Passive or Active? Which is most appropriate?

Marty: Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of the True You Podcast. I'm here with my colleague Bill Tierney, who is an IFS coach, I like to add, and I know that you like to add this too. Who's committed to compassionate production of results, right? This is a key piece of coaching is producing compassionately some real results. So I love that you add that to your description. And we're here today with a good friend of mine Kathy Nielsen. And just say hi so they hear your voice and then I'll tell 'em about you.

Kathy: Hello.

Marty: Welcome.

Bill: Hi, Kathy. Welcome.

Kathy: Nice to see.

Marty: So I'll read a standard kind of bio on Kathy, but I just wanna let you know that I've known Kathy for something like 10 years. we are members of the same spiritual community. We follow the same spiritual path, we both come from Germanic Lutheran backgrounds to this other path. And I've known Kathy when she was working in the Cayman Islands and as a computer programmer, and now she's back in the States she's teaching at of Colorado in the, in that department. She's also had a phase that I'm aware of where she was a coach like you and I are Bill. So she's got a wide variety of skills. She's also a fantastic musician. She plays, she improvises jazz at the piano she plays the harmonium. In our in our SAT songs are. Practices. I'll just quickly read the standard bio so, who she is, if I can find it now. Ha, here we are. Dr. Kathy Niels Nielsen is a multidisciplinary scholar and a software engineering professional who is designed and build systems in different domains. She worked as an agile product engineering coach, helping teams learn, grow, and create together. She's especially interested in how both students and professionals develop their craft and in the power of collaboration to share knowledge and create things together of work. You'll find her at the piano chanting ton exploring with her dog, or simply soaking in the beauty of the Colorado world around her. So welcome, Kathy.

Kathy: Thank you so much. I appreciate the opportunity to be with the two of you

Marty: So, I mean, . Just as an opening question to get us going a little bit here, you have a variety of experiences as I just outlined. You've, you assume you don't label yourself any one of those things, but the true you is something else. And just as an opening question, given the variety of experiences you've had, what does the true you mean to you?

Kathy: That's a great question. This is a, I think, a profound question because some, those experiences certainly shape me all of my life experiences. There's who I am at some level is my experiences in life. And then, but then when you ask it what's the true me? What's the true me? It asks me to go deeper than what what's running through my head in my thoughts, all those identities, being a sister, being a daughter, all these things that certainly are of me, but. Truly, am I? It could even be below my opinions, right? It's easy for us to think, oh, or what I do for a job. Oh, it could be who I'm I, but that one's really a flag for me. Like you said, all these different things I've done. Who am I? Yeah, that definitely makes me start to move around in my chair and feel uncomfortable. So on a, for me, when I hear that word, the true me, it asks me with the most deeply, who am I? for me that's something at a level of most profound level of love Of listening of. Peacefulness how it feels in my most what's a good word for it? Most connected places. Now that's a beginning to that answer to that question.

Marty: How did you, and how do you know that's the true you

Kathy: Oh yeah. So I think that's just my philosophy, right?

Marty: lost your philosophy?

Kathy: can't be known, right? In a certain sense, it's because I've decided that I have a series of things that I wanna align myself with, like love peace, like And these stats, I find it to be beneficial. So it's a pragmatic part. Of how I approach life is if it's an idea that helps me go where I wanna go, Then value in it. So I find value in the idea the true me is love. 'cause it helps me in those moments when some thought comes by, which is something other than that where I'm not loving myself. Not being compassion compassionate, or I can choose to realign with this more true place. And so I think it's the word true that Is the pointer towards these more profound capabilities that I have as a human.

Marty: Before commenting or questioning that. That's very, it's a very profound thing you just said. One of the things that is profound about it, there are many is that you're, you seem to be saying, then the true you is a choice. You chose it.

Kathy: I do think so. And I'll give you an example of when I made a choice like this. When I was turning 40, I was sitting at a lunch table with a number of other people and they were bemoaning all the horrible things about aging. And I'm thinking, I'm gonna be 40, pretty soon. don't really want to achieve, approach my life thinking, oh, that's what I got to look forward to. That's it. I'm just gonna start having all these problems. Or just that it's not a great thing to, to grow. And so I thought what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make my 40th year the best ever. And the thing that I thought would help me would be the most amazing is if I were to know this, know myself as love to immerse myself in. That perspective, that relationship with myself. Yeah. To give myself a different framing for the future of my life than that was happening around that lunch table.

