Hey, everybody.
Welcome to a very special edition of the virtual couch and waking up to narcissism
episodes, 429 and 123 respectively.
I am your host, Tony Overbay.
I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist.
And I'm broadcasting today from my office in Mesa, Arizona.
And I have a CoStar who is a cricket that I cannot locate, but he will
be featured in the background.
And now if you are in the Mesa area, Phoenix area, looking for
somebody to come speak to your church, your corporate event.
Please reach out to me.
And I love talking about.
Communication improving your marriage parenting, turning away
from an unhealthy coping mechanisms.
And if you are savvy to the rules of the internet, then unhealthy coping mechanisms
are things like corn or pornography.
I hope you catch the drift, but reach out to me a contact@tonyoverbay.com.
And I would also encourage you to sign up for my newsletter and follow
me on Instagram at virtual dot couch and Tik TOK at virtual couch.
I'm continuing to do live question and answer events with
my daughters, Mackey and Sydney.
And those are the highlights of my week.
And I hope you heard and enjoyed the new intro song today.
It's a song.
That will be featured prominently on the waking up to narcissism podcast.
And it's called not my job.
It's by Riley hope.
And she is an amazingly talented, independent recording artist, composer,
singer, songwriter, and producer, and she liked the reel on Instagram.
And I happened to click on her account.
To see what she did because she had one of those little blue check marks.
And I was immediately met with a song on her account.
And I was hooked.
So I reached out to her and she was kind enough to give me the
ability to share her song as an intro for waking up to narcissism.
And I thought that there was no better place to debut the song
than on a crossover episode.
So my virtual couch people will have a chance to hear her music as well.
And so Riley says that she is working to blend the genres of cinematic orchestra.
Cinematic or Kestrel indie folk pop into a deeply emotional and unique soundscape.
She says that her music draws inspiration from the nostalgia of her earlier
roots in classical music and choir.
She does theater.
She blends this emotion and symbolism and deeper life truths and vulnerability
and storytelling with every song.
if you listen to the words of not my job, it's beautiful because it's not my job
to, to manage other people's emotions.
, it's a deep track written in what took her years of therapy to finally learn,
including self-worth and boundaries and the power of choosing yourself.
You can find it wherever music is streamed.
So let's get to today's episode and I would highly encourage you to stay until
the end or come back and finish this one.
If you run out of time, because I'm gonna share some things at the end today that
I can actually use your help with that, we'll have a bit to do with the topic.
But first.
I have always enjoyed writing.
And while I think that most people who enjoy writing off an
excelled in classes like English, that was not the case for me.
My problem was grammar and kids.
If you're listening.
Imagine a world where there was no such thing as the Grammarly
app or browser extensions.
So you were, I dunno, supposed to just no learn what grammar was and grammar
is tough because I still can remember some of my favorites, the rules.
I before E except after C except for when it sounds like a like neighbor
and way, but also how about words like weird and sovereign and foreign
and height and leisure and feisty and forfeit and counterfeit and slay.
And then there's a concept called the split infinitive, the rule
against splitting infinitives, putting a word between two and a
verb is often taught, but doesn't always make sense in modern English.
For example, to boldly go is a split infinitive, but it's accepted.
And it sounds a lot better than to go boldly.
And then there's , my kryptonite ending sentences with prepositions
because the old role never end a sentence with a preposition used to
get marked on my papers constantly.
But that can lead to some very awkward.
Constructions of sentences.
For instance, this one is attributed to Winston Churchill.
He said, The kind of arrogance up with which I will not put.
Sounds far more a natural, then this is the kind of arrogance
I will not put up with.
But we can't end that sentence with a preposition.
But one thing that I will say that I enjoyed learning about were
the different ways, which you can convey a meaning or tell a story.
And over on the waking up the narcissism podcast, I have listeners
who regularly send me their poetry.
And that is a form of expression that I know that I don't truly understand
how it comes about in one's mind.
