Unlearning How To Ask For Help w/ Marissa Loewen

0:00:00 - Briar

Got a book to write.

0:00:03 - Marissa

Oh, we are live, we are live. I did not line up properly for the thing to be properly on my shelf. It's bugging the heck out of me. I've got your logo somewhat on my head, not on my head. It looks fine. Hello everybody, we are here with Unlearning how to Ask for Help, so I have to start with this prior minute. I know you're going to have an intro and stuff, but I have to say somebody asked me the day why I'm learning how to ask for help.

0:00:34 - Briar

Because you made me choose that title. Let's be very clear here. I was like bring it here.

0:00:40 - Marissa

You said it was a crappy title.

0:00:42 - Briar

I said it was a crappy podcast title. I may have said that.

0:00:46 - Marissa

And I said but here's the reality is that we think we know how to ask for help. We think we are asking for help and we're not, or we're not doing it so that our needs are actually being met. So I want to thank you, briar, first of all for hosting this incredible master class over the last eight bazillion months, because we dragged this baby out. But it has been really interesting seeing how people have reacted to the episodes and things that they've taken away from it and realize that maybe in their life some people realize that they were not being supported. Some people realize they were never asking to be supported. Some people realize that the thought of being supported is one of the most painful things. The reactions were a lot and I think it's been really interesting over seeing what we've seen in the catalyst. You and I and I was just saying to my colleague that even what I saw when I ran our pop-up markets people asked for help.

So we had a really tight load-in window and one door to get everybody in and we had like 250, 275 people basically coming in three hours before the show opened and then they had to get all their stuff in, get unloaded, and so what we did was we were not going to do this normal load-in where everybody leaves their car and nobody can get in and fire exits are blocked and we're going to have all of those lovely finds. So what we said was you come in, we book you a time. You come in, we unload your car, we take it up to your booth and you go park your car and then come back. So now people didn't have to wonder where they were, they didn't have to want, they knew where their stuff was, they had a number, but they didn't have to be responsible for all that. And it was amazing watching so many people that were like, no, I've got my stuff, I've got it by year four. They're like see you, I'll come back, I've got to go drop Bye, right, and it was this.

And people were talking about their nervous systems, right, they really had all that stress of getting out of their car, unload, while everybody else was the chaos, the noise, the sensory overload, getting their stuff to their booth, having to park their car. No, they rolled up. Four or five volunteers piled over their car, unloaded their car, said see you in a bit, here's your sticky note, we'll see you in a bit. And then they went and parked their car, got some coffee luxuriously, came back, set up their booth, got ready for the show, and it was such an amazing opportunity for me to see how people can really thrive and step into what they were meant to do, what their passion is, just because we took care of that one little step. It was a huge step, but we could load in 250 people in two and a half hours.

And afterwards it's just so satisfying and all the makers were just like, wow, that was so beautiful, so great, so relaxing. I mean I was out there yelling my head out, get off your car, whatever. Became a bit of a comedy of errors, because I was never very serious often, but it was. People would roll up. I've watched the video and I had a whole page that was helping them. Was that had stuff for them to load in, stuff for them to have a great day. All that is just support. All of that is nourishing. So when we look at it, it's the stuff we don't think about.

It is the stuff we don't think about. So, even like you don't read the help text, you don't watch the help video, you don't watch. Like. I knew the people who like, basically, we said, if you don't watch the load in video and acknowledge that page, you don't come back ever at all, and people would drop. I watched the video. It became this kind of cult camp class. This roll up video, last word, secret word, is great. Anyways, they basically became this. But it was them being helped, it was them accepting that resource.

We recently did a market and I created a whole big, huge page and it was like how to sell before, during and after, how to make the most out of this weekend. And one person was like didn't you read that page? He's like, no, that would probably have been really good. I'm like, yeah, that's you not receiving help by reading that? We did a online conference a couple of years ago. People were like where's my Zoom link? We're not doing it on Zoom. That is not receiving help, that is being so busy in that you can't be supported in the best way and that helps nobody. So, coming back to the title On Learning how to Ask for Help, I think this stretches into so many areas of our life where we think it's just like hey, can you help me move? I'll pay pizza and beer. And it's not. It is the help documents, it's the coming into the catalyst and being like I've had a bad day. Can I just rant what? This poor member this week where she's like sorry, it sounds like I'm complaining and you demanded complaints.

0:06:22 - Briar

Complain more, please, for the love of God.

0:06:25 - Marissa

Please complain, and that's asking for help too, right, Even if it's just. Can you hear me while I have this moment and I talk about this thing, this horrible thing that came into my life that I had no control over? Please whine, whinge, complain. You're going to be here to go like, wow, that sucks right, Like that's being supported. That's asking for help, even if there's no action step.

0:06:59 - Briar

So Ann Helen Peterson, who I love and adore, put up a thread earlier this week about community and what people are lacking, and someone had commented that she wished that there were more men in her community, which is absolutely a valid experience. There were also people who commented that that is in fact, not their experience and that they have plenty of men in their community. But you have to look at who's doing what. All the volunteer firefighters are mostly men, right? It's that we have to be willing to be in community together to know who and how to ask for help, and that's the part that we've lost.

0:07:56 - Marissa

Yeah, and I think we both overlook what people do help us with Oftentimes little things that we take for granted and then we overlook the things that we really could be asking for help with. Right, I play an online war game of burn castles. I make people have bad days for fun, and one of the things that we have on there is this anti-scout and so basically people can't see how many troops or what I've got in my castle if I've got this on. It runs out every so often. Yesterday someone messaged me and they're like I renewed your anti when you had four minutes left and I was like yeah, that's support, that is absolutely 100% support that I didn't ask for and that was incredibly nourishing because I didn't want to have to rebuild troops and have to have a bad day or drop whatever I was doing to go join the rally.

You know these things and I know that seems like people are like what the frick are you talking about? But it contributes to stress in my life because it's an all the time game. It's not like a video game where you sit down, it's on your cell phone. It's happening all the time. It's real time people, but it's support. It's support. Sending somebody a note just to say that you appreciate them is support. Sharing a post so that people know about the Neurodiversity Media Network is support.

