Can we truly know when to trust someone, or is it a leap of faith every time? Join us, Liz and Rachel, on a heartfelt journey dissecting the delicate fabric of trust in our latest episode. We kick things off with a reflection on the innocent utterance "good morning" and how even this simple phrase hinges on an unspoken trust that the day will unfold positively for us all. From there, we unfurl stories close to our hearts, like the one about a friend navigating the choppy waters of bureaucracy as a new dance teacher and the undervaluation of educators in today's world, to drive home the complexities of trust in professional realms.
This candid conversation wades through the sometimes murky waters of religious trust, with a special focus on the dynamics within Independent Fundamental Baptist culture. Here, we unpack the innocence of youth group fundraising escapades alongside the bigger questions of financial transparency. The stark contrast between our naive trust in the system versus the underlying reality provides a poignant backdrop to our broader exploration of how trust shapes our interactions, beliefs, and the decisions we make.
To wrap up, we reflect on the significance of trust as an actionable attribute, sharing our own lessons learned from broken promises and career frustrations. This episode isn't just about sharing our tales; it's about inviting you to consider how the presence or absence of trust has sculpted your life's narrative, the friendships you cherish, and your approach to the world at large. Tune in for an episode that promises to stir reflection and maybe even inspire a change in how you navigate the tightrope of trust in your own life.
Thanks for listening!
Can we truly know when to trust someone, or is it a leap of faith every time? Join us, Liz and Rachel, on a heartfelt journey dissecting the delicate fabric of trust in our latest episode. We kick things off with a reflection on the innocent utterance "good morning" and how even this simple phrase hinges on an unspoken trust that the day will unfold positively for us all. From there, we unfurl stories close to our hearts, like the one about a friend navigating the choppy waters of bureaucracy as a new dance teacher and the undervaluation of educators in today's world, to drive home the complexities of trust in professional realms.
This candid conversation wades through the sometimes murky waters of religious trust, with a special focus on the dynamics within Independent Fundamental Baptist culture. Here, we unpack the innocence of youth group fundraising escapades alongside the bigger questions of financial transparency. The stark contrast between our naive trust in the system versus the underlying reality provides a poignant backdrop to our broader exploration of how trust shapes our interactions, beliefs, and the decisions we make.
To wrap up, we reflect on the significance of trust as an actionable attribute, sharing our own lessons learned from broken promises and career frustrations. This episode isn't just about sharing our tales; it's about inviting you to consider how the presence or absence of trust has sculpted your life's narrative, the friendships you cherish, and your