111. Rejecting the Notion of 'Fine'

Hey Friend,

This week's episode, titled "Rejecting the Notion of 'Fine'," is especially close to my heart. It’s about confronting those moments when "I'm fine" doesn't even begin to cover what you’re truly feeling. 

In this episode, I share an experience of when I endured recurring dreams of my late grandparents, Ozella and Bill, which made me realize just how much unprocessed grief I was carrying. This episode is my open diary, sharing a poignant journey of emotional discovery and healing. By setting intentions and navigating the murky waters of grief, I found unexpected strength—and I hope my story can shine a light for anyone walking the challenging path of loss and recovery.

We often hide behind the phrase "I'm fine," using it as a shield against the world. It’s a mask that keeps our true emotions at bay, conditioned by a society that often values intellectualization over heartfelt connection. This episode challenges us to embrace emotional honesty. By acknowledging and expressing our true feelings, we can ease the burden of burnout and step into a more authentic life.

Rejecting 'fine' means allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to open up, and to truly feel—even if that means letting the tears flow. This isn’t just about recognizing our emotions; it’s about reconnecting with the very core of our being.

Join me as we peel back the layers of emotional restraint and celebrate our rich, human experiences. It's in embracing our deepest feelings that we find the essence of our humanity and the real freedom of emotional truth.

Looking forward to sharing this heartfelt journey with you.

Love Always,

PBJ

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

You know what, friend, after closing our podcast episode last week, I had a memory that came back, similar to the subject, and it just caused me to go deeper, to think more about how we need to get out of our head and the power of getting out of our head. And this week I just want to share that experience with you and I want to go a little deeper with you concerning how we need to feel, our feelings and how that actually might be the solution you are looking for, friend. Let's talk about it. So, as I closed our conversation in episode 110 get out of your head I continued to think about the power of expressing emotions in my life and my mind immediately went back to about a year and a half ago. I went through this I don't even know what to call it. It was at least a couple of weeks may have been a little longer, but at least a couple of weeks where I was having disturbing dreams. Now I have a complicated connection with dreams. Anyway, when I say complicated, what I really mean is I don't generally remember my dreams unless they are disturbing or weird in some way, and I know you know from psychology 101 that we dream every night, but we don't always remember them and I have been a person in the past. I'll say I've been a person who does not generally remember my dreams unless it disturbed me in some way. Now I will tell you. I'm getting better at that. I've been more intentional about setting intentions concerning my dream life and how I prepare for bed, but that's another episode. We'll talk about that another time. So about a year and a half ago, I found myself having these dreams where my grandmother and my grandfather. So if you have been following this podcast for any amount of time, even back to maybe a couple of episodes ago, you've heard me talk about my grandma Ozella and my granddaddy Bill.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Listen, you cannot tell me that I was not the most loved little girl in the whole wide world. You don't understand Everybody who knew us their neighbors, family members, people in town, their neighbors, family members, people in town they knew how much these two human beings loved me, and I'm not saying that they didn't. They loved a lot of people. They loved my siblings, they love my, my dad, they I mean they love other people. But for the sake of our conversation today, we're just talking about me. Okay, my grandparents loved me. When I tell you I could do no wrong in their eyes and I wanted to please them. I wanted to continue to make them happy. It was just I don't know, it's just pure love. I could just be with them, whether we were sitting around their house or driving around town. Or my grandmother would allow me to help her cater different parties or weddings in town, or granddaddy would pack me up in his truck and drive me around as he gave food out to people who were hungry. They were some of the best human beings the earth has ever seen, and we lost them. Several years apart. We lost grandma. First she was ill for a while and we lost her, and then we lost the granddaddy during COVID.

Speaker 1: 4:21

And so about a year and a half ago, I started having these back-to-back dreams where they came back to me Like I had them back. We were living life. They were back, alive, and I was very aware in each one of the dreams that they were back, like it wasn't like they never left, that they were back. It wasn't like they never left. I knew in the dreams that they had left and somehow they were back and I had them back, and at the close of every one of those dreams. I lost them again in a tragic way, and it was a variety of tragic ways. It was different ways, none of them were the actual ways that we lost them, but every dream if it wasn't every night, it was every other night they came back to me and we were enjoying life and I lost them again. And this happened over and over and over and it was overwhelming. It was too much to the point where I really did not want to go to sleep because I didn't want to have that dream again and I didn't know where it came from. At that point, we had lost granddaddy months ago. At that point, we had lost grandma years ago and I had no idea why I was having these dreams, no idea why I was having these dreams.

