for sharing that. You know what's interesting? I in comparing so I I sell real estate, right? And I jumped from a personal training job to real estate. and I also have my wife who has a good corporate job, right? So I don't have to worry about benefits, and it takes less courage to be in my position because I I Traded in a job where I was making like 80 to 100,000 a year. That's different than the job that you traded in, Liz. They paid you a little bit better to put people to sleep than they paid me, right? So I think that the courage from a financial standpoint, I think it's similar in a lot of ways, but it's also very different. And thank you for sharing how you're playing this tug-of-war with your entrepreneurship, because you're right. I The reason why I love it, and I think Nicole, you'd agree, is it is just this personal growth battlefield, right? And it it is it is wide and it is deep. So the whole search for meaning, you got where I got the idea was this book. So Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning. 18 million copies sold, right? He was in a concentration camp for three years. He was a psychiatrist. And he founded something called logos therapy. And he went back to Vienna after getting out of the concentration camps and worked at the hospital there. With all the people that had persecuted him around him. He was serving them. And the the real theme of that book is if your purpose or your why is big enough, you can endure anyhow. And I believe that that is like a very challenging thing for entrepreneurs to get to. Is like, like, like what is that why? Because we're gonna have to endure some hows, if not a bunch of them. And and for me, I've struggled with that. I got Simon Senex you know, start with why, that book that sold a bunch of copies. And I was like, this is so stupid. You know, you want me to tell you why I sell real like my big why behind this job of helping people buy and sell houses? Like, I don't know, to make money. You know, I don't know what the why is. But we're getting closer. I'm getting closer. I don't know if you guys are getting closer. Nicole, say something that inspires me. No, I'm just kidding.
Elizabeth: Ha ha ha.
Nicole Alexander, MA: So, I think it's important to know what makes life worth living. And if not Living in accordance to that, you're going to feel out of alignment. You may suffer from depression, you may have physical ailments. So it's important to go back to that question. And a lot of times I find that for people it's tied to things from their the things they enjoyed in childhood. And that they kind of like shoved away because, you know, like. You can't survive as an artist. You're gonna be a starving artist. That's too competitive. You know, you're not tall enough to be a basketball player, just whatever it is, all the society and authoritative of the opinions of others that keep you from doing the thing that maybe is most true to you. So coming back to those things, I think, often unlocks the secret of what it is that your your purposes and you're meant to be doing. Yeah.
Garret: Mm-hmm. I so the courage book is is about courage to be this like is about Adulerian psychology. And Adolyrian what that's not his name. It's close. But so he was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud in Vienna. But they had completely opposite ideas on psychotherapy. And where Freud was Very much cause and effect and childhood. Everything has a cause and effect, right? And it's finding this meaning and it's all of this. Where Adelyrian psychology was about our life is about future momentum and future goals and us finding meaning in our daily march. And and like the past is gone, right? Like it's not even real anymore. It's gone. And it's it's really fascinating. Cause so I plugged. Adelyrian psychology, logos therapy, which is what Victor Frankel started, which is also very future focused. It's very much about our our life's meaning and purpose, and and Buddhism. So I plugged these into Gemini and I said, give me the the five practices that you would say are are similar between these teachings. And here was the Here's what it spit out for me after a bunch of other stuff, but this was the summary. So you are not your past. You are capable of transforming your suffering into strength. You will find your deepest sense of peace by serving and connecting to the world around you. Right. Not obsessing over yourself. And I was like, wow, that's exactly what I needed to hear. And Feels like a good mission statement. I remember when
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: I joined Recovery, the first meeting I went to, you know, 10 years ago, roughly. And they said, your purpose is to carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers. And I remember taking a big deep breath and going, like, finally, finally, somebody told me what I'm supposed to be doing.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: It was a weird, it was like a weird moment where I was like, I feel like my whole life I've been looking. And it goes to this book, you know, searching for meaning, and kind of what we're talking about a little bit today is like that's what creates excitement and joy for life. Right. And happiness is a byproduct. Happiness is a bright byproduct from what we accomplish. I believe if we were chasing happiness, we'd never get it. But if we were chasing little Things that make us feel good. And really focusing on others. We'll probably be pretty happy, you know.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I'm curious what step that is, Garrett.
Garret: What's that?
Nicole Alexander, MA: What number step is that? When you to do service and yeah. Yeah, that is fine.
Garret: twelve. The last step. Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Liz, now it's your turn to inspire us, please.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Elizabeth: I I kinda wanna piggyback on what Nicole was saying around, you know, certain aspects of ourselves being extinguished when we're younger. And and in this kind of journey of self-discovery, I've realized my intellect was what was rewarded from a very early age. So that was the place that I operated from and really still operate from a lot of the time. And it's it's Interesting to ask the question like, what else is underneath all of that? And quite honestly, you know, going into a nursing profession off the bat, my my intellect told me being in service in this way is what you need to do. This is your purpose. And over time, you know, I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to serve in those ways for 25 years, but it was more of service out of like obligation of what my intellect was telling me that I needed to do. And over time that that service has really evolved where I'm now serving from a place of joy. And it's changed things a bit for me in in the way that I serve. And all and also realizing that actually serving myself is a huge piece of the puzzle. I cannot serve from a place of joy if my own needs are not met. And that was something that was deeply missing in my hospital role. I was showing up every day. It's not that I didn't enjoy the work. It's not that I didn't enjoy serving people. I truly did, but I do it from a different place now. And it's a it's a lot more fulfilling.
Garret: Yeah, that's great. What a transformation, huh? I mean, really. So that brings me to to measure backwards. Right. And and if we all took some time to s to look back at day one of our entrepreneurial journeys and put a list of things together that we've accomplished since we started. You know, five, ten minutes. And and that's kind of our launching pad. for for where we want to go. And I've done this exercise a number of times and from different past benchmarks. And what I realized is the majority of things on that list I never think about ever. I never think about them, right? I think we're wired for survival and or to see the negative, to, to look out for the warnings if they don't like me.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: You know? That person might be dangerous on the subconscious weird level that is uncomfortable in many different settings. But so I found this tool of measure backwards and then focusing on tiny wins. There's a book called Tiny Habits. And it's essentially that these little tiny habits that we are intentional about creating can take us pretty much wherever we want to go if we just. work the tiny habits.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I have a similar exercise that my life coach did with me and she called it the reverse bucket list. And so writing rather than the 10 things that you want to do in the future, the 10 things you already have accomplished in life. And so that's one that I've shared with other people and I think is a really valuable exercise to remind yourself of how far you've come. That's a good point.
Garret: I I heard it from this guy Dan Sullivan, who owns a c entrepreneurial coaching business, strategic business. Coaching. And I had a call with them on Wednesday. And this is a substantial investment to qualify. You know, you have to bring in a quarter million a year just to qualify for their entry level program. it requires you to fly out to Canada once a quarter to attend these workshops. And I realized after getting off the call. You know, we're like the five people we spend the most time with. We kind of adopt the same values and the same ideas. And I believe it's hard for entrepreneurs to find other people to connect with who have our crazy desire to be successful and also be in charge of everything and kind of like set the vision. And and we're, I mean, both of you are the pre we're all practitioners of, you know, the service, we're all selling a service. And we are the practitioner, we're also the salesperson, we're also the marketer and the accountant and the the everything. And it I mean, for me, I found it very hard to connect with people who who want to build this big life for themselves. You know, most of my friends work for somebody else. so I'm trying to get more intentional with spending time with people that are. that are doing the things I I want to be doing. And and they can tolerate me for at least like 30 minutes at a time. Liz, are you have you ever been intentional about who you spend time with and trying to get that information and kind of where are you on that path right now?
