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This week's Life Note, when we really just need someone to sit on the bench

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with us, literally or figuratively.

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Music.

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Welcome to Life Notes from Chair 17, a podcast dedicated to sharing life stories,

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wisdoms and inspirations as we navigate life's journey.

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Host C.H. aims to share thoughtful perspectives and insights from her own life

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journey, as as well as those of special guests and contributors.

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Tune in for thoughtful conversations about lessons learned, wisdoms gained,

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experiences had, and inspirations shared.

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Find us where you get your podcasts and be sure to hit follow or subscribe so

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you never miss an episode. Now, enjoy this week's episode.

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All righty, welcome back in, friends, to another episode of Life Notes from Chair. I'm your host, CH.

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I thank you once again, as always, for finding me in this corner of the podcast universe.

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I always like to start off thanking our returning C17ers for your continued

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support and tuning in each week.

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This does include our returning international listeners. Thank you so much for checking us out.

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Across the globe. We sincerely appreciate it. But if you are tuning in for the

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first time, maybe you've just found us on one of the major podcast platforms

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or via our website out on lifenotesfromchair17podcast.com.

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A warm welcome in to you. Thank you for checking us out.

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We hope you like what you hear and you want to continue to tune in.

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So this episode follows our previous episode of Okay Not Being Okay.

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And I have received quite a bit of positive feedback on that episode,

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and it really seems to have landed with many of you in a good way.

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And as I try to craft the right balance of life stories to tell or to share on this podcast,

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and hopefully ones that can inspire or uplift or reassure or maybe offer some

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guidance or wisdoms, as we like to say.

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To share that particular one, which was my own struggle to be okay in a moment

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when I really wasn't, I am really humbled that it has resonated.

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And also to learn that either some of you are going through a very similar thing

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right now, or you have gone through a similar thing,

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which reinforces the importance of understanding we're not alone in our struggle.

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And that we do need to normalize sharing of these sort of okay not being okay story stories.

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To help to help us not feel like we're we're facing something in isolation and

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that there are folks out there that have gone through it and.

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Have come out on the other side and are

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or are going through it and sharing that

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it's it is not something to be ashamed

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of or afraid of and that we all have these life battles that we sometimes need

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to to face so it has been really a very it's a very humbling to have that feedback

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it's probably the episode that's given me the most feedback,

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which I appreciate.

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It also has made me think about my life mantra, or one of my life mantras,

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which is give yourself permission. And this idea that we do

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need to give ourselves permission to take care of ourselves with

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the same kindness and gentleness that we sometimes do for others and to be far

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less hard on ourselves in those moments of struggle in the same way we would

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ask someone else to also not be so hard on themselves.

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I don't know about you, but I do sometimes have to stop myself and go,

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hey, you know what? I think you need to give yourself permission too.

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If you happen to be one of those people that is really good at doing it both

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for yourself and for others, I tip my hat to you truly.

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I just happen to sometimes be way worse at that for myself than when I'm showing

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up to support someone in my inner circle.

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And all of this reflection has really led me to thinking about this concept that came to me.

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I feel like it's going on about 10 years now. It's probably a little older than

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10 years because it happened with a previous friend,

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Calico, who did it for me at a time when I didn't, I don't think I really understood

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it in the context that I did when my friend Sarah did this for me.

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It's an influence on my life of how now I choose to show up for others.

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So what they did for me, affects and has affected how I try to show up to help or support others.

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And I've called this concept, this friendship support concept, of sitting on the bench.

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And it did come my way within a couple of years of each other,

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but this particular instance is the one I'm going to refer to with my friend

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Sarah, who I still think about this story in this moment today.

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And it happened at a time when I was really fractured after having taken really

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one of the worst jobs I have ever held.

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It was the first time in my life where I was working in what I could say is

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a truly toxic working environment.

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I felt very persecuted. I I felt there was literally no protection for me as an employee.

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By the company for any mistreatment or verbal abuse or things that I witnessed

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that I knew was not okay and not right.

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And also that it just was so difficult to admit to myself that I had made such

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a huge mistake leaving a really good company to take this opportunity.

