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June 3, 2024
Uncovered
In this episode, I share reflections on the vulnerability of storytelling on my podcast, and my friend Todd joins me to discuss his reactions and insights. We emphasize owning our narratives, the impact of revealing more layers of our stories, and the importance of releasing emotional burdens for self-care. The discussion also highlights the value of support networks, asking for help, and navigating personal journeys with trusted individuals.
Transcript
The only way I can describe how I feel is uncovered. That's the word I would use. I don't know. Yesterday, I was out of sorts. I don't feel like I was completely myself. I felt like I was kind of walking around, and everybody was looking at me.
I can get that exposed or uncovered. It's like, OK, you're out there so that everyone knows a little more about you. And even though there's some intentionality behind it, as you talked about in your podcast, there's a little bit of vulnerability that also sits in that space.
You hit the nail on the head. And it's basically something that I rarely talk about. Now, I have it on a podcast for people.I went from one extreme to the other, right? Right.
Welcome back to What Else Don't I Know? I'm your host, Yvette Griffea-Gray. Full transparency: since hitting publish on my very first podcast, I've been in my feelings and a bit protective of myself. So, from time to time, we'll check in with friends and family as I navigate my way through this process. Today, we'll check in with my friend Todd and hear his reactions to the first episode.
I want to tell the audience who you are. You know, the coming of age movies that we see, like I can think of like ATL or what was the other one? The Inkwell, these kind of coming of age stories. If I were a star in a coming of age story, you would definitely be in my crew in that movie. Yes. I remember wanting you to teach me how to break dance and, going on bike rides and just hanging out at the park growing up. And then, of course, over the years, we ended up going to college together.
Being around and maybe sometimes we would lose touch, but there are always people that you feel like. I may not talk to you for a while, but, you know, it's always going to be cool when I see you. Right, right. A hundred percent.
A hundred percent. And again, thank you for allowing me, you know, some some of the airtime on your podcast. Podcasts, as I was thinking back and reflecting on just not just the coming of age, but just being a huge Yvette fan. There are times that even when you lose touch, or you just don't see folks for a while, but when you were on the local radio station and be like, oh, there's Yvette on the local radio station at this time and calling people to listen in and to really participate. Is a way of realizing that you have in your own orbit and ecosystem a number of supporters and folks that celebrate you being part of our lives as well.
Wow, that's really cool. That's really nice for me to hear, especially in this moment in the time that I am. So thank you for saying that. Absolutely. One of my friends, he encouraged me to do a reaction episode. There are other things that I don't know, and that includes how my friends and those people who are around me, how they perceive me. So what you just said kind of aligns with that. So I appreciate you saying that. I have some questions that I want to ask you, but I will start with if you could describe your reaction to the podcast in one word. I'm curious about your initial reaction.
My initial reaction was that I had two. I think there was a degree of shock, and there was a degree of, I'm going to say, care and comfort, like wanting to, I mean, realizing the journey that you're on. And as you just discussed, this notion of being uncovered or exposed wanted to, in some way, just kind of provide a degree of care and comfort for you. But as I was listening to the story, there was a degree of shock and awe because there was a lot of the story that I did not know. Mm hmm.
Yeah, that makes sense. Because typically, I will just leave it at I lost my parents at six. So I understand that. Say more about some of your reaction. I'll go back a little bit of the coming of age story because not only did I live across the street from your auntie, but hearing a number of voices on the podcast actually differently kind of warmed my heart.
And I remember when we first met, the basic story of your parents had died and you're living with your auntie was all that I ever knew. And as I was thinking about this moment, you know, I think one of the one of the things that my wife today would say is I often don't ask for more details. I often don't pry and don't dig. And, and I think that that's partially due to the way that I was brought up that if it wasn't, if it wasn't out there, it wasn't none of your business. So I had never, you know, in the 30 plus years that we've known each other, I've never asked more information. I felt that that was kind of your story and it was kind of on a need-to-know basis. And so as I heard the story, it just provided a lot of context and a lot of information on you, right, and your journey. So, as you talk about that coming-of-age story, we met when you were deeper into your teens, right? And so, the background story or your origin story was kind of blind to me and my friends as we were in high school years just hanging out.