Buying a membership on the neurodiversitymedianetworkcom go buy a membership is support. It is acknowledging that Briar deserves to get paid for all this stuff. Joining the catalyst is supporting a community. It seems strange that I was thinking about this the day. We have some people who don't really ask for a lot of support. They come in and actually give more support and yet they're paying their dues, and so it seems kind of strange that they're paying to help people. But it's because they're contributing to the community. Their role at this time not always this time it's going to be change as we move through the lifecycle of our culture and community at the catalyst, but they're now in the role of giver. They're now in the role of leader and mentor and they're still contributing that because they're making sure that it lives. They're contributing to the operating costs so that they can be in that role. We think of all these things that we do and we move in between all of these different roles, and they're all about asking for and receiving help.

0:10:38 - Briar

Because we're not doing it all at the same time. I would hope that by now we would have processed that. But I think it's really important to come back to. We are asking all of the time and receiving all of the time.

0:10:55 - Marissa

We are, and even when people ask me for help in the catalyst we said this before that's helping me. One, it keeps my brain going. Two, it excites me. Three, it makes me be a better support person. It makes me better at my job, especially when they ask me questions I don't know. Then I go off on a whole. How many software have I learned? How many different things that I have learned since the beginning of this two years ago, that now I get to be a more rounded person. I also get to hear different experiences of people. So now I've become more open to hearing about different experiences. Now I've become more open to hearing different stories. Now I am becoming a person that I really enjoy because people ask me for help. Yeah, I think so too.

0:11:44 - Briar

My knowledge and skills grow every time someone asks me for help, so we were in the room the other day. There's three of us.

0:11:54 - Marissa

And the person said I said I was working one to one with a person. I said am I helping one person or three people? And they said one person. I said wrong, there's three people in this room. There's three people in this room who get to work with me. There's three people in this room who get to watch this exchange, who get to hear. They're either hearing knowledge that they maybe didn't know before. They're hearing knowledge in a different way that maybe they didn't hear before, or they're hearing knowledge the same way that they've heard it, but it becomes repetition and acknowledgement and validation. They're also watching the exchange. They're watching how people receive help. They're asking how I give help.

You're learning all of these things as you're in the community, so at any given time you could be in these roles twice. I also get to hear how, if I'm in a room and I'm working with somebody in the catalyst one to one and you jump in, I learn how that works. I learn how I get to step back for a second and then you step in and then maybe you step back, or we work together and we work with that person. Now we're giving communal support. Now we're shouldering the weights of that. Now we're creating a system of support, and I get to learn how you do that. You get to learn how I do that. We get to learn how we do it together. We get to learn when it works and when it doesn't work.

0:13:28 - Briar

All at the same time in real time, because I think that's the point here is that being in community is about giving and receiving that help.

0:13:46 - Marissa

All the time and none of the time, you know, and that's the thing is. We often think, oh, I can't be in a community because I'm not prepared to do this, or I can't be in a community because I'm a big drain. Right now, I'm going to wait until I have all my ducks in a row before I come into the catalyst workrooms. We hear that all the time. I'm like come in when you're at chaos, come in when you're at rest, come in when you just need to hear other voices in the world, so you know that you're not alone. Come in when you want to give help, come in when you want to receive help.

0:14:23 - Briar

When I asked for help yesterday and I mentioned how I was setting aside that I wasn't going to be judged for it and your response was oh no, you're absolutely being judged for it.

0:14:37 - Marissa

Yeah, because I know that if I let you be in that moment, you're going to always be in that moment. But if I make you laugh, and then you're like, oh wait, that's right, constantly being judged, still here, still alive, doesn't hurt as much, right? And it was like Karina, she's like always judging, like she, just like she didn't even said anything and she's just like oh yeah, so true, we're always just that's the thing, right, we're also learning these rules of like. Yeah, you might be at a root of 20 people and some people are like what is happening right now, that's okay, they still like you as people.

0:15:19 - Briar

And that's important here the fear of judgment, because I think so many of us refuse to ask for help because we can't get over that fear.

0:15:31 - Marissa

Yeah, and I think you know, like the idea that we have to ask for help is like it's like, oh, I'm weak, I need help. I mean, sometimes I know exactly what I want to write. I did this with Lacey this morning. We sat in a room and I knew I had to do this thing and I've had to do it for a while. I already know she just sat there beside me. Everyone's mom was like are you still on task? And I was like yeah, oh, no, right, that's hell.

Does it make me a bad person? You know we're talking this week about how people have halted when they've heard things like you know what's your ideal client? I've had people who halt when they hear about key messages. There is this either executive dysfunction or fear of getting it wrong, and therefore we just won't do it at all. And that's 100% the society we have made up and created and it's bullshit. It is absolutely 100% malarkey, and I'm going to say that right now. I think a lot of people think what like bashing or critique or feedback is like tearing somebody down. It's like, no, you're just doing something shitty right now, like you're just getting some feedback, right.

0:16:55 - Briar

But it hurts. It's the parable of the sewer, which so many people don't take the lesson of, and that is that it's not for us to judge. It's for the farmer, the sewer, to figure that shit out for us. We get to just be here and be human all at the same time together.

0:17:23 - Marissa

Yeah, and sometimes we're going to get it right and sometimes we're not. And when we don't get it right, it's not the end of the world, unless we make it Right and I mean we, as in the people who are coming with the pitchforks and the people who did the thing wrong Right, I mean? The reality is, is that we're all just stumbling forward. We want things like equity and equality. Yeah, we're still maintaining classism. Right, rich, wealthy people get helped all the time.

0:18:01 - Briar

Probably more than everyone else. They pay for an entire staff. Correct.

0:18:06 - Marissa

Large staff. You said the other day your dream is to have someone just come in and tell you where you have to be that day. That's correct, right. Why do we judge the person who has no idea what's on their schedule but we don't judge the rich person who has to hire someone to do that for them? That's classism. Okay, that's those are. Those are affordances that we, we allow people with wealth and money to have, that we don't allow people who don't have the staff member yet. And that stops us from asking for help.