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And I knew that within 30 days. I missed so many red flags that I now know to look for about gauging not only

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company health, but like team health and the person that you might be working

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for, the team that you're going to be working with or in conjunction with.

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And in thinking about this, I actually do plan to do an episode about what is

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real distress that comes from finding ourself in an unhealthy working environment.

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But for this episode, what came out of this particular period for me was this beautiful,

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impactful level of friendship support that was very quiet and very still.

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Now, I will admit, my memory is slightly hazy because this particular period of time was a cluster.

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But I do remember when it sort of revealed itself to me because we were both

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sitting at a Seattle Mariners game and I just started crying out of nowhere.

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And clearly I was mentally saying to myself, okay, this is not good.

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I am not okay in this moment, but I cannot even articulate why I am not okay.

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I obviously know now, in hindsight and after a lot of processing and talking it out, that.

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It had to do with being really made to feel pretty horrible every single day I was going to work,

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and the fear that I faced walking through the door each day of not knowing what

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was going to be thrown at me, what I was going to witness, what I was going to observe.

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And in this particular moment, when I started just crying at what should have

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been a fun baseball game, Sarah's a massive softball baseball fan,

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I used to play softball, it It was our summer tradition that we would generally

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go to a Mariners game when she lived here in Washington.

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In that moment, she just sat with me.

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She listened to me cry. I do remember murmuring, I'm sorry, I don't know what is happening.

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And she just sat quietly, still.

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She had her arm either like on my shoulder or on my arm. She didn't start telling

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me all these things I needed to do or start lecturing me or making me feel less than or awkward.

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She just sat there, comforting, quiet, supportive, listening.

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Listening and somewhere in my ramblings

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I do remember hearing her voice

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say to me in the simplest way I want

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to help you what can I do and in that moment I couldn't necessarily articulate

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what that help was or what I

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needed and I think I might have even said something to this effect to her.

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But her response was brilliant because she said to me, you know what, that's okay.

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Let me just sit with you for a while.

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And so began, I think, really at that moment, a true understanding and appreciation of,

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this idea of literally or figuratively

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sitting with someone when they are going through

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a tough chapter and how much

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we may underestimate how

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important that can actually be and

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that at those times to really show up genuinely for someone in our inner circle

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it actually may require us to be

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still to be quiet to simply listen to not lecture or throw advice or throw,

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unnecessary positivity at someone, no father or mother knows best approach.

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We may really just need to see that person and to hear them in their moment of struggle.

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Not flinch, not turn away, not judge, not dismiss with the.

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Let me know what you need or it'll all be okay. Don't worry about it.

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Really just be super present as if we were sitting on the bench with them in a park.

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In this case, we literally were sitting side by side out in,

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I think it was left field in the Mariners game.

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And this has made me really double down on the concept of firewalkers, right? Right.

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The people that do what Sarah did for me or at a previous time in my life,

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I remember Calico doing it. And again, I'm not trying to, I feel like I should say this,

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this is not sort of a ranking of friendships. It's more of a ranking of moments in my life when I clearly remember some friends

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doing a type of support for me that I might not have experienced before and

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how it's shaped me going forward since then.

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And it is true, or it has been true,

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at least in my inner circle, that nine out of ten times, these folks who are

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willing to walk through all of our life fires with us are going to be the ones

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that do something like this. We talked about fire walkers in our walk through the fire episode.

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If you have not seen or listened to that one, go ahead and listen to it.

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It's something that I really believe very strongly.

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And that episode has also resonated with many of you.

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These folks are are sort of

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salt of the earth people and they are they are not going

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to flinch at the things that are difficult or

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scary or dark or all of the above they they tend to not be afraid to show up

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for us in our struggle and our challenge and i have found more often than not The reason this is true,

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at least as I say and share from my perspective,

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is because they have also gone through something similar and they have had to

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have or ask for or embrace a type of support like this for themselves,

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which then also influences how they continue to show up for others.

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So I reflect back on this particular moment with Sarah often,

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and I didn't know it actually at the time that even though she had asked me, how can I help?

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And I was not in a place to be able to articulate that.

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She had also started quietly thinking of ways to help me, and she did it on

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her own with and through this very present-in-the-moment, sitting-on-the-bench, gentle approach,

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and not what sometimes can be seen as...

