Episode 78
Embracing the Mess: 10 Truths I've Found in the Middle
In this special episode of "Sharing the Middle," I share my top 10 lessons learned from being in the messy middle of life… and that maybe I don’t dislike the middle as much as before?
I talk about how being uncomfortable is actually okay (though it took me forever to learn this), and that emotions aren't good or bad - they're just information. One of my biggest revelations: the quickest way through difficult feelings is to actually feel them rather than avoid them. And sometimes things just suck - no silver lining required!
I explore how everyone's middle looks different yet somehow similar, which creates space for empathy. I've found that the more I learn, the less I know, which keeps me curious and open to wonder - something that's carried me through my darkest times.
As always, I invite you to join our Joyful Support Village, a place I'm pouring my heart into. Take what resonates from these lessons, adapt them to your own life, and maybe, just maybe, you'll start to appreciate the middle a bit more like I have. It's still not my favorite place, but I'm learning to navigate it with more grace and even find joy along the way!
Takeaways:
- Life isn't a math problem, man; there's no one right answer to how we live it.
- Discomfort is just a signal, not a bad thing; it can lead to real change!
- Emotions are like weather; they come and go, and it's okay to just let them be.
- Sometimes things just suck, and that's totally fine; no need to force a silver lining.
Links
Joyful Support Movement Podcasts
Mentioned in this episode:
Cubtail
Transcript
Foreign welcome to Sharing the Middle, where we share our messy middles of life.
Speaker A:I'm Lacy, your friend in the middle and guide.
Speaker A:And I'm really excited to be with you because it's just me and you today.
Speaker A:I'm talking right to you.
Speaker A:Hopefully at some point you'll talk back to me, whether that's in messages or whatever that looks like.
Speaker A:But I'm so excited today because I haven't done a one on one directly talking to the listener type podcast in months since I said, hey, I gotta take a little break because I'm having a baby.
Speaker A:So if you listen to our last episode of Sharing the Middle, you got to listen to me and my husband Joe talk about that experience of having that baby and life, what life looks like now and all that stuff.
Speaker A:And one of the things that I hope people is able to hear is that for me right now, life, it's pretty dang on good.
Speaker A:And it's so good because I'm feeling better than I felt in a long time.
Speaker A:And it also helped me think, take a pause and realize.
Speaker A:I've been doing this podcast now for almost three years, on and off.
Speaker A:I know we haven't been as consistent as everyone says I'm supposed to be, but I've come so far over the past two and a half, three years.
Speaker A:And so I wanted to take some time to pause and talk about 10 things that I've learned here in the middle.
Speaker A:And none of them are going to sound all that life changing, drastic, like they're things you hear other places.
Speaker A:But one thing that I struggle with as a person is intellectualizing things and being able to know something logically but not be able to like, feel it or enact it in life, I'm currently attempting to do this.
Speaker A:Wow, a baby.
Speaker A:So we might get distracted, we might not.
Speaker A:Who knows?
Speaker A:So beast quick pause while I try to make her go back to sleep.
Speaker A:And we're back.
Speaker A:And hopefully that lasts more than 10 minutes.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:So I've learned a lot in the middle, and I've learned a lot of things that I knew logically but didn't know how to feel it or honestly believe it.
Speaker A:You know, you can know something's logically true and not totally believe it or see it or feel it.
Speaker A:So here are 10 things that I've learned in the middle and I've actually, like, been able to come to live by and embody.
Speaker A:And while there are a lot of different factors as to why I'm in such a better place now than I was three years ago.
Speaker A:My ME CFS has gone from moderate to mild thanks to breastfeeding, probably, we think, but mentally and emotionally learning these things actually have made a difference.
Speaker A:The first thing that I've learned is there is no quote unquote right answer.
Speaker A:Life is not a math problem that has a specific answer.
Speaker A:We're not talking about tests, factoids, trivia or that kind of stuff.
Speaker A:We're talking about how you live in your day to day life.
Speaker A:There is no one right answer when it comes to how you should do things.
