A Mason's Work

[00:01] Yesterday, we talked about saying the slightly truer thing about that small, honest something
[00:07] as simple as admitting you've been thinking about your grandmother and you miss her today
[00:11] opens a conversation that a managed answer like I'm fine never could.
[00:18] And how that practice is available to you right now with people already in your life
[00:23] in the low stakes moments where the cost of trying it is almost nothing.
[00:28] Today, we talk about what happens when you do try it because like anything, it doesn't
[00:34] always go the way you hoped, right?
[00:36] And if nobody prepares you for that, the first time it doesn't land the way you expect or
[00:41] the way you think it should or the way your expectations go, you'll take that as evidence
[00:48] that being open doesn't work and you'll close back down and the isolation continues or gets
[00:55] worse.
[00:55] And that's the outcome we're trying to avoid because again, your body is keeping score
[01:01] on all of this stuff.
[01:03] It's it actually is slowly but really like aiding to your physical demise.
[01:08] And it's also not going to build strong relationships with the people around you.
[01:13] So here's an honest telling of what the response landscape looks like.
[01:19] Sometimes when you say this slightly truer thing, the other person kind of meets you there.
[01:23] They're like, yeah, they lower the their, you know, safety margins a little bit as well.
[01:29] And the conversation goes somewhere that neither of you planned and you both walk away feeling
[01:34] slightly less alone than you did before, which is awesome.
[01:38] And it's so worth pursuing.
[01:41] But it's not guaranteed.
[01:43] It's not even the most common response, especially when you're early in your practice of these kinds
[01:48] of vulnerabilities.
[01:51] More often than not, in the beginning, what you get first is kind of a pause.
[01:56] It's like a, you broke the matrix in some way.
[02:03] Person got the message and they've got to recalibrate somehow.
[02:08] They were expecting fine.
[02:11] You gave them something real and they don't know how to process.
[02:17] If you're rejection sensitive, take a breath.
[02:20] That's not rejection.
[02:23] It's processing.
[02:25] The other person's masking system is encountering something that they didn't prepare for.
[02:31] You've got to let that pause be without rushing to fill it or walking back what you said or
[02:37] adding a joke to cut the tension because by doing that, you are allowing the other person
[02:45] to move back into their default masking process or you are diminishing the vulnerability you just expressed.
[02:53] So try not to fill the silence because it's going to be a little bit longer than you're used to.
[03:01] And it may take a minute.
[03:05] If you don't get that reprocessing phase, sometimes you get a deflection.
[03:11] The other person hears what you said, they kind of acknowledge it briefly, and then they
[03:17] steer the conversation back to safer ground.
[03:20] For them.
[03:23] They steer the conversation back to safer ground for them.
[03:30] If you're rejection sensitive, that stings a little.
[03:33] But it's worth knowing it's not rejecting you.
[03:38] It's rejecting their own capacity to be present in the moment.
[03:43] And they're masking, deciding, I have no idea what to do with this.
[03:46] This feels unsafe.
[03:48] Yoink.
[03:49] And they split.
[03:51] This is where they are, not where you are.
[03:55] So try not to take anything that you're going to get back as a response.
[04:03] Necessarily as a thing that you have to take with you and go home.
[04:06] You don't have to take that silence or their deflection as a critique.
[04:14] Sometimes you'll get an abject rejection.
[04:18] Somebody will be visibly uncomfortable.
[04:22] They will feel awkward or make signs that they are feeling awkward.
[04:29] When that happens and is genuinely uncomfortable, it's still best to sit there.
[04:33] If you can, be present in the discomfort.
[04:39] Acknowledge the discomfort.
[04:41] I'm sorry.
[04:42] My disclosure seems to have made you uncomfortable.
[04:47] And move on.
[04:49] And that's okay too.
[04:50] The more you can acknowledge what you're doing, what you're saying, what you're thinking, what you're feeling with someone in a conversation, the more likely you are going to be able to get to a relationship that can help you both grow.
[05:06] But you have to be very mindful of this.
[05:11] Because these types of socialization counter the norms of every day-to-day interaction.
[05:19] In a lot of cases, folks that are very, very good at being manipulative will create these sort of vulnerability opportunities to try and rope you into stuff.
[05:32] You're used to that on a regular basis.
[05:35] Anybody walking up to you on the street, you're very likely going to be, all your defenses are up.
[05:39] Again, the place to start these conversations are with people you trust already.
[05:46] Folks that are close, they're in your inner circle, they're in your social organizations, they're in your, you know, maybe your workplace, they're your fishing buddy, whatever.
[05:56] However, when you start this process, you're going to get to an increasing level of comfort with having conversations that require emotional content or that have emotional content attached.
[06:15] And that's okay.
[06:17] Let those things happen as they happen.
[06:21] You don't have to, and this is a thing that you know intuitively, you don't have to be comfortable all of the time.
[06:33] Anybody who's lifted weights knows this.
[06:37] The process of lifting weights is, in and of itself, difficult.
[06:41] There's a time between the weight getting from the rested state to that full stretch or that full pump or whatever it is.
[06:53] That distance where it's just suffering when you get to that.
[07:00] But the outcome on the other side of having the physique that you're working towards.
[07:04] That discomfort is a sign that something is happening.
[07:08] A lot of folks chase it, particularly in things like weightlifting.
[07:14] You look for that next day bit of soreness.
[07:18] Understand that conversationally and emotional vulnerability and all of the things that you're going to need to build a team around you that you can use to grow will have some of that kind of discomfort.
[07:29] And it's going to start with the first lift by getting slightly more honest in your answers.