But I love reading the poems that people send it on.
I've done entire episodes on them.
And for the record, Some of them don't even rhyme.
And I've been told on more than one occasion, again, over on the waking up
to narcissism podcast, that some of those podcasts that I do will have different
meanings to people depending on where one is that in waking up to their own
emotional immaturity or behaviors or those and their spouse or their partner.
So when you truly understand who you are and you can remain grounded in a
difficult conversation, the phrase.
Well, bless their heart.
If that's.
If they want to tell me what they think that I should do about my life, because
I've realized that I am actually the one who is ultimately in charge of me.
But if you're grounded, then I'm happy to hear what you have to say.
But the chances are, I will thank you for your feedback about what you think I'm
doing or thinking or what I need to do.
Because that truly does sound like more of something that you are struggling with.
But when somebody is in the throws of an unhealthy relationship and they feel
emotionally abused and they don't have a true sense of self, then the phrase.
Bless their heart.
It sounds like I don't have a clue of how difficult the relationship is.
But let's, let's talk about a few literary devices and one
in particular, the allegory.
And we're going to spend some time on the allegory today.
Because I've written my very first allegory and I would love for you
to go on this journey with me.
This allegorical journey of self discovery.
An allegory is a story or a poem or a picture that can be interpreted
to reveal a hidden meaning, not like in a where's Waldo type of hiding.
But typically more of a moral or a political or a life, meaning
that is hidden inside of a story.
So it's like a, it's like an extended metaphor where characters and
events and settings often stand for abstract ideas or moral qualities.
A couple of just real quick examples to set the stage for today, an allegory
called the garden of hearts might be.
A story about a gardener who is tending to different types of flowers, and each
one represents a different kind of, let's say, love romantic, familial friendship.
So the Gardener's efforts to nurture each flower, despite varying conditions.
Would then symbolize the challenges and rewards of cultivating different
types of love in one's life.
Or imagine a flock of birds that are in a cage, the doors
open, but they don't fly away.
Because they've never known anything else.
This could represent people who remain in limiting situations,
even when opportunities for change, present themselves.
That allegory speaks to a lot of the people that I'm working with in therapy.
But today we are going to explore an allegory titled off the
beaten path, finding love and self in a world of conformity.
And the story takes us on a journey up a hill, but it's not just any
hill and it's not just any journey.
Cause we're going to follow a protagonist, a young man named Ansul,
and we'll discover that sometimes the path less traveled can lead to
the most beautiful destinations.
I would love for you to watch for themes of, of individuality, of
conformity, of love, of self discovery in a way that might just make you
look at your own life's journey.
Or the journey of somebody close to you a little differently.
Let's step off this beaten path together and let's see where this story takes us.
Off the beaten path, finding love and self in a world of conformity.
Ansul was a young man who had spent his entire life in a quiet village
at the bottom of a very large hill.
And for as long as the Ansul could remember the majority of the villagers
talked about a narrow Rocky path that led up the hill to the most beautiful
garden that one could imagine.
And when the children in the village reached a certain age, they were
given the seeds to hold on to.
And they were told the one day when they were older, if they stayed true to their
promises that they had made in their youth, they would have this opportunity to
plant the seeds in this beautiful garden.
A garden where their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents.
Had also planted seeds that were part of this garden and entering the
beautiful garden, planting your seeds.
There was truly a right of passage and it was this foundational principle for
the people that lived in the village.
For most, if not nearly all of the villagers, the goal of taking
your seats to the top of the hill and planting in this beautiful
garden with simply what you did.
A few questions.
This time warn village narrative, and most of the people seemed quite content with
their lives and they were successfully learning and doing the things necessary
to ensure that they lived in such a way that they would have the opportunity.
To not only see the garden, but to plant their seeds there and become
part of the beautifully connected and garden tapestry of their ancestors.