Speaker A:And I think accepting that is a really hard thing, especially if you've always been the type of person who is striving for perfection.
Speaker A:This is a space for recovering perfectionists.
Speaker A:In order to be a perfectionist, you have to believe that perfection exists.
Speaker A:Perfection is the right answer, right?
Speaker A:There isn't one.
Speaker A:There's no right answer.
Speaker A:And actually accepting that takes a lot of time.
Speaker A:And you can't recover from your perfectionism until you accept there isn't one.
Speaker A:There's not one way to live, there's not one way to do things.
Speaker A:Maybe there are some better than others, but there's no right way.
Speaker A:And if there's no right way, maybe beating yourself up about not doing things that way isn't, isn't going to work for you.
Speaker A:Now number two, if there is a right answer, it's probably in the middle.
Speaker A:And I say that if there is kind of cheekily because the close enough answer, how's that the right ish answer?
Speaker A:The best choice for you Answer honestly.
Speaker A:Does that really even exist all that much?
Speaker A:Probably not.
Speaker A:But even knots in the middle, it's not going to be one of the extremes of life.
Speaker A:I am a person who really is always one or the other.
Speaker A:I think a lot of times this stems from the first one, right, that there is no right answer.
Speaker A:But a lot of things are a spectrum of one to the other.
Speaker A:So if we're talking about perfection to a complete and utter mess, those two things aren't necessarily going to be the right answer.
Speaker A:The right answer is somewhere in the middle of that space, which is one of the things that I hate about the middle because it's so undefined.
Speaker A:Have hated.
Speaker A:I'm learning to like it a little bit more.
Speaker A:Took me three years, but I'm starting to like it and embrace it a little bit more by accepting that the polar ends or opposites of things is not necessarily going to give you what you want or be the right answer.
Speaker A:It takes time, effort, discomfort to find that best.
Speaker A:Right now, our third point I Love that each of these almost directly contradicts each other.
Speaker A:Now, like I said, there's that spectrum, right?
Speaker A:Sometimes that spectrum or gray.
Speaker A:Let's talk about gray area between black and white is a mix of those two contradictions, not just between them.
Speaker A:So we talk about things being shades of gray.
Speaker A:It's in the middle of black and white and that kind of thing.
Speaker A:Sometimes you have black and you have white existing at the same time and they both happen simultaneously.
Speaker A:Which, as a logic based person can be so hard and so frustrating because you're like, no, it's either black or white, is it not both of them at the same time.
Speaker A:It's not necessarily a shade of gray.
Speaker A:It's both of them.
Speaker A:One example is right now where I'm at in motherhood.
Speaker A:You just heard me run and try to get my daughter to go back to sleep so I could sit down and do this.
Speaker A:And that was both simultaneously frustrating.
Speaker A:But I was also getting the sweetest smile from my daughter at the exact same time.
Speaker A:So it was good and bad, same time.
Speaker A:It wasn't somewhere in the middle.
Speaker A:Both of those things happened at the same time.
Speaker A:The gray isn't necessarily just different shades of gray.
Speaker A:It's also accepting black and white simultaneously.
Speaker A:Now, as I mentioned before, getting to this point has a lot of discomfort.
Speaker A:And that leads to our fourth one, discomfort isn't bad.
Speaker A:Ugh.
Speaker A:Even saying that out loud is hard for me.
Speaker A:I've said this in some of the different episodes, especially when I talked to Jori o' Neal specifically about how as a nice white lady, I have been raised by society to make sure everybody's comfortable and that's what's important.
Speaker A:And that discomfort, that lack of discomfort creates and a lack of change, it creates a lack of truth.
Speaker A:It creates a lack of understanding.
Speaker A:By prioritizing comfort and automatically assuming that discomfort is bad, you miss out on so much.
Speaker A:So how much.
Speaker A:In order to stop doing that, you have to accept that discomfort isn't bad.
Speaker A:It's just a signal.
Speaker A:It's not good, it's not bad, it's just there it is a flag to tell you something is going on.
Speaker A:It is a piece of information for you to then use to move forward.