0:18:50 - Briar

Pattern recognition. So there's a kerfuffle in my local community with a business owner who has done some disreputable things. The issue isn't that she's done some disreputable things. The issue is that she's done this multiple times with multiple businesses and, in fact, has done jail time for this. Oh yeah, okay, so we are still continuing to enable this behavior. Okay, I think people get stuck in the comparison. How come this person gets more help than I do?

0:19:40 - Marissa

Yeah, and we see that too in even in the catalysts. People will feel like someone gets more help than others and they're just asking for it, you know, or they came in earlier. You come in 15 minutes before you know moderated co-working ends, well, you're going to get 15 minutes of work because sometimes I can't stay later, you know, and sometimes I go register some weddings, right, and you just you ask for it. It's also how you ask for it. There's a lot of people who demand things right, and I'm less likely to help someone who is demanded help just out of principle, even if they've paid me right, because it's just like wait what? We're in partnership here, we're in community here. Just because you paid me doesn't mean you get to treat me differently. I'm doing something for you, you're doing something for me, we're in relationship, okay. So you know, when people say, oh, they get more help than I do.

See, 100% that is present in the world, whether you ask for it or not. We got marginalization running rampant still like oodles of it, gads of it. All that's made up, by the way, all of it, all of it, and we have the power to change it in our lifetime. 100% but part of it is too, is like are you asking for it? You know, and how are you asking for it? Who are you asking for it from?

0:21:16 - Briar

Are you asking from someone who can help you, or are you actually asking from someone who can't help you?

0:21:25 - Marissa

Yeah, and we've talked about this before Sometimes people legitimately have, they just don't have the energy to help, right. There are some days where I've stayed in the catalyst room for 12, 14 hours. I'm like I'm in it, let's do it, let's go Right, and I'm just like guys, I got to tap out, I am exhausted, I have to go have a nap Right Now. That might be a problem if I only offered one call a month and I was like not showing up for that call, but we had like 40 plus hours in a week. Right, if you only had that 15 minutes to come in and ask for help, well then, we got to look at your schedule, we got to look at your life, right.

0:22:09 - Briar

And we've talked to about how getting shut down once doesn't mean that we shouldn't continue to ask, but that happens a lot too.

0:22:23 - Marissa

Yeah, and sometimes, like even in the catalyst, somebody will ask me something. And then you know, somebody else asked me something and I'm working on two things at once and somebody goes, hey, are you still working on? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Or oh, no, I totally forgot. Thanks, I'm going to come back, I'm going to go right. So it's realizing that too, like sometimes you were in a queue and things just got lost, your file fell off a desk and yeah, it sucks, totally sucks. But even like in my weddings, like people will phone me, you set up a wedding and then you know I'm like oh, email you this. Everything happened. I had dinner, everything else happened. They text me back and they go hey, did you send me that thing? No, I didn't. Thanks, here you go. God, this person has no idea what they're doing in their life. Well, they just went for dinner, you know. They went outside and touched some grass for a bit and then came back and forgot that they were working with you. It's not all painful, it's not all hurting.

0:23:21 - Briar

Well, and I think that there are a lot of opportunities to tell ourselves stories here that don't exist at all, because everyone's not thinking about you all of the time.

0:23:36 - Marissa

And we see that a lot in the catalyst too. You know people will say, oh, oh, this is. You know, I'm like, oh, I can't figure this out. And they're like, oh, it's not a big deal, Don't, don't worry about it. And I'll say like, I just basically say, right, not right now, we're not, we're not doing this RSC thing, we're not doing this weird shuffling where your problem isn't important. We're just not going to do that right now.

Okay, and I, because I just don't have the capacity to that's my personal I don't have the capacity to hold, to hold your hand while you're going through a moment. I believe you're perfectly capable of working through those things yourself, and if you can't, you've gotten. I'm sure you have a therapist and if you don't, like, we'll figure out some strategies. But in that moment when I'm trying to help you fix your website, we're not going to do that right now. We're going to actually just we're going to sit there and you're going to receive some help, Right? I've also had conversations where you know the person realizes that maybe they're they're big idea, that they were excited about, was not the greatest or was not going to serve them, or like, maybe they don't have as much joy in it. And then they get really upset and they're like I got to go. I'm like no, we're not going to do that. I want to respect you.

0:24:48 - Briar

I do want to talk about this one, though, because I don't think we've talked about this. Wow, what happens when I ask for help and then I realize that, oh, I don't need that help at all?

0:25:04 - Marissa

It depends, right. So, like you know the example I was just saying, this person was gonna go way upset and they had not. I mean, there's a grieving process to letting go of an idea. But do you have to go do that by yourself or you make up a whole bunch of stories about how you're so stupid and can't believe you came up with that and why'd you ever do it, and don't know. Sit there in community process. It share in that grief, right, but we've talked to the SPIPP up for us too.

It's like, okay, what happens if you, you ask for help and then realize it's not the right help, say that, oh, I'm sorry, I've asked for the wrong thing. This sounds amazing, but I'm actually needing this, and that's okay too. And then that person that's again, that's a reorganizing of a contract, of a relationship. That person then gets it oh, I can't, I can't offer that. You know, I had a person who wanted to get married and they gave me an address and I said yes, and they said now we want to get married and it's out of town. I'm sorry, I can't do that. You know, they got mad. They're very mad. I'm like I can't. Hmm, whoa, I agreed with you to marry you at this address. I am not available to marry you at that address. I didn't agree to marry you anywhere. You felt like that's a different cost right, it's it's. It's part of that is free-checking in. So, again, you have to remember that the other person is in relationship with you, is in community with you.

Now, if you're giving help and you put in all this work and then the person says I didn't need this or this isn't what I wanted, after all, there's gonna be some processing happening, right, because you put all this energy into this. I'm not gonna tell you I know the right, right answer for that, because it's gonna vary depending on the person, but I want you to grieve your process. I want you to grieve the energy you put into that. I want you to grieve it because it's a loss. It's a loss of outcome, it's a loss of validation, it's a loss of fulfillment and it is completely valid to spend some time. I go, you know. However, that's right for you because it can get exhausting.