And so it provided a degree of context that I, that I didn't know. And I think that that's what drew me to that shock. But the 30 plus years of friendship is what I think pivoted me to, this idea of care because it, I can only imagine, only imagine, cause I can't even, and even draw up the right degree of empathy that, um. You know how not hard it is to know the story, hear the story, relive the story and or get new information to a story that you only had partial information to.
You know, I literally was like, I hope that Yvette is is able to take care of herself while she's on this journey of exploration and bringing us all along on the journey with her. When I met you, obviously, yes, in our teens, I was definitely at a place where I'm only giving you the bare minimum, right? I might, if I tell you at all, right, there are some times where I would just lie to people when they would ask about my parents. And I would say, I would replace my grandparents with my parents, if that makes sense. If they would say, what do your parents do? I would say, oh, my dad owns a business. He's a tax preparer and a realtor. And my mom is a nurse because I didn't want people to ask for more details.
Oh, yeah.
So I would just try to make up something and let people go oh OK and then go on about their business. If I think about why I didn't like to talk about it or tell people one of the reasons is that I didn't want people to think I was capable of what my father had done. And for lack of a better word I don't feel like this is an appropriate term now, but I didn't want people to think I was crazy. That's my teenager, my young self. That's the word that I would use. I wouldn't use that word now, but that's kind of how I felt. It probably describes better why I disliked sharing it with people.
I also didn't want people to feel sorry for me. Right. And I was conscious of that at a very young age. Well, and in some ways that's kind of owning the narrative, right? Right. You've constructed a way that you actually are controlling the narrative, and who you opt or bring into into into the narrative is probably a self-care mechanism in and of itself. For sure.
And I think now when we talked about, I've kind of gone from one extreme to the other. I've learned that just because you don't talk about something doesn't mean it's not impacting you at all. Mm hmm. I also believe that holding things in, it's not good for your body. It impacts our bodies in different ways. I don't have any research for that, but I just feel like that is accurate. This is my way of talking through things and getting it out of my body, if you will. Right. Right. I can see that. Now that you've listened to the first episode, what questions came up for you? What questions? I think I was just drawn in.
I mean, there was so much in that first episode. I think I was just drawn in to not my curiosity, but again, to support your journey of discovery.
As I think about this and, and, and listening to both the trailer and the first part of the first episode, I was like, OK, your auntie was, was talking about this, this, this moment. I was like, OK, like what's the moment. Right. And then, uh, the reveal was like, wow. OK. Like I said, there's kind of a shock moment there. And realizing there's more episodes to come and the spirit of the podcast is really kind of uncovering and discovery.
It was more about going on this journey with my friend than it was about piquing my curiosity of just wanting to know more. What happens next? How is this going to play out? Or, you know, where do we go from here? It was more about, like I said, that kind of care and comfort moment of saying like, like, OK, as we as we peel the onion back, there's my suspicion is there's more there. Right. How can I go on this journey with you rather than someone that's really just seeking, you know, the the end state or end game? And, and I only say that because, you know, there's so many different podcast or, or shows or things that you can watch where, you know, you can binge them because you want to know what happens. And, uh, this is, I don't feel this is that same thing. This is really about this, this notion of discovery and how that comes to play.
No, yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I think even just sitting here and talking with you now is definitely a part of the self-care journey. It's like I said yesterday, I just felt like people were looking at me and I'm like, oh, it just didn't feel good yesterday in the world to me. And then when you sent me the text message that said, tell Auntie and Kelly I said hi, and you said leverage us.