Elizabeth: That's fascinating because I was just thinking about this this morning. And growing up in my family, if you were going after success and building a big life and financial freedom and things like that, that was associated with not being a good person. And so this has been a huge reframe for me as a business owner. And I was just thinking this morning, like I actually Have to pivot completely myself in the way that I hold success and the way I think about success and the way I look at other people who have success. It's been just a journey, really transitioning away from like, people with money are bad, money breeds evil, et cetera. And you know, I'm not going to be successful as a business owner if I hold that as a set of values.
Garret: Yeah, you might be successful. That's funny. My mom used to bash private my mom was a public school teacher at a high school level, and she'd always say, You see, those private school kids, they think they're better than you, and all this stuff. And you know what's interesting about that framework that you grew up with? Is it's really that person is saying, Don't build too big of a life because Because I can't handle that. I can't handle that right then.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: It's it's wild, right? Like what why would you ever say that? You know what I mean? Because because you didn't you know what it is? I think it's you didn't build a big life. And so 'cause you didn't build a big life, you don't want to see anybody else build a big life. I don't know. It's very strange, right? But I hope you can let go of that one.
Elizabeth: I'm working on it and awareness is the first step. You know, my mom always said when we were growing up, and all the way up until a couple of days ago, don't ever get caught patting yourself on the back because your hands are occupied. And the next thing you know, life is gonna come crashing down around you. So I've built a lot of my life around this hypervigilance of like. what's gonna happen next and especially if I noticed that I was like elevating myself and feeling confident about that what I was building or what I was doing. It's like that induced this state of of fear and like where do I need to look out next? What's gonna happen now that I kind of caught myself. feeling like I did a good job with something and it had and and being in an anesthesia career really compounded that because we always had to have plan B and think about like what was the worst case scenario for anything anytime that we put somebody to sleep. So awareness has been the first step of just going, wow, I didn't realize how much that was shaping my ability to create a particular outcome for myself.
Garret: Student, now that you're aware of it, I believe the exercise to learn how to pat yourself on the back is for you to have a number of things every day that you're gonna do. And when you do them, you are going to pat yourself on the back. Right. And you just start to build that muscle and that rapid. And it might be something as simple as go to your yoga class, right? Or drink that cup of water. It doesn't have to be monumental, but just the repetition. Like I realized I had no idea how to appreciate myself. Didn't know how to do it. Couldn't do it. I needed it from you. I didn't know how to give it to me. And it took a lot of like very intentional, like, hey, good job. You know, and it felt weird at the beginning. And then all of a sudden it's like, it's it's okay to love myself. Like it's okay. I can I can do that. It doesn't mean I'm an egomaniac who's who's gonna be out here telling everybody else what to do. I can just be proud of the fact that I got out of bed this morning and went to the gym and went and visited my dad and and like I I put my garbage can. I took my garbage cans in. Like I could just be proud that like, that's cool. Good job, Garrett. Nicole, what do you got?
Nicole Alexander, MA: I wanted to bring it back to what what Liz was sharing because I think some of it's generational. Like I feel like my parents were very risk averse. I think they were very risk averse because they learned it from their parents and their parents went through the depression and were like extremely poor. And so once they had things, it was very much like okay, we have to keep these things and w and some of that's great. Like they took very good care of everything that they had, which I think is different than the way that you know, we tend to be now. But so my parents, you know, were both very concerned of me making a decision to quit my stable job with my health care benefits and steady paycheck. so it took some convincing for them to not be worried about me. And that's I think really where it comes from is that they're just, you know, have fear for you. And when I was telling my mom about the first retreat I was gonna do in Mexico last year, the first thing that she said to me was. Well, do they give you a refund if like nobody signs up? And I go
Garret: Nope.
Nicole Alexander, MA: first thing that you say to me, you know that this is like my dream, this is where my passions lie, this is
Garret: Did you cancel the retreat after she said that to you?
Nicole Alexander, MA: No, I had to have a talk with her and tell her, you know, it's okay. Like, first off, also have trust and confidence in me that I have made it this far along in life and I am looking at those details. But the first thing, can it be like, I'm so excited for you. I hope it's a great success. Also, did you check out the refund policy? You know, maybe sandwich it. luckily she came on the retreat, sixteen women were there, it was very successful and a beautiful experience for everyone. But you know, and then it you just have those your parents' voices ingrained in your mind. So that's the voice that's there that I have to say, Okay, write it down.
Garret: Isn't it interesting how people will say something to us and we will tell them how we wish they would have said it to us in a different way?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Like I get that a little bit in my house, and I'm
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Garret: always like, no, that's not how communication works. You know, like like I I mean, I said it the way I said it, and and you have to deal with it the way I said it, just like I have to deal with it the way that everybody says it. It's so fat we're like, I could take bad news, but could you at least start it with some good news? Like this is ridiculous. I'm just
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: freaking out that you're gonna lose all your money, right, on this retreat.
Nicole Alexander, MA: The the shit sandwich. The shit sandwich is the best way to deliver anything to anyone. Try to go by
Garret: Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: that.
Garret: Yeah. It but then when you have the courage to be disliked, you just give them the shit. Just the shit. There you go. Sorry. There's the way it is.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Just the shit. I don't know if I I think I have
Garret: Sorry. No, I'm not sorry, because then I'm worried about what you think about me, I guess. man, that's wild. Why you know that's an interesting question. Why do we care so much what people think?
Nicole Alexander, MA: So that we don't get thrown out of the group. If you think of like the primates, you know, and if there was one that got cast out and had to be out in the wilderness alone, they had less chances of survival than if they were with the safety of the group.
Garret: But that's not real anymore, right?
Nicole Alexander, MA: no, it's real.
Garret: No, but like that this is like I think Sigmund Freud versus Adler psychology, where now I have this I this cause and effect, it allows me to choose to still behave this way and believe this. Because look, these people said it was true. I mean, I was I've been talking about evolution and and how that instilled all these fears in me. And you know what it's like? Today I'm like, it's not my fault. You know, is it these are just there, right? But do I have a choice today and how I live my life and the choices I make from here moving forward to not play victim to that fear? Or that excuse. I mean, I think it's really an excuse. I don't know.
Nicole Alexander, MA: The choice is fair, but we're often having to fight against like our human nature. So we're having to resist against what just feels natural. Just naturally we want to be part of the group. We want to be liked. So it takes courage to to risk.
Garret: Do do you I I believe like what you're describing is is comes from people not practicing observing their thoughts. Because if I if I have no practice to observe my internal monologue and this this is all auto-reactive stuff, then of course I'm gonna follow my lowest nature, which is instinctual stuff, right, for shelter and reproduction and to be a part of the group, right? And food, right? Of course. Because I I have no practice for observing my thoughts. So I just believe everything that pops up here. Ooh, they don't like me. I better go over there and compliment so and so on the pants they're wearing. So they like me. And then I do it. And I'm and then I'm back over here and I'm thinking, I still don't think they like me. You know what I mean? So I'm just fucked either way. Right? Like it's
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Garret: so I mean, I don't know. I'm just you know, I'm really in this weird spot where I'm like, I I think that people just don't. practice and we have become maybe always, we're just so so self-absorbed in getting our little itch scratched, whatever it is, right? Whether it's a acknowledgement or physical contact or a meal or going to bed, it doesn't matter what it is. I'm s I I see that the majority of people are so self-absorbed in in in scratching that Biological i That I don't know. I I think that our life is so much greater than that. It's it's like so much there's like so much more here. Like we're all gonna come and we're all gonna go and and and our next whatever is gonna be amazing, right? And our energy is just gonna float out somewhere. Like like and our life is like this small in the grand scheme of things. It's like so small, so small.
Elizabeth: I I I'm actually gonna counter you a little bit on this, Garrett.
Garret: I love it.
Elizabeth: You know, for for me growing up, I was super scrawny. I was incredibly shy. I had an eye patch and really thick glasses.
Garret: We're like, are you a pirate?
