#136-B: Reflecting on Aundi Kolber and self-compassionate survival

Tryphena and I kept the mics rolling right after our interview with Aundi Kolber, and let me tell you… it’s a wild ride! We discussed the provocativeness of wholeness, including a physics lesson and a reflection on quantum physics… Why? Because presence is a powerful resource, and I have some theories about it. We talked about anger and injustice, we examined the time that Jesus had a panic attack, and we landed on rest and the safety of unproductivity. Strap in, it’s a wild ride.

For maximum impact, make sure you listen to the source episode, #136: Flexible strength—compassionate survival (with Aundi Kolber)

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Transcription

Jonathan Puddle  00:00

Hey friends, welcome back to The Puddcast B-Side! This week, I don't even know what to say anymore, like "this month, this week"... this episode is never what comes to my mind. This time, this time on The Puddcast B-Sides, we are unpacking a recent interview with Aundi Kolber.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  00:21

She's an amazing human being, oh my goodness, I see why the two of you are friends. All makes senses now.

Jonathan Puddle  00:32

When we when I was at her house in October, we both didn't feel like it was the first time we'd ever been in person together but we it was the first time and it was so funny like walking into her house. And, you know, I was gave her a hug and say hi, and kind of exchanged pleasantries. And then there's this pause, and she reached out and like, held my my upper arm and was like, "You're real."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  01:00

Oh....

Jonathan Puddle  01:01

And I was like, "You're real!" and it was yeah, it was just that I loved how you also discerned that, like, like a healing love that flows out of her, her being, right? Absolutely the case. And you know, meeting her in person is, is the same. It's just this...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  01:25

There's, there's just like a melody about her. Like she just like, like, in a very tangible way. She speaks in a very lyrical song-like way, but I'm just like, oh, it just feels like, you know, when scripture talks about God singing over us, and singing love over us as she talks. I'm like, Oh, my goodness, that is what I sense. And I pick up on. Which made it a very complicated interview, because I'm like, I am completely not coherent and cannot form questions and thoughts.

Jonathan Puddle  01:56

That's hilarious.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  01:57

Beautiful like, just experience.

Jonathan Puddle  02:01

But I've had that experience, yeah, like that. That's often been my experience on the show. Like, I've got nothing on deck, because I'm just like, overwhelmed by the, the energy coming off this person. Hillary McBride very profoundly had that sense.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  02:21

Mhmm. I believe that.

Jonathan Puddle  02:22

Yeah. It was something that we kind of were were just, I guess, skirting around or touching on at the end of the discussion was this, you know, her, her really, you know, helpful and ethical assertion that she can't, you know, put her faith on onto any of her clients, and moving in this gentle way. Right? Does this feel like a resource? You know, would this be life-giving? But she also was kind of alluding to that, like, she turns up still with who she is. And I was thinking about that. I almost asked the question, but we were out of time... actually wasn't a question, really. So that's yeah. Anyway, just the thoughts in my head around this, this energy, this idea of energy that we bring. And I think, again, if you'd like talk to me about energy 5-10 years ago, I would have just been like, Get out of here, you weirdo.

Jonathan Puddle  03:18

Yup.

Jonathan Puddle  03:19

But, okay, so if that's if, if, if I've already said enough for you, dear listener, to say get out of here, wierdo... at the very simplest level: atoms, we all know we're made up of are not solid mass. They are something like 99.99999% empty space. If you remember your high school physics class, you've got a nucleus, electrons, various different, you know, subatomic particles that spin around one another. And they're mostly just energy relationships. And so your entire body is predominantly empty space. And is actually just relationships between different tiny subatomic particles that give off energy. And when you touch it with your hand, it feels like solid mass, but what you're pushing against is energy resistance. And so, your whole being... our whole bodies and souls and brains and everything are just a complex relationship of energy.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  04:38

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  04:38

That's all we are.

Jonathan Puddle  04:40

We are predominantly not solid matter. And then beyond that, you know, parts of our body particular organs, your heart your brain have specific and unique electromagnetic fields. And the human heart gives off creates an electromagnetic magnetic field that can be sensed something like, two to three feet away. So the energy field that your heart creates in simply pumping blood around your body and doing all of that work is detectable by scientific instruments outside your body.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  04:40

Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  05:16

I didn't know that. That's so cool.

Jonathan Puddle  05:18

And to me, that made so much sense when I learned that because like, like, if I stand and I don't know if this is everybody, but if I close my eyes and stand in front of a wall, I can feel the wall is there.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  05:28

Yep.

