Episode 36: Upbringing and Mission Orientation: How Our Roots Shape Our Purpose

In this podcast episode, JD and Mordecai are joined by guest, Emily Shaughnessy. Emily was raised in an evangelical Presbyterian family.  Her education was individualized as she was homeschooled until high school. Her parents instilled in her the importance of giving back to others. Although Emily moved away from a traditional religious structure, her path brought her to deeper levels of spirituality and connection to God.  Emily's dad was a role model for her in terms of constantly giving to the community and giving of himself, which has influenced Emily's worldview and sparked her mission orientation.  Her childhood experiences helped shape her views of humanity and the world and allowed her to follow her passions in making the world around her a better place.

Emily is active in building “asset-based communities,” which is a grassroots approach that focuses on individuals and what they bring to the table, rather than an outside perspective of what needs to be fixed. Influences in her life include Alan Watts, Buddhist thinkers, Pema Chödrön, Marshall Rosenberg and his work on nonviolent communication, and the Internal Family Systems framework. These influences have helped her move away from a good-bad duality and toward a more compassionate understanding of herself and others.

00:04  Introduction to today’s guest.
01:32  Emily’s upbringing and mission-driven worldview.
06:18  What’s changed in her view of spirituality since her parents.
11:02  Breaking apart the binary perspective of our society.
15:54  What have been some of your learnings from any other surprising stories?
21:25  What are some of the influences that have shaped his life?
27:01  How did you get through the loss of your father?
33:32 The dying to be reborn and the shedding of some of the ideas and cultures and parts of oneself.
38:00  The idea of “being like us” is part of human nature.
43:58 What are some of the things that really like light up Emily’s life?

Transcript

JD Stettin: 0:04

Okay, good morning, everyone and welcome back to Guide From the Perplexed. For those of you who have been listening the past few weeks past few times, we've had some fun guests on the show and we've decided to continue the guest format, which basically is just an opportunity for the two of us to talk to friends during the work day and make it feel productive and official. Hopefully you guys are enjoying that. If anyone feels like they want to come on the show and talk to us. Let us know we might want to talk to you too. Today's guest is my dear friend, Emily Shaughnessy. She is many things. Among them, Emily has been a journalist, the real old fashion newspaper type. She is an amazing community organizer. And she, some of her colleagues have put together a really cool nonprofit that we're going to talk about here that does some really neat community and communication work. Emily is just a brilliant social, emotional, intuitive communicator feeler of feelings, emotional granularity, great person to talk to about just about anything, and also a phenomenally talented improv performer. So get the chance to see her upcoming class show. I recommend it many other things. But I will stop there. Emily, thank you for joining us from Austin this morning.

Emily Shaughnessy: 1:32

Thank you for having me. Wow, what an introduction. I need you to do all my intros from here out.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 1:38

Yeah, you could be hired.

Emily Shaughnessy: 1:40

Yeah, yeah, it's a skill.

JD Stettin: 1:43

That's ok. The bots who are listening to our conversation will be able to replicate that no trouble so I just put myself out of business, Yeah, it's Chat GPT from here on out, I'm out of a job. So to kick off our chat this morning. I actually would love for you Emily to tell us a little bit more about the nonprofit which I used to know as Cut the VS. But I believe it has a different name maybe or a slightly different focus now. Please, I think it's so cool and I need to get caught up in it as well.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 2:14

Yeah, JD and Emily, if it's alright, I want to get to the nonprofit but all the stuff that you're involved in is so amazing. I wonder if we could start a little earlier in line and talk about like your upbringing. It sounds like you were brought up in a religious household, like anything's positives and negatives. But you're so mission driven. I'm curious about your upbringing and thinking about how that shaped your worldview and mission orientation?

Emily Shaughnessy: 2:42

Yeah, that's a great question. And yeah, I guess JD knows a lot of this background already. I'll get into it. Yeah, I was raised evangelical Presbyterian in the reformed tradition, which for those who don't know, is very, very traditional, you know, no guitars in church, not even acoustic guitar, right. And, you know, singing these old hymns from, you know, the 1800s. And so this very sort of traditional Christian upbringing, I was also homeschooled up through high school. So you know, I think when you hear those two things together, you sort of get sort of the picture, you can kind of stereotype what this young Emily might have been like. But, you know, as you said, there's there's ways I think that positively and negatively sort of influenced me and my childhood, and I have moved away from a traditional religious structure, but still consider myself a very spiritual person, and very deeply connected to God. And I think I just would define that very differently than how I did growing up. But I do think those early experiences in the church and connecting to what I might now called Spirit, or the universe did really shaped me and molded me in terms of how I view humanity and how I view the world and, you know, being involved in things like missions trips, and things like that, you know, in my teens, changes you and I think, to the homeschool aspects, really allowed my education to be very individualized. So, you know, I could kind of follow what I was interested in could take, you know, bigger chunks of time, outside of a structured environment to follow my passions. And so I do think who I am today is, you know, largely because of those structures growing up, and I'm thankful for it in a lot of ways. Yeah. I don't know if that answers your question. I couldn't talk for three hours about it.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 4:42

Yeah. In terms of the values that were imparted to you, it was talked about at home was talking about in church, what was imparted to you in terms of what's important, you know, how is God discussed in our role on Earth?