Elizabeth: Yeah, totally. My dad would draw a picture of an eye on the eye patch. You know, I couldn't tell him, my God, no, dad, that's so much worse than just wearing the eye patch by itself. So I was a total outcast. I did not belong. I had warts on my knees and my parent my mom would dress me in tights and you could see those bumps through the tights. Like I was totally bullied. And I would spend my recess hiding in a cement tunnel out on the playground, just suffering through every moment that someone wasn't telling me what to do because I didn't belong and I had nowhere to go. And so, you know, in my adult life, belonging has been a piece of the puzzle for me. I longed for it. And and it w a lot there was a lot of unconscious behavior around. Healing this feeling of being an outsider and not belonging. And today I'm in the place where, you know, having to kind of cover up all of the real aspects of me in order to belong was painful. And I wasn't able to be authentic or be myself. And now that I'm kind of starting to emerge out of that, in fact, Nicole asked me this very question a couple of nights ago. What is it that you actually need now? And it's community. I think community is huge. I think we do have a need for being seen and belonging and being part of something. I think that it is incredibly important as a basic human need and something that can be really, really healing and profound.
Garret: So the pushback is that we need community.
Elizabeth: I really do think that we do. You know, I've been hacking it on my own for a very long time. I've been single for, you know, more than a decade for the most part. I've got my kids and they're amazing and I have friends and it's wonderful. And I really do think that community is so healing.
Garret: Okay, I don't disagree.
Nicole Alexander, MA: And I I think sharing ourselves authentically we'll call in the right community and that's when we don't feel lonely because you can be in a group of people but if you don't feel like you belong with them that void will still be there. But if you're with a group of people that are like-minded and like you said can actually see you and accept you and love you then that's the real sense of the word like community and belonging but if we don't share ourselves authentically then we'll find ourselves in the wrong rooms.
Garret: So let's let's follow that path and say, okay, now I'm in I'm hanging with this group of people and I'm sharing I'm sharing my truth, right? I I'm talking about things that mean something to me and there's a disagreement. Somebody has a an opposite view. now I have a choice. Right? I I can I can conform or I can be quiet or I can continue to disagree. And say, like, this is a healthy discourse that we can both disagree. And it doesn't mean that we are apart from. Look at out of the okay, the ten people closest to you, seven of them you are indifferent about. They could come or go. You don't it doesn't matter. It it really doesn't matter. Two of them you love them and they love you and and you have a special bond, and one of them drives you nuts. They're still there, right? They just drive you nuts, right? It's something about their personality, whatever it is, right? And now you have a choice. Who do you spend your time focused on? The seven, because you want to get more of them to like you, the two that you love and that love you, or that one person that's driving you nuts. Right? This is a choice, right? It's interesting. but but I think like if you look around at your circle of people. I I bet you it falls within that framework. What do you think about that?
Elizabeth: I think that's true. And I you know, I was exploring this with someone last night about what the value of kind of working through some of those harder experiences with your community can be and knowing that sometimes that relationship with those ten people evolves over time where you know the seven who are kind of you don't care so much maybe at points that evolves and somebody who is like in the inner circle kind of moves to the outside a little bit or suddenly the person that's driving you crazy, something clicks and you go, I kind of get what they were saying now. And that creates a new bond.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I think
Garret: What do you think, Nicole?
Nicole Alexander, MA: I think communicating through the conflict 'cause I feel a lot of people treat people as being disposable these days. I've had it happen to me and it's quite painful where I think that I have this friendship and this great working relationship and then next thing you know, I'm like, you know, ostracized and blocked and banned and I'm just like, ouch. Yeah.
Garret: Dang, Nicole, you man, your friends get after it. They even block you. But damn, that's rough.
Nicole Alexander, MA: blocked. And it really hurt that, you know, part of me that wants people to like me, especially the pe people that I cared for, I respected, and I thought we had a mutually beneficial like relationship. so I think the people that I found they are able to communicate through conflict because most of the time it's just a misunderstanding. And if you talk through it, you uncover what it is, you take accountability, you apologize, then your relationship becomes stronger. I have my co-facilitator for the two retreats that I've done. I was, you know, teasing her and calling her woo-woo and weird. And to me, I love her for those exact reasons. But because of her past experiences, she was wounded by that and hurt by that. And I was so happy that she came to me privately, discussed it with me. I said, I would never want to hurt you. I respect you so much. I love our relationship. I love you and everything that you represent. present and weird and woo-woo to me is I I love weird people but
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Alexander, MA: if those words hurt you I will not use them because that's not my intention and then from there a relationship grew and became stronger so There are people, probably every person in your life and the closer people that will push your buttons and irk you, but it's, you know, having the difficult conversations to move past it. or, you know, maybe goes the other way too, but have enough respect to have a conversation.
Garret: I I think if people show themselves the door in your life, they're supposed to. They're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: supposed to, right? Because what we're talking about in in some instances is a bit of clinging.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: don't leave me. I I need you. I'm sorry, right? I didn't mean it. Right? Don't I don't want to be alone. I was just joking. You know, that's my thing, right? Is I I touch a lot of people's little buttons verbally. And can hurt people's feelings. You know, and to me, it's so funny, right? But I'm not, I'm not malicious with it. I don't know I hurt their feeling, right? And next thing you know, right, the whole energy just shifts on a dime. And I'm going, I said so many things, I don't even know which one hit the button, right? Because I'm always teasing and having a good, especially if you get me around like an athletic anything. If we're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: playing sports, like it just flows out of me like a waterfall.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: And and I talk a lot of shit. But it's all in it's all in love to me. Like I don't I I don't mean any of it, even though I know it's gonna rub the wrong way, but I'm hoping that they start playing bad because of it. I guess that's not very n that's not very Buddhist
Elizabeth: Ha ha ha.
Garret: of me.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Or are you testing to see who stays?
Garret: I don't know. I don't it it's like this auto this auto thing. Like I don't even wanna do it anymore. Like I go out and play pickup basketball and half the time I leave and I'm all God, did you have to give them that hard of a time? You know? Like like I don't even mean to do it, but it just pop bop.
Nicole Alexander, MA: On the court is one place, but probably like other relationships might not be as beneficial.
Garret: No, no, it's not, it's not a beneficial practice for sure. But it's, you know, as as Liz told me, awareness is the first step to to making the change.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Garret: I'll finish I want to finish with a little story. I I talked to this lady who's 86 years old the other day. Lost her husband about a year ago. And so she's deciding where to move to next, right? Family in Arizona, family in Colorado, her son's over in Santa Cruz. She lives in San Jose. She's made the decision that she should go to a senior community. And we're talking about it. And she said, Yeah, my son really wants me over here. Really, he keeps telling me, Don't do that. I want you over here, but I don't want to be a burden. She keeps saying, I don't want to be a burden. And and I I just looked at her and I said, Why don't you just believe what he's telling you is the truth, that you're not a burden, that that he he wants you to, he wants to live close to his mother. And he wants to help take care of you. Why don't you just believe him? And and we talked for an hour, and and she really had a hard time, like going, like, maybe. You know, but it was really cool because because she texted me later and just and thanked me for the conversation. And I was like, that's that sort of connection is what my life is about. You know, like I don't give a shit about the 49ers. I don't want to talk about your fantasy football team. I don't care. Right? But it makes it hard in in some group settings. I'm sure you two can relate because of what we all do for work and what we're passionate about. It's hard to have surface level conversation only around you.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: That is draining. Wait a second, doesn't anyone want to talk about suffering? They're all nope. it's too funny. Thank you both for your time today. I will include your contact information. And next chapter alliance. This was I think the fourth name change that I've made this year to this podcast. So I this one's sticking, I'm pretty sure, but who knows? The wind blows different directions. yeah, thank you so much.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Thank you, Garrett.
Elizabeth: Thanks, Garrett. I appreciate the opportunity and it was great to chat with the two of you.
Elizabeth: That's right, Greenfield.