Speaker A:Speaking of pieces of information, the other thing that's not bad, which is our number five, I think emotions aren't bad.
Speaker A:I think I spent a lot of my life thinking that only good emotions are okay, bad emotions are not okay.
Speaker A:And so you need to press them down, get rid of them, not talk about them.
Speaker A:And that just isn't possible it also isn't helpful.
Speaker A:So again, by removing the judgment of them, that emotions can just exist and they are pieces of information for you.
Speaker A:Sometimes they're pieces of information that don't give you anything.
Speaker A:I made a TikTok a few weeks ago about how I had an emotion.
Speaker A:I was feeling this anxiety and I couldn't figure out why.
Speaker A:And the anxiety went away.
Speaker A:I still don't know why I was anxious, but that's fine.
Speaker A:It went away.
Speaker A:I don't need to think about it anymore.
Speaker A:It wasn't good or bad.
Speaker A:It just existed and then it left.
Speaker A:Isn't that wild?
Speaker A:I still can't get over that.
Speaker A:And when we are recognizing that all emotions aren't bad, we have to do that in order to do what number six is.
Speaker A:Which is the quickest way out of these, like either discomfort emotions or just kind of crappy situations is is typically through.
Speaker A:You gotta feel the feeling.
Speaker A:The more that you avoid the feeling, the more that you go around the feeling, the longer it takes and the more insidious it can become.
Speaker A:It's part of the reason why doing this podcast has been so helpful for me because I get to talk about these things.
Speaker A:I'm chronically old lady who is alone a lot of the time and my poor husband and therapist can only take so much.
Speaker A:And so this is a place, right, for me to get it out and to.
Speaker A:To work through.
Speaker A:Because by avoiding.
Speaker A:By just going around them, they still exist.
Speaker A:And a lot of times they faster and get bigger.
Speaker A:So feeling your feelings actually makes it better, which again, wild.
Speaker A:Do you see how each of these kind of build upon each other?
Speaker A:That makes sense.
Speaker A:It makes sense to me anyway.
Speaker A:Now, are there times where you do have to.
Speaker A:Absolutely.
Speaker A:Sometimes it's not the right place or context for something.
Speaker A:You just gotta keep moving forward.
Speaker A:But then you gotta come back to it and get through it because it stays.
Speaker A:It stays.
Speaker A:And then becomes a volcano later on.
Speaker A:That may or may not create an environment for chronicness to take over your life.
Speaker A:Not that I'm talking about it from like personal experience or anything.
Speaker A:Anyway, Number seven, things can just suck.
Speaker A:You don't need to find a positive in it.
Speaker A:They can just suck.
Speaker A:Post op, I think we've been taught that you always have to find a silver lining to things and whatnot.
Speaker A:And then please go join us in the joyful support movement, especially in the joyful support course, because we talk about this a lot, where you can find joy in every moment, but not every situation has joy in it.
Speaker A:Things can just suck.
Speaker A:And I think this idea that you have to find something positive in a crappy situation is, is really a foundation of toxic positivity.
Speaker A:Same with, it kind of lends itself to that discomfort.
Speaker A:If you're not feeling, you're not letting yourself feel discomfort, you're falling into that toxic positivity, fear.
Speaker A:And if you just let things suck, not only is it easier, but it doesn't make you less positive.
Speaker A:A person.
Speaker A:I'm a really positive person.
Speaker A:It's usually one of the top things people say that they like about me.
Speaker A:And my positivity has gotten more resilient by recognizing that things can just suck.
Speaker A:I don't have to find a silver lining.
Speaker A:Maybe there is, but if there's not, it's fine.
Speaker A:It can just suck and I can have joy other places in my life to use that, to use fuel to get forward.
Speaker A:I also think this is really important to learn when we're working or talking and supporting other people, because a lot of times our instinct is to find, try to find that silver lining for them.
Speaker A:Like, if you can't fix it, you try to find the silver lining.
Speaker A:Both great intentions, right?
Speaker A:But at the same time, it really minimizes the suck.
Speaker A:Whenever we go back, the quickest way out is through.