Emily Shaughnessy: 4:57

In my tradition, it was a lot about Original Sin, it was a lot about, there's nothing you can do to earn God's favor, you're sort of helpless on your own, the only way that you were saved is through faith, you know, all you can do is, you know, take on Christ's righteousness and be thankful for that, you know, and live under His kind of cloak of righteousness. And so you know, and the response to that was, you know, out of gratitude then and out of, you know, being thankful for this salvation, then you sort of go out into the world, and you show God's love to people, and you live this life that isn't necessarily centered around your own enjoyment or satisfaction, but is about, you know, bringing God's love and message outward. So there are messages like, you know, God doesn't necessarily want you to be happy, or that's not the focus of life, really, the focus is sort of the the giving and the living under God commands living a life of service. And I think that was very modeled, especially by my dad, who has has passed, but was very much a role model for me in terms of constantly giving to the community, constantly giving of himself, I would say, going sort of too far in that direction. And that's something I've had to kind of reel back within myself, you know, over the years. I don't know how in depth you want me to go with that. But that was sort of the structure.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 6:20

very clear that it was a setup. I mean, these are people that are just been born like that day, so to speak, like, you don't go to like a two year old and say, All right, you can have anything in the pantry just don't have those cookies. The other thing is that what would man be if we didn't know good from bad, right? That was the eat from the tree of knowing good from bad. I recently heard a lecture, they were saying, like, let's say your neighbor didn't eat from that tree, and they don't know the difference between good and bad. Like, you know what you call that person? A psychopath. It's like, they don't know the difference between like, barbecuing a hamburger and like barbecuing you; that's not someone who you want to be with. So I definitely know the challenges of that, for perspective, but it does sound like your dad was hugely influential to you in terms of just that idea of like, No, you should give back. Give to others.

Emily Shaughnessy: 7:21

Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I'm the oldest child as well, the oldest daughter, I think there is a lot of things that kind of set me up in my life, to be oriented towards, you know, giving to others helping others. I'm a type two Enneagram. You know, there's just, there's a lot there. And I think that's a big part of my personality, but also something that I've had to work with, in terms of, you know, where are my boundaries? How do I also take care of myself as I'm caring for others? JD, I don't know if any of this resonates with you.

JD Stettin: 7:53

Just a lot. Yeah.

Emily Shaughnessy: 7:56

Huge amount, tremendously. And I think that's something and I know, we're getting to the sort of community work later. But I think that's something I see in a lot of community organizing circles and people who are involved in this kind of work is just the total burnout. And, you know, that's for a variety of reasons. But I think a big part of it is, I think people who gravitate towards these types of helping field have these things in their upbringing and their personalities that sometimes make it hard to draw those lines and to incorporate the self care and to have those boundaries.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 8:31

Fast forward to today and now we'll kind of catch up to JD's question on your nonprofit and community organizing. I am curious, though, let's say like, how would you compare your motivation to serve compared to your parents? Right, like, what is what's changed in terms of your view of I don't know, spirituality, God? And do you still kind of end up in the same place of service? What has evolved for you in terms of your context of that?