Jonathan Puddle  05:28

Right, you know that. And certainly, like, standing close to people, let alone touching someone, I can feel an energy... sometimes even when somebody walks into the room, you don't even you haven't even looked or noticed. And there's, there's like a "Whoom". Yeah, exactly. We do this thing with our hands. And we make a sound with our mouth. And we know that somebody has walked into the room. And so I, I felt like Aundi was just kind of almost alluding to this, this thing that our attachment to God that we carry is going to affect a person that we're helping, serving, caring for, you know, she's talking about clients, you know, for me, that's more like, you know, just pastoral work and, and, and even coaching sessions. But there's times, you know, when people will be like, "Oh, wwowell, you have such great energy." Or I can just, I can feel there's a lightness and a cleanness coming off here. And I mean, sometimes for myself, I'm like, right now I am not filled with that clean energy. Right now I am filled with, I feel like poison, or rage. And rage is not a bad thing. But But I feel like...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  06:50

Doesn't always feel like good energy,

Jonathan Puddle  06:51

it doesn't always feel like good energy. That's what I'm trying to say. Can I nerd out even more?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  06:59

Please go. Pardon?

Jonathan Puddle  07:02

Or have I lost you...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  07:03

No, I'm... it's amazing because, you know, you keep talking and I will come back to this stuff.

Jonathan Puddle  07:09

Okay, because if we go even smaller than sub, then like atoms and subatomic particles, we get into, like quantum physics. I'm certainly no expert in this, but I'm a bit of a sci fi nerd. And I do like to read science. So you know, at the quantum level, when we get deeper and deeper down, individual electrons, and, and different particles can become entangled with one another. And, and what that means is that they mirror one-another's state. And so what gets wackier is that you can entangle to two particles, and then you can separate them from one another, theoretically, to any distance. And when you change the properties of the one particle, the other one reflects it instantly...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  07:49

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  07:50

...regardless of any distance apart. And conventional physics has no framework for understanding how that is possible. Einstein called it spooky, he's like this, this just is weird. This is really creepy and weird and spooky. And so, you know, now, this is being used as the basis for all kinds of interesting new developments and discoveries and ways that we could manipulate matter and, and so... even like our understanding of time falls apart, our understanding of distance, all these kinds of things, that to me, are also profoundly human things right? Like what what define our relationships with one another: time, distance, proximity. And so, you know, furthermore, if you take it out to even more kind of esoteric depths, if we consider that all of creation, you know, if we take a Big Bang approach, and we say all of creation once existed in the super-compressed state, if we take a, you know, a Hebrew cosmology, and we look at this moment of God saying, "Let there be.... and there was" You know, some have kind of theorized or posited that there is a level where all matter, all of the cosmos itself is in fundamental quantum relationship with every other part of matter itself. And so you and I are connected, as is anybody and everybody else, beyond just kind of, oh, "We're all one", you know, in kind of these really spiritual ways. It's a real real force, and and the more like that I read that stuff. If the more I'm like, Yes, that makes sense to me. It's weird. And it's weird when it is presented as hard science because it's just so hard for the brain to comprehend. But that intrinsically feels true to me and make sense of, of even scriptural things like, you know, Christ holds all things together.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  10:20

Hmm. Yeah. I feel like anything with like hard science that like it's like, and so this is also not how my brain just naturally goes. So it's so mind boggling. But that's part of the beauty of it, right? Like, it's not meant to be a simplistic two plus two equals four. But I think we actually see that play out like on a more simple simple, quote, unquote, level, like, I think of twins. And so you're both grown and developed in the same little uterus, often sometimes in the same sack, right? Like you're not. If you're, oh, my goodness, I'm losing my words. You're not fraternal. And thank you. And how often can twin still know what's happening with the other twin and they can be on opposite sides of the world?

Jonathan Puddle  11:11

Totally!

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  11:11

Right? Like they just were created in such close proximity, that there is an  enmeshment...  enmeshment sounds unhealthy, but there is an entanglement, right? In which are often how I feel like I read stories all the time of like two twins, who were separated at birth and end up on similar trajectories in life, because they had started in such an entangled space. And so I think there's something...

Jonathan Puddle  11:35

or when one twin dies, and the other knows the moment it's happened, they can just feel it.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  11:41

They know! Yeah. And I think even when we look at our DNA, right, I cannot remember the stats, but I feel like it's 98% or something that we have the same percent DNA, like shared between you and me, between you and me and a banana, between you like from there's so much correlation in our living natural world that makes absolute sense that if all particles were so close at one point that there would be similarities. I don't know how we got here!