Speaker A:If we're just trying to minimize and get, avoid or get around things, we're not going to get past them.
Speaker A:So things can just suck.
Speaker A:Let them suck.
Speaker A:All right, and then on to number eight.
Speaker A:Everyone's middle is different.
Speaker A:And that's kind of one of the things that I actually do really like about the middle is that it's one of those things where that feeling, that middle, messy, crappy feeling is different for everybody.
Speaker A:But by acknowledging that it's different for everybody, we make space for everybody.
Speaker A:We make space for empathy.
Speaker A:And if there's one thing that I continue to want to see more in this world is empathy.
Speaker A:So, yes, everyone's middle different, but number nine, they're also kind of the same.
Speaker A:And this is like the second half of empathy, seeing how someone else's experience is different, but also seeing how some of the things are the same.
Speaker A:I think if you go back and listen to all 70 something episodes of this podcast and the different guests, there are a lot of the same themes that come through that those middles are different, but the themes are the same.
Speaker A:And I mean, that's just research and whatnot.
Speaker A:But to recognize those two things in your everyday when you're talking, learning with people.
Speaker A:I think this is something that disability has really taught me, is that everyone's disability looks different.
Speaker A:Whether it's physical, mental, chronic illness, whatever that looks like, they look different.
Speaker A:But a lot of the emotions around them, a lot of the experience around them are similar.
Speaker A:And so keeping those two things in mind as we go to operate in the world can be so helpful when it comes to being there for other people living a less stressful life.
Speaker A:Because I can tell you now, looking at someone, let's say, parking in a handicap spot, and you can't tell why they have a handicap placard, it is a much more peaceful place to think.
Speaker A:I don't know what's going on with them, but I'm glad that they have the support that they need in that handicapped placard to be able to live their life a little bit better than me.
Speaker A:Feels so much better, like coming from that place of lack.
Speaker A:And last but not least, the final thing on my 10 things I've learned.
Speaker A:The more that I learn, the less that I know.
Speaker A:I tell this to my son all the time, who thinks he's the smartest person in the world, and he is very smart.
Speaker A:But I keep trying to tell him that the smartest people I know are the people who recognize that they don't know things.
Speaker A:One of my favorite phrases, and have been for a long time, is, I don't know everything, but I know a lot.
Speaker A:And I think that kind of is in this, of like, I will never know everything.
Speaker A:But the more curious that I stay and the more that I realize that I don't know things, the more fulfilling learning things are, the more interesting I find other people and things.
Speaker A:It makes space for so much wonder in the world.
Speaker A:And I gotta tell you, having that space for wonder is one of the biggest things that has gotten me through my darkest spaces in the past three years.
Speaker A:Well, there you have it.
Speaker A:Those are my top 10 things that I've learned in the middle.
Speaker A:I hope that you get a nugget of this.
Speaker A:One of my favorite things to do in my interviews that I do, which will be back starting in our next episode, is that nugget of advice.
Speaker A:Because I like this idea of being able to create a library of advice from other people's lived experience that you can then take.
Speaker A:See if it works, see if it doesn't, try it out, adjust it, whatever that looks like in your own world.
Speaker A:So that's what I hope you do with this.
Speaker A:You take what you can, adjust it, work it to how it works for you, leave what doesn't.
Speaker A:And maybe you can like the middle a little bit.
Speaker A:More like me.
Speaker A:It's still not my favorite thing, but I'm going to keep trying to figure it out.
Speaker A:Thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker A:We have so many good things going on in the Joyful Support Movement.
Speaker A:I really invite you to join the Joyful Support Village because it has become one of my favorite places in the world.
Speaker A:It's also a place that I am currently just pouring as much as I can into and that brings me joy.
Speaker A:So if you don't know where to go, go to the village.
Speaker A:We'll figure it out together.
Speaker A:And the more people that are there, the better that it'll be.
Speaker A:It may sound naive, but I do think it's going to change the world.
Speaker A:I want you to be part of it.
Speaker A:Change the world for the better.
Speaker A:Thanks for sharing them with me today.