Emily Shaughnessy: 8:58

That's a great question. So I would say the biggest difference and I'm not not like throwing my parents under the bus here, I think I'm more speaking to the general Christian culture I grew up in, it was very much this us versus them not even versus us and them, right, because it was the saved and the unsaved. And it was okay, my role as a Christian, a good Christian girl to go out and share this with people who are I don't know, you know, who are lost, right? Or who are immoral or who not under God's not in God's family right now. You know, so there was this definite separation and this idea of like, okay, I'm going out from this privileged place to then bring people into the fold. You know, how that has really shifted for me is now my view of spirituality is very much like we are all one organism, you know, as humans, but also with the earth with our environment. I mean, this is one ecosystem we are we are the universe manifesting itself, you know, Alan Watts talks about, you know, the big bang being this singular point that then kind of went out and created the universe, but at this elemental level, we are all still that singular point. And so, you know, I see God, or spirit as that sort of life force that kind of propels us outward propels us to, to create, to procreate to keep expanding the universe outward, and then also to continue to connect the pieces of the universe to each other right in this web. And this I like to talk about on the salience network, I talked about it on my last column, but I see us all as this, you know, underground network web, you know, like a mushroom roots, right, they connect under the ground, they connect to the tree roots, they help pass messages and communicate and help the ecosystem flourish. So that belief system was sort of the foundation for this early prototype of my organization, which was called cut the vs. Which the vs did for the Vs, and us versus them. So it was about looking at and breaking apart this kind of either or dualistic perspective, binary perspective, that's very prevalent still in our society. Although I think we're tackling that from different angles these days, we were just seeing so much of it in specifically the political sphere, but then around things like responses to COVID responses to Black Lives Matter, you know, just people kind of establishing themselves at either end of the spectrum and increasing this polarity. In a lot of ways, polarity is important and necessary. But if you're not seeing that it's actually all part of the same spectrum, then you can really start villainizing and isolating and pushing away and really like destroying that mycelium network, our work kind of started as this very big, philosophical approach to, you know, how we view humanity, how we view people who are different than us trying to create a new narrative or a new story around, you know, what it means to be human. And then, as we started working with that, you know, we tried different things, we were selling merchandise with this messaging, we were doing events, but then we started getting more and more involved. And by we, it's myself, and to my two partners, primarily, who are the founders of this, and then we brought in other partners, but then we started getting more and more involved in our neighborhood. And we saw that our local geographic community is really just a microcosm of what's going on on these larger scales. And we saw the ways that people in the community, were all sort of playing these these different roles and expressing these polarizing sort of opinions. And we thought, well, if we can sort of connect people across differences at this local level, and help people see that we, you know, all have an important voice to bring, we all have something to contribute. And when we work together, we're stronger, when we're connected, we're stronger, you know, if we can establish that at this very, very local level, then maybe it can sort of spread from there. And so now, we're nonprofit called, we're all neighbors, and the idea being connecting neighbors, mobilizing neighbors toward action, but from this, this belief system, that we are all interconnected, that there really are no bad guys, but there are people with needs, there are people who are hurting, there are people who have something to contribute and just need to be acknowledged or activated, or unburdened in some way. And so there's a lot of spirituality and philosophical underpinning to the work we do, as opposed to just like, we're getting a bunch of neighbors together to like put up a stop sign not that that's bad for us. It goes a lot deeper into this sort of spiritual framework.

JD Stettin: 13:45

I'm curious about I don't know, if you have any anecdotes that stand out from some of your work over the last year events you've put together, or some of the conversations that you and your co founders and partners have. And yeah, and any just specifics that that feel like really alive or interesting or things that happen that were surprising, like they're pleasantly or unpleasantly at some of these events that you've you've put on for this group.

Emily Shaughnessy: 14:14

Yeah. So there's one that comes to mind, which is around event we had a couple of times called a neighborhood listen. And that was neighbors getting together and basically doing sort of an empathy circle, where people would kind of break out into pairs and share basically practice active listening practice empathy. And this was because at the time this was in the, during the pandemic, we did it out in my backyard. There was so much divisiveness on our neighborhood Facebook group about different issues and people getting so polarized people attacking each other over various issues and specific individuals in the neighborhood being very antagonistic and, you know, online is such Too difficult place to have these conversations. And I think the medium itself really lends itself to this kind of binary way of thinking and this polarization. And so what we did is like pull people off their computers, get them together in a physical space, and get them talking to and really listening to each other. And something very cool that happened from that is one gentleman who had been extremely vocal online and almost saw himself as kind of the black sheep of the community and almost took like a little bit of pride in that. And other people saw him that way, this sort of gruff, a veteran, conservative type gentleman, who you wouldn't even think would show up to something like this, not only came not only participated, but really engaged and at one point was deeply sharing and was crying, being seen and heard by a neighbor he had just been introduced to, and we were able to hold him in that space. And for me, that just was so powerful, because I do think that at our core, we all share the same needs and desires. And that manifests in different ways. And people have different strategies for getting those needs met. But when it comes down to it, I mean, we are all human sharing these core experiences, and if we can relate at that level, you know, then we can really connect, and then these more surface level disagreements either dissolve or they just become easier to work with. Because we realize that, hey, we are actually the same, you know, we're cut from that same cloth, we are all that big bang.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 16:28

It's ironic, because I think Facebook's original mission was something like to connect, you know, all human beings. And yet, social media has probably been the unintentional cause of, of just so much more divisiveness, what have been some of your learnings from any other kind of surprising stories of of just things that happened spontaneously,