Now there's also the thing like where you repeat back what I'm hearing. You need help is right. Let's make sure and we see that in the call us, two people come in. They've got those big longs. I'm like, what are you actually asking for? I've said that to you too. You've got, you have this, gave me this big story. I'm like, how can I actually help you in this next moment? What's, what is the thing you would like me to do to help you feel like you've got something done right? Because, like, otherwise I could just go and I could do a whole bunch of stuff. That isn't what you need. Now, if I'm in your website and you see, I see that you have a ton of plugins that you haven't updated while you're figuring out how I'm going to help you, I am going to also update your plugins, and you don't really get a choice about that, because what the heck are you doing back there? You're opening yourself up for a security wrestler. Let's not, just let's not do that.

0:28:28 - Briar

Boundaries baby and.

0:28:31 - Marissa

I think that that's my boundary. You've now my security web security boundary by leaving your plugins open for everyone to come stick something in.

0:28:42 - Briar

Especially not when you can automatically update those. Some you can, some you can't, some of me, but still yeah but still so your boundaries and and this is actually it feels like a good example, because you know what the limit is here for you how do you clearly articulate that limit to people, if maybe you weren't you, marisa?

0:29:16 - Marissa

Yeah, I mean honestly, I mean that's gonna that's gonna vary between people too, and really we fringe on a little bit of ableism here when we just say there's gonna be one way you can communicate your boundaries. I think this is a really interesting thing. I did see a post for someone's like if you don't want people to question what you're doing, right clearly. And I was like, well, it's like, yeah, it's ableist. But the other thing is that we we have to recognize that some people are gonna communicate an interpretive dance and some people are gonna communicate with a facial expression and some people are gonna communicate with silence. Some people are gonna communicate with a lot of words that maybe don't seem to be relating to that, and that is something I think we all have to get better at.

I'm not a boundary expert, I'm actually very whole. I will say fully and openly I'm horrible at boundaries, and the reason why is because I don't. Unless somebody says to me this is a boundary, I won't know. I got some tells, I understand, I read people and I after a while, I get to know. I have a client that, like whenever they lie to themselves, they turn their head and it's like really interesting. I'm like are you lying to yourself right now? Like this is really weird, not to me. Like are you lying to yourself? And then they're like wait, I'm like every time you turn your head like it's like a total, you can tell it's a lie, right, and those are things that you can get to know about people. Again, we're communicating things, but I mean, find out what works for you and then let people know and remind people, and don't get mad if you have to remind people. I mean I hate it.

I hate repeating things over and over, just like the next person but the reality is is that we're not the main character in everybody else's story and that relationships are constantly renegotiating contracts.

0:31:05 - Briar

Yeah, and I think that I don't know. Being the parent of two autistic children, I've really had to learn how to be okay with repetition, because I have to repeat myself constantly. They just don't remember. It doesn't, it doesn't stick, and so I've learned that what happens for a lot of people is that it doesn't stick until it does, and we don't know, yeah, it doesn't matter to them, right like your boundary has to matter.

0:31:46 - Marissa

You can tell me your 12 lists of 12 boundaries, but if none of them really matter to me, am I gonna? Am I gonna like memorize them at that moment? No, and even like I might have a boundary, this is like something I you know I know the boundary coaches are gonna talk about this, but, like you might have a boundary Wednesday and Friday, you don't like. Sometimes I like to be touched and sometimes I don't. Sometimes it feels like screaming pain when people touch my arm. There's no physical reason for it, it is just the way my brain interprets. Touch that day. Uh, sometimes I can smell strong smells and some days I just can't and I. So, when people are like, is this like? And my friends and family know like, is this okay? Like they just do that, is this okay? They don't assume and they don't. Uh, you know they don't claim to remember which sense or which thing. Like I don't, I don't expect them to, but you know what works is is this okay right now?

0:32:48 - Briar

yeah, well, because, just like you have to ask for help, you have to ask for clarification.

0:33:01 - Marissa

I and I, you know, clarification is really interesting. It's and we've seen this on the internet, and how many times is like you read something and then somebody responds, or they'll pick apart one little, one little thing. I really want to give a specific example right now, but I can't because I don't have the time to deal with the person who will feel offended by this, but I will just say that the feedback they received was completely, 100 percent valid. It was about misportraying, um, you know, something in our society that is basically spending a lot on coaches. Okay, when you don't have any money going into debt to pay for a coach, they were normalizing it and celebrating it and making it seem like this is what you should do in order to fix everything in your life. And the feedback was I think we have to stop with this, like I think we have to stop with the subtle cues the happiness, you know, the happiness, the joy, the. I was eight million dollars in debt and then I spent ten thousand dollars on my grandma's credit card and I got a coach. And now I'm a nine, twelve, twelve figure person. Right, because it's not going to happen for everybody, even if it did happen for you and the person's.

The person gave feedback and the person who responded basically pointed out like one little piece of it that was not part of the bigger picture and decided to like basically mock them for saying it. And this is so clarification. So that had been me. I've been like, oh, which parts do you think? Like I'm curious, like what am I doing? That's subconscious, because I have a whole bunch of programming from watching 45 years of ads on tv that I have to unlearn, as well as being manipulative and persuasive. Right, I don't need to mock the person giving me feedback. I also don't. We were just talking about like the whole attacking with feedback. It's not an attack, it's it's information, it's knowledge, it's experience and its perspective. Yeah, it's unsolicited, but sometimes we need to hear that stuff because we are, we don't know it exists and nobody in our circle knows it exists.

0:35:25 - Briar

I'm always fascinated by people who are like this is my page and I don't need your fee, or, or even more than that, the people who post on places like reddit and then are like I do not give permission for my story to be shared elsewhere, like you.