Jonathan Puddle  12:14

Well, I was just thinking, this is how... we got here, because this is everything that was in my mind, when Aundi was talking about, "I'm not going to push my faith onto my clients, because that's unethical, but I'm turning up with all of who I am." And that that changes people. And I wrote this, I kind of came to this line of thinking, a few months back, I was writing something for The Practice Company, The Practice Co app. And it kind of it kind of hit me that, you know, someone else's wholeness is always provocative. Right? Like, when when you encounter someone that's just really at peace with themselves, someone that is really present, someone that is really attuned to themself, and has done the work, you know, to grow in their enoughness, their belovedness.... to own that, you can tell there is something about that person. Like, especially when if you just think of the opposite, right, when we're so used to people rushing, people being busy, people not being present, people needing something from you, people trying to manipulate you, people trying to sort of like passive aggressively get something out of you. And when you encounter someone who needs nothing from you, needs to prove nothing, and is profoundly at peace with themselves. It it I find it always is very provocative. And I can almost feel this thing coming off of them. And it sometimes it provokes my insecurities, because I'm like, This person doesn't need me. There's nothing I can do to help them or trigger anything in them. And oh, what does that now mean about me? Now that's all my issues in terms of value coming from help. But it's just fascinating to me that I think the the only thing we need to do to trigger a wholeness process in someone else is to sit in our own wholeness. The more you move towards an embodied sense of enoughness, the more you provoke it, in the world around you. I think! At least this is my very, like esoteric theory about life. And so again, I think when Aundi's saying, "Well I turn up to a for a client connected, present to my self-energy, present to God, attached to God with us.' And, and I think what she wasn't saying was that her clients are going to benefit from that. Whether they believe in her God, practice her spirituality or not. That's what I was hearing. And I think that's the deeper truth.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  15:06

Yeah, I feel like on like a practical level, there's a part where I can show up in the world as myself as a person who is a spiritual person... like, I think we're all spiritual beings, but a person who loves Jesus. And whether you share that belief system or not, I can still live out the fullness of that, right? Like, I can still see the divine moving and working in your life. And we can be on different journeys in that. Right? And I but I do think you're also right. And I think especially for you and for me, as empaths who pick up so strongly on what someone else is showing up with and where they are emotionally. You're absolutely right, where if she is showing up as her whole self, which she so evidently does, that itself is healing for the people that encounter her.

Jonathan Puddle  15:58

Yeah, yeah, I think that's, I think that's gonna be the way for it is for everybody; you and I just happen to be able to sense it. But that dynamic is happening, right? Whether people can sense that's happening or not. You know, we know and we can we know, this, I think also from, like, a nervous system level, right? Where when you're spinning out, you know, the right kind of gentle touch from another human being, you know, especially let's say it, like can bring you right back down into a safer space, right, especially if you've just had like a near death, like a physical near death experience, you're panicking. You're, you're, you're losing it, maybe like I mean, I as a child almost drowned on two different occasions. And, you know, and you're out of, you're totally spun out. And, you know, somebody breathing with you. [takes deep breath]

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  16:54

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  16:55

Somebody's somebody's presence, it gives you real resources that you need, and can't reach.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  17:09

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  17:10

Obviously, you still have lungs, obviously, you still have a brain that can breathe and is breathing. But you can't access those resources in the way that you need them when you've experienced those overwhelming circumstances.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  17:23

You and I, and you and I have been talking about this, I think, especially in the last few weeks, just in terms of even parenting, I think in the framework of parenting often because I think it just simplifies like bigger ideas for me. But when we are narrating or paroting to our children, what we are seeing happen to them, or helping them de escalate, so often it's just mirroring to them, like a coping strategy, it's probably the wrong like, yeah, or a way to help them like often part of my de escalation strategy with my children, is putting them in a position where they can mirror me de escalating. The problem comes if I am escalated. And then we just build on each other. Right? But I think that you're like, yeah, there's just power in actually being able to... you can feed off each other!

Jonathan Puddle  18:18

Right. And then as you pointed out, that can go good and bad.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:21

Yes.

Jonathan Puddle  18:22

That can go either way. Right. Dan Siegel talks about, you know, the parent, the child who's losing it, and the parent who's losing it in return. And he's like, it's like two lizards having a hissing match at each other. And you're both using the most primitive parts of your brain because you've both interpreted the other person is the threat to your survival.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:44

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  18:46

And I'm like, right, okay.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:48

Not getting anywhere.

Jonathan Puddle  18:49

Not getting anywhere.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:50

No.

Jonathan Puddle  18:54

It is like, just like presence.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  18:57

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  18:58

Presence is a resource. And the and that the presence of human to human. The presence of self.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  19:10

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  19:11

Being present to ourselves. The presence, the Real Presence of God.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  19:22

Yeah, okay, so this is really full circle for me. So I was saying in the interview that I just came back from a couple days away by myself. And often, whether I actually I haven't gone away by myself often. But if I take like that, you know, I'm taking a spiritual day, a spiritual retreat, I'm going away for like 12 hours, whatever it is. There's always so much intentionality around it. It's like, okay, so I'm going to go and I'm going to hear a word from God. And inherently, I don't articulate it this way. But I'm like looking for marching orders, I'm looking for something to help direct my future. And there and so this time, I sat there and I'm like, it's I'm journaling it out and I'm like alright, What is my intention and hope for this time? And I had nothing. And what I just kept coming back to, from Holy Spirit, from my own body, from the spirit within, was that my body was good and I need to sit and honor my body. And I was like, Oh, what the heck? Like this is unproductive, and angering. And it just, it was a real struggle for me. And really like, and so as I'm sitting with it, and I was sitting with it for the last, like, 48 hours, I'm okay. So like, No, I actually really want to be present and honor who I am and the divine in me. And even as we're sitting and having this conversation, I'm like, Oh, that is actually everything. Because if I can show up in the world as a whole human who honors the divine in herself, then that is everything for every encounter I have. Like, it's not that like, I need to be intentionally like, well, I've heard from God so I can, like, give you this, everything that I have is to give away. It's like, No, I actually just get to show up and live my life, and that's....