Emily Shaughnessy: 16:49

I think there are a lot of ways that the neighborhood for me, has become just this powerful community that I didn't realize it could be I, I've lived in my current neighborhood for about four years. But before that, I never lived anywhere where I really knew and was friends with my neighbors. And there have just been many moments of people coming out of the woodwork to support one another in very moving ways. And I mean, this is very small, but it brought me to tears the other day, my block has a text thread, and I was making soup, and I went to cut the onion and it was rotten. And it was cold and it was dark. And I thought I could drive all the way to the store or you know, I could just make something else. And, you know, I was like, let me ask my neighbors and I kind of threw it up on the text thread. And immediately two people were like, I have one, I have one and this, you know, older gentleman down the street who I met recently, who builds planes in his garage and like flies them to burning manage this cool character, you know, walk knocks on my door, and he's like, holding an onion for me, so I can make my soup. And, you know, obviously, this is a very more of a trivial example. But like, suddenly, I just found myself with this abundance of onions because another neighbor brought one too. And I thought, you know, this is what community kind of could be. It's like, I have a very individualistic streak. And I think a lot of us do in Western society, where it's like, okay, like, I'm often still about helping others. But when I need something, it's like, okay, I need to take care of it. I need to drive to the store. But it's like, oh, my gosh, no, I can just ask for help. And suddenly, I have multiple people coming here offering me something. And I think because it was something so small, that I like easily could have just got it done myself. It made it all the more meaningful. Yeah, it just was very, very touching. For me. I don't know if that's the kind of example you're looking for. Yeah, I think I've learned a lot of personal lessons along the way, with the community organizing work, too. It's definitely changed me as a person how I orient.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 18:51

you elaborate on that a little bit.

Emily Shaughnessy: 18:53

Just kind of expanding on that piece about sort of the service and then giving I think, often how I orient towards or used to towards even close friend was like, okay, my job is to take care of you and give you enough so that you think I have values that you want to stay in this connection. So my value was kind of derived from what I could give and how good I was at giving it. Right. So my generosity and my competence. It's like, that's how I maintain relationship and connection. And I've sort of been learning through this process that, you know, I've been humbled and I've realized that no being in relationship actually is this sort of give and take where I have to receive I have to ask for help, too. I have to be vulnerable. I think that a sneaky way this sort of independence manifested was taking on leadership roles in various groups and organizations, which in one sense, seems like you know, you know, oh, she, I don't know maybe she's being selfless or she's like Getting in this leadership role, but really, that was a protection so that I didn't have to be vulnerable. Because if I'm leading something, then I know that I'm going to be accepted in that group, right? Because I'm leading it. And I don't have to face that vulnerability of like, Okay, what if I don't belong here? What if I'm not wanted? What if I don't have anything to contribute? The type of community organization I'm practicing right now is called asset based community development. And it's less about leaders and organizations sort of looking into a community and saying what they think is best. And it's more about this very grassroots, grassroots organic approach, where needs and solutions sprang up from the gills, passions, resources, assets, of individual community members, so you're focusing on individuals and what they bring to the table, as opposed to taking this outside in perspective of like, what are the problems in this community, we need to fix for me participating in that, and I've recently took a course in asset based community development ABCD, where literally, some of the homework was to go out to your neighbors and ask them for help with something. And that was so difficult, because, again, as I spoke to before, like, that's not how I'm used to orienting to sort of change that within myself and realize, you know, like, Okay, I don't have to be the leader. I don't have to always be giving is far more difficult, far more vulnerable for me.

JD Stettin: 21:25

I was gonna say we could get a crew of firstborns, with a lot of responsibility complex. This is actually this is a podcast has turned into a support group for recovering, recovering firstborns. I'm here. I'm curious. And I mean, I know I, I think I know some of this stuff, just from our relationship, but I feel like and maybe our listeners have gotten a sense too, of like growing up the way you have to where you are now, there's been so many different influences in your life, obviously, your dad the church, you mentioned Alan Watts, you mentioned ABCD there were some other buzzwords in there. I'm not asking you to cat a catalogue it that's the word because that's a whole other mission but like in where you are now with whether it's the community work, you're doing personal work, interpersonal work, like what are some threads influenced threads whether they're thinkers or books or practices or philosophies or communities or that you've been with along along your journey from say your teenage years maybe through through now that come to mind that feel like they still hold hold resonance are shaped your spirituality, your philosophy, your your outlook?

Emily Shaughnessy: 22:51

Yeah, great question. Yeah. And I feel the urge to be like, Okay, I got a list perfectly all the thinkers that have what I'm going to try to release that. I mean, obviously, Alan Watts, I think different Buddhist thinkers and Eastern thinkers, Pema children early on, were influential in sort of releasing some of that kind of western grip and moving the more towards this being with meditative space. I think violent communication. Marshall Rosenberg were big influences for me and sort of changing my orientation from thinking, you know, there are sinners, and there are bad people. And there are godless people to like, actually, we're all just people. And our actions are just a result of means that we have needs that result in feelings results in actions that are either helpful or unhelpful. But at the base level, it's, you know, there's not bad people that are good people, there's people with needs, and then connected to that, I would say, internal family systems as a philosophy, and as a framework, that being a focus on the internal parts we have within ourselves, and how each one plays a different role in protecting our system, helping our system thrive. And again, that, you know, our actions, if they're unhelpful, doesn't mean that, that we're bad, or that we're sinners. But it does mean that you know, maybe there's a part of us that's been wounded or hurt or burdened, maybe there's a part of us that's trying to protect, protect our whole system. And so that's resulting in these actions that maybe are not ideal. So those two I think we're really big in an orienting away from that sort of good bad duality, and then I would say, a stair Parral and Alain de baton as far as like relationships and interpersonal dynamics go they were really big for me and changing the way I think of romantic relationship, but even friendships and not seeing, not trying to get all of my needs met through one person, not idealizing romantic relationships, sort of putting it on a pedestal. but really exploring what the nuances of of love are and how love can be experienced in a lot of different forms, or erotic energy can be experienced in a lot of different forms. And just sort of like widening my perspective around that. Those are them that come to mind.