Marty: That's beautiful. I wanna ask one more thing about that and then I'd love to, let you jump in, bill, if you'd like.

Bill: Yeah, I'm not holding back. I'm just listening and enjoying so far. I have a couple of ideas I'm sure I could formulate a question about, but go ahead.

Marty: You look like you're enjoying. I can. I know when you are. I've seen it it's present.

Bill: You've seen when it's not that.

Marty: That too goes both ways. so what if somebody said, look, wait a minute. The true you is. If it's true, then it's not just your choice. You just say okay, I, I choose not to recognize that I have a heart condition, or I choose not to recognize that I live in a country of with laws that, you know and I'm just gonna choose to be somebody else. How, what's the you, for you, that word true is key. How? How do that? I could make up your answer, but I'm just curious and if this isn't a direction you wanna go with the conversation, that's okay too.

Kathy: guess what comes to my mind is taking responsibility for those times when I'm not, like you said, oh, I could choose to be love, but then be mean to everyone. I could be thinking I am truly love, but then that's an excuse for something that's not really aligned. And I don't, what I'd like to say about that is that it's, I don't see it as an opportunity for that kind of skipping the level, right? So there's still a level in which I make mistakes and need to atone, do the right to clean them up,

Marty: Yeah.

Kathy: right? Take responsibility for, how I've spoken to someone. So when I say that my true self and is love, it's a way for me to, actually this is a kind of paradoxical thing. On the one hand, it's a way for me to detach from thinking that I'm defined by the worst moment, worst moments, And a way for me to align to what I choose. Yeah.

Marty: Awesome. I have, I have more, of course, but I do wanna bring Bill in and just see where you're at in this conversation so far.

Bill: I am thinking about the, first of all, the word love as the defining. Maybe core of what it means to be the true self, to be who I really am. Who I really am as love I, yeah. That resonates. And and I can't help but think through the lens of the internal family systems. And I'm curious, Kathy, if you're familiar with IFS? Okay. Yeah. And so there's this idea of. The way that I know that I am seeing the world through the lens of my true self is how it feels inside when I do so, And also what I'm capable of when I'm seeing the world through. That's just one way to check it out. Am I actually standing firmly, clearly solidly in my true self right now, or. Is another version of me that either I've been mistakenly attached to as who I am or another version of me who at some point I consciously took on to hide that those assumptions that I've made about myself Life can work so quickly. Life can just unfold so quickly in front of me that in one moment I might be viewing. Life through that loving lens. I'm seeing myself from love. I'm seeing the world from love and then in the next moment when my computer won't open up the correct program for me to join the podcast, I'm in this frantic state and parts of me that have helped me survive my frantic life. Show up and take over. And in that moment, am I being my true self? The truth I believe is that I always am my true self, but am I operating from my true self? And that to me is the most important question around true self. Am I seeing the world? Am I operating through the lens that true self provides, or through one of those false or shame identities that sometimes I find myself automatically back into again. Is there a question? Yeah. So love. I also heard compassion. Compassion is another marker or indicator of if I'm seeing the world through the lens of love and through self. And I'm wondering if there's other words that you might attach to it. Like for example, we had a moment of joy there just a moment ago. In that moment, it felt like really authentic joy that I was experiencing, and my perception was that both of you were as well.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: I guess that's the question is how else, how do we know and what's the diff, what difference does it make, whether we are or not operating from who we actually are.

Marty: This is good. This is good. I one of the things that you said that it just, I felt this. When you first started talking, you said I have to check in with myself. Does that feel like my true self? And I did it when you suggest that I went in and said am I being my true self right now? And there was this like really deep connection to everything that happened. I felt very, I dunno, blissful in that moment. And then it, and then, I went back to listening, but. That's, I think something we haven't yet discussed on this podcast in all the months we've been in existence like that feel or sense when you are being your two self, that it's profound and it's a, the ultimate test I would suggest. Anyway that's one thing that you said that I wanted to follow up on. I think there are other ways, that we can check in and see, am I being my truth, but just that. Let me look within, am I being who I'm meant to be or not, right? And it, that, it either feels to me it just felt like totally free. There's nothing to work on here. are being yourself. There's nothing wrong, there's no urgency, there's no place to get to. It felt really good. I'm glad you asked me the

Bill: I am too.