Jonathan Puddle  21:06

Enough?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  21:06

and that's enough.

Jonathan Puddle  21:09

And not only is it enough for you, but that's enough, like that's the that's the God's like, that's the work. Like you doing that provokes an outpouring of divine love in the spaces around you.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  21:25

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  21:26

I think.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  21:29

Yeah. Which I think we will just witness to that with Andi. Right, where she just showed up as her. And there was an absolute outpouring of divine love.

Jonathan Puddle  21:40

Yeah, yeah, there was.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  21:45

It's interesting. So before Aundi got on the call, you and I were talking about how hard the last three years have been. And Andi has a metaphor of honoring your container. And actually, so one of the resources she gives us is to actually list what is in your container. And for some of us, it may be the pandemic, it may be your inner critic, it may be childhood trauma, it may be what, like, there was a myriad of things. And I have made, like the comment of like, yes, there's all of that. But there's also just the to do list for today, that feels to have my container at its capacity. And so if I'm honest, I went into the interview, being like, Okay, I know, this is good... reading your book was already so like, intellectually, it was good, but it was sitting in her presence, sitting in your presence, sitting in this little like, cohort that actually was impactful for me. And I'm like, okay, whatever, like the to do list will happen. There's things that need to continue today, or that may or may not, you know, get done. But my soul feels at peace.

Jonathan Puddle  22:52

That's... yes. No, I have had the same experience today. Yeah. Yeah, for real. For real. Like I dropped the kids off at school. Well, I woke up to texts from Tryphena, about this book. I was like, wow, somebody was up at 6:30, and earlier reading. Yes... much earlier, because you said I've read 90 pages, and that was at 6:30 this morning. And so there's an insight into our level of preparedness, and that's not throwing her under the bus, that's mutual. You know, packing lunches and then, you know, and then Oh, honey, remember today's pizza day. You don't have to pack lunches. I'm like, oh, yeah, right. Of course. Great.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  23:36

Okay, tangent. Be grateful that Wednesdays are pizza days for you. We have pizza days on Friday. But that screwed over dinner because Friday Night Dinner was always pizza. And now the kids are like,

Jonathan Puddle  23:49

No, I would have pizza again. Put your foot down.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  23:51

They don't eat it!

Jonathan Puddle  23:52

You're in charge!

Jonathan Puddle  23:53

Oh OK.

Jonathan Puddle  23:54

Bend those kids to your will! Have you not read Dobson? Don't you know how to parent?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  23:59

Oh my goodness. I feel triggered. Pardon?

Jonathan Puddle  24:04

When it comes to pizza? Sacrifices must made... child sacrifices must be made.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  24:10

Listen, my children can do the hard things. Okay. It's not about compassion. It's about them having to eat the pizza twice in one day.

Jonathan Puddle  24:18

Oh man, when that's your hard thing? Isn't that like so. So then the rage rises up. Okay, so, so this is the rage.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  24:26

Tell me.

Jonathan Puddle  24:27

I've walked the kids to school. Well, yeah. I've dropped the kids at school and walked home. I'm exhausted. It's not it's five minutes to nine. And I'm tired. I'm frazzled. The tank is empty.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  24:43

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  24:44

And I'm like, How can this be 9am? And, and I know there's residual anger from the session with my therapist yesterday. So what I didn't share when I shared earlier about earlier being in the interview with with Aundi about this, this part that felt like its job was to kind of clip my wings and keep me from flying too close to the sun. Basically, it was to keep me from being too glorious, to keep me from doing amazing things. And it kind of crops up now and again, in this kind of self-sabotaging sense of "People are going to betray you... those people who you think are your friends. Maybe, maybe not, don't trust them." It's very rare, and I only crops up in very certain kinds of scenarios. And this part was, so it was so interesting it was it was very different from a lot of other work that I've done internally, and this part was really adamant that it didn't want to be here, didn't want to do this work, it had better things to do with its time, which is like the opposite of the way these protector parts usually talk. Usually, they're very scared of losing their role, because they're afraid that then they will have no purpose to serve, this part was very clear that it wished to serve elsewhere. But was basically it had taken on almost the identity of Atlas holding up the world, because it kind of got tricked, or nobody else was was able to willing to do it.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  25:59

Interesting.