And this gave them the peace and joy of knowing that they had done what was
expected of them throughout their lives.
Now the route up the hill to the garden, wasn't ordinary.
It consisted of a deeply rutted worn path that featured numerous
rocks and roots that at times made it really difficult to traverse.
And a great deal of time was spent studying the path, learning and memorizing
where each obstacle was to the point that many of the elderly women and elderly
men of the group could describe the path inch by inch with their eyes closed.
To ensure that they would remember they often associated stories or meetings
with the various obstacles on the path.
So over the course of generations, these stories evolved and they grew to the point
that there was often debate about what the exact meaning of these stories were.
And even whether or not the stories were true.
Now for the youth of the village, the desire to reach the top of the hill
and the praise and the adoration, the validation that came to those
who could memorize the route at a very young age, or tell those stories
about the various obstacles along the way, that became a pretty key focus.
So as a kid, Ansul would sometimes have the opportunity to walk the path with his
parents or one of the village leaders.
And they will get to the park at the top of the hill with the entrance to the
garden and site and spend the afternoon having a picnic or simply enjoying the
peace and calm that the park provided.
But Ansul being the energetic kid that he was, would often venture off from
his family under the guise of finding a walking stick, maybe for the way back.
And he'd wander over to the entrance of the garden and take in its beauty.
And inevitably one of the garden workers would kindly
escort him back to his family.
The grownups kept telling him.
You have to wait until you're older to actually go into the
garden and plant your seeds.
But the more you get ready for it now, the better that your life will be.
What Anzel could see of the garden, it did look pretty amazing and he
noticed how peaceful everybody seemed when they came back from this garden.
People were always talking about these powerful experiences
that they had had up there.
And for many of the villagers, the path, the park and the garden form,
the majority of what they talked about.
And so they love to share with the younger people in the village, how
important it was to prepare yourself, to walk the path and to enter this
garden, this beautiful garden.
And even some of Ansell's friends would go on and on about how connected they
felt to the hill where the garden resided.
And they would compare where each other was and memorizing the path
of the garden, sharing the stories.
The kids were the popular ones in the village that knew those stories
well, but as hard as Ansul tried.
And he'd been trying for a long time.
He just didn't feel that same connection that others did with this hill or
the same desire to enter the garden.
And he tried everything that people told them to do and everything
that they said to try to feel the same feelings that others had about
the hill or the garden on top.
But that connection that everybody talked about, it just
really wasn't happening for him.
And this was a really, really difficult time for ancil because he started
feeling disconnected from everybody in the village and from his peers.
And he kept wondering what is wrong with me?
Why isn't this working?
And he would spend hour upon hour, day after day, trying to figure out.
What he was doing wrong, hoping that maybe just, maybe he would start to
feel what everybody else was feeling.
Now Ansell's parents loved him, like crazy.
And they were always talking to him about what he needed to
do to get ready for the garden.
And they tried to conduct lessons about the path and the stories about it.
But those lessons left Ansul feeling like he wasn't really understanding
the significance of the garden or the worth of spending hours each week
talking and learning about the path.
And Ansul knew that they just wanted the best for him.
But he couldn't help feeling like he was actually letting them down.
They'd catch him drawing or reading.
Things had nothing to do with the path or the garden.
And while they never set it out.
Right.
Ansul felt their disappointment.
And they were more interested in him focusing on , what they
would call important things than what he was actually into.
As Ansul got older, he kept walking the path up the hill just to be in
the vicinity of the garden, just like everybody else in his family had done.
But he just couldn't shake this feeling that something was off.
And everybody else seemed to fit in so easily his friends, his family.
I had no problem keeping their eyes on the path, following all the rules.
And they seem to really get , something out of all of the shared experiences that
the villages were having with one another.
And according to Ansell's parents, he'd actually come out of the wound,
mischievous and curious a combination of character traits that his parents
admitted were pretty challenging at times, especially when he was young, but they
were also what made Ansul, the person that he was, and they love dance was curiosity.