Speaker 1: 5:49

All right, friend, I'm just popping in really quick because I need your help. Would you go over to Amazon right now and leave a quick review for Disrupting Burnout? You don't have to finish the whole book to leave a review and it doesn't have to be long or fancy, just your honest take on the book. I know that there's some algorithm fairies out there. If you leave enough reviews, they will share this book with other readers who need it. So would you help me out, would you help our friends out who haven't heard about Disrupting Burnout yet? Go over to Amazon and leave your honest review for disrupting burnout. I appreciate you.

Speaker 1: 6:27

All right, let's get back to the episode. So at some point I decided okay, I've got to figure out what's going on here. And I can't remember at that point if I was in regular therapy or if I was kind of in a maintenance situation where I would reach out if I needed help or something came up. I can't remember, but I do remember connecting with my therapist and saying, hey, I need to talk about this. I'm not sure what's going on, but this is what's happening. So I started describing to her what was going on in the dreams. And this is the power of having a therapeutic relationship.

Speaker 1: 7:15

I was so grateful to have somebody in my life who had walked through life a bit with me, because she was able to reflect on something that I couldn't see and as I shared with her. She said, patrice, she said you never grieved your grandfather. And in my mind I'm thinking well, I know I cried Like I. I remember crying. But she said no, she said during that time that's when I was preparing to leave my traditional job on campus. That's when I was launching into full-time entrepreneurship. It was still the COVID pandemic. Everything was happening and she said I don't remember you really grieving your grandfather. You went through the steps and you just kind of kept living. You kept going. She said I think you need to grieve. I think you need to grieve.

Speaker 1: 8:21

And she started having conversations with me about ways that I could honor my grandfather. You know things that are special to him or you know ways that I can honor his memory. Some of the things that we talked about is my grandfather would always feed people. He knew I've shared this with you all before he knew where homeless people were. He knew where hungry people were. When you live in a very small town, oftentimes you don't know where those. You can't see them. They're not as visible as they may be in a big city, but my granddaddy knew where they were. So we talked about you know, maybe getting with my family and doing an event where we can feed people. And you know, we just went through a number of things and I told her I would think about it and after that session I really thought about what she said about you never grieved.

Speaker 1: 9:21

And I thought back during the time that my grandfather passed away. So it was during the COVID pandemic and it was due to COVID that he passed away. So of course we couldn't be there and I know that this is not just our story, I know that so many people all over the world experienced this but we couldn't be with him. We couldn't be there, so I had not seen him. We couldn't be there, so I had not seen him. I had not talked to him in quite a while. We couldn't go to the hospital to visit him. We couldn't let him know that he wasn't alone. We couldn't say last words or say that we loved him. We couldn't do those things.

Speaker 1: 10:11

And then I continued to think about his service and how, during his service, I just kept feeling like this is not right. This is not right. This is not the way that he should be honored. This is not oh y'all Okay. This is not the way, this is not what he deserves. It was the best that we could do with all of the circumstances. There were many circumstances to deal with and you know it was the best we could do. It was a graveside service and we were all there, but it just wasn't. It wasn't our family's way, you know, when we lost grandma.

Speaker 1: 10:53

First of all, let me tell you about my grandma. My grandma has specific instructions. She had laid everything out with the funeral director, like they. When we called them, they said hey, we got it. Your grandmother already laid it out, paid for it, did all the things, like all we had to do was show up. She did. I think we printed some programs. Other than that, grandma handled it. So when we lost grandma, not only were our family traditions intact and we honored her in the way that our family honors our people, but we knew it was what she wanted. We knew it was what she wanted because she planned. She planned for what she wanted and the way that we lost granddaddy and the circumstances and how things were going.