Jonathan Puddle  26:00

Well, as I worked through with that part, you know, and I didn't say this on air, because I know, everybody in this cohort here kind of understands, but to the listener, if you're not really interesting, part of that process is thanking that part for the work it's done. And using the compassionate curiosity of the of the Self, the true, you know, high Self, spiritual self, whatever you other adjectives you want to use... To say, "Thank you, I see that as an act of love, I see that as an act of care and protection for for Jonathan, for me, I want to thank you for that. And I see what you've done. And I'd like to hear your story. And I believe that that was a heavy burden and a hard thing for you to do." And so honoring that part, and so that kind of medal ceremony that I mentioned, came it comes out of that that thanking honoring process. But that was not the only part that turned up.... halfway through the process I got really angry. And, and another part began to run down this wing-clipper. And was, was really like, I hate this guy. And I hate what he does. And I'm not OK. So you know, we were we're asking just "Okay, thank you. Your opinion's valid, too. Can you give us some space, we'll come back to you?"  So we do the work with this primary presenting part. At the end of the session, we went back to connect with this, this part that had been so pissed off. And, and its tone had completely changed. And basically, it said, "I am angry that Jonathan had to show up for himself like this. It does not feel fair. Where, were his parents, where were safe authority figures, where was God? Why did I have to be enough for myself? That doesn't seem right."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  27:58

I feel that. Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  28:01

And, and that was like, I was like, Whoa, the the strength of that the the, the moral character of that advocacy, and that rage, I don't know that I'd ever quite tapped into that kind of anger before.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  28:20

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  28:21

It was really interesting. And, you know, similarly, then we just turned to it again, with validation, you know, and I find myself saying like, "Yeah, you're right. You're absolutely right, to be pissed off about that. You're absolutely right to, to feel a sense of injustice at the needs that were not met for you." You know? And it was just like, "Oh, well. Well, good then. Well, thank you." You know? It was sort of like, "I'm not used to being given a pat on the back."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  28:54

Awwww.

Jonathan Puddle  28:54

You know, and again, I think it comes back to sin. And I'm, you know, conversations with my, with my mother a couple of years ago, where I realized I had some anger, I punched a wall and, and she said, "Oh, when you figure out that anger thing, please let me know." You know, and she said, you know, she grew up with anger as a sin. And so it was, it was unacceptable. And so So there's obviously there's layers to working through those those things and identifying that, but just, I think, I guess I've been feeling I was feeling that anger still today.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  29:29

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  29:29

And just the sense of like, it does, it's not right, that that we're that we have to parent ourselves. And that's that's not to inflict any shame upon our parents because they surely gave us more than they received. And so we're, the generations are growing and moving and we're just talking about ourselves here. But yeah, it was like I was already angry this morning. And sitting down to like, How do I prepare for this interview? How do I be present? I don't feel present.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  30:07

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  30:08

I don't feel like I'm turning up with my good energy. I feel grouchy and crabby. In this case, it felt like Aundi had enough to share and giveaway and leave both of us impacted.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  30:25

Yeah, it's... OK so, One, thank you for saying like sharing all of that. And I think as Christians, we've so often gone to anger being problematic being sinful, or anger can cause you to sin or how to get your anger under control, or whatever it is. But I think your anger obviously speaks to pain and to trauma. And we often talk about it as a secondary emotion. I'm not sure if I'm going to completely align with that. But I do think your your anger is 100% valid. And so I was gonna say to you, is I'm like so even in your anger, even in your grouchiness, you still showed up, you were still professional, like you had a great like, it was a great interview. But I'm like, oh, what actually is beautiful, though, is you showed up in all of your full self, just as we just talked about, like a few minutes ago, like you were honest about where you were, and your anger, you were still able to be like, Okay, I can still show up and have a conversation. But I don't need to put on a facade or mask to do my job today.

Jonathan Puddle  31:28

Mmmm, yeah that's true.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  31:29

Right? Like, I think that is what was so powerful about today is we were all able to show up as we were and know that we would be accepted.

Jonathan Puddle  31:38

Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  31:40

Love but like so so can we anger's hard? I like I think I told you so Marc and I... don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast. But Marc and I had a big kerfuffle a few years back after George Floyd's murder, where he's like, "You are angry all the time. And I don't know what to do with you. Because you are just always raging." I'm like, No, dare you tell me I'm angry? Do you not see the state of this world, white man! Like, this is how our conversations go... poor husband of mind, whatever. I hope you know that I'm being facetious... to a degree.  [laughs].