But they often tried to steer that curiosity to the things
that they, as his parents.
That would help him learn more about what they believed to be
one of the most important things that he could do with his life.
Prepare to go to a garden, plant these seeds.
But the older that Ansul got , the more inner turmoil he had, and he began
to feel extremely detached from his village and the desires to learn more
about the path or go to the garden.
Angela had no desire to try and convince anybody that what they were
doing was wrong, but he was becoming increasingly more frustrated and
isolated as he went through the motions without feeling truly connected to his
village or to their shared experiences.
He just wanted somebody, anybody to tell him that it was okay.
For him to just be the way that he was.
But whenever you opened up to somebody.
They even being nice would just give them the same advice about getting
back on the path, climbing that hill, trying to embrace the significance of
the garden and finding meaning there.
And Ansul appreciated that they cared and he could feel that caring, but at this
point, He really had heard it all before.
And he had tried it all before so many times and it just wasn't working and he
just felt like, what is wrong with me?
And to make things even more confusing when he would attempt to jump back into
the teachings , and do the work and jumping there with both feet, people in
the village couldn't seem to agree on how to even teach the concepts of the garden.
And the path that led up to it, some of the elders took
a more negative slant, more.
More doom and gloom these warnings about how dangerous it was, if
you did not stay directly on that path, that led up to the hill.
They'd say things like don't, you dare take your eyes off that path.
Or you'll end up broken and you'll end up destroyed.
But then others would take a completely opposite approach and share amazing
faith promoting stories about the times that they had climbed the
hill, walking the path of the garden.
And what that meant to them.
Many people now found peace, just walking up to the hill.
Ansell was lost and he'd ask his parents who am I supposed to listen to?
The people who are trying to scare me up the hill are the people who
are claiming that every single thing.
About the path and the hill.
Has a sacred meaning.
And so if I don't figure this out, I'm really missing out.
And his parents would lovingly say, Hey, whichever one keeps you on that path.
The problem was none of them really felt like it was motivating Ansul and he felt
like he couldn't be honest about his thoughts and his feelings without somebody
shutting him down and giving him advice that he'd already tried so many times.
So over time, Ansul started to realize just how different he was
from the people of this village while everybody else was laser focused on
the path, memorizing all the details.
Ansell's eyes would actually wonder, and his curiosity would take over and would
often look around while he was on the path and some of what he saw off the path.
Yeah, it looked pretty scary, but he also noticed these other gardens in
the distance and trees and flowers, and they just look beautiful and mysterious.
But every time.
Somebody caught.
And so looking away from the path, they'd scold them.
Hey, keep your eyes on the path.
They tell him.
It's the only way that you're really going to make it to the top.
But Ansul couldn't help it.
His curiosity was now just a part of who he was.
It was what he was born with.
This curiosity of his, it wasn't just about the path.
It was how Ansul approached everything in life.
He saw his curiosity as a gift.
But when other people didn't share his curiosity or worse, When they
attacked him for it, it really hurt.
'cause ANSA, wasn't trying to tell anybody that they were wrong.
He just wanted to understand people and their experiences and deep down.
He really wished somebody would be curious about his experiences too.
Now sometimes Ansul would try to talk about these things, these
other gardens that he would see.
But as soon as he brought them up, his friends would shut them down.
They would tell him.
Hey, you're wasting your time and you need to focus on the garden at the top
of the hill and not go looking at these other gardens because those are scary.
But then one day Ansul meets a woman.
Her name's Maurice, she was walking the path to, she was carrying her seeds
from the elders, trying to memorize every little thing about the path.
There was something different about her.
Ansul felt this instant connection.
And she seemed genuinely curious, especially about what
they were experiencing on the path right then and there.
She did want to hear what his experience was in the here and now.
And Ansul couldn't get enough of talking to Maris and they started
spending more and more time together.