JD Stettin: 25:16

Cool. Thank you for sharing those. There's a lot of fun ideas there. I'm also curious, because I don't I can't recall. I don't know if I know like, what if you had like, a breakout moment, something coming from, you know, a particular somewhat homogenous, somewhat bounded religious community and upbringing? Was there a time in high school or in college or after college? Like, you read Paymo? Or something happened? And you were like, wait a minute, this good and evil stuff? Like, I don't? I don't know how, like, where, how did that experience come about for you gradually, or suddenly, or both?

Emily Shaughnessy: 25:56

That was more of a gradual shift, I think I was always on The Edgy side of my community. So you know, I was the Christian that, you know, didn't think homosexuality was a sin, or, you know, wasn't opposed to abortion in all cases, you know. And so like, even though I was in these conservative circles, I was sort of on the edge of them, I went to a Christian college, but it was a liberal Christian college. So I think I was always on the edge of that envelope. And then it as my world expanded, so did my worldview. I think I had a really big turning point in 2016, around just a lot of life events happened, including my dad passing, including a huge shift in my career away from journalism, including becoming non monogamous, and just a lot happened it within a condensed period of time. And I always pointed that year as the year that things broke wide open, I think things have slowly been shifting up till then. And then all of a sudden, it was like, the lid blew off of how I viewed the world.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:02

As far as the breaking point. I mean, it's interesting that you point to a particular year, changing careers losing your father, which must have been like, so, so painful, all of the great spiritual thinkers, you know, will say that growth, the real growth happens, like at those dark points, kind of like play at it otherwise, but then when you're actually in the throes of pain, right is where you learn and make real strides to go through so much change and loss. How did you get through it with changes in worldview in I don't know, like, what was kind of like the lesson that your soul took from going through all that, which is tough, we can go on to a different question if you want to.

Emily Shaughnessy: 27:42

Yeah, I think the biggest theme for me through that time, was just asking questions, there are a few moments I remember that were sort of, you know, come to Jesus moments to borrow, you know, that terminology from my upbringing, moments where I was really just completely floored by these questions of, you know, why do I believe this? Why am I living my life according to this certain structure or system? Like, is this what I really want? Or is this just a result of how I was raised, or these messages that I'm getting from society? I'm realizing that, in many cases, I couldn't answer that I didn't know why I was holding so strongly to something. And that was such a place of great fear and great courage for me, because there are so many unknowns. And who even knows, like, I don't know, if what I'm doing today is like, right are good, you know, it's like, but getting to that place where you can say like, I don't know, and I am going to kind of release some of these things that have given me this sense of security and safety, and questioning structures and systems. I mean, it's terrifying. But it's also when I've felt most alive and most brave within myself. So for me that looked like yeah, questioning these systems. I read a lot, you know, I talked to whoever I could, who took different workshops, went to retreats, you know, I really kind of plunged into this time of self discovery and personal development, and really just, like, sacrificed it all sort of on this altar of growth and development of being like yeah, I don't sure take my like, marriage, take my views on sexuality, take my views on family and the community and career you know, it was like all these things I thought I had set up for myself, you know, this, these building blocks of what a good and successful life looks like. And then I kind of just threw it all out the window and I was like, okay, like, let's start over and let's build what I want or what I think I want right now. And like let's be brave enough to even question that down the road if it's not working.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 29:54