Marty: So let me focus that back, like giving some words and feeling stuff to it. Do you guys have other ways that we could,

Kathy: I have a concrete example of when that kind of test, became super clear to me. I up becoming hard on myself about not living up to some expectations or feeling I've made a mistake or just a general, oh, I didn't, I'm not good enough. And there's times in which that can. Appear to be pretending that voice can be pretending to be helping me. 'cause if you would pay attention to what you need to pay attention to, then you could get it right. You'll be more, not people will like you better if you do all those things that some way you didn't live up to some expectation. So it pretends like it's helping you. And I can tell I learned to distinguish between the voice of there might be some information in there, but as soon as I feel bad based on what this voice is pretending to be a teacher, if that starts to feel bad in me, then I know I'm not in a learning place. 'cause what's actually happening here is I'm collapsing and I'm feeling bad about myself. That's not a, I don't find that to be the most positive place to learn from.

Marty: Right.

Kathy: Even if I've done something that I wanna learn from, I know that I'm learning when I'm like, oh that's true. I made a mistake and I wanna change. I wanna do something different. But I feel the hope of where I'm going with that. And so that's why this alignment to feel like, how does that feel? Is this a learning moment? 'cause it's gonna feel good if it's learning and not feel good if it's just me beating myself up .

Marty: That hope, I love that it, part of it, it feels like it connects to the, to this something bigger right?

Kathy: Yeah.

Marty: the

Kathy: Yeah.

Marty: Than the what, whatever the ego's in this moment, I don't mind admitting I'm wrong because I have this hope to connect to this bigger me, this more sustained me, something like

Bill: Or I am not concerned about being wrong. I don't mind being wrong. I'm not con So that learning moment that you point to Kathy is such a potential trigger point for me and for most of my clients. Here's some new information. Here's something new to learn. I refer to Carol Dweck off, and she wrote the book Mindset. And she says there's two different kinds of people. There's the open mindset and fixed mindset, and the fixed mindset says, oh no. Oh, this is dangerous. I don't know this already. I know I'm not gonna be good at it, and if anybody watches me fail at it, it's really gonna be painful. Or some version of that. I love how you're talking about your the voice of that inner critic who pretends to be your helper, because that's all part of a system inside

Kathy: Yes.

Bill: That helper voice that, that, that's pretending to be the helper probably actually believes that she or he is Really believes they're helping. It's just that they picked up a strategy from an adaptation that no longer. Is effective. It's now a maladaptation and we I've had several points in my life similar to the one you're pointing to, Kathy, that you've had, where I get to, I recognize that what I am doing not only is not helping it's actually causing more of a problem then it's helping and it's only been recently, in recent years that I realized that. That there's actually a way to change that that I don't have to just will myself into being different. But just something as simple as the insight that this just actually doesn't work anymore, can update that voice and say, oh, it isn't. Okay. What else can I do? Then? How else can I.

Marty: To that inner critic, you're talking to that inner critic?

Bill: It could be that simple that the inner critic hears me think or say, this isn't really working very well. And it hasn't for a long time and surprisingly that inner critic will sometimes say, oh, really? Okay, let's do something different than. Not often. Usually it take, it takes a little bit more of a relationship between me and that part to be to, before it's, it wants to find a different way. Yeah.

Marty: So given this dynamic, I'm curious, Kathy, about these different iterations of your life, like different career moments different spiritual associations, different places you've lived, different people. What, like in particular, I'm really curious about how a computer programmer is. I truly love like that. It just doesn't occur. Like I, I can make up how that might work out, but I would love to ask you like what you've learned in these different iterations about as love.