0:35:52 - Marissa

Let go of that the minute you put your story out there so the meme, the meme in the in the star trek ship posting uh, where I use my meme and crop top ma'am, you don't own any of these images and now you're asking for help. That that was a good example, where somebody was asking for help and we're told it would not be available to them, mm-hmm. So now I go, okay, I go. Does that person understand? That is that person? Does that person get enough feedback to understand why their ask wasn't appropriate? Like your, like your business person, jail time hasn't even convinced them that their ask or how they operate is right, inappropriate. What's going to be out there, right? People are going to think that they can, that that they don't have to learn. And and part of asking for up we talked about before is knowing who to ask for help. Right, maybe not them, right? We've got a lot of people in the world thanks to social media.

I have built an incredible community of support. I absolutely 100% have always said that I have gotten where I am in my life thanks to a lot of help from my friends, not a little, a lot, and I will continue to rely and lean on those folks as they're willing to help me, because I cannot do this alone. I am not. I I'm brilliant at coming up with, like, marketing strategies, that networking strategies, that product and pricing strategies, but those admin tasks, things like taxes and bookie mm-hmm, my brain ain't ever gonna do it. Housekeeping it's not gonna happen. No, sorry, replying to emails new right.

I require people to do that. I require it. I'm very open about it. If I don't have it, that means I have to make enough money in order to pay for all those folks. Right? That's what I'm in business for. I'm not in business for the number of zeros at the end of that. I'm in business for the number of zeros that allows me to help. That like, get help right. And if it's not the right people, it's not the right people and it doesn't make them a bad person. It doesn't even make them bad at what they do sometimes.

0:38:18 - Briar

We're just not a it's not a fit how do we define what is a good fit?

0:38:29 - Marissa

oh, it comes on 100, down to ease. Do I feel good or do I? Am I gonna resent like, do I? Do I put off asking this person to do something because I'm worried about the response? You know, there's a lot out there right now where there's quite a few coaches where they're priding themselves on declaring that they are not trauma aware or trauma informed. And it makes me laugh because it's such a simple concept. It's just such a simple awareness that if I say something to you, briar, it could trigger something from your past. I recently had a person say something. You're always busy and it just.

There was a person who was incredibly abusive in my life and would use that to make, to brainwash me, to make me to gaslight me, to make me feel like I was not putting them first right, and immediately my whole entire body went numb. I had like a cold sweat and this is probably like 25 years after this person has not been in my life and the person who said it to me was like are you okay? I'm like I am experiencing a very strong reaction and I snapped at them and I'm like I have sorry. I have to understand like I'm going through something in my body right now that I did not expect. I did not know that this was going to happen.

And that person was like no problem, can I do anything for you right now? Can I get you anything? What can I do? You know what? That's recognizing that they didn't do it to me personally and that I'm going through an experience and they're just going to be there for me and let me know, like. Let them like me know what they're available for and what their bound their, their ability to respond to my response is that's all it is. It's communication, it's conversation. It's recognizing that someone else is going through a different experience than you and being there, but also communicating what you're available to be there for them.

0:40:36 - Briar

But that's hard, marisa, is it, is it?

0:40:41 - Marissa

I'm. You know what. If you're out there watching right now and you're one of those coaches that is like I refuse to be like. Whatever that edgelord status you are, I'm going to tell you something you shouldn't be in community. I don't care if people are paying you tons of money and you think that this is giving you the permission to do that. Get out of communities, Because all you're doing is refusing to be part of that receiver or giver, that contributing person.

0:41:12 - Briar

Well, because that's about control, and that's what it is. Rather than being in community, it's about having control over the people in the community.

0:41:24 - Marissa

Yeah, yeah. And if you read that and you feel any kind of like, yeah, this person's right, you're just desperately trying to be in control and you really shouldn't be in community either, I'm sorry. Go be in community with a whole bunch of people like that and see how long it lasts.

0:41:45 - Briar

It won't. It won't collapse like a flan in a cupboard.

0:41:51 - Marissa

Lord of flies, sped up four times because you'll never be able to have a conversation with somebody and it's going to end in violence because you're just going to be like I just need to get rid of this person. Out of my experience, it isn't hard, breyer, but it does take work and it does take commitment and it does take a moment to stop and breathe, and if we can't stop and breathe, it's communicating that we can't stop and breathe.

0:42:25 - Briar

And I feel like pointing out here that this is two autists who struggle with communication, telling you that you're making communication too hard.

0:42:40 - Marissa

But I'm going to be 45 in a month or two. So I've had a pretty good chunk of time on this earth figuring out that if I didn't communicate what was happening in my body or communicate like violence was going to happen. If I didn't figure out how that person needed to be communicated to or get the point through, violence would happen 100%. I also have learned that I love being in community. As much as I'm an introvert, as much as I'm a bit of a loner, I thrive when I have a group of people around that see me and accept me and love me. In order for that to happen, I need to be just as 100% in it to win it as they are.

0:43:41 - Briar

I recorded a podcast earlier today with Sam Fisher and we were talking about having conversations with your inner child and it just strikes me so much that that anger is 100% about not being in communication with that part of yourself that needs something different.

0:44:04 - Marissa

And I was. I mean, I'm lucky. My parents left me alone quite a bit so I was able to satisfy my needs pretty well. I pretty much just figured out how to take care of myself. It sounds kind of strange. My mom says well, I made you independent. I was an 80s kid, so anybody of the 80s kids would know we were just really left to figure it out. But the reality is that I was also.

I do know of a time I built myself a closet nook. Basically, I put a light in a chair in my closet, I moved my clothes aside, I got some snacks, I got some books, I would go in and I would close the closet door and then I would be in there by myself and I knew that my parents would come in. I hear them come in, where's Reese, where you know. And then one day my mom figured it out and she freaked out because she thought I was going to start the house on fire by having the light in where the clothes are Not going to happen, mom, not going to happen. And she dismantled it. And I remember thinking like this I couldn't communicate to her, I couldn't tell her how much I needed this quiet space in the semi-dark where people didn't know where I was so I couldn't be interrupted. And I thought about this years later when I worked my last corporate job and I asked for some quiet because I needed to build this website. And there was, we were on a cubicle farm and so my boss was like amazing. I was like, yeah, let's move you over. There was this little other place. Three of us were there that also needed some quiet. We all knew we needed some quiet and I had a co-worker come over and constantly interrupt me and to the point where I was bursting out tears when I saw them and I thought about that closet where I just needed that quiet space where I could focus and collect and regulate myself.