Yeah, I feel like there's a Christian model of like Jesus dying on the cross, but you also have that in Judaism where I'm thinking about the binding of Isaac. Where Abraham, takes his son and puts them right on the altar with the knife on his throat, you know, ready to you know, there's some say that even like drew like drew blood, right. This idea of like, in some ways like you have to die to be reborn, I guess, you know; but it's an it's the hardest thing because it's what gives us our identity. Right. So in terms of, I think one of the things about the polarity is that, like, no one wants to be at war with other people all the time. I don't I mean, but maybe some people do some people like conflict. It does, however, give me comfort to just know that there is something that that this is who I am. And these are the people who are not me, right? That's create your boundaries, create security, right? Good fences make good neighbors, right. So if I can create a really good fence, and know what I am and what I'm not, that's very, that's comforting. In a weird way, religious tradition, also, I mean, I am an Orthodox Jew, right. So I'd probably have this, you know, keep Sabbath and keep kosher. You know, for the most part, you know, raising five kids that in that way. The idea of questioning all that right. And there certainly are questions Does God really care about whatever sometimes it's hard to believe that that he does care about about some of the stuff but the idea of like saying, like, oh, you know, what, actually, this thing that I've grown up with for 40, almost 44 years? Yeah, in that I like devoted my life to trying to raise my kids against and that I use as a as a litmus test, right to determine actions like all that, I'm gonna like, throw it throw out. That's terrifying. Yeah, so I do. Look, I do believe in it. I think I believe in it. I mean, I do believe in in that there's something special to the Bible, and I love studying it. But I'm also your question like, alright, but how much of my belief is, is there is there some facet of my belief, or how large it certainly is some facet, but how large a facet of it is just like the terror of what life would be like without that backstop?

Emily Shaughnessy: 32:13

I will say something that's interesting is my sort of beliefs about God, or how I would explain God have changed. But my inner experience of God, I don't think has changed since Yeah, since I was a little girl. Like, when I was in moments in church, when I truly felt like I was communing with God's Spirit, or when I was in his situation of service, or whatever it was, that kind of lit me up inside, or, you know, the Bible talks about when two or more are gathered in my name there I am also, so that experience of connecting with this other person in a spiritual way and feeling God present, that hasn't changed, you know, I still feel that way. And it's still feels the same way inside. To me, and it's kind of like these outer trappings, you know, and also, it's like, who knows how to explain God, right? It's like, giant mountain of a concept. And you've got your tiny little angle on it. And it's like, you know, who knows if it's, you look from this perspective, or that perspective, like we're, I think we're all looking at the same thing, right? If we're talking about God, and it's just people are taking, emphasizing different elements, pulling away different things, but I think ultimately, it's like, I believe it's all, the same spirit.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 33:26

Well, must be, that's what I mean. JD?

JD Stettin: 33:32

Yes. In conclusion, I think so no, I, in thinking about sort of the dying to be reborn and the letting go and the shedding of some of the ideas and customs and cultures and parts of oneself. I was talking to Kim about this last night, a little bit, Kim's my therapist,

Emily Shaughnessy: 33:57

JD and I have the same therapist.

JD Stettin: 33:59

It's very healthy, it's very healthy for both of us. It just tells me Morty, that you probably like her too, it's really good with the firstborn to try too hard. That's one of her sensitive, sensitive emotional firstborn to try too hard. I think as a specialty. I was just thinking something that comes up for me a lot with this is having felt so strongly and firmly in passionately and with so much against certainty about this, God and this way of life and this set of rules and all that at some point and then really losing that entirely going to be the opposite end of like, what was all this this is some kind of dish shunning. And it's not a it's not really part of me. There's a thread that I think emerged from there in my life of doubt, of doubting even my own convictions, their feelings or thoughts at any given point seeing how radically they could change how, for however many years in a row every morning when I've wrapped my, you know phylacteries and morning prayer, I really felt like so tuned in and connected and, and how, literally just one morning, my sophomore year of high school, it just that feeling was not there and was never there again. And it sometimes feels like a like a superpower, the ability to like question or doubt or be open to anything or or be open to dying in this way. And other times I do. I think I struggle with it. And, yeah, and the kind of openness I remember. And I may have said this at some point in the podcast, but my 10th grade Rebbi rep. I Mendelson, was fond of saying open mindedness is lovely, but you're too open minded your brains fall out, of course, they tend to this very, like conservative critique of a certain kind of thinking. But there's something to that and just felt like, you know, bringing that into this group into this conversation about I think, you know, Emily's, in the you were talking about being open to like always questioning and checking in and like, is this serving me? Is this true for me now and Morty your comment about, you know, good fences and good neighbors. And some of these boundaries or lines and the cult of personality that we live in, and the ways in which we define ourselves and walk through the world. And it just Yeah, it's sometimes feels like really a constant process of unknowing and undoing and checking back in and being willing to look back at however long a period or however large of a structure I've created of myself in my life and go hmm, I wonder if I really do still feel that way? Or maybe that's that's no longer the case. You know, you can't step into the same river twice, or as someone I think once quipped, or even once, really?