Yep. Say more about what you meant. I found myself in the last 40 days, 40, 45 days in particular, really supporting folks that have lost a loved one. And where I've seen it activated most powerfully, and this is really about power more than anything. Is when folks are able to say, here's what I need at this time. And, and folks, um, that have the power in my mind, you know, are able to say like, Hey, I, I just need to step away or I just need to talk it out. Like I had a friend of mine who lost a parent recently and, you know, they were just meditating and reflecting early in the morning, and they knew that I was an early morning person and they just needed to be on the phone to kind of talk it out. And I would argue, even though I love to talk, I probably didn't say, I don't even know, even a couple of paragraphs in this half-hour conversation of this person just needing to talk it out if that makes sense. And that person leveraged me in that moment.
But I know there's many times where it's like, you know, folks will say like, hey, call me if you need anything or this or that. And it never materializes into much because I think a lot of times folks don't know, what to do with that and or feel that they're being burdensome by saying, hey, I just need to talk it out or I just need to do X, Y, or Z. And I think that that's how we find ourselves in different situations.
Mind frames, right? We find ourselves in very different mind frames when we know that we need to talk it out, but we feel that we're going to be burdensome if I call someone in the middle of the night and say, hey, I just need to talk for 20 minutes, or I need for you just to listen for 20 minutes or a half hour or whatever it is. But that's what I believe that extension of support looks like. But I've seen many times where that goes under leveraged or underutilized of just number one, hopefully folks realize that there's people that are out there willing to support them. So that's thing one, that's the hi Kelly and hi auntie, but then the ability to realize that on your journey, right, they are a degree of support for you as well. As I talk about going through monumental moments in life, I always reflect back to like what I call like the Sherpas, right? The people that have either been on either a similar journey or someone else that you can draw upon their knowledge to help you to navigate, right? Right. They're not going to climb the mountain for you, but they're going to provide you some thoughts and perspectives that might allow for you to navigate or or travel your journey a little bit better.
What you just said was really beautiful about relying on the people that you have around you. Part of it is asking for what you need when you're able to is what I hear you saying. Like you just even sending the note like leverage us is just a reminder. Like, yeah, I have good people in my life and I can ask. So I think right after that, I said, hey, do you want to do a reaction episode?
Right. Right. Right. As I go through a lot of the things in my life, it's not about what what should I know? I often ask the question like, what's the question I should be asking that I'm not asking? Because sometimes you don't know because many times you're going through something for either the first time or you've had unbelievably little experience in it. And so in 2017, when I lost my mother, one of the things that was most helpful for me was someone saying.
You do you. There is no right way to grieve. And believe it or not, that provided a degree of just like, OK, I just have to just grieve. I don't have to grieve right, or I don't have to be wary of criticism or those other types of things, right? Right. I'm just grieving in that moment. And so having even someone to to tell you things that you just have no experience with, I think, is a different degreeof support as well. And so I can only imagine, again, that not just your story, but even going through this very public discovery and self-care, that that's not something that's very common. And so how do you then allow folks to share with you, like, hey, here's how you might want to think about or consider as you're going on this journey?
Yeah. And when you talk about doing it publicly, I've been thinking about the why of that a bit. You know, I'm a person of faith and, you know, I was in Sunday school all the time. And Christians believe that Jesus is going to come back and there's going to be a new world, a new heaven and a new earth. As a child, after my parents died, one of the things I said to myself was, well, when Jesus comes back, we're going to get a new heaven and a new earth. We're going to get a second chance. And so what we'll do is we'll just stop mommy from going to get the mail that day.
That was what, at six years old, that's how I comprehended that. Like, no, it's OK. When we get our second chance, we'll just stop mommy from going to get the mail. And when I think about that now, it's like, OK, I recognize that that was a little too literal. But can I stop somebody else from going to get the mail? That's really the why for doing it publicly.
I think you're well on that particular journey, and I'm certain that there's folks that are receiving some degree of benefit from hearing your story publicly as well. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you want to say or share? I'm excited to, again, as a means of support, continue to plug in and listen to the remaining episodes of your story. Thank you, Todd. Absolutely.