I wasn't allowed to have it those two times and I wasn't allowed to communicate properly. I wasn't allowed and I wasn't able to communicate properly about why that was so necessary. All I wanted was just pleat, like I would say pleat. I would put signs on my chair at work Please don't interrupt me, I'm doing some coding and I just need to, because I didn't know by ADHD and as soon as they interrupt me I would never go back to it. And we were on a tight timeline and that person violated it over and over again and then accused me of alienating them. And I'm like, I'm just trying to get this work done. I wasn't allowed to communicate and I wasn't able to communicate.

And when that happens, that's when we see the stress and the trauma that builds it. We see it and whether you want to admit that trauma happens or that the actions that you do have created trauma, you can't control that. We try to minimize it as much as we can, but the reality is that I could trip behind somebody getting off the train and push them to the ground and then I've hurt them. Did I mean to? No, did I happen? Yeah, now we're a part of it together. Right Now, we both have to figure out how we can get help and when one person refuses to do that in that relationship, whether we choose to be in that relationship or not, we're in working together. We have to get a project done together. We're in the co-op together. We're in the. When one person it all takes is one person who decides that they are not a part of that relationship or that contract renegotiating breakdown. We have a breakdown in that community.

0:48:03 - Briar

So we come back a lot, and have come back a lot, to being able to cultivate safety. How do we demonstrate that we are safe to other people?

0:48:17 - Marissa

No, we can't demonstrate safety I mean other. Here's the reality. You go to any construction site and they've got the board up there that says 63 days and since we've had an accident. Okay, construction sites are safe up the Yahoo. Okay, they've thought of everything. Okay, same with community. I, every time I see this is a safe space, I go.

No, it's not because I know that that person has not acknowledged that harm is going to happen. We have to change our relationship with harm though. Okay, because, again, harm it comes with judgment and shame, whether we think that you know the person who responds. It's like I didn't hurt you, I didn't create any trauma. I need you to know that they know. They know their reaction to that is a part of their buildup, of their learned experience and their life and their borrowed experiences. They know people are like, wow, that guy's a jerk. No, I mean, yeah, he might be, but like he's responding in the way he knows to respond. And we're all doing that. We're all just a collection of learned experiences and borrowed experiences. Right, doesn't have to happen to us for it to be true. It just has to be a happen to a credible source or something we think is a credible source, even if it's our second cousin, nancy's husband, that it happened to once still feels credible to us, right, because Frank's never told us a lie. So when you say, how do we cultivate a safe space? But we can cultivate a place where reparation happens, we can cultivate a place where repair and restoration is the norm, because we know that the good of the community is bigger than our shame, that we're feeling in that moment that we were a part of that harm, okay, unless we're intentionally murdering somebody, we're all just like, kind of like again. We're just all fumbling forward, right, we're just rocks tumbling in space and sometimes we hit each other and a world forms where a world is deteriorated. That's what happens. Okay, we have charges like things like manslaughter and things like that, where it's like you did not intend it but harm happened and we need to have some reparation. Now do we need to always have the reparate like? I think the reparations that you know shame get out of the community? No, because now we're not cultivating a community of repair and restoration, we're still just cultivating that theory of shame and judgment and rejection. Right, and this is the challenge.

Where I've been in communities, I have some Facebook group of communities and we'll be like why don't you just kick that person out? And I'm like pushing people out to the fringe is not going to solve our greater problem. Pushing people out to the fringe means that they don't ever get to experience help. Remember what I said earlier when you're in the room and you hear me working with someone else and all of a sudden you're like I'm inspired or I've learned something here today, we push people out. They never get that experience, they never see another side, they never see another perspective. You were saying earlier these people they create. You can't comment negativity on my wall. You can't. But anyone disagrees. Just get off my wall right now. It's okay to not be a community builder, but I just need people to know that. I need to know that they're not.

When those things happen, do we keep somebody who has harmed or repeated harm in the vicinity of others that they've harmed? No, but we have to go. I mean, it's all dependent we have like, from pedophilia to stealing a candy bar, to the amount of cannabis related charges that people are in jail for right now in a state where it's now legal to have cannabis. That doesn't even make sense to me. Yeah, I'll go there, politics are real, these are all a part of community, and asking for help. When we create that system of restore, repair, it is an entirely different feeling.

Some people will argue if we don't have punishment, you're going to have people repeating over, and I, but you got this lady in your community where she's been to jail and it hasn't even done anything right. So it's not working. It's not working. Just pushing people out is not working. So can we create a safe space we can create like a place we feel comfortable in. We can create a place where we know we can be ourselves. We can know that we're creating a place where we don't tolerate certain behaviors like racism or ableism, and when I say that, though, is that we're all going to do something that's kind of ableist or kind of race. This just happens. This is programming in our heads from hundreds and hundreds of years ago, still running on autopilot in us, but when we have a culture where we're like we're not going to tolerate that, it's something, we're going to kick you out, we're going to say, hey, are you open to hearing why this is? And if the person's like, yeah, what's going on?

0:53:42 - Briar

Oh my God, right, restore and reparation, because it's not about safety, it's about, you know and I don't love the term brave spaces either, but at least that's more honest we're cultivating the willingness to sit there on the hard stuff with each other.

0:54:07 - Marissa

We're negotiating contracts, asking for boundaries, asking for accessibility, asking for concessions, asking for all of these are examples of help, right? Even me asking you your boundaries, that's me asking for help. I just want to make sure I'm not a shits. You know, storm to you right Doesn't make me a badass, it doesn't make me an edgelord. To say I'm not acknowledging your trauma, I'm not acknowledging your.