Emily Shaughnessy: 36:58

Yeah, and I, I do think it is sort of part of our human nature to want to define ourselves. And to do that by comparing and contrasting ourselves to others. And to kind of have that structure, you know, to your point, Morty, it does make us feel safe and good. And I think it is natural and normal, you know, in a lot of ways, and even Alan Watts talks about this background in the foreground on a paper, it's like, you need both to have the image, you can't have one without the other. So I think we do need that contrast. And we do need to know, notice the differences in ourselves and others and kind of what sets us apart. It is a bit of a conundrum. Like, I'm not going to come up with some profound solution to that don't think here on this podcast. But yeah, I think we're where I sort of see people maybe stepping a bit too far is then when you start kind of villainizing the other right, like, it's one thing to compare and contrast. And it's another to say like, well, we're different. And also also that's because I'm better or I'm the good one,

Mordecai Rosenberg: 38:00

Certainly that that's part of like human nature, right? I mean, that that idea of like us and then right, it only goes back probably as long as recorded human history exists. Right? Like it's, you know, it's been is isn't a new thing, right? It's been Yes, we can disagree with people across the globe. Right. But they've there have been tribes from the outset. Right, earliest homosapiens. Were going to war with Neanderthals, right? Or I think what we can do is we can be aware, maybe a starting point is like, let me just be aware of when I'm feeling the person across from me is other? Yeah, let me be aware of when I'm villainizing them, let's say, you know, the radical acceptance by Tara Brach, the radical acceptance of like, alright, well, let me just, it's a big ask to see that you shouldn't get angry when you see someone doing something that you find offensive, right? But let me start by just being aware of the fact that I'm angry about it. And then just like notice, right, and then I think probably like the path is first to notice that you're doing it, even though you will continue to act. The next thing is to notice it, and try not to act upon it. Right. And then over time, it starts to melt away. evolution takes a lot of time. So I think we also have to be patient with it to that point, you know, one question that I had before with with your neighborhood organization, like it's easy to feel like it's hopeless, right? Like, it's because yes, maybe you can turn around your block, right, but what about the next block over? And what about the city? And what about the country? And what about the world? But if we recognize that it's evolution, and it starts with one person, right? And if it's any, if you're doing it with two people or three people or 10 people, you're further you're moving down the curve, who knows how long it'll actually take, but it does feel like things are moving to me. It's just like, there's a lot with all of the separation and delimitation like to me it still feels like we're moving in the right direction. I like it would not agree I feel like the proof of that is this conversation that we're having now. Right? Because our parents could not have had this conversation. First of all, they may not have even been willing to like talk. It's like, well, no, I don't, you know, even the willingness to have a conflict conversation would have been a stretch, but the ability to relate to each other, that's something that I think would have really been impossible, right. And for us, I feel like just as we go along this like spiritual path, you develop this, this almost like this meta religion, religion is probably the not the right term. But it's this for me, I can relate to you, Emily, much more easily than a lot of people in my own synagogue to be seeing, seeing these pockets of awareness that are opening up and just how it starts, right? I mean, consciousness starts with the firing of neurons, and then it lights up things around it, you know, so we're all finding our way. But I feel like as we recognize that we're all finding our way the podcast is called guide from the perplexed. Yeah, we're perplexed. We don't have the answers. We don't know. And the more you search, the more clueless you discover that you are. But I feel like there's a lot of positive momentum in that regard.

Emily Shaughnessy: 41:11

Yeah, I agree. And I see a lot of this reflected in a lot of different thinkers and movements happening right now. That's very encouraging to me, because, again, yeah, I feel like culturally and societally this truth is emerging in different ways. There's a lot of different thinkers I could point to, but one that came to mind while you were talking, Morty is actually Valerie Carr and her she wrote, so you know, stranger, I know. JD, I think you were the one who originally recommended that book to me. But she talks about framing people not as enemies but as opponents, and she talks about how to love your opponents. And she talks about you know, how to love yourself first, and then your opponents and then the world this compass of revolutionary love, she calls it right. And that's very similar to like a lot of Dr. Martin Luther King's teachings and one of his, you know, principles of non violence of attack problems, and not people, you know, not framing other people as the enemy, but it's really the system that we're looking to change. So I think you can look across many different philosophies look at many different thought leaders. And you see people all again, kind of taking a different angle to the same sort of conclusion here. And that's very, very encouraging to me and I I do see it ramping up speed even in the past 5-10 years.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 42:25