Kathy: I'll start really young. You mentioned that I play the piano and it's one of my, was my, one of my anchors when I was in high school. I would practice in the morning and just sitting at the piano and allowing. Something to flow through me and be expressed music. So I think love, the kind of love we're talking about here is is a kind of universal love. It's, I wouldn't want people to think I'm talking about being in love with a, romantic partner. and. I am really more talking about an unconditional love like a dog, a puppy might have. And there's a way in which music, because especially instrumental music, it doesn't have words that it can like a vehicle of something pure. so that's an early experience where I could feel magic happening from I would say now from my heart via this musical instrument. Another experience, the more along this lines of how do I out of that. Those faces of the inner critic or how can I get out when it like it's taking over everything these heavy feelings, heavy state. One thing is certainly to name it. Ooh, I'm not that. I remember one a drive along a mountain pass. Just seeing a little purple astor, little purple flower and thinking, I'm feeling miserable about myself somehow self-critical, knowing that I don't wanna be there and yet it's not necessarily the easiest thing to walk oneself out. So sometimes an image, like the way this flower. What the message I got from this flower is the flower isn't doing what I'm doing. The flower isn't saying, oh, I'm missing a petal. Leaning a little 10 degrees to the left.

Marty: I want more sun. Gimme more sun.

Kathy: So the flower is just sharing its beauty. Whatever beauty it has, it's shining. How simple that is. Actually, it's the opposite of having expectations. I got X, Y, Z, blah, blah, blah, blah. Then I can be beautiful. No. What if I just shine and recognizing that the shine already beautiful. what if I could see that everyone's heart is shining?

Marty: So part of what interests me, those are great. Example, and I can relate to both of them. Pianos and flowers.

Kathy: Yes.

Marty: And Bill's a musician too. You can see his guitar in the background there. I there, so it's about what I'm, the curiosity that I have is right now is about the relationship between the internal and the external. So the flowers out there, and yet it reminds me of who I Right? Certain people, when I hang out with them, I get that. this is me and other people I hang out with is like, how do I fit in here? I don't agree with that. I don't know what to say, blah, blah, blah. And I don't feel like I'm, I definitely, that's not being my true self. I'm just like both of you, I'm just curious about the relationship, the external, in this whole question. Do we need something outside to remind us who we are?

Bill: I think I can get just as fascinated with the experience of being in this body as I can in a ga gla, gazing in a flower or when you began to describe that scene, Kathy, there was a scene for me. And I know roughly when it was right around 2000, so about 25 years ago. And I had been in a really difficult dysfunctional marriage for about nine years and had left it. And during that marriage, my wife was insecure and jealous of my attention that I gave to my first wife's family. So I hadn't seen them. And they live in Montana and I live on the east side of Washington State. I hadn't seen them or very little of them for about nine years. So one of the first things I did was arrange to drive back to Montana to see them and see if I couldn't do some repairs from what I'd broken in exchange for being able to be in this relationship. And I was caught up in my thoughts about. What was I gonna say and how was I gonna be received and how are they gonna see me? And how would they treat me? Would they forgive me? Would I even wanna forgive them? 'cause I was holding onto some resentments as well. And then, and how they reacted to my second wife. And I was completely caught off guard as I, as the car banked with the road around a corner. Then around another corner, and as I took that second corner, a vista opened up in front of me and to my left was a, a granite cliff, about 300 yards off to my left. And down below about 500 yards away was this emerald shining glistening river. And it literally took my breath away and. Yes. The beauty of it just overwhelmed me and I shifted from a state of rumination and worry and concern and fear and future to right now, overwhelmed by the and I wept. I had to pull over. It hit me so hard. Something about that. Was just a profound marker. Now for me not to compare to or try to reproduce, but to recognize that it's not this thinking brain of mine, it's not this efforting will of mine that has me recognize and appreciate beauty. The beauty of a moment, the beauty of a breath, the beauty of a flower, the beauty of a note on the piano. There's something else inside. That knows, and that's never been hurt or harmed by anything that I've ever experienced. No matter what I've done to myself or what anybody else has done to me or what I've done to anybody, it's there and it's in me no matter what. And I, that's a real anchor for me now.

Kathy: To put the word awe on that experience.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely.

Kathy: what I appreciate about the experience of law is how expansive it is. And it doesn't necessarily mean an expansive view, but that certainly does it. But even small things the way the light can reflect up a tiny dew, drop on a tree and cast light in another direction, warm sunset, colors, tiny little thing, create the same sense of awe. Yeah, what I feel grateful for having experiences like that.

Marty: This is one of the things of the book that I'm writing on beauty that you just outlined so well, I wish I I'm gonna listen to the recording and quote you in my book. But what I heard you say is that there, there's something inside that meets with something outside, like the the scene touched something inside. So it's not, it's thing we're talking about the true love is not out there and it's not in here. It's in the connection. Did I read that correctly?

Bill: Are you asking me?

Marty: Yeah. I just I'm so thinking that as I write

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: I don't wanna project that on you if that's not what

Bill: no, that is, that's a great way to say it. It's in the relationship between whatever I consciously, maybe between my consciousness and that which consciousness observed.

Marty: Tells me that the true US is. The whole is the world

Kathy: The word that came to me was co-created.

Marty: co-created?

Kathy: Yes. Not just inside. It's not just something that totally off, But also from my experiences, especially in the natural world.

Marty: That's great. So that goes back to my question about choice too. It's not cho i'm this independent being, and I'm going to choose that and make it me. It's a it's a choice about being in relationship

Kathy: definitely.

Marty: With the with the love that's out there, something like that.

Kathy: Yeah, because it's if I'm love, everyone is love and the grass is love and or light, that same similar kind of metaphor and what happens when I can perceive that way? What happens when I can frame my in that way?

Bill: One of the things that has been the new newest mystery for me now, and it's mystery always for me, lies on the edge of what I think I know and insight that has thrown all that off. And for me. I'll guide my groups, my coaching groups for the first few minutes inside and ask them to notice the breath or to notice sounds nearby or something to focus something that's actually happening in the present moment. And so one of the first things that I'll say to transition from the hellos and how you do and nice to see you to, to getting grounded and centered and focused and in the moment is says, I'll say, let's go inside. And recently it's occurred to me that instruction is not as easy to follow or easy to understand as I intend it to be. Not even for me anymore. Even me, that is making that suggestion, let's go inside, what does that even mean? Where is inside and distinguishes inside from outside? So I'm not. I am not clear about that, nor do I feel an urgency to be clear, although I'm curious.

Marty: No, I love that. I like to think of it as a continuity, the universe doesn't stop at my skin. It keeps going in, right? And vice versa. My love doesn't stop at my skin my true self. Whatever you consider your true self to be, it's. It's emanating out into the world. It's making things happen out there as well. I like that. I think, we could think of it as a kind of continuum and that, but that again, it brings me to thinking like, oh, then the true me isn't something separated off from the true you.

Bill: Kathy, I'm curious about if you noticed, if you're, if you've moved on from it, it's okay. But I'm wondering what happened when I described that, I'll call it a dilemma, thinking that I knew what inside meant, realizing I didn't, and now wondering about it.

Kathy: Oh, I definitely relate to, depending on how I frame that question for myself, it can become. Like a bit of a red herring where is inside what is actually at the inside. some of the answers that I've become, come to formulate around that have been more along the lines of something like this, I can use words describe my experience and I can use those words to make me feel miserable. And that's going out. I can use words that take me towards those more high states that we were talking about, more compassionate states, that we were talking about, and that's going in. So words can take me out, can take me into being involved with, oh, what does that person think? Or that the person had me get me all wrapped up in a drama or they can take me into a place of wow. I'm lucky to have these people in my life. How do I have good boundaries? do I move forward in a peaceful way knowing, just knowing that sense of okayness. I'm okay. They're okay.

Bill: I think my recent exposure to Marshall Rosenberg and nonviolent communication, Ha, has made that word be a little more important to me inside. He asks. That's the opening question for NBC is what's alive inside and sometimes what's alive inside lands as, what am I keeping a secret? What am I keeping private And the moment I name it, what's alive inside is I'm feeling some anger, I'm some irritation, some whatever I would own and name. It doesn't feel like it's inside me anymore ass much. It's, it doesn't feel like a secret. It doesn't obviously I've shared it or it doesn't feel like it's something I need to hide anymore. And there's something powerful about noticing, first of all, and then being courageous or generous enough to name what I find when I'm in there. Some, there, there seems to be a release of energy that was previ, previously preoccupied with managing all of that.

Marty: Yeah. I'm curious. I used to, my first career was about teaching people at university level, I, it's been almost 30 years. So I'm curious, you're on the front lines at a major university in the. In the com. What's the name of the department?

Kathy: Computer Science.

Marty: Computer science department. What's alive inside today's youth?

Kathy: Wow. That's a big question. More big than I can possibly answer for everyone. But I have students that sit down and are, and have hope for the future that are engaged with learning and doing something. Having an interaction with other people in the room and with me, And there's the other things, all the phones and the distractions and, Yeah.

Bill: I wanna honor our hard stop in four minutes, four or five minutes. So what would be a good way to begin to bring this to a close without actually bringing it to a close quite yet? What's still open that we wanna close? What's still open to being maybe even explored or acknowledged?

Kathy: Let's talk more about this inside and outside and even to say true, you. And I'm curious, I'd like to dive more into this idea, like sometimes that the question can lead me astray into a sense of doubt around who I am, and then there's other times where paradoxically that, that I feel more centered when I have a. Blurred that line between me and other things Like the lake that you described.

Bill: Yes.

Kathy: Is there something about truth in that?

Marty: And also just to add to that, the, like when I'm around, when the, what's surrounding me is ugliness or hate or something like that. There's also a relationship going on there between the inside and the outside where I'm recognizing this isn't me. So back to your question

Kathy: can I ask you? There's one, there's a kind of pushing away that can happen. That's not me. That can happen from a voice of pushing it away. It can happen from a kind of clarity point. That's not my true me. I'm not aligning with that. And then there's another model, which is I am in the place of peace. I am everything. Who I really am is everything. And I can hold all of this, the anger and the love and

Marty: Am. All of it,

Kathy: yeah, all I'm just. One drop in this ocean that includes all that.

Marty: right? There are beautiful creatures inside and scary ones too.

Bill: I am wondering if there's a way not to conclude on a unified theory here, but it seems like we have some commonalities that have a common thread to this entire conversation that started with. Choice and this idea of choosing who I am. And I've just been listening from curiosity about that. And now when we're talking about what's the difference between inside or outside or what does it mean to be inside? In one of my groups this morning with five, five different women. I asked the question, what's alive inside to think of a situation where something happened and there was something alive inside that they wanted to hide and each of these women listed at least a dozen different distinct things that were alive inside for them. Emotions, thoughts, impulses, reactions, judgments, that sort of thing. The choice might come in, number one, being a well, yeah, I don't know that there's, there is choice unless I'm aware. Otherwise, it just automatically happens. But with awareness and with expanded awareness of all that's alive inside, and I would say what is alive inside of me is what I am consciously aware of that maybe you aren't until I share it. That's what's alive inside for me. And that's what each of these women shared this morning and once they even just named what was alive inside. We didn't go there, but in this conversation I conceived where we could have gone was. Now, given all that's alive inside, what do you choose? How do you choose to respond? How do you choose to view? How do you choose to project? What is it you wanna project out into the world? Because all of that is who you are.

Marty: You are a mix of stuff inside and you're the choice about what to act on.

Bill: You can be if you bring awareness. Maybe the first choice is do will. I, will, I, will I put the, will I burn the calories required to bring my conscious attention to what's alive inside here rather than focusing on trying to change and manage and judge everything out there. Now I can have some real choice and some real power. Just a thought.

Marty: I'm also thinking that part of what comes in there is a hierarchy, yes, I have these impulse, it's this hateful impulse, but I also have this loving impulse. And and IHII, there's a hierarchy there because I see that the hatred it's short lived. Battles are done and, but the world keeps going on in a larger framework of love. So that's, it's, that's why it's higher up on the hierarchy. And so the more I can identify who I am with those energies at the top of the hierarchy instead of the more short-lived things that aren't actually, beneficial or lasting or what have you that's, so I'm just taking what you said, I hope little bit further.

Bill: I wanna, I'd really like to, gosh, I'd like this conversation to continue and we need to wrap it up to honor everyone's time and I'd like to give you the last word, Kathy. Is There some things you'd like to say before we say goodbye?

Kathy: I want to thank both of you for your curiosity, for your insightful sparks of wisdom, for you bring. The lake present, the way you hear the beauty of a flower and how all that can transform all three of us in the course of an hour and hopefully others.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And thank you for being the catalyst for this conversation. Marty and I never tire of each other it seems but the way, the direction our conversations go with our guests. Is determined in large part by the energy and the true you of the guests. .

Marty: Yeah. Well Said.

Bill: Okay. Thank you so much, Kathy. I hope we, we can get you back here again.

Marty: Thank you very much.