No, it's just, you're just not man, you're just not ready for community. Like you got to go practice in some other space, but like you might not be ready for this community, but like, come back later. You know, again, it's mindful exclusion. Sometimes we've got to do that right, not pushing you away forever, but I need you to learn some skills first before you come in here, because we can't do that right. So it's a couple. It sounds like a little wishy-washy, but sometimes we're going to be like, no, sorry, you just can't do that here. But then that person has to make that decision right? Like am I do? I love this community so much that I'm willing to be here, or is this community not as important to me and I'm okay leaving Right? Again, it's contract building.

0:55:22 - Briar

Mm-hmm and choice always.

0:55:26 - Marissa

Yeah, like I'm sorry if somebody comes in here and says, you know, tries to come to the catalyst, and they're like, oh, I don't believe in trauma or I don't acknowledge somebody's trauma, I'm like that's okay, this isn't the place for you. It will make you very uncomfortable all the time and we have a community that's strong enough that won't allow you to gain control over that kind of language. You have no power here. You're now the minority, so make your decision. What's more important the community or your edge lord status? And if it's your edge lord status, that's okay. We're not going to bash you, go off, have fun. But this isn't the community for you, and we're pretty clear on that, and that's what we're creating in the catalyst. It's not. I'll never say this is a safe space. I'll say it's a comfortable space. I'll say it's a space for people to come up, and they're not. We're going to be uncomfortable sometimes. Okay, that's the other thing.

As I was saying earlier, some people are like you know, oh, I made a mistake, I'm just going to go. I'm like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's check in here first before you go. Right, are you? Are you ashamed that you're sitting here with me and you feel like you've just wasted my time and oh, yes, okay, well, that's no right, let's go through the, let's go through the emotional checklist.

You don't need to go off and process this by yourself either. Sometimes it's going to be uncomfortable, but is it a place for restoration and reparation and practicing being our whole selves and practicing being around other people being their whole selves and how we regulate ourselves when people are their whole selves? Yeah. Are we going to make mistakes? Yeah. Are we going to ignore it when we make mistakes? No. Are we going to ignore it when we make mistakes? No. Are sometimes, we going to f up that process? Yes. Are we going to keep going? Yes, right, I mean, we're not always going to get it right, and that's asking, and that's asking and receiving help too. It's asking for us to acknowledge that we're going to be in spaces where sometimes we don't get it right. I will tell you, of all of the kerfuffles over the past 10 years that you can remember, briar, how many were like super serious because of the actual mistake or because of the response to the mistake.

0:58:02 - Briar

Oh, it's always the response.

0:58:06 - Marissa

Or lack thereof. Yeah, yep.

0:58:17 - Briar

And we may not always agree, but I need to know that you mean what you say.

0:58:27 - Marissa

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that you're not going to be like, yes, this is a safe, inclusive. I'm trying to do this with laugh, laughing. But I was just thinking about these women and non-binary spaces, right, which are inherently probably one of the worst. As soon as it says women and non-binary, I never go in Like oh no, no, no, the no, no, no, not the space for me, because that is a place where we've they've tried to like bundle inclusivity and hope it works, right.

So you have to go and kind of say, okay, why are, why are we doing this? Why are we asking for help? What are we what? How do we want to receive it? And is it okay to say that I don't know how to? I don't know what I need? Oh, that happens all the time too. I don't know what I need. We hear this in Calisle time. I have no idea what I need right now. Would you like to know what help you need right now? Yes, excellent, let's go through a little checklist of things that we often see in here. Does any of this apply to you? Right, that's a lot of courage for people to come in sometimes and do that. I have no idea what to do next in my business. I always love the people who are like okay, what's my next step? Like they're just like I have no idea, please write it out for me.

0:59:46 - Briar

Marisa, I believe I've said that at least five.

0:59:50 - Marissa

Okay, yeah, next you're doing this, right, and then you go off and you do it Like sometimes that's just the help you need. You don't even need help doing that thing, you just need to know. You just had to have someone tell you the next thing on your checklist on your virtual checklist, even if it's written down. You just needed someone else to say this is your next step, right, and these are. This seems like games and it seems like you know some people are going to listen to this and go oh, it seems like a waste of time. Why don't you just go out and do it? Who cares? Who cares? If there's somebody there willing to help, you do it that way. Go, get it. Stop worrying about how you need help and just put it out there and be like this is the exact way I need help.

Anyone got some time and see what happens, practice, explore, have fun with asking for help. And if someone's going to come out there with their edge lord post and say you've done this or you don't know how to do this in your mom, let them. Okay, because they're processing. They haven't talked to their own inner child. They haven't processed stuff in a while. Right, there's somebody that it's going to be like yeah, I'll sit with you. Body doubling is ridiculous. It is absolutely ridiculous and it works amazingly.

1:01:08 - Briar

So well that I know, at this point in time, dozens, dozens of businesses based around the idea of I'll sit with you for this.

1:01:22 - Marissa

Yep, in person and virtual. Ours is virtual. I know people who are now going into people's houses. They sit there while the person cleans their house. I just sit there and read Best job ever, right? Who cares that? It sounds ridiculous. Go do it. Go ask for it. We have to start playing with this stuff and we have to stop the judgment of how people are asking for help and what they need help with, because, again, this is just a part of being in community. If you're out there putting out comments like they should just get it done, sir, sit down, do your thing, keep it to yourself. We're out here having a lot of fun We'd like to and getting it done together. We'd like for you to come have fun with us. Let us know when you're ready.

This stuff is not hard Briar, but what makes it hard is this made up expectations, these made up shame, these made up judgment for how people need to get things done. The Canada Revenue Agency actually has a service for business owners where, if you are having a hard time figuring out your bookkeeping or your taxes, you can go in and work with one of their people. It's just they're not advising you. I mean they can't. They can ask questions, but again it's just getting it done. They're like oh shit, we have a whole bunch of business owners that are not getting their stuff in. Why? Because it's too overwhelming, they can't figure it out.

Oh, what if we just make these appointments and these people can? They're still doing their other work. And then they just ask it's co-working, it's body doubling what? Why are we making? It doesn't seem. Who cares? Who cares? Who cares? The people who are getting their shit done. Let's do that. Let's start opening up different ways that we can offer help. Let's open up different ways that we ask for help. Let's open up different ways that we build community and we start to accept people and bring people in instead of pushing them away for their needs and accessibility requirements.