Thanks for listening to What Else Don't I Know. If you have questions or a comment that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please visit whatelsedon'tIknow.net to leave a voicemail or message that might be featured on our show. Thanks for listening and until next time, take good care.
[20:04] Music.
I can get that exposed or uncovered. It's like, OK, you're out there so that everyone knows a little more about you. And even though there's some intentionality behind it, as you talked about in your podcast, there's a little bit of vulnerability that also sits in that space.
You hit the nail on the head. And it's basically something that I rarely talk about. Now, I have it on a podcast for people.I went from one extreme to the other, right? Right.
Welcome back to What Else Don't I Know? I'm your host, Yvette Griffea-Gray. Full transparency: since hitting publish on my very first podcast, I've been in my feelings and a bit protective of myself. So, from time to time, we'll check in with friends and family as I navigate my way through this process. Today, we'll check in with my friend Todd and hear his reactions to the first episode.
I want to tell the audience who you are. You know, the coming of age movies that we see, like I can think of like ATL or what was the other one? The Inkwell, these kind of coming of age stories. If I were a star in a coming of age story, you would definitely be in my crew in that movie. Yes. I remember wanting you to teach me how to break dance and, going on bike rides and just hanging out at the park growing up. And then, of course, over the years, we ended up going to college together.
Being around and maybe sometimes we would lose touch, but there are always people that you feel like. I may not talk to you for a while, but, you know, it's always going to be cool when I see you. Right, right. A hundred percent.
A hundred percent. And again, thank you for allowing me, you know, some some of the airtime on your podcast. Podcasts, as I was thinking back and reflecting on just not just the coming of age, but just being a huge Yvette fan. There are times that even when you lose touch, or you just don't see folks for a while, but when you were on the local radio station and be like, oh, there's Yvette on the local radio station at this time and calling people to listen in and to really participate. Is a way of realizing that you have in your own orbit and ecosystem a number of supporters and folks that celebrate you being part of our lives as well.
Wow, that's really cool. That's really nice for me to hear, especially in this moment in the time that I am. So thank you for saying that. Absolutely. One of my friends, he encouraged me to do a reaction episode. There are other things that I don't know, and that includes how my friends and those people who are around me, how they perceive me. So what you just said kind of aligns with that. So I appreciate you saying that. I have some questions that I want to ask you, but I will start with if you could describe your reaction to the podcast in one word. I'm curious about your initial reaction.
My initial reaction was that I had two. I think there was a degree of shock, and there was a degree of, I'm going to say, care and comfort, like wanting to, I mean, realizing the journey that you're on. And as you just discussed, this notion of being uncovered or exposed wanted to, in some way, just kind of provide a degree of care and comfort for you. But as I was listening to the story, there was a degree of shock and awe because there was a lot of the story that I did not know. Mm hmm.
Yeah, that makes sense. Because typically, I will just leave it at I lost my parents at six. So I understand that. Say more about some of your reaction. I'll go back a little bit of the coming of age story because not only did I live across the street from your auntie, but hearing a number of voices on the podcast actually differently kind of warmed my heart.
And I remember when we first met, the basic story of your parents had died and you're living with your auntie was all that I ever knew. And as I was thinking about this moment, you know, I think one of the one of the things that my wife today would say is I often don't ask for more details. I often don't pry and don't dig. And, and I think that that's partially due to the way that I was brought up that if it wasn't, if it wasn't out there, it wasn't none of your business. So I had never, you know, in the 30 plus years that we've known each other, I've never asked more information. I felt that that was kind of your story and it was kind of on a need-to-know basis. And so as I heard the story, it just provided a lot of context and a lot of information on you, right, and your journey. So, as you talk about that coming-of-age story, we met when you were deeper into your teens, right? And so, the background story or your origin story was kind of blind to me and my friends as we were in high school years just hanging out.