Garret: functional wellness and Nicole with soul medicine. And I'm super excited to see where the conversation goes today. thank you so much for joining me. I want to throw it out there to everybody listening. What we're going to be discussing today is courage and finding your meaning. It's a it's a very light topic for those
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: listeners. I hope that we can shed some light on our own experiences and and what has helped us and and what we've seen work for for others and different books and resources. Let's let's kick it off with Nicole, and we're just gonna discuss, maybe argue a little bit and and talk about a variety of different topics. But what did you you shared with me yesterday something that you did on LinkedIn
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: and and I'd like you to to kind of kick us off there if that's all right.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Sure, it was kind of a big one and the way that I phrased it to you is that I came out of this psychedelic closet. And especially
Garret: I love it.
Nicole Alexander, MA: the platform that I s placed it on is LinkedIn, you know, which previously I always kept very separate. Even my business before quitting the corporate space. I didn't share that I had a business, that I did energy healing, that I did breath work, that I did these things that are kind of on the outskirts of traditional ways of living. So and psychedelics was definitely the one that you had to know me and you had to pass some tests before I shared that information. So it's kind of a big deal that yesterday I just said, hey world. This is what I'm into.
Garret: And what was the response like? What have you what have you heard back?
Nicole Alexander, MA: It was a it was a very positive response. I also shared on you know some other social platforms and you know people close to me know this about me already. I'm actually very passionate about it when you get me one-on-one to talk about it. but lots of comments and hearts and messages and interest and some, you know, calls that are gonna come of it. So I'm I'm glad to do it because I know the curiosity is there. And so I feel like this can kind of open the door to people who have that curiosity.
Garret: That's amazing. Was there any negative feedback?
Nicole Alexander, MA: No, not really. my partner, he's always worried that like, especially when it comes to the internet, once you put something out there, like that information's out there. And so sometimes, you know, he's in data. So that's something that he's like concerned about. He's like, well, you know, they're gonna take the keywords and this information's gonna be used. And like, okay, I'm worried about that.
Garret: Okay. We're good. We're walking we're walking in our authentic path here, huh? We're not we're not worried. let's let's jump over to Liz. We'll we'll close the psychedelic chapter for a second before we open that one back up. we've talked a number of times, and you you help a lot of women nutritionally. What what is it that you would like to share with the audience that you've seen? in a pivotal moment where people really take that big step to to make the change in their life in involving their nutrition.
Elizabeth: That's a great question. And since today's topic is courage, that is definitely a required element. So for better or for worse, what has to happen a lot of times is people really have to kind of hit rock bottom from a health and wellness perspective before they're able to make that real lasting change. And that's what we're really here to walk. people through is like once they reach that point of understanding I just can't live like this anymore. What is the next step to begin digging out of that and starting to really honor what their unique system needs. Everyone's body is different. There's a lot of confusion online with influencers and things like that, talking about protein or keto or fasting or whatever it may be. And you know, not any one of those things is perfect for every person. So, you know, that that's a lot of it is just the courage, the willingness to say, I need to make a change, the ability to put one foot in front of the other and get that personalized guidance on how to do it.
Garret: This is to both of you. Do you remember a point in your life when you felt it was okay to ask for help? Do you do you remember this this point where you realized that you needed to raise your hand and ask somebody to show you a different way or share new information? And if so, we'll start with Nicole. Would you you remember an event I I think by By the nodding of the head. Can you share that with us?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah. Sure, and it's one that's really challenging to share because of fear of judgment, but My daughter, I can't remember exactly how old she was. She was probably about a year and a half. I was working full time, going to school in the evening. You know, my husband at the time and I were barely making it financially, you know, paycheck to paycheck between mortgage and child care. you know, say, okay, we went overdrawn. Don't spend any more money, don't buy anything else, you know, and living that way, which i is very stressful. And I was going up the stairs, carrying my daughter and one. arm and carrying groceries in the other and she's crying for one reason or another and I just opened the door dropped everything and I covered her mouth and it was not something that I consciously thought about. It was just I need this to stop. This is stressful. And then I caught myself and realized what I was doing and I just was like horrified. Horrified that there was this moment that, like, my biology, the stress that I was feeling, took over and did something without my conscious thought because I would never want to hurt my children. And I grew up in a household that had a lot of anger, a lot of fighting, a lot of sometimes physical repercussions. So That was when I was like, okay, I don't want to repeat any patterns. I need to make whatever changes I need to make. I need to get whatever help I need to get to make sure that this stops here. I don't hurt my kids and I can be the best mom I can be.
Garret: Thank you for sharing that. I w you know, we have I think most people listening and all of us on the call have had moments, but but where I believe the courage comes into that is what you did next. Right. Because a lot of us have had many of these kind of moments that caught our attention. And then whether it was shame or guilt or whatever emotion accompanied it, we were embarrassed to tell somebody.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Do you remember the first person that you said, Hey, this is what happened and and I don't know what to do?
Nicole Alexander, MA: well, I think I knew what to do. I was already in school for psychology and I got an appointment with a therapist and I worked with him for many, many years. And I was very lucky that I just happened to be put with someone who aligned with a lot of the beliefs that I have, which is not necessarily like medication first and and things like that. So that was my first step was
Garret: you guys are both really fascinating, right? Because Nicole, you you came from like a corporate setting and Liz, you came from a hospital setting, right? And they're they're the same, but they're very different. Right. From a stress perspective. And it's just I think it's really cool that we're here talking and and sharing these experiences, but that's enough. out of me. Liz, what do you think?
Elizabeth: There there were lots of moments that sort of led up to a a real almost breakdown where I just could not keep going without help. As a functional medicine practitioner, I was still giving anesthesia and I was doing functional medicine on the side and I was watching myself get burned out in the hospital setting, teaching other people how to take care of themselves and still really not doing it for myself because I didn't honestly know how to. And one of the moments that really made me realize I I'm just completely out of alignment and I can't keep doing it this way. was a an emergency C section that was called on labor and delivery. I I was the only provider. I knew I was the only one who was going to be able to respond. And the weight of that, knowing that, you know, I was gonna have to do it all by myself, it was an emergency. We were gonna have to get that baby out as fast as possible and ran over to labor and delivery. You know, there were 50 people in the operating room. It felt like everybody getting ready to save this baby. And it was a bad outcome for the mom. And in that moment, instead of doing what I normally would have done or thought that I should do, which is to comfort the mom and really go by her side at the head of the bed and ask her what she needed and take care of her, I turned my back on her. And it was just I could not really focus on anything that was happening in the room. It was like my nervous system just completely shut down. And it it did make me realize I cannot keep doing what I'm doing this way. I'm not serving myself. I can't serve my patients this way. And, you know, it was a step in a series of things that happened that really made me realize I had. I didn't have a choice. I had to get help and figure it out, but it was a big one because I I hated that that happened. I hated not being there for that mom that way.
Garret: Interesting how, you know, these pivotal moments in our life are it's great suffering, right? I can just kind of bucket it that way. It's painful, it hurts. But they can be converted into these beautiful outcomes. And so I I read this the other day and I love it, but I want I'll I'll start with Nicole, I want your guys' take on this. So I'll speak for myself. My past is my past. Right. And I'm the only one with access to my past. So with that being said, can I go back and change the story? That's that's kind of my question. And and I don't know if you've heard this before, but here I'll share my belief. My belief is that the story that I've told for a long time about certain events in my life has changed over time. It it has changed based on where I'm at in my life and what emotional state I'm in. And and so and who I'm telling the story to, right? Whether it's verbal to people or it's in my head, right? I can make it sound more grandiose than it probably was. but with it, with that being said, if it's just my story and and I'm the only one with access to it, why would I choose to feel shame and guilt over it if I have the ability to convert that event into a gain? Because I mean, you guys shared some. Some tough times, right? Both of you had had these moments, right? But but they end up being these pivotal moments that that lead you to a more productive, happier life, right? And so that's where I'm at with it. But Nicole, let's start with you. so what do you think about can I go back there and change my past and change my story?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Hundred percent. And I think it changes throughout your lifetime. I think there's themes that tend to happen with people where there's some point in their life where they start examining and then they say, well, this is my parents' fault. This is my dad's fault. This is so-and-so's fault. And then you grow past that and you know then maybe there's people that think, it's society's fault, or it's because this happened and that happened and you're like a a victim of your life. And then hopefully Hopefully you get to a point in your life where you realize that everything that happens to you, you have the ability to frame it how you want to and allow it to impact your future the way that you choose to. your past and your story changes with age, with wisdom, with more life experiences. And I think when you have enough of those moments where you feel like, my God, this happened to me and I didn't have control over it and it's ruined my life. And then things turn out better than expected, you stop feeling that way. You're like, okay, I'm being divinely redirected. I'm being protected. And that's how I choose to look at things especially those that are outside of my control.