Speaker 1: 11:47

It just did not feel right to me. I struggled, I struggled and there was really nothing I could do to fix it right. So I just kept working. I put my energy into work. I put my focus into starting my business and my transition and making sure that I was closing my chapter well, as I was leaving campus and all of the things. It was easier for me to focus on those things than to really focus on losing my grandfather, because I was disappointed and angry and sad about the way things went when we lost him. So, as I reflected on all of this, I just cried. I mean really just acknowledged the emotions, I allowed myself to cry, I allowed myself to acknowledge that I was angry, I allowed myself to acknowledge that I was disappointed. I sat in it, even though it was uncomfortable at first. I just sat there and allowed those emotions to rush out of me and rush through me and I allow myself to think about the things and to respond to those thoughts and those memories. And it wasn't days, it was maybe an afternoon. I just sat, it was just me and my husband was at work and I just spent time.

Speaker 1: 13:19

And then I thought about what I love about my granddaddy. I thought about he always had these sayings and you just got to know granddaddy. You just got to know granddaddy. But he had these philosophies about life that just really tripped us out. You know little things. Like you know, in order to catch fish, you got to hold your mouth, right, you know. I don't know what that meant, but he believed it. He believed it. So I started thinking about all the things that I love about him. I love that my granddaddy allowed me to teach him how to read when I was in sixth grade. He had to quit school as a young boy to work in sharecropping, so he wasn't able to read or write for a long time, but he allowed me to teach him how to read so that he could read his Sunday school lesson. That's all he cared about. He wanted to be able to read his Bible. You know, I thought about how my granddaddy decided he wanted to learn to play the guitar. So he got a guitar and he took some lessons and he played his guitar, and I have a video of my granddaddy playing his guitar, you know.

Speaker 1: 14:45

So, even in the midst of the tears, I also had some laughs. I allowed the emotion to happen and you know what happened after that the dreams stopped. They stopped. This was over a year and a half ago and I have not had one of those dreams again since. I allowed myself to get out of my head and into my heart, allowed myself to get out of my head and into my heart and all of the ideas that I discussed with my therapist. We may or may not do those. One day we may feed the community, we may do some other things, but even without doing those things, even having another memorial or doing any of the things that we discussed other than just allowing myself to grieve, I was able to release the emotion.

Speaker 1: 15:42

The dreams never came back and I was at peace. I was at peace and of course, you know there are still tears every now and then when I miss them, when I think about them, when I have big moments in my life. Um, when my book came out in January, I had some moments because, listen, if anybody would have been proud, those two right there, they would have been driving around with books in the trunk of their car. I know it, I know they would have those two right there, grandma and granddaddy. Listen, they would have been the proudest human beings on this earth. The proudest human beings on this earth because anything I did for them, it was everything. So of course, there are moments that I miss them and when it happens, I allow it. I allow the grief, I allow. I think it was.

Speaker 1: 16:54

I was telling you about Dr Anita Phillips last week and something I heard her say recently on a podcast. She said um, she's allowing herself to grieve in real time. So I'm not storing it for another day, I'm not pushing it away until I have time, but I'm allowing myself to grieve in real time. And maybe it's not grief for you, maybe it's anger, maybe it's sadness, Maybe it's shame. And again we're going to talk about shame. We'll talk about shame and we your heart.

Speaker 1: 17:34

What I've found is the relief, the answer, the relieving of the pressure that you crave, that you long for. It may not be through the complicated 10 steps that you think you need to take, it may not be through creating 25 new boundaries. Maybe you just need to feel. Friend, I know you're intelligent, I know you are successful, I know you have accomplished so much in your life, and the challenge of being such an exceptional person is that you will try to figure everything out in your head. You will try to apply your intellect to everything that you go through. You will be caught or you'll be stuck in the comfort zone of your intellect. And I'm here to tell you that that's not the only part of you. You have a real heart that feels, and that heart is necessary. It is necessary for the human experience, for you to feel your feelings, not just identify them, not just pull out your feelings wheel, but to feel your feelings and acknowledge what you are feeling.

Speaker 1: 18:58

As I continue to think about our conversation last time on episode 110, I thought about a colleague I had a few years ago and this person shared with me because I would always ask questions like how do I know you're struggling? How do I acknowledge you? What means something to you? And this person shared with me. They said if I use the word fine, I am not okay. Anytime I say it's fine, all is fine. You know, it's really not fine and there's a struggle in there somewhere. And after that person told me that I had to pay attention and recognize hey, I do the same thing. And then I started listening and I found that other people do the same thing. And at some time along the path I became aware of this meme with this little dog and the caption is it's all fine, but behind the little dog everything's on fire, but it's fine. So if you've heard me talk about the cycle of burnout, you've heard me talk about the surviving phase when, when I ask how you're doing, you say everything is fine. But I explained that fine is a mask word and so for this episode I wanted to know what the word fine really means in the English language, and it was so interesting because I don't believe we're using it in that original context anymore.