Jonathan Puddle  32:22

Continue.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  32:23

But it was it was just an interesting place in our relationship where I was like, No, I like my anger is a manifestation of my pain right now... of things that I have not been able to say for years... of the way that I see the world responding to people, to people of color, to people who look like me, like all of it, right? And so I've kind of been sitting in that place for three years. I'm like, okay, my anger is a good thing. I'm allowed to be angry. And you and I joke often where it's like, okay, Tryphena is here, like eff the world, right? Like, this is the space that I live in. And I was listening to Christina Cleveland this week, and she was talking about what it's like to be awoken to injustice, and how then you wake up, and you are, like, every millisecond you are inhaling injustices, whether it is how your body shows up in the world, whether it is how other bodies show up in the world and are treated, whether it is what has happened to your body, and the lack of parenting, or over parenting, or whatever has happened. So once you're awakened to it, you can't turn that off. So every inhale is injustice. So then what does it look like to exhale? Because you cannot... like we're talking about energy in our body. I cannot live at that frequency of anger.

Jonathan Puddle  33:43

Wow, yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  33:43

Right? Because then that is not helpful. Not that my anger needs to be productive. But it's actually physically harming the quote unquote, good energy in my body.

Jonathan Puddle  33:53

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It becomes a burden, at least Yeah.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  33:57

Yeah. So I don't know... that's been my journey at the moment of what does that look like? To honor that anger, to honor the injustice? Because often my my excuse of be like I'm just gonna put my head in the sand because I just can't handle how much garbage is happening around me. Taking all of it in versus I can inhale it. And I can exhale it and exhale it back to God. I can exhale it like, yeah, so.

Jonathan Puddle  34:25

We should ask the wonderful Dr. Cleveland to come back on the show.

Jonathan Puddle  34:30

I know!

Jonathan Puddle  34:31

Teach us how to exhale.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  34:35

Teach me how to exhale.

Jonathan Puddle  34:41

Yeah, in the IFS process, when you're working with any part whether it's a protector part or an exile, you often will offer up the burden to something. Now in in the HeartSync framework that I had come from—which is very Jesus-centric—and and as I think is great, and when done right, still has all of that agency and consent? And is this safe? And in fact, that was the way my therapy, my counselor and HeartSync always spoke. "Would it... does Jesus feel safe? Do you know? Is Jesus someone that you know, as a figure of, of love? And you know, so? So just because it's Jesus-centric doesn't have to mean that it's not also consent based. Why do we even have to offer that caveat? Wow.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  35:32

That's a whole thing.

Jonathan Puddle  35:33

That's a whole thing. So all that to say, in in the HeartSync methodology, you're often offering up those burdens to Jesus specifically. And that's been fascinating the way I've experienced that, where Jesus has come in, and I've had this very visual experience of like, there's a, there's a wowowowow kind of pulsating darkness, coming off a part, and Jesus just absorbing it. And feeling this incredible sense of relief, and release, and lightness and joy, and cleanness like a, like a purification, that has nothing to do with what we have historically identified as sin, nothing to do with that. It was simply really as this has been the cost of survival.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  36:19

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  36:20

But you don't have to carry that anymore if you don't want to. So then in in IFS, Internal Family Systems. It's often just asked to the part, "What would you like to give this burden up to?"

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  36:36

Oooh.

Jonathan Puddle  36:37

And often it's elemental, you know, fire, water, earth, snow, you know, and it's often tailored to the part. If the part has taken on an identity regarding some particular kind of activity, then sometimes it's like, yeah, I want to give this to my dog, I want to give this to whatever... I want to give this, you know, maybe not to my dog, but it's usually it's usually some form of powerful elemental force. I've experienced giving burdens to water, I've experienced giving burdens to fire. And, and it's like, it only has to make sense in your internal framework. It doesn't have to make any objective sense to anybody else in the world. But it's, it's a real thing that we can become unburdened, we can exhale, that the, you know, Aundi talks right at the beginning of this book about the cost of certain kinds of strength. And, and I thought that was really helpful. Like, like, let's baptize all of these things in the good and regenerative language of strength.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  37:53

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  37:54

All of these are a form of of, of showing up.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  37:58

Yeah, it's a reframing, right?

Jonathan Puddle  38:01

Yeah. But we can also, maybe not even "but"... just "And"at the same time, we can acknowledge that some of these kinds of strength are not sustainable. Some of these kinds of strength, have a downside cost. And I mean, we know that intrinsically like, like, if I've got to, like, she uses the example of a mother that suddenly summons the strength to lift a car, you know, off their pinned child. Okay? Well, lifting that car is not sustainable. Holding that car up, is not as sustainable as putting a car on a jack, if I have to change my tires, right? Maybe I can hold some of those things. Like, I can get down on my knees and do work on my car. But if I'm wearing knee pads, I can do it for way longer.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  38:56

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  38:56

And suddenly, I have a resource that I didn't have access to before. And so acknowledging that even these these, yeah, these strengths, some of them are more generative. Some of them are more costly. But they're actually all part of the sacred task of life.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  39:14

Yeah. And so even on the same analogy, right, you may summon the strength to lift the car... and then throw your back out. Like dealing with that for weeks later. And I think you've done the best with what you could and that . Can you tell like, we both like tell

Jonathan Puddle  39:32

whose spouse has back issues... Thank you for serving our children, Marc.