Garret: Yeah, well said. I like the idea of nothing really happened to to me, but it happened for me. And and I think we take language for granted sometimes in the words that we choose. Right. And it's it's the difference between a want and a need. I think if we look up the definition of those things, a want is a healthy desire. Where where a need requires someone else to fill that need. And I'm not okay unless I get it filled. But just
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: the the change in that word. Liz, what do you got on can we change our past?
Elizabeth: Absolutely. And I think that shift out of the victim role is probably the biggest piece of the puzzle. I spent at least the first 40 years of my life really comfortable in the victim role, without even realizing it. Everything was happening to me, and it was always someone else's fault. And kind of shifting out of that was not pleasant. That was really painful to take a look and say and realize, ugh. A lot of this was actually my fault. I remember actually reaching out to my ex-husband and admitting I can now see that this was partially my fault and really taking responsibility for that. And it feels like it has shifted our relationship into a really positive place. So it was pain with a purpose. And now when I look at can we change the story? Just being able to look at what I've done through the lens of self-compassion and really realize, hey, there was actually a reason why I did each and every one of the things that I did, and knowing it wasn't because I'm a bad person, I'm not necessarily proud of the way I acted, but I can see it through a different perspective and know that I was going through a lot. I was hurting or, you know, without making excuses, maintain that level of responsibility for the choices I made, but know that I'm a human too. I'm going to make mistakes. And at the end of the day, we can change our story and we need to remember it actually is a story. There's a lot of evidence out there that the way we remember things is nowhere near the way it actually happened. So that gives us the opportunity to recreate any story about our past that we want to.
Garret: Yeah, heard this the other day that in until I convert it into a lesson learned, it's gonna have some power over me.
Elizabeth: Hm.
Garret: And and so I I did some writing on a number of things in the past. And I wrote down specifically what is the lesson that I've learned that I take with me today. And it was pretty a pretty cool exercise to to just be able to go, Maybe everything did happen just as it was supposed to happen. And it's okay. Right. It's just, it's okay. There's there's freedom, I think, in in what you shared when you when you went in and made the your apology or your your amends there to your ex husband because it sets us free. You know, I mean, all and it doesn't even matter if they accept our apology or not. I'm not doing it for them. Right there, and and this goes back to our topic of courage is the so the book The Courage to be disliked, okay, by Ichiro Kashimi and Fumataki Koga. Okay, it's brilliant. And the the big overarching theme of having courage to be disliked is that you will never be free until you have that courage. You will never be free because the assertion is that. All of our challenges in life are interpersonal conflicts. They're conflicts with you and I and with them. And and if I don't have the courage to be disliked, and then he talks about this, which I absolutely love. Have you have you guys ever read anything about horizontal and vertical relationships?
Elizabeth: No.
Garret: So your teacher or your parents, right? You would think of that relationship being vertical because they are telling you what to do and guiding your actions, right? Because they're your parent or your teacher or your boss at work. Okay. And a horizontal relationship is your good friend. So the book talks about if you have one vertical relationship in your life, it's a lifestyle choice, and all of your relationships are vertical. So I am either better than you or I am worse than you. We're on a vertical relationship, right? I either know more or I know less. And I'm constantly living my life in this state of comparison. And it's terrible for me. And and in being introduced to the topic, I really realized how much of my relationships are on this vertical plane. And so I'm really working hard to be horizontal. But being on a horizontal plane means that I don't get to criticize you anymore. Gone. I don't get to make, you know, I don't get to do that because that puts us on a vertical relationship. If I criticize anyone else, I am asserting a superior position over that person. Because I don't know what's best for you. You know, so I don't get to criticize you. It's very, I mean, it was just eye-opening to look at my life in that lens of horizontal and vertical and go, God, that. That's uncomfortable. No wonder it's been so uncomfortable telling people what to do. It it just created this space between them and I. Yeah, Nicole, what is on your mind when it comes to the word courage? Where do you I guess where do you see that? And I know you you made that big step on LinkedIn to tell people about your practice and and how it's helping people in your own belief there in this different setting. But But where else is do you really find like you have to use courage to show up today?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Hmm. Well, I really wanna read that book about the courage of being disliked because I think that I've spent the majority of my life wanting to be liked. I think it's pretty common, but I feel like it may be a bit stronger in me. My gender may have something to do with it. Just wanna be, you know, she's so nice. And and want to be seen as smart and, you know, successful and all the things. And you're not gonna be everyone's cup of tea. So I think showing up authentically and overcoming that there will be people that aren't gonna like what I have to say or aren't going to even want to hear what I have to say. So yeah, showing up more authentically and knowing that that's going to come with opinions and dislikes and unfollows and things like that.
Garret: Well the the most the most people that are gonna view our stuff are either gonna like over the top love it or over the top hate it. Right.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: And you probably get more more gas when they hate it. You know, this is just and I think this culture that we live in with social media, it's never been so easy to control a mass of people. Because they set a message. Let's I heard this about social media. You're the consumer. You you're the product. They're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: the third-party advertisers are paying to manipulate our decisions. And they do so a handful of ways, right? And it's and it's really powerful and it's really working. Right. Which probably
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm. Absolutely.
Garret: makes it even harder to to have courage about what other people think because of the amount of time that we're it was something like 90% of people that consume social media. they wish they had the lives of the people that they're consuming. So it's
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: very much it, it's very much a vertical relationship, and it and it makes them feel like shit.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Uh-huh.
Garret: Because everybody's a little prettier, everybody's got a little more, everybody's doing more fun things, and it's constant. And I think that we have to really be careful for ourselves, first and foremost, and and probably for those people that we care about in terms of. what you watch that anxiety level go up if you consume, you know, a couple hours of social media every day.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Liz, where's courage showing up for you today? Either either professionally or personally or both, whatever you'd like to to jump into. The water's warm.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I I would entrepreneurship is always the best platform for personal growth and development that I've experienced. It there's always an opportunity to reevaluate and ask myself, like, can I keep going with this? Is this serving me? Am I serving other people in the way that I really want to on this venture? And it has required a lot of courage for me. I've had many, many times when I I think back like is the right thing for me to do to actually go back to the hospital setting and be employed? Or do I have the courage to keep going as a business owner and
Garret: Mm.
Elizabeth: really trying to offer the highest level of service that I can because when I jumped ship from my hospital job in 2023, I honestly didn't know the first thing about running a business. The thing that made me do it and kept me going was getting good client outcomes. And as the layers of the onion have been peeled away and really revealing what I didn't know, I've had to rely on courage just to stay in the game and keep going.