Totally agree. Yeah, it's I recently read a book by Richard Rohr, I don't know if either of you have come across Richard Rohr, he's a Franciscan monk. So he wrote a book called Falling up. I mean, he's Franciscan. So obviously he's is practices religion is Christianity. And he talks about how in the Bible that Jesus had no problem sitting with sinners. Yeah, like it was, yeah, the prostitute and the moneylender, and the adulterers, like he had no problem sitting with them. You know, because it was, you know, they're still part of the same people. Yeah, this invention that we have of like, Oh, you do this, so therefore we can associate with you. That's, that's something that's a more modern religious invention. Here. We're rediscovering to me in terms of my own Jewish practice. I feel like I come at it. Yes. Like I might be doing me. I don't do everything that I did when I was growing up. Certainly differences, but my practice of it is very, is very different. So it's going on this exploration of learning new ways of thinking. Now, when I come back to prayer, right and wrapping the same phylacteries that JT mentioned, you know, now we grew up and we were told, okay, you have to say this, this and this in order for you to be able to check the box on your daily purification. Now, I might put on my like prayer shawl put on the to fill in on my head and my arm. And then I'll go sit on my meditation cushion and do a 20 minute meditation either on my own or guided, you know, by the Dalai Lama. And then I'll say a couple of short prayers in thats it. With any religion, your Romdas talks about your karma. And he's, you know, he was born Jewish, which Jews believe you can't really change. But he left that tradition and became Buddhist. But he still talks about how it was his karma to be born Jewish, and he has to that was intentional, right? There was something to that. So I feel like the way that we the way we were born like there still is a Karma there, there's value to it, it could be kind of getting back to that being reborn again, I guess when we talk about born again, Christians, it's a different meaning, but the idea but this is kind of a different idea of born again, virtual list where you can re approach your tradition based on this different understanding in different ways that you have seen the world. So that's a bit of how I've reconciled that.

JD Stettin: 44:53

Just thinking as we wind down here in our final few minutes of our shared conversation, Emily, if there are any currently ideas, books, thinkers, challenges, joys, like in your spirituality in your interpersonal relationships in your community work like today, February something getting out of 23? Like, what are the things that really like light up for you at the moment? Again, could be challenges could be delights, confusions, just kind of current temperature taking?

Emily Shaughnessy: 45:34

Great question, a lot of my energy has been going to the community organizing work, and especially Texas just had this giant ice storm, and we were out of power for days, some people just got it back like a week later. So my mind has been very much on that. And then also, I've been really involved in getting to know some of the unhoused neighbors who live actually in a park at the end of my street, you know, working with them, and just understanding that dynamic and situation more. And this isn't like, I don't know if this is inspirational, or it's not like really a resource for people. But I guess it's an answer to a question where, where my mind has just been a lot where my energy has been a lot. And I've been organizing groups of neighbors to sort of get together and talk about what is our response as a community to this, because I think the topic makes a lot of people deeply uncomfortable to the point where often the responses will just get them out of here, you know, just get them cleared out of the park, you know, we're not in my backyard. People don't want to confront all the ways that the systems we have in place really can fail people and homelessness is such this intersection of, you know, it's the housing crisis, it's the economic volatility, it's addiction issues, it's mental health issues, you know, it's a veterans, it's this intersecting point where, really like our, our programs, our government, our communities have led us down to the point where people have fallen through the cracks and are living in these, you know, pretty awful conditions to the point where some of them even prefer to live that way, or have been in it so long, they don't see any way out, I feel a little rambley, I'm gonna try. Back to your question. Where I'm at right now, you know, this week today, February 8, is very much in the discomfort of that very much in a questioning place of our systems really are failing in a lot of ways. And what do we do about that as individuals? And what do we do about that, as a community, also being with the fact that like, things might not changed, or they may take a long time to change being with this discomfort of like, it's so painful to see people in this position. And I have, you know, family members who struggle with addiction and things that, you know, brings up a lot for me personally. And so this place of like both being with and coming to this kind of uneasy acceptance, but then also like being inspired and motivated to change, take action, and what can sort of be done and what can be done at a grassroots level at a relationship level, that isn't just the government needs to come in and do something about this. But like, in getting to know some of these people in the camps, it's like, okay, forming that connection, forming that relationship, sort of reconnecting people into that mycelium network, you know, how can how can we start with that with relationship and then kind of build out from there? And then hopefully not even fix some of our systems? But how can we create new systems for being with each other that maybe replace some of these old ways of doing things that might be more more sustainable? And I think it all really comes back to humanizing people, loving people and connecting with them and getting them connected into the bigger network. So that is where my mind is. I don't know if that is what you were looking for.

JD Stettin: 48:57

That was great. And if people wanted to find out more about your nonprofit and community work, whether they live in Austin, want to get involved or just want, you know, inspiration for this kind of model, where where should they go?

Emily Shaughnessy: 49:10

Yeah, so you can check out www.wereallneighbors.org/ That is our website. We're also on Instagram, we're.all.neighbors. If you're interested in just kind of the asset based community development model. There's a great book called The Connected Community by John McKnight. I would also recommend the neighboring movement out of Wichita, Kansas. They're a nonprofit that is definitely some years ahead of us and has been doing great boots on the ground work there and also has some free online resources and courses and things for people who want to get more involved in their neighborhoods. So they're, they're a good one. I think it's just the neighboring movement.org.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 49:50

That's awesome. Yeah. Well, I definitely look forward to learning more. Thank you so much for sharing. It's really what you're doing is inspiring. I'm sure you're lighting up people are round you and you're leaving the earth a better place than how you found it. Thank you for your service.

Emily Shaughnessy: 50:05

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 50:09

All right until next time we'll talk soon

JD Stettin: 50:13

thanks okay bye guys