Jonathan Puddle  39:39

Oh my goodness.

Jonathan Puddle  39:39

Sorry, your back hurts.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  39:40

[laughs] But, yeah, just like also because honoring that, you did the best with what you could at that time with the resources that you had and there may be pain that you're dealing with because of that. But because you did the best at what you did you saved yourself to a degree right? Like what she talked about disassociation being a gift from God. Because if you weren't able to disassociate, you would not survive in that moment.

Jonathan Puddle  40:12

Oh, man, that was hitting me hard.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  40:15

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  40:15

When she was like, so what would have happened if you didn't jump out of the way of that car?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  40:22

Yeah. Yeah!

Jonathan Puddle  40:22

Like she didn't... she kind of just left it open, I guess she's so gentle. It was hitting me. I was just like, death, death, death, death dead over and over dead.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  40:33

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  40:34

But that's not been our story.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  40:35

You said it, you're like you would not be alive... alive?

Jonathan Puddle  40:37

Yeah, I had to say I was like I have to say it, because it was hitting me so hard. Like, God gave us these things. Like, I've been chewing on this for a little bit. But it's, it's, it's clearly still working its way down to my heart. Because every time I hear it, it's still kind of hitting me. And Ryan, Ryan Kuja, who is also a mutual friend with Aundi. But who is on Instagram and elsewhere, you should follow him, everybody. He's also a therapist. And, you know, he talks about having lived years, like most of his life, in a complete shutdown, survival state, due to all kinds of events and things in his life, and issues in his body. You know, and he was sort of pushing me and we were having some dialogue a few months back about like, you know, Jesus himself, like, has a panic attack in the Garden of Gethsemane. And I'm kind of like, really? Because in my head a panic attack is a failure, you know, bordering on sin. And I believe Jesus lived sinlessly. And he's like, "You don't like... blood don't come out of your pores. When everything's okay."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:00

Blood don't come out of your pores. That's how you know Jonathan's from Rexdale. Sorry.

Jonathan Puddle  42:05

Just slips out sometimes. I like tried to say that differently. And that was what came out.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:12

I know. I love it. Go on. Sorry.

Jonathan Puddle  42:14

If you don't know what Rexdale is, dear listener...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:18

Sorry.

Jonathan Puddle  42:19

That's one of the one of the rougher areas of one of the less nice cities that make up the mega city of Toronto. And Tryphena and I both grew up there.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:30

I resent that it is not nice. I think it is beautiful.

Jonathan Puddle  42:35

Etobicoke is not beautiful.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:38

But I think...

Jonathan Puddle  42:39

It has pockets of beauty.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  42:40

It's a conglomerate of lots of different cultures. So you have a very unique accent that comes up out of it. Hence, the...

Jonathan Puddle  42:49

Those are good. Those are the good and redemptive parts that you are clearly remembering. Not the constant gunshots or crime... stabbings, like one of my one of the kids in my grade, stabbed a guy who died. And then this guy was on Canada's most wanted, I believe, to my knowledge. He's still like one of the top 25 like unsolved, like he bolted. Who knows where the guy went?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  43:13

Oh, that's so heartbreaking.

Jonathan Puddle  43:15

Anyway, that's Rexdale. What were we saying? Blood doesn't come out of your pores...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  43:21

unless you're in a state...

Jonathan Puddle  43:24

unless you're really in a really far-gone state. And so here's Jesus, and this is what my therapist said to me also, "Jonathan, do you... here's God in human flesh, doing the most important thing that's ever been done. And Jesus would have preferred to tap out." But Jesus was like, take this cup from me. And if we believe that, that Jesus lived righteously, then wanting to tap out and even vocalizing like, "Take this from me." It's not any kind of cop-out, is not any kind of failure or sin or whatever language you want to use. So that's a that's a acceptable part of the puzzle.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  44:08

Wow.

Jonathan Puddle  44:09

That hit me hard.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  44:10

Woooow. That's it's like you're right that in so many ways, there are parts that my head like there are ways in which my head knows this. Right? We've been like talking about this for last couple years. But my heart does not. Because if I'm gut level honest, I spend so much of my time and my money. Like okay, I don't want to disassociate... so I'm gonna go after that. I don't want to have panic attacks, so I'm gonna go after that. And these are all beautiful and healthy things because I do think you want to, you know, we're always looking for a wholeness in our healing but not honoring this.... disassociation has become a dirty word in my mind.

Jonathan Puddle  45:04

Oh, totally.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  45:05

My own stuff.

Jonathan Puddle  45:06

Yeah. Yes.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  45:08

That is a beautiful thing that your body did to protect you and to save you and continues to do. Yeah. But

Jonathan Puddle  45:17

yeah, can we? Yeah, yeah, I've been, I've been just exploring some of that in my, in my head in my heart. You know, in the last little bit like, even the lies we believed, even the real distortions of the truth of reality that we came to. They were all our brain had available. It was that or die. And so what what, what alternative did you have to believe? You had to believe that thing, you had to believe that every good thing would be taken away from you, you had to believe that those who love you also hurt you. Because you had no other way to make sense of the world, as a three year old, as a four year old, as a five year old.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  46:06

And that's the other thing. It also often happens these young formative years.