Garret: Yeah, I love thank you for sharing that. You know what's interesting? I in comparing so I I sell real estate, right? And I jumped from a personal training job to real estate. and I also have my wife who has a good corporate job, right? So I don't have to worry about benefits, and it takes less courage to be in my position because I I Traded in a job where I was making like 80 to 100,000 a year. That's different than the job that you traded in, Liz. They paid you a little bit better to put people to sleep than they paid me, right? So I think that the courage from a financial standpoint, I think it's similar in a lot of ways, but it's also very different. And thank you for sharing how you're playing this tug-of-war with your entrepreneurship, because you're right. I The reason why I love it, and I think Nicole, you'd agree, is it is just this personal growth battlefield, right? And it it is it is wide and it is deep. So the whole search for meaning, you got where I got the idea was this book. So Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning. 18 million copies sold, right? He was in a concentration camp for three years. He was a psychiatrist. And he founded something called logos therapy. And he went back to Vienna after getting out of the concentration camps and worked at the hospital there. With all the people that had persecuted him around him. He was serving them. And the the real theme of that book is if your purpose or your why is big enough, you can endure anyhow. And I believe that that is like a very challenging thing for entrepreneurs to get to. Is like, like, like what is that why? Because we're gonna have to endure some hows, if not a bunch of them. And and for me, I've struggled with that. I got Simon Senex you know, start with why, that book that sold a bunch of copies. And I was like, this is so stupid. You know, you want me to tell you why I sell real like my big why behind this job of helping people buy and sell houses? Like, I don't know, to make money. You know, I don't know what the why is. But we're getting closer. I'm getting closer. I don't know if you guys are getting closer. Nicole, say something that inspires me. No, I'm just kidding.
Elizabeth: Ha ha ha.
Nicole Alexander, MA: So, I think it's important to know what makes life worth living. And if not Living in accordance to that, you're going to feel out of alignment. You may suffer from depression, you may have physical ailments. So it's important to go back to that question. And a lot of times I find that for people it's tied to things from their the things they enjoyed in childhood. And that they kind of like shoved away because, you know, like. You can't survive as an artist. You're gonna be a starving artist. That's too competitive. You know, you're not tall enough to be a basketball player, just whatever it is, all the society and authoritative of the opinions of others that keep you from doing the thing that maybe is most true to you. So coming back to those things, I think, often unlocks the secret of what it is that your your purposes and you're meant to be doing. Yeah.
Garret: Mm-hmm. I so the courage book is is about courage to be this like is about Adulerian psychology. And Adolyrian what that's not his name. It's close. But so he was a contemporary of Sigmund Freud in Vienna. But they had completely opposite ideas on psychotherapy. And where Freud was Very much cause and effect and childhood. Everything has a cause and effect, right? And it's finding this meaning and it's all of this. Where Adelyrian psychology was about our life is about future momentum and future goals and us finding meaning in our daily march. And and like the past is gone, right? Like it's not even real anymore. It's gone. And it's it's really fascinating. Cause so I plugged. Adelyrian psychology, logos therapy, which is what Victor Frankel started, which is also very future focused. It's very much about our our life's meaning and purpose, and and Buddhism. So I plugged these into Gemini and I said, give me the the five practices that you would say are are similar between these teachings. And here was the Here's what it spit out for me after a bunch of other stuff, but this was the summary. So you are not your past. You are capable of transforming your suffering into strength. You will find your deepest sense of peace by serving and connecting to the world around you. Right. Not obsessing over yourself. And I was like, wow, that's exactly what I needed to hear. And Feels like a good mission statement. I remember when
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: I joined Recovery, the first meeting I went to, you know, 10 years ago, roughly. And they said, your purpose is to carry this message to the alcoholic who still suffers. And I remember taking a big deep breath and going, like, finally, finally, somebody told me what I'm supposed to be doing.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: It was a weird, it was like a weird moment where I was like, I feel like my whole life I've been looking. And it goes to this book, you know, searching for meaning, and kind of what we're talking about a little bit today is like that's what creates excitement and joy for life. Right. And happiness is a byproduct. Happiness is a bright byproduct from what we accomplish. I believe if we were chasing happiness, we'd never get it. But if we were chasing little Things that make us feel good. And really focusing on others. We'll probably be pretty happy, you know.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I'm curious what step that is, Garrett.
Garret: What's that?
Nicole Alexander, MA: What number step is that? When you to do service and yeah. Yeah, that is fine.
Garret: twelve. The last step. Yeah. Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Liz, now it's your turn to inspire us, please.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Elizabeth: I I kinda wanna piggyback on what Nicole was saying around, you know, certain aspects of ourselves being extinguished when we're younger. And and in this kind of journey of self-discovery, I've realized my intellect was what was rewarded from a very early age. So that was the place that I operated from and really still operate from a lot of the time. And it's it's Interesting to ask the question like, what else is underneath all of that? And quite honestly, you know, going into a nursing profession off the bat, my my intellect told me being in service in this way is what you need to do. This is your purpose. And over time, you know, I'm so grateful that I had the opportunity to serve in those ways for 25 years, but it was more of service out of like obligation of what my intellect was telling me that I needed to do. And over time that that service has really evolved where I'm now serving from a place of joy. And it's changed things a bit for me in in the way that I serve. And all and also realizing that actually serving myself is a huge piece of the puzzle. I cannot serve from a place of joy if my own needs are not met. And that was something that was deeply missing in my hospital role. I was showing up every day. It's not that I didn't enjoy the work. It's not that I didn't enjoy serving people. I truly did, but I do it from a different place now. And it's a it's a lot more fulfilling.
Garret: Yeah, that's great. What a transformation, huh? I mean, really. So that brings me to to measure backwards. Right. And and if we all took some time to s to look back at day one of our entrepreneurial journeys and put a list of things together that we've accomplished since we started. You know, five, ten minutes. And and that's kind of our launching pad. for for where we want to go. And I've done this exercise a number of times and from different past benchmarks. And what I realized is the majority of things on that list I never think about ever. I never think about them, right? I think we're wired for survival and or to see the negative, to, to look out for the warnings if they don't like me.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: You know? That person might be dangerous on the subconscious weird level that is uncomfortable in many different settings. But so I found this tool of measure backwards and then focusing on tiny wins. There's a book called Tiny Habits. And it's essentially that these little tiny habits that we are intentional about creating can take us pretty much wherever we want to go if we just. work the tiny habits.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I have a similar exercise that my life coach did with me and she called it the reverse bucket list. And so writing rather than the 10 things that you want to do in the future, the 10 things you already have accomplished in life. And so that's one that I've shared with other people and I think is a really valuable exercise to remind yourself of how far you've come. That's a good point.
Garret: I I heard it from this guy Dan Sullivan, who owns a c entrepreneurial coaching business, strategic business. Coaching. And I had a call with them on Wednesday. And this is a substantial investment to qualify. You know, you have to bring in a quarter million a year just to qualify for their entry level program. it requires you to fly out to Canada once a quarter to attend these workshops. And I realized after getting off the call. You know, we're like the five people we spend the most time with. We kind of adopt the same values and the same ideas. And I believe it's hard for entrepreneurs to find other people to connect with who have our crazy desire to be successful and also be in charge of everything and kind of like set the vision. And and we're, I mean, both of you are the pre we're all practitioners of, you know, the service, we're all selling a service. And we are the practitioner, we're also the salesperson, we're also the marketer and the accountant and the the everything. And it I mean, for me, I found it very hard to connect with people who who want to build this big life for themselves. You know, most of my friends work for somebody else. so I'm trying to get more intentional with spending time with people that are. that are doing the things I I want to be doing. And and they can tolerate me for at least like 30 minutes at a time. Liz, are you have you ever been intentional about who you spend time with and trying to get that information and kind of where are you on that path right now?
Elizabeth: That's fascinating because I was just thinking about this this morning. And growing up in my family, if you were going after success and building a big life and financial freedom and things like that, that was associated with not being a good person. And so this has been a huge reframe for me as a business owner. And I was just thinking this morning, like I actually Have to pivot completely myself in the way that I hold success and the way I think about success and the way I look at other people who have success. It's been just a journey, really transitioning away from like, people with money are bad, money breeds evil, et cetera. And you know, I'm not going to be successful as a business owner if I hold that as a set of values.