And so it provided a degree of context that I, that I didn't know. And I think that that's what drew me to that shock. But the 30 plus years of friendship is what I think pivoted me to, this idea of care because it, I can only imagine, only imagine, cause I can't even, and even draw up the right degree of empathy that, um. You know how not hard it is to know the story, hear the story, relive the story and or get new information to a story that you only had partial information to.
You know, I literally was like, I hope that Yvette is is able to take care of herself while she's on this journey of exploration and bringing us all along on the journey with her. When I met you, obviously, yes, in our teens, I was definitely at a place where I'm only giving you the bare minimum, right? I might, if I tell you at all, right, there are some times where I would just lie to people when they would ask about my parents. And I would say, I would replace my grandparents with my parents, if that makes sense. If they would say, what do your parents do? I would say, oh, my dad owns a business. He's a tax preparer and a realtor. And my mom is a nurse because I didn't want people to ask for more details.
Oh, yeah.
So I would just try to make up something and let people go oh OK and then go on about their business. If I think about why I didn't like to talk about it or tell people one of the reasons is that I didn't want people to think I was capable of what my father had done. And for lack of a better word I don't feel like this is an appropriate term now, but I didn't want people to think I was crazy. That's my teenager, my young self. That's the word that I would use. I wouldn't use that word now, but that's kind of how I felt. It probably describes better why I disliked sharing it with people.
I also didn't want people to feel sorry for me. Right. And I was conscious of that at a very young age. Well, and in some ways that's kind of owning the narrative, right? Right. You've constructed a way that you actually are controlling the narrative, and who you opt or bring into into into the narrative is probably a self-care mechanism in and of itself. For sure.
And I think now when we talked about, I've kind of gone from one extreme to the other. I've learned that just because you don't talk about something doesn't mean it's not impacting you at all. Mm hmm. I also believe that holding things in, it's not good for your body. It impacts our bodies in different ways. I don't have any research for that, but I just feel like that is accurate. This is my way of talking through things and getting it out of my body, if you will. Right. Right. I can see that. Now that you've listened to the first episode, what questions came up for you? What questions? I think I was just drawn in.
I mean, there was so much in that first episode. I think I was just drawn in to not my curiosity, but again, to support your journey of discovery.
As I think about this and, and, and listening to both the trailer and the first part of the first episode, I was like, OK, your auntie was, was talking about this, this, this moment. I was like, OK, like what's the moment. Right. And then, uh, the reveal was like, wow. OK. Like I said, there's kind of a shock moment there. And realizing there's more episodes to come and the spirit of the podcast is really kind of uncovering and discovery.
It was more about going on this journey with my friend than it was about piquing my curiosity of just wanting to know more. What happens next? How is this going to play out? Or, you know, where do we go from here? It was more about, like I said, that kind of care and comfort moment of saying like, like, OK, as we as we peel the onion back, there's my suspicion is there's more there. Right. How can I go on this journey with you rather than someone that's really just seeking, you know, the the end state or end game? And, and I only say that because, you know, there's so many different podcast or, or shows or things that you can watch where, you know, you can binge them because you want to know what happens. And, uh, this is, I don't feel this is that same thing. This is really about this, this notion of discovery and how that comes to play.
No, yeah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And I think even just sitting here and talking with you now is definitely a part of the self-care journey. It's like I said yesterday, I just felt like people were looking at me and I'm like, oh, it just didn't feel good yesterday in the world to me. And then when you sent me the text message that said, tell Auntie and Kelly I said hi, and you said leverage us.
Yep. Say more about what you meant. I found myself in the last 40 days, 40, 45 days in particular, really supporting folks that have lost a loved one. And where I've seen it activated most powerfully, and this is really about power more than anything. Is when folks are able to say, here's what I need at this time. And, and folks, um, that have the power in my mind, you know, are able to say like, Hey, I, I just need to step away or I just need to talk it out. Like I had a friend of mine who lost a parent recently and, you know, they were just meditating and reflecting early in the morning, and they knew that I was an early morning person and they just needed to be on the phone to kind of talk it out. And I would argue, even though I love to talk, I probably didn't say, I don't even know, even a couple of paragraphs in this half-hour conversation of this person just needing to talk it out if that makes sense. And that person leveraged me in that moment.