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Nowadays, we call this a toxically positive approach,

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which can be when people, even who have the best of intentions and care a lot

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about us, they keep saying,

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it'll be fine, you know what, look on the bright side, cheer up, it's not that bad.

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It's sort of that overly rosy kind of talk, which can tend to lead those of

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us in the struggle to suppress those feelings of difficulty.

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And it may actually not allow us who are going through something hard or challenging

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to be able to really release and process what we are going through because we're

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hiding behind what is called this positive facade,

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which really isn't true and isn't genuine to how we are feeling in the moment.

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And this can sometimes come from people that are very close to us,

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and it's because maybe they don't understand or they've never had to support

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someone who really needs a different kind of support.

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And so they're doing what they know, but sadly, it may not be the right way

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to approach being there for that person.

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And in Sarah's case, and in this particular moment, I remember that she was

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asking if it would be okay if she called some people for me to book some appointments

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or if she could pick some stuff up for me.

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And it was really in that moment, a type of friendship support that was so powerful

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And so impactful and genuine.

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And I did so appreciate that the onus was not on me, the person going through

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the toughness and the struggle.

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To define the help because I was in a state of mind where I really couldn't articulate that.

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We talked about that too in our Walking Through the Fire episode.

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Sometimes when you say to someone, let me know what you need,

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they don't even know what they need. So how are they going to tell you that?

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And I did seriously appreciate how much she stayed away from what we would call

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all toxically positive. She just saw me, she heard me, she was willing to be present,

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tears and all, and really allowed me to be okay not being okay.

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And it's made me think about how and when was the last time that someone in

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our inner circle showed up and heard us, saw us,

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that really sat with us on that bench that really was just the voice on the other end of the line.

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They were not telling us what to do or how to do it or, you know,

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just to buck up and be positive,

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but instead they were just reassuring us that they were there in the moment

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to sit with us and go through it,

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whatever it is and it's

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also made me really reflect on how tempting

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it can sometimes be to want to jump in and

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start offering all sorts of ways

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to help someone to do xyz or

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abc and it can maybe even be overwhelming to

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that person again because sometimes they aren't quite there They don't know

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what it is or it can just seem as if all of this is coming at them in a place

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where they can't process and they can't quite get to that level of accepting what's coming to them.

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But they might, just not right then. And as our good friend Colleen has said.

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You know, it's important to remember we are really all walking wounded and we

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all have something that's going on underneath our surfaces that shapes how we

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react to the challenges of our path and the people in our in our life.

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And I think it's important to remember that we can't always assume that we think

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someone should do something because we think they should.

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Versus what is actually best for them.

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And I also think we can't assume that someone in a really low moment will be

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able to articulate what they need. So we have to be mindful, I think, not to bombard folks in those tougher moments

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with, it'll be fine, you'll be better soon, don't worry about it, everything works out.

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Because depending on how that hits the person and where they are at in their

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level of processing, that could maybe do more harm than good.

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Even if that is coming from a really good place, someone really close to us,

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someone that we really love and the intent is good.

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It can at times, I think, land shallow for someone in the throes of struggle.

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And so I share this because I can't tell you how many times I do continue,

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even today, to think back on this moment with Sarah, how that has actually influenced

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how I think about showing up for people.

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Her quiet show of support in that moment really did have an important and significant

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impact both then and now. And really to have this concept be very important.

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I think how I carry myself with those in my inner circle is really sometimes

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we just need to sit on the bench.

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We don't need to tell them anything. We don't need to say anything.

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They just need to know we are there. They just need to know we are listening.

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They need to know they're not alone.

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They need to know we aren't going anywhere. And if the time comes,

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we support them in the way that does not put the onus on them to define.

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We simply hold that space in that moment literally or figuratively for both

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them and for us from the bench.

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So there you have it. But if you have had this happen to you or you have had

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a friend support you in this kind of way, I'd love to hear about it.

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Feel free to share that story because I do think it's a beautiful way to think

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about friendship in a quiet, still, listening, be present, see and hear kind of way.

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And with that, I ask you as always to be kind to yourself.

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Take it one hour at a time, one day at a time.

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And I will see you next time.

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Music.