And Ansul found himself somewhat reinvigorated to learn and understand
the path because he really wanted to learn and understand more about MIRIs.
And as they got closer, Ansul opened up to her about his hopes in his dreams.
And the best part was Marris wanted to know more about them too.
And they talked about all sorts of things, but often the talk would turn back to
concepts about the path of the garden.
And while Maris, his outlook was refreshing to say the very least.
And soul still felt like he had to withhold some of his feelings.
Not just about the path or the garden, but especially about
what he had seen off the path.
Now the closer that they got the more stressed out and so became.
Cause he worried that Maris thought that he was just like everybody else I'll focus
just entirely on the path and the garden.
And the more they talk, the more anxious he became.
And he was convinced that if MIRIs really knew.
How he really thought differently about the garden or the path and
where his interest actually lay that she would not want to be with him.
And if she found out that he'd wandered off the path and planted seeds and these
other gardens gardens that he'd discovered game over is what Ansul thought.
And that's what we came so stressed about this that he was thinking about.
I just have to spill everything to Maris.
He figured if things were going to fall apart, then better know sooner than later.
And he didn't want to get in any deeper, only to have Maris
leave when she found out.
Who he really was.
So just as Ansul was about to pour his heart out.
He ran into an elder from the village.
This guy was a little different from the others.
He was pretty calm.
He was pretty confident, not in a show off kind of way.
He just seemed.
At peace with himself.
So feeling very lost Ansul told the elder everything, the other listened, he asked
some questions and then he said to ancil.
Are you really ready to share everything about you with Maurice?
Or are you just hoping that she'll tell you it's okay to be different?
Is this about her?
Or is this about your fear of rejection, your fear of being
seen for who you really are?
And then the elder went on to talk about patients and how being
uncomfortable is often where we learn the most about ourselves.
And we can see the most about others.
And he asked Dan Sol one more uncomfortable.
What do we do?
Do we lash out?
Do we shut down?
Do we just keep following along.
Even when everything inside of us is screaming that something is wrong.
That I need to do something different.
And this may Dansel stop any thought and he realized he wasn't
ready to show Mira says garden.
Not because it wasn't good enough, but because he hadn't
fully accepted it himself yet.
He was trying to get Maris to validate something that he
wasn't so sure about himself.
And that wasn't fair to her.
Because she was just getting to know him after all.
So instead of sharing everything at once, Ansul decided to wait, he
kept being curious about Maris, her journey, her family, her past what she
thought about the garden on the hill.
He asked her how she felt about the path had she ever wondered about.
The parts that everybody else ignored.
Meanwhile Ansul kept visiting his own garden.
And he started to see that this was where he felt real peace and he felt connection.
Like you'd never felt before.
Part of him wanted to shout it from the rooftops, but he also knew.
That he didn't need everybody to know.
He wasn't trying to pull anyone away from what they were
doing or what made them happy.
And Ansul finally started to realize he was actually okay, just as he
was and that this was his journey.
All of his experiences, even the tough ones had made him into who he
was, this unique, talented person.
And the more he accepted himself, the more confident he became.
People in the village started to notice.
They saw that he wasn't spending as much time on the path, but they
also saw this new light in his eyes, this joy and his countless.
Even better, the more time that Ansell's spent with Maris and the more that he
understood her, and then he opened up, he started to see that Maris wasn't as
rigid about the path as he thought that she had her own doubts too, because
it was part of the human experience.
Sometimes she wondered if the garden at the top would be anything
like what the other subscribed.
And she even told Ansul that she sometimes imagined adding your
own style on the way up the path.
She was scared to speak up.
She'd seen how people would share different ideas.
Got shut down and told to focus on obeying these rules that would eventually help
them discover their place in the garden.
So as Ansul and Marisol.
I spent more time together.
And so I had this realization.
Their gardens didn't have to be the same for them to
appreciate each other's beauty.