Garret: Yeah, you might be successful. That's funny. My mom used to bash private my mom was a public school teacher at a high school level, and she'd always say, You see, those private school kids, they think they're better than you, and all this stuff. And you know what's interesting about that framework that you grew up with? Is it's really that person is saying, Don't build too big of a life because Because I can't handle that. I can't handle that right then.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: It's it's wild, right? Like what why would you ever say that? You know what I mean? Because because you didn't you know what it is? I think it's you didn't build a big life. And so 'cause you didn't build a big life, you don't want to see anybody else build a big life. I don't know. It's very strange, right? But I hope you can let go of that one.
Elizabeth: I'm working on it and awareness is the first step. You know, my mom always said when we were growing up, and all the way up until a couple of days ago, don't ever get caught patting yourself on the back because your hands are occupied. And the next thing you know, life is gonna come crashing down around you. So I've built a lot of my life around this hypervigilance of like. what's gonna happen next and especially if I noticed that I was like elevating myself and feeling confident about that what I was building or what I was doing. It's like that induced this state of of fear and like where do I need to look out next? What's gonna happen now that I kind of caught myself. feeling like I did a good job with something and it had and and being in an anesthesia career really compounded that because we always had to have plan B and think about like what was the worst case scenario for anything anytime that we put somebody to sleep. So awareness has been the first step of just going, wow, I didn't realize how much that was shaping my ability to create a particular outcome for myself.
Garret: Student, now that you're aware of it, I believe the exercise to learn how to pat yourself on the back is for you to have a number of things every day that you're gonna do. And when you do them, you are going to pat yourself on the back. Right. And you just start to build that muscle and that rapid. And it might be something as simple as go to your yoga class, right? Or drink that cup of water. It doesn't have to be monumental, but just the repetition. Like I realized I had no idea how to appreciate myself. Didn't know how to do it. Couldn't do it. I needed it from you. I didn't know how to give it to me. And it took a lot of like very intentional, like, hey, good job. You know, and it felt weird at the beginning. And then all of a sudden it's like, it's it's okay to love myself. Like it's okay. I can I can do that. It doesn't mean I'm an egomaniac who's who's gonna be out here telling everybody else what to do. I can just be proud of the fact that I got out of bed this morning and went to the gym and went and visited my dad and and like I I put my garbage can. I took my garbage cans in. Like I could just be proud that like, that's cool. Good job, Garrett. Nicole, what do you got?
Nicole Alexander, MA: I wanted to bring it back to what what Liz was sharing because I think some of it's generational. Like I feel like my parents were very risk averse. I think they were very risk averse because they learned it from their parents and their parents went through the depression and were like extremely poor. And so once they had things, it was very much like okay, we have to keep these things and w and some of that's great. Like they took very good care of everything that they had, which I think is different than the way that you know, we tend to be now. But so my parents, you know, were both very concerned of me making a decision to quit my stable job with my health care benefits and steady paycheck. so it took some convincing for them to not be worried about me. And that's I think really where it comes from is that they're just, you know, have fear for you. And when I was telling my mom about the first retreat I was gonna do in Mexico last year, the first thing that she said to me was. Well, do they give you a refund if like nobody signs up? And I go
Garret: Nope.
Nicole Alexander, MA: first thing that you say to me, you know that this is like my dream, this is where my passions lie, this is
Garret: Did you cancel the retreat after she said that to you?
Nicole Alexander, MA: No, I had to have a talk with her and tell her, you know, it's okay. Like, first off, also have trust and confidence in me that I have made it this far along in life and I am looking at those details. But the first thing, can it be like, I'm so excited for you. I hope it's a great success. Also, did you check out the refund policy? You know, maybe sandwich it. luckily she came on the retreat, sixteen women were there, it was very successful and a beautiful experience for everyone. But you know, and then it you just have those your parents' voices ingrained in your mind. So that's the voice that's there that I have to say, Okay, write it down.
Garret: Isn't it interesting how people will say something to us and we will tell them how we wish they would have said it to us in a different way?
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: Like I get that a little bit in my house, and I'm
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Garret: always like, no, that's not how communication works. You know, like like I I mean, I said it the way I said it, and and you have to deal with it the way I said it, just like I have to deal with it the way that everybody says it. It's so fat we're like, I could take bad news, but could you at least start it with some good news? Like this is ridiculous. I'm just
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: freaking out that you're gonna lose all your money, right, on this retreat.
Nicole Alexander, MA: The the shit sandwich. The shit sandwich is the best way to deliver anything to anyone. Try to go by
Garret: Yeah.
Nicole Alexander, MA: that.
Garret: Yeah. It but then when you have the courage to be disliked, you just give them the shit. Just the shit. There you go. Sorry. There's the way it is.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Just the shit. I don't know if I I think I have
Garret: Sorry. No, I'm not sorry, because then I'm worried about what you think about me, I guess. man, that's wild. Why you know that's an interesting question. Why do we care so much what people think?
Nicole Alexander, MA: So that we don't get thrown out of the group. If you think of like the primates, you know, and if there was one that got cast out and had to be out in the wilderness alone, they had less chances of survival than if they were with the safety of the group.
Garret: But that's not real anymore, right?
Nicole Alexander, MA: no, it's real.
Garret: No, but like that this is like I think Sigmund Freud versus Adler psychology, where now I have this I this cause and effect, it allows me to choose to still behave this way and believe this. Because look, these people said it was true. I mean, I was I've been talking about evolution and and how that instilled all these fears in me. And you know what it's like? Today I'm like, it's not my fault. You know, is it these are just there, right? But do I have a choice today and how I live my life and the choices I make from here moving forward to not play victim to that fear? Or that excuse. I mean, I think it's really an excuse. I don't know.
Nicole Alexander, MA: The choice is fair, but we're often having to fight against like our human nature. So we're having to resist against what just feels natural. Just naturally we want to be part of the group. We want to be liked. So it takes courage to to risk.
Garret: Do do you I I believe like what you're describing is is comes from people not practicing observing their thoughts. Because if I if I have no practice to observe my internal monologue and this this is all auto-reactive stuff, then of course I'm gonna follow my lowest nature, which is instinctual stuff, right, for shelter and reproduction and to be a part of the group, right? And food, right? Of course. Because I I have no practice for observing my thoughts. So I just believe everything that pops up here. Ooh, they don't like me. I better go over there and compliment so and so on the pants they're wearing. So they like me. And then I do it. And I'm and then I'm back over here and I'm thinking, I still don't think they like me. You know what I mean? So I'm just fucked either way. Right? Like it's
Elizabeth: Yeah.
Garret: so I mean, I don't know. I'm just you know, I'm really in this weird spot where I'm like, I I think that people just don't. practice and we have become maybe always, we're just so so self-absorbed in getting our little itch scratched, whatever it is, right? Whether it's a acknowledgement or physical contact or a meal or going to bed, it doesn't matter what it is. I'm s I I see that the majority of people are so self-absorbed in in in scratching that Biological i That I don't know. I I think that our life is so much greater than that. It's it's like so much there's like so much more here. Like we're all gonna come and we're all gonna go and and and our next whatever is gonna be amazing, right? And our energy is just gonna float out somewhere. Like like and our life is like this small in the grand scheme of things. It's like so small, so small.
Elizabeth: I I I'm actually gonna counter you a little bit on this, Garrett.
Garret: I love it.
Elizabeth: You know, for for me growing up, I was super scrawny. I was incredibly shy. I had an eye patch and really thick glasses.
Garret: We're like, are you a pirate?