1:03:40 - Briar

You know, I have to say, when you put it that way, it sounds so competitive. It's about Competitive, being better at doing the thing than you are. Yeah, because you require, require help, and we come right back there. It's all about classism.

1:04:03 - Marissa

Yeah, it's absolutely set you up to fail. It's okay for rich and wealthy people to be completely supported because they have the money to do it. And if you don't have the money to do it, you're obviously a failure and you haven't figured your life out because you haven't made any money. And this whole status assignment and wealth assignment by people who have their shit together based on how much money they have in their bank account is also made up. It's all ridiculous.

Okay, you have to stop believing people because they said they have a seven and eight-figure business and then you buy from them. First of all, they don't. If somebody was sitting on Facebook talking about their eight-figure business, they don't have one, they don't. They have somebody who's posting for them. You know, like, this is the reality. We have to stop with this stuff. And it's because it's stopping people from asking for help. I mean, when we built the catalyst, I mean there's people out there who are like, oh, do you have coaching? Yeah, sure, we have coaching, we have mentoring, but we have strategy and we have implementation, because the biggest thing that we found is we can help you create, we can help you go through your blocks, your obstacles, we can help you get your momentum. But if the momentum that's actually holding you like, if what's preventing you from momentum is that you just can't sit down and write that landing page, the 10K coaching in the world is not going to help you.

Not at all, but if we can sit there and help you do that and then implemented and get it published, now we're doing something.

1:05:44 - Briar

All right. Final thoughts this is the end of this series. It's been such a delight.

1:05:52 - Marissa

It's mostly me just ranting and raving at like the state of the world and how we made it up. But here's my final thoughts Practice playing, practice playing, practice help, asking for help, practice receiving help, and really see what happens in your body when you do both. What happens? What do you notice about yourself? What do you notice physically, emotionally, spiritually when you have to ask for help? When you have to ask for help, then do it when you don't have to ask for help, but you just do it anyways, practice asking for help when you don't need it.

1:06:27 - Briar

Because the stakes are lower.

1:06:32 - Marissa

Yep, and you might discover that you get helped in a way that you didn't know was possible. And then you know, when you do absolutely need it, how you can be helped and how you like to receive help. Be pampered, okay, pamper each other. What's one way that you can help someone be supported, whether they ask for it or not? Check in Consent matters, but you know what I mean. Like, don't send all the teddy bears when the hurricane comes. Send the money For sure, 100%, but if you see your neighbor?

struggling to shovel their driveway. Go out in the morning and shovel it. When you're shoveling yours, just do it. Just go do it. Practice really seeing how you can make someone else have a great day. Zipper merge is a really good example. I don't know if you have those in the US, but it's basically when you're driving you're going to be able to do it and instead of like everybody driving up to the front and then trying to like do this and halting traffic, it's just a seamless merging where everybody goes together. Practice super merging. Okay, that's having other people ask and receive for help.

Really well, put on your blinker early, watch the road signs and merge early so that you don't actually constrict traffic. So you know you can't just go out and do it. You can't just go out and do it. You can't just go out and do it. You can't just go out and do it early so that you don't actually constrict traffic. Zipper merges, when they happen, are beautiful. That's how we look at community as well. Look ahead, see where we can be a part of it, see where we can offer help, see where things you know, observe, ask for it. Hey, what would be the best thing for us right now in this community. What do we need? Oh, we really need this. You were like we need you know what we need? We need a cat purring room.

1:08:25 - Briar

Yeah, and now we have one. Yeah, right, but we.

1:08:29 - Marissa

That's play right. That was you playing with asking for help with something that seemingly was ridiculous, and it's enjoyment. People love that room. People are like, oh, I just came in with an hour of the cat purring. I feel so regulated. That wasn't hard to do, right. So play with it, practice it and ask for help before you truly need it.

Ask for help before you're burnt out. Ask for help and then practice receiving it and really feeling it and really like enjoying it and reveling in it. And then, just you know, stop judging how other people ask for help. There might be somebody on your feed that constantly puts up their cash app because they need it. Ask how else they can be helped, because I'm willing to bet they don't want to do that. What else do they need? And then practice asking for help in different ways, because I think we ask for that. We ask the same way, the same way over and over again and we get those same results. Well, what if we just look into asking a different way or asking different people? What's the difference? What happens when we do that?

You want investors in your business and you're asking somebody whose annual revenue is a million dollars a year, or you're asking somebody who's a hundred million dollars a year, maybe it's a different result, and how you ask them for help is a different way, and how you receive that help is a different way. It's different than having cash in your bank, than having an advisor. Sometimes you need cash in the bank, sometimes you really just need an advisor to cut through the chase right or to connect you with other people. So, in final, I want to say, if you're watching this or you're watching the replay, do join the Neurodiversity Media Network. It's at neurodiversitymedianetwork.com.

Briar is asking for your help, and in a few ways One, to get the word out about Neurodiversity Media Network. Two, to be a contributing sponsor by way of becoming a member to consume the content. But two, also providing come in so that Breyer can do this full time, so that she can keep building this network up even higher. And then go listen to the content, go watch the content, go on YouTube and consume some of this great information that people have. I know we don't have time for this, but we have time for the Gary V's of the world, but we don't have time for the Sam Fisher talking about our inner childhood. No, we do. We do Make consuming content from people who have not added dollars to their bank account a priority. Go, look for the actual thought leaders in your community and consume their content, share their content. Let's start creating the norm of learning from our neighbors versus the people up on the pedestal. That's how we're going to start to deconstruct classism and that's how we're going to start creating better communities.

1:11:31 - Briar

And if you need help with that community, I definitely encourage you to go join the catalyst which you can find at my affiliate link BreyerHarveycom slash catalyst. Y'all this has been amazing, marisa. This is going to be a fantastic fucking book. I can't wait to read it. All right, y'all, we will see you again next time. Please find the media network, neurodiversitymedianetwork.com. Find the catalyst at briarharvey.com/catalyst and we will see you later. Bye now.