By letting go of his need for Maris to immediately validate him.
And so gave their relationship room to grow naturally.
Just like the wild flowers in his own garden.
And end scene.
So thank you for listening to this allegory.
And I want to address some of the main themes that I've written too.
And see if you pulled these out.
One of them was individuality versus conformity because the central conflict
of this allegory revolves around Ansell struggled to fit into a society
that had pretty rigid expectations.
And I think that this represents the attention that a lot of people feel,
but between being true to themselves, And then conforming to societal norms.
And what I think is so interesting here is that.
There's nothing wrong with someone who does need a direction and guidance.
Until they don't.
We all start from this place of needing external validation to really know who we
are to really find our own sense of self.
And so that is going to come from parents that is going to come from
a church community that is going to come from a village, a family system.
That there's where the acceptance comes in, that we grow up where we do.
And we learned the things that we do because that's the things that the
people in our religious community and our family community, that's
the things that they teach us.
What they're sharing what they're projecting.
But those are the experiences that we begin with.
There's our starting point.
That is the muse of which we begin understanding who we are in life.
It makes sense that for so long, Many of us are going to just follow along
with , the community norms, the religious community norms, the societal norms, the
family norms, because that's what we know.
But then as you go through life and you experience different things, then you
are going to have different feelings.
Now, sometimes it's going to be a feeling of safety or security or
connection, and it's going to feel like this makes so much sense to me,
but other times you're going to think.
Okay.
The feelings that I'm feeling now are going against how I've been told.
I need to feel where I'm supposed to feel in this situation.
So, of course, we're going to start from a place of what is wrong with me,
because this is the way that I was raised.
These are the things that I was taught to believe.
Which then I think leads into the second theme that I tried to put in the allegory.
Which is about faith and doubt.
While not explicitly religious.
This story uses the garden and the path as metaphors for a variety of belief systems,
because Ansell's doubts his questions.
I think they reflect the experiences of so many people that I work
with are struggling with their inherited belief systems.
So they have been given these belief systems and that's their starting point.
Which I think leads to the third theme, which is this, I love
a good coming of age story.
You know, self-discovery Ansell's journey from childhood to adulthood is marked by
his growing awareness, that his own unique perspective and his own unique needs.
Exist.
And I think those symbolize the, this universal process of self discovery.
That as we go through life and as we're interacting with the things that we
have been interacting with that, give us a real purpose or sense of self.
That we're going to have feelings.
And some of those, again, will feel like this connection with my experience.
Others will feel like this doesn't work for me.
This doesn't make sense to me.
It's kind of leads to the fourth theme, the nature of
things like truth and knowledge.
The villages insistence on one right path.
Well, that worked for a lot of the people in the village.
For even generations of people, entire family systems, but it can
trusted with Ansell's curiosity.
About the other gardens.
And I think it really speaks to questions about.
From an allegorical theme, absolute versus relative truth.
And I run into that in my office a lot where people will say, but
I do believe there is an absolute truth and absolute right or wrong.
Where then for others, they're saying, okay.
But that isn't my experience.
Another theme.
Intergenerational expectations.
This one's a pretty fascinating one.
You know, this pressure, that Ansul feels from his parents and
his community to follow tradition.
I think it really highlights the challenges of living up to
family or societal expectations.
And what can be so interesting and difficult about that as,
as someone is starting to want to go down their own path.
It can often feel to the people that have already been on the path.
That wait, if you choose a different path than you are thinking that
that means that my path is wrong.
And this is where it is.
Not that black or white.
It's not that all or nothing thinking.
That the person that wants to explore who they are, their individuality, their
self-discovery, maybe even their own path.
Then they are not saying your wrong.
Now when there has been this psychological reactants, the instant negative
reaction to being told what to do.
Where, when someone is saying you can't do that now that's a
built in defense mechanism, man.
Now I want to do it even more.