But I know there's many times where it's like, you know, folks will say like, hey, call me if you need anything or this or that. And it never materializes into much because I think a lot of times folks don't know, what to do with that and or feel that they're being burdensome by saying, hey, I just need to talk it out or I just need to do X, Y, or Z. And I think that that's how we find ourselves in different situations.
Mind frames, right? We find ourselves in very different mind frames when we know that we need to talk it out, but we feel that we're going to be burdensome if I call someone in the middle of the night and say, hey, I just need to talk for 20 minutes, or I need for you just to listen for 20 minutes or a half hour or whatever it is. But that's what I believe that extension of support looks like. But I've seen many times where that goes under leveraged or underutilized of just number one, hopefully folks realize that there's people that are out there willing to support them. So that's thing one, that's the hi Kelly and hi auntie, but then the ability to realize that on your journey, right, they are a degree of support for you as well. As I talk about going through monumental moments in life, I always reflect back to like what I call like the Sherpas, right? The people that have either been on either a similar journey or someone else that you can draw upon their knowledge to help you to navigate, right? Right. They're not going to climb the mountain for you, but they're going to provide you some thoughts and perspectives that might allow for you to navigate or or travel your journey a little bit better.
What you just said was really beautiful about relying on the people that you have around you. Part of it is asking for what you need when you're able to is what I hear you saying. Like you just even sending the note like leverage us is just a reminder. Like, yeah, I have good people in my life and I can ask. So I think right after that, I said, hey, do you want to do a reaction episode?
Right. Right. Right. As I go through a lot of the things in my life, it's not about what what should I know? I often ask the question like, what's the question I should be asking that I'm not asking? Because sometimes you don't know because many times you're going through something for either the first time or you've had unbelievably little experience in it. And so in 2017, when I lost my mother, one of the things that was most helpful for me was someone saying.
You do you. There is no right way to grieve. And believe it or not, that provided a degree of just like, OK, I just have to just grieve. I don't have to grieve right, or I don't have to be wary of criticism or those other types of things, right? Right. I'm just grieving in that moment. And so having even someone to to tell you things that you just have no experience with, I think, is a different degreeof support as well. And so I can only imagine, again, that not just your story, but even going through this very public discovery and self-care, that that's not something that's very common. And so how do you then allow folks to share with you, like, hey, here's how you might want to think about or consider as you're going on this journey?
Yeah. And when you talk about doing it publicly, I've been thinking about the why of that a bit. You know, I'm a person of faith and, you know, I was in Sunday school all the time. And Christians believe that Jesus is going to come back and there's going to be a new world, a new heaven and a new earth. As a child, after my parents died, one of the things I said to myself was, well, when Jesus comes back, we're going to get a new heaven and a new earth. We're going to get a second chance. And so what we'll do is we'll just stop mommy from going to get the mail that day.
That was what, at six years old, that's how I comprehended that. Like, no, it's OK. When we get our second chance, we'll just stop mommy from going to get the mail. And when I think about that now, it's like, OK, I recognize that that was a little too literal. But can I stop somebody else from going to get the mail? That's really the why for doing it publicly.
I think you're well on that particular journey, and I'm certain that there's folks that are receiving some degree of benefit from hearing your story publicly as well. Is there anything else that we didn't cover that you want to say or share? I'm excited to, again, as a means of support, continue to plug in and listen to the remaining episodes of your story. Thank you, Todd. Absolutely.
Thanks for listening to What Else Don't I Know. If you have questions or a comment that you'd like to share, we'd love to hear from you. Please visit whatelsedon'tIknow.net to leave a voicemail or message that might be featured on our show. Thanks for listening and until next time, take good care.
[20:04] Music.
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