Elizabeth: Yeah, totally. My dad would draw a picture of an eye on the eye patch. You know, I couldn't tell him, my God, no, dad, that's so much worse than just wearing the eye patch by itself. So I was a total outcast. I did not belong. I had warts on my knees and my parent my mom would dress me in tights and you could see those bumps through the tights. Like I was totally bullied. And I would spend my recess hiding in a cement tunnel out on the playground, just suffering through every moment that someone wasn't telling me what to do because I didn't belong and I had nowhere to go. And so, you know, in my adult life, belonging has been a piece of the puzzle for me. I longed for it. And and it w a lot there was a lot of unconscious behavior around. Healing this feeling of being an outsider and not belonging. And today I'm in the place where, you know, having to kind of cover up all of the real aspects of me in order to belong was painful. And I wasn't able to be authentic or be myself. And now that I'm kind of starting to emerge out of that, in fact, Nicole asked me this very question a couple of nights ago. What is it that you actually need now? And it's community. I think community is huge. I think we do have a need for being seen and belonging and being part of something. I think that it is incredibly important as a basic human need and something that can be really, really healing and profound.
Garret: So the pushback is that we need community.
Elizabeth: I really do think that we do. You know, I've been hacking it on my own for a very long time. I've been single for, you know, more than a decade for the most part. I've got my kids and they're amazing and I have friends and it's wonderful. And I really do think that community is so healing.
Garret: Okay, I don't disagree.
Nicole Alexander, MA: And I I think sharing ourselves authentically we'll call in the right community and that's when we don't feel lonely because you can be in a group of people but if you don't feel like you belong with them that void will still be there. But if you're with a group of people that are like-minded and like you said can actually see you and accept you and love you then that's the real sense of the word like community and belonging but if we don't share ourselves authentically then we'll find ourselves in the wrong rooms.
Garret: So let's let's follow that path and say, okay, now I'm in I'm hanging with this group of people and I'm sharing I'm sharing my truth, right? I I'm talking about things that mean something to me and there's a disagreement. Somebody has a an opposite view. now I have a choice. Right? I I can I can conform or I can be quiet or I can continue to disagree. And say, like, this is a healthy discourse that we can both disagree. And it doesn't mean that we are apart from. Look at out of the okay, the ten people closest to you, seven of them you are indifferent about. They could come or go. You don't it doesn't matter. It it really doesn't matter. Two of them you love them and they love you and and you have a special bond, and one of them drives you nuts. They're still there, right? They just drive you nuts, right? It's something about their personality, whatever it is, right? And now you have a choice. Who do you spend your time focused on? The seven, because you want to get more of them to like you, the two that you love and that love you, or that one person that's driving you nuts. Right? This is a choice, right? It's interesting. but but I think like if you look around at your circle of people. I I bet you it falls within that framework. What do you think about that?
Elizabeth: I think that's true. And I you know, I was exploring this with someone last night about what the value of kind of working through some of those harder experiences with your community can be and knowing that sometimes that relationship with those ten people evolves over time where you know the seven who are kind of you don't care so much maybe at points that evolves and somebody who is like in the inner circle kind of moves to the outside a little bit or suddenly the person that's driving you crazy, something clicks and you go, I kind of get what they were saying now. And that creates a new bond.
Nicole Alexander, MA: I think
Garret: What do you think, Nicole?
Nicole Alexander, MA: I think communicating through the conflict 'cause I feel a lot of people treat people as being disposable these days. I've had it happen to me and it's quite painful where I think that I have this friendship and this great working relationship and then next thing you know, I'm like, you know, ostracized and blocked and banned and I'm just like, ouch. Yeah.
Garret: Dang, Nicole, you man, your friends get after it. They even block you. But damn, that's rough.
Nicole Alexander, MA: blocked. And it really hurt that, you know, part of me that wants people to like me, especially the pe people that I cared for, I respected, and I thought we had a mutually beneficial like relationship. so I think the people that I found they are able to communicate through conflict because most of the time it's just a misunderstanding. And if you talk through it, you uncover what it is, you take accountability, you apologize, then your relationship becomes stronger. I have my co-facilitator for the two retreats that I've done. I was, you know, teasing her and calling her woo-woo and weird. And to me, I love her for those exact reasons. But because of her past experiences, she was wounded by that and hurt by that. And I was so happy that she came to me privately, discussed it with me. I said, I would never want to hurt you. I respect you so much. I love our relationship. I love you and everything that you represent. present and weird and woo-woo to me is I I love weird people but
Elizabeth: Mm-hmm.
Nicole Alexander, MA: if those words hurt you I will not use them because that's not my intention and then from there a relationship grew and became stronger so There are people, probably every person in your life and the closer people that will push your buttons and irk you, but it's, you know, having the difficult conversations to move past it. or, you know, maybe goes the other way too, but have enough respect to have a conversation.
Garret: I I think if people show themselves the door in your life, they're supposed to. They're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: supposed to, right? Because what we're talking about in in some instances is a bit of clinging.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm.
Garret: don't leave me. I I need you. I'm sorry, right? I didn't mean it. Right? Don't I don't want to be alone. I was just joking. You know, that's my thing, right? Is I I touch a lot of people's little buttons verbally. And can hurt people's feelings. You know, and to me, it's so funny, right? But I'm not, I'm not malicious with it. I don't know I hurt their feeling, right? And next thing you know, right, the whole energy just shifts on a dime. And I'm going, I said so many things, I don't even know which one hit the button, right? Because I'm always teasing and having a good, especially if you get me around like an athletic anything. If we're
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: playing sports, like it just flows out of me like a waterfall.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: And and I talk a lot of shit. But it's all in it's all in love to me. Like I don't I I don't mean any of it, even though I know it's gonna rub the wrong way, but I'm hoping that they start playing bad because of it. I guess that's not very n that's not very Buddhist
Elizabeth: Ha ha ha.
Garret: of me.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Or are you testing to see who stays?
Garret: I don't know. I don't it it's like this auto this auto thing. Like I don't even wanna do it anymore. Like I go out and play pickup basketball and half the time I leave and I'm all God, did you have to give them that hard of a time? You know? Like like I don't even mean to do it, but it just pop bop.
Nicole Alexander, MA: On the court is one place, but probably like other relationships might not be as beneficial.
Garret: No, no, it's not, it's not a beneficial practice for sure. But it's, you know, as as Liz told me, awareness is the first step to to making the change.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Yeah.
Garret: I'll finish I want to finish with a little story. I I talked to this lady who's 86 years old the other day. Lost her husband about a year ago. And so she's deciding where to move to next, right? Family in Arizona, family in Colorado, her son's over in Santa Cruz. She lives in San Jose. She's made the decision that she should go to a senior community. And we're talking about it. And she said, Yeah, my son really wants me over here. Really, he keeps telling me, Don't do that. I want you over here, but I don't want to be a burden. She keeps saying, I don't want to be a burden. And and I I just looked at her and I said, Why don't you just believe what he's telling you is the truth, that you're not a burden, that that he he wants you to, he wants to live close to his mother. And he wants to help take care of you. Why don't you just believe him? And and we talked for an hour, and and she really had a hard time, like going, like, maybe. You know, but it was really cool because because she texted me later and just and thanked me for the conversation. And I was like, that's that sort of connection is what my life is about. You know, like I don't give a shit about the 49ers. I don't want to talk about your fantasy football team. I don't care. Right? But it makes it hard in in some group settings. I'm sure you two can relate because of what we all do for work and what we're passionate about. It's hard to have surface level conversation only around you.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Mm-hmm.
Garret: That is draining. Wait a second, doesn't anyone want to talk about suffering? They're all nope. it's too funny. Thank you both for your time today. I will include your contact information. And next chapter alliance. This was I think the fourth name change that I've made this year to this podcast. So I this one's sticking, I'm pretty sure, but who knows? The wind blows different directions. yeah, thank you so much.
Nicole Alexander, MA: Thank you, Garrett.
Elizabeth: Thanks, Garrett. I appreciate the opportunity and it was great to chat with the two of you.