Jonathan Puddle  46:13

So can we look at all of that with dignity? And all of that with grace? You got me here. You got me here. And I thank you for that. And from a parts-work framework, you then say, is there something else you'd rather be doing?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  46:38

Yeah, that's good.

Jonathan Puddle  46:40

And actually assigning a measure of personhood to that system, that mechanism that has kept you alive.... what what if you didn't have to do this anymore? What would you be freed up to do?

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  46:55

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  46:56

What would you rather bring your energy to bear on? But I love that how clear again, she is Aundi... it's like this, this can't happen outside of safety. Right? You know, somebody was running through some of the stuff with me the other day, but and I know that they are in an unsafe place. And they were kind of like, why kind of heal, why can't I grow? I'm like, friend you are not safe. You know, you can't do that work.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:21

No.

Jonathan Puddle  47:22

In the midst of that. So you know, there's a quote early in the book that I think is sort of like "Safety is what is needed to heal. And creating safety is the work."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:34

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  47:34

And I was like, Ah, that's good.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:37

That's really good. But really hard. But this...

Jonathan Puddle  47:42

And sometimes, I'm just, I'm tired.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:44

Pardon?

Jonathan Puddle  47:45

I'm just tired! I don't want to create safety today.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  47:47

No. My sometimes creating safety is binge watching Netflix, and that's okay. But...

Jonathan Puddle  47:54

You're right, you're right. Because if you're if your prior pattern was to push yourself to productivity... In fact, I had a keen sense of that last this week this week, Monday with the whenever this now this is months later with the with the strike that we had, and I'm and I had we and we had an extra kid, we had a neighbor's kid.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  48:15

It wasn't a strike. It was a protest.

Jonathan Puddle  48:18

You're right.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  48:19

Cause we know you're legally not allowed to strike... so don't come at us educational workers, because we know that you were not stricking.

Jonathan Puddle  48:26

No, you're right. We're 100% with you.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  48:28

We really are.

Jonathan Puddle  48:30

We're 100% with you.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  48:30

No sarcasm there.

Jonathan Puddle  48:33

100% with you, you people deserve...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  48:36

way more than...

Jonathan Puddle  48:37

Way more than what you're paid. I had the neighbor's kid came over as well, because they're their plans all fell through. And so I've got five kids that I'm working through online schooling in age from 13 down to 5. And I reached this point later in the day where everything was basically done. And I was like, I have been in such a hyper functioning mode all day, that if I don't forcefully do something meaningless now with my time? I am going to keep functioning at this level...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  49:15

Yeah...

Jonathan Puddle  49:15

at great personal cost.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  49:16

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  49:17

And so I sat my ass down and I played video games.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  49:21

Good for you.

Jonathan Puddle  49:22

And and it specifically needed to be something meaningless and unproductive in order to be safe.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  49:33

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  49:34

Because I was on an unsafe trajectory with myself. So that I completely cop-opted your story.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  49:42

No, good for you. Love it. I don't know where I was going. But I was gonna say like circling back a few months. When we had Holly Oxhandler on the show that I feel like you embraced that. You listened to your body as to when you needed to stop. And you did something restful. Because we've talked about even in our rest, we often try and make it productive. Like, I can sometimes come over and use your sauna and be like, Okay, this is like me trying to rest and meditate and clean my pores and I'm like, why does this need to be productive? Why can I not just take a nap? Right? Like, every like, so for you to be like, No, we're gonna I'm going to intentionally do something that I can't even let productivity co-opt is really powerful.

Jonathan Puddle  50:28

Which, which is literally the point of Sabbath. Like, the point of Sabbath was unproductivity. Yeah. So, so we can even look at God then. As a as a, as commanding in that biblical framework, a period of unproductivity.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  50:55

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  50:56

For our own damn sake.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  50:59

Yeah.

Jonathan Puddle  50:59

"Create safety, children." Praise the Lord.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  51:07

Yeah. Wow. Okay, I feel like you and I can keep going, but we're gonna go in circles.

Jonathan Puddle  51:19

Thanks for listening friends. Grace and peace to you. You know, meaningful closing remarks, like create safety in your life and go and buy Aundi's books.

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  51:32

Or maybe they're meant to be meaningful closing remarks like yes, go back to Aundi's books...

Jonathan Puddle  51:35

That's why I specifically said it in that tone of voice like, scarcastic...

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  51:37

I love it.

Jonathan Puddle  51:39

"Meaningful closing remarks and goodbye."

Tryphena Perumalla-Gagnon  51:42

[laughs]