And so this is why the concept of curiosity and just wanting to
understand what someone else's experience is so important.
It's so key.
It's also very scary for the person that is trying to be curious.
Because now our adorable ego gets in the way and we, we
feel like I must defend my ego.
If you are moving away from the things that I taught you or the traditions
of our family or our fathers.
Then I need to let you know that that is not the correct way to go, because
what our subconscious is saying is because then that might mean that
I could have maybe made a different choice at some point in my life.
But the reality is sure you could have, but here's where you are as well.
I think another main theme that I wanted to put throughout
the allegory is curiosity.
This concept of being open-minded, Ansell's natural curiosity
is presented as both a gift.
And it is a main source of conflict because it emphasizes this value and the
challenge of maintaining an open mind.
When he was growing up in a little bit of a closed system.
Which gives a big challenge to theme seven love and acceptance because
Ansell's relationship with Maris.
Explorers this theme of really an authentic connection,
acceptance for who you are.
Self acceptance.
And this fear of rejection.
Of being one's own true self, because it will often come with
being banished from the tribe.
And built into us is that if I am kicked out of my tribe of people
in my community, Then I am left in this lone world and I will die.
And that is a really scary feeling.
So we often compromise our own.
Sense of self our own integrity.
For the fear of being abandoned.
And what if no one will ever then love me?
That's why it becomes so important as cliched as it is.
Truly love yourself.
The eight theme.
Was personal growth through discomfort.
One of my favorite things over the last year or so.
You know, the elders advice, the wise elder about learning through discomfort.
I think that really reflects this idea, that personal growth.
It comes through challenging experiences.
And if you play things safe your entire life,
then it can really feel like uncomfortable things are a dangerous threat.
But if you learn that there is going to be growth through discomfort,
it's not that you necessarily need to go seek very uncomfortable things.
Although one can.
But when uncomfortable things occur, then, you know, okay, we can get through this.
This is happening.
I will be okay.
I will learn through this.
Which that learning leads to theme nine.
I've called a diversity of thought because the allegory suggests that
there's value in different perspectives and there's value in different paths.
Even within a seemingly uniform community.
And then the last theme that I want to touch on is this journey of
self-acceptance because ultimately Ansell's realization that he's okay.
Just as he was, I think truly speaks to the importance of
self-acceptance and authenticity.
. At its core.
I think the story.
Is the experience of questioning or maybe leaving a family, a
religious or a cultural tradition.
Because I often work with those who feel like their own personal journey
ends up not being so personal.
So many of us , in life feel like they don't quite fit the mold of their
community, particularly in terms of their beliefs or even their lifestyle.
I hope that this garden really represents the promise rewards of
full participation in a belief system.
And there are people that, that works wonderfully for, but the
path I think, represents more of this prescribed way of living.
And again for some, it works well.
But Ansul struggle, mirrors the experience of so many who find
themselves doubting or questioning.
The beliefs that they were raised with and facing that fear of
disappointment of rejection.
Really of the unknown.
We just crave certainty.
We crave meaning.
And the story also touches on the complexities of relationships within the
context that we're talking about today.
How doubt.
Affects family dynamics and friendships and romantic relationships.
And hopefully it highlighted the challenge of being authentic while navigating all
of these important connections with the people around you that you grew up with,
that you are wanting validation from.
But ultimately, I think, I think this allegory seems to advocate
for personal authenticity.
Open-mindedness the idea that there.
There could be many valid paths in life, not just one.
And it suggests that true growth and peace comes not from.
Necessarily rigidly, adhering to one prescribed way.
That is a wonderful place for one to start.
But then hopefully the message is heard that then if that prescribed
weight works for somebody.
That's wonderful.
But then it's not the job of another person to try and convince the person
who's trying to find their own path.
That their path is wrong or that they need to conform to the path that they are on.
And in the coming weeks, I'm going to be sharing a few more episodes that will
cover the concepts of navigating difficult journeys of faith, of family systems.
And of so many of you who write into me.
Or people that I'm working with individually or as couples or
who I read about in various posts and comments on social media.
That stepping out of your familiar family role or your role
from my church or a community.
Uh, faith community.
It can be really scary because it threatens the
homeostasis or the status quo.
And for those who are threatened by somebody that they know or love, who
is attempting to find their own way.
Or tried their own path.
It does not mean that you did anything wrong.
If that person wants to pursue their own path or live their own life.
I actually think that it can mean the opposite.
I think it can actually mean that you created enough space or enough safety
for that person to feel like they can explore who they are in their own way.
And it does not threaten who you are or what matters to you.
And to be fair.
Another reason why people almost aggressively feel the need to pursue
their own path can be because they feel overwhelming pressure from a family
or a church or a community to conform.
And in that process of conforming.
They truly believe that they are betraying their own sense of self
they're compromising their own values.
They're not coming from a place of personal integrity.
And there really is.
The concept of the body keeps the score.
You can grow through discomfort.
But there are times where the more you try to lean into something that does not
feel like this is something that you can do from a place of personal integrity.
That people do have the panic attacks, their heart rate elevates.
They have hives.
They.
Chronic pain migraines.
I've worked with so much of that, that called conversion disorder, where your
body is going to try and protect you.
Whatever that looks like.
And so if you've learned a lot from a person, a relationship, a community,
And now you feel like it, it is done you well, and it is time to learn more.
And then you try to force yourself back into that community, into that box.
Your body will often say no, we can't because we're feeling such a connection
with nature, with the divine, with myself.
When I am now pursuing my own path.
Because if somebody is compromising their values, that they're not
coming from this place of integrity.
Then too often, I think they're feeling that way because they have not had
an opportunity to even attempt to discover or to find out who they are.
What matters to them?
For the fear of rejection from their family or their church or the community.
So hopefully if you're somebody feeling like you need to find
your own path, discover your own values, talents, abilities.
If you're a religious person to discover your own God given talents and abilities.
That you can give yourself the permission that you need, even if you
aren't receiving that permission from your family or your faith community.
Because ultimately even if they believe that they are coming from a good place,
because what they are wanting you to do is something that has worked for them.
Well, As we said at the beginning, bless their hearts.
Because they truly do mean well, but that doesn't mean that you have to
sacrifice your own sense of self, because whether you are now realizing
that you have sacrificed yourself, Up to this point in your life.
Or back in the religious context that that sacrifice was
already done a long time ago.
So that you, the listener can live.
Either way provides you with the permission to do whatever it is
that you need to do to become the very best version of yourself.
Stop burning and wasting emotional calories, trying to
figure out what's wrong with you because the answer is nothing.
You're human.
You are a beautiful combination of your nature and your nurture, your birth order,
your DNA, your banishment, your rejection, your fears, your hopes, your dreams.
And all of those amazing things make you, you, so you think the way
you do and you feel the way you do.
And that is a wonderful, amazing thing.
You're this human you're going through life for the very first time.
And what matters to you is what is going to matter to you?
And the only way that you're going to find that out is by going out and being,
and doing, and discovering and learning.
And that can be thanks to, or in spite of the people who have helped get you
to this point that you're at right now.
So thank you for your time today.
I would love for you to share this particular episode with anybody and
everybody that you think might benefit.
And I would love your stories and your questions about your own.
Faith journeys.
Family journeys, faith and family deconstructions crisises.
And let me know if I can use what you send me on any upcoming episodes.
If you're not comfortable with me discussing what you send, I
still would love to read your questions and your stories anyway.
Please send your information.
Anything that you want to, to contact the Tony overbay.com or go through
the contact form on my website.
Tony overbay.com.
I am grateful for everybody that stuck around.
Having an amazing week.
We'll see you next time on waking up the narcism and the virtual couch.