Speaker 1: 20:37

When I Google a definition for the word fine, it takes me to Oxford Languages Dictionary, right, and the first definition is of high quality, and the synonyms are excellent, first class, first rate, great, exceptional, outstanding, and I can see that the definition or the example they give is this was a fine piece of filmmaking. Or I've heard people say oh, that's a fine car, right, but I believe that language is outdated because the way that we're using it right now is not to say first class, first rate, great and excellent. We're using fine as a mask word and I think fine can mean a lot of things. Fine can mean I don't even know how to tell you, so I'm fine. Fine can mean if I told you, you wouldn't know what to do, so I'm fine. Fine may mean I don't want to be a burden to you, so it's fine. Fine may mean I don't have the capacity to deal with this right now, so it's fine. We're not using the word fine as things are exceptional. What I often hear from folks who are stuck in the cycle of burnout. When they say fine, what they're saying is I can't even tell you the real story, so it's fine.

Speaker 1: 22:09

And I want you to pause and recognize. Are you using the word fine in that way? Do you use fine as a mask? Do you use fine as a shield so you don't have to express your real emotions? Or maybe you feel like you don't have space to express your real emotions or it's not appropriate to express your real emotion? Is find your mask for the truth.

Speaker 1: 22:40

I want you to recognize, friend, if everything is just fine only fine. If how you're feeling is just fine. If how you're doing is, oh, it's fine. If your most critical relationships are just fine, it how you're doing is, oh, it's fine. If your most critical relationships are just fine, it's fine. I want you to stop and I want you to recognize that you were created for more. You were not created just to be fine. You were created to be exceedingly, abundantly joyful. When was the last time you can remember that you were full of joy, just, pure joy? I'm not talking about a temporary happiness. I'm talking about full of outrageous, contagious, overwhelming joy. Are you even familiar with what that feels like? Would you recognize it if you had it, friend.

Speaker 1: 23:48

I'm here to shake you out of the place where just fine is enough. Take you out of the place where just fine is enough. When I lost my grandfather and my husband and others asked how are you? I'm fine, you okay, I'm fine. Everything you show y'all right, I'm fine. Fine was my mask, so I did not have to sit in it, so I did not have to think about it, so I did not have to dig deeply. I did not have to go to that place. I am fine. But I wasn't. I wasn't fine, I was ignoring what I really needed. I retreated to my intellect, I retreated to my head, so I didn't have to go into my heart.

Speaker 1: 24:39

Friend, it's time to get out of your head, get into your heart, reject being fine and make the decision that you are going to feel your feelings, that you are going to feel your feelings, you are going to allow yourself to be the human being that you are and you are going to acknowledge when your heart needs to release. We've been conditioned that it's not okay to cry, that it's not okay to be angry, it's not okay to cry, that it's not okay to be angry, it's not okay to feel, and it is stripping us of our humanity. I am truly convinced that the reason why we struggle with interpersonal relationships, the reason why we have such an epidemic of loneliness and anxiety and depression, is because we do not allow people to feel. We have been taught to push away emotions and just be smarter, just be stronger, just be tougher, and I am here to call you back to your heart. Call you back to your heart. Come home to your heart.

Speaker 1: 26:01

Friend, you are a flesh and blood human being and, as such, you need not just a good suggestion, you need to feel your feelings. So my challenge to you is to, next time you have an emotion, come up for you, whether it is anger or sadness, or joy or happiness, whatever that emotion may be for you, I want you to feel it. I want you to make space for that emotion. I want you to let it happen, to make space for that emotion. I want you to let it happen.

Speaker 1: 26:37

The next time you feel the urge to cry, I challenge you to allow the tears to fall without stifling, without pushing back, without holding back. Allow yourself to feel the emotion and I want you to see how your heart feels as that emotion flows through and out of your body, friend. You don't need a new solution, you don't need a new tactic, you don't need a new method, a new theory. You need to get out of your head and into your heart. It's time to feel your feelings. As always, friend, you know that you are powerful, you are significant and you are loved. You are brilliant and you are human and you need to feel it. Love always Be good. Need to feel Love always.