I have the privilege of hearing myself like a good friend would, from the outside looking in, and I get to meet my true self in this manner again and again.
Mary
Just 19 months ago I would have told you I don’t know anything about myself. The best way I can describe it is that I felt numb to myself from the chin down. Of course, I knew the obvious, outside facing things, what I do for a living- give anesthesia, who I am married to- Kevin, my husband of 10 years, or how many kids I have-3.
But many of the deeper parts of myself felt completely closed off to me. I grew up in a home that didn’t value question asking, exploration of self, or emotional intelligence. Spiritual discernment? Nope, don’t think so. I grew up in a loving home but an unconscious home.
When the pandemic hit, I was already about a year into what ended up being a 3-year long process of healing childhood trauma and shame. The pandemic and its disorienting ambiguous loss (a term we all learned) then intensified everything I was already struggling with.
When I resurfaced in July of 2020 I was in a new place, I did feel better, having found the courage to go back to therapy and begin again the process of healing the wounds from my past. But I found myself more unsettled in a lot of ways too. I couldn’t square how I had healed so much hurt but still felt like I didn’t know myself.
One afternoon, I was lost in thought while folding laundry at the side of my bed. I was thinking about how far I had come and how much I had healed. I felt so much LIGHTER and yet when I mentally gathered all of the encouraging advice and inspiring wisdom from the books, therapy and podcasts I had taken in since the pandemic started, I was frustrated that none of it really fit me, and my life.
None of the resources I had found were about how to discover your most authentic self if you are a 37 year old anesthetist, who just left their full time job to be a stay more at home mom but found herself totally devastated from the loss of identity. None of my reading material was written by a 37 year old woman whose repressive Catholic upbringing had made her afraid of her own body and her own sexuality. And, I never heard from a 37 year old therapist who lives 15 mins away from her own parents and is desperately trying to shake loose from her craving for approval and love from them.
Why was nobody talking about these things?!
Then, standing there over my laundry I had a light bulb moment- I knew exactly what to do next, but my big idea didn’t involve just me. Excited and nervous for his answer I walked downstairs and into my husband’s office where he was working, I stood at the door silently (as previously instructed) and I just stared at him until he looked up from his computer. “I’ve been thinking”, I said. If I can’t find a podcast that feels like they are speaking to me about me and all my personal struggles, do you have any interest in starting a podcast with me and creating our own community?
Fast forward 3 months and in September of 2020 the Growth Minded Marriage podcast was born. I was craving connection and finding “our people”.
I was under the impression that after a few months of hard work 1,000s of “our people” would be tuning in and then after a few more months of sticking with it 10s of 1000s of “our people” would be clamoring to like and comment on our show, and then after the first year, conservatively, millions. We would have built a relationship with “our people” and been able to talk about the issues most important to us. So,….Here is what has actually happened.
Kevin and I record the Growth Minded Marriage podcast for about an hour on Saturday’s mornings and then I spend 4-5 hours editing over the weekend and doing the post production, which is editing the audio, adding in music, creating the Instagram posts, and doing all the other necessary podcast logistics. All things I find surprisingly fun, things I had no idea I could be good at or this passionate about. The new episodes are posted every Monday morning and we usually have 15 people download and listen that very first day. Just 15, that number grows to almost 40 by the end of the week. 40, not millions.
For Kevin and I’s podcast, Growth Minded Marriage, it turns out those 40 people “our people” are largely people who were already in our life, our realtor, my closest childhood cousin, old coworkers and of course my mom. The difference now is that we are showing them more of us and therefore we are building a deeper richer relationship with them. Kevin and I get to talk about the topics, or questions that seem relevant in our world and in doing so those 40 people get to hear what is important to us.
And that’s pretty much about it.
There are no mobs of fans at our door, and our inbox is not flooded with responses or follow-ups from the shows, and we make exactly zero dollars from this podcast.
We do usually have a friend or two each episode who makes contact, tells us that they listened and liked it or, what is equally meaningful, is when we see our friends in real life they will tell us that they feel so much more connected to us because we have been in their home each week via the podcast. This has all been really fulfilling and part of the greater web of relationships this podcast is building, BUT I have not yet mentioned that the podcast is also reaching one other extremely unexpected person, possibly a far more important person than even our realtor. She is the first person who listens to every episode, ME.
Because Kevin and I keep saying yes to ourselves and to recording this weekly podcast, which is no small feat, I then must continue to edit hours of conversation with the one person who I felt I knew the least.
Over the past year of podcasting, I have put myself out there for all to hear. I have talked about my hopes and my fears, I’ve discussed the big ideas that keep me up at night filled with creativity and excitement. I have shared what elements I need in my life to feel content and satisfied. I have revealed what I love most about my husband and what parts I struggle with. Then after each episode I sit alone in our guest room to edit and get to hear it all again. I get to have the unique experience of living the same conversation over and over and over. This is the real magic.
While I am in editing mode I am listening as an outsider. I can escape the mental chatter that cluttered my mind, criticized, or silenced me while we were recording the episode. Without those inner distractions, I can hear that I laughed because I am a person who laughs easily, I can hear that I cried because I am a highly empathetic person and I can hear that I often interrupt Kevin to tell my version of a story because I love storytelling. When I am editing our episodes, the um’s and the stammers, the long silences are erased. Much like a good conversation with an old friend, nobody remembers how many times I’ve said “ya know, kinda like…” Our friends simply remember the big picture and take with them the feeling of us.
I have the privilege of hearing myself like a good friend would, from the outside looking in, and I get to meet my true self in this manner again and again. This has been such an unexpected gift in my life.
If I can give you one piece of advice, now as a seasoned podcaster, but more importantly, as someone who feels like they have met their true self, it is to do the thing, say the thing, try the thing. The hard truth of creating a relationship with myself was that I had to be vulnerable and let others see me, in doing so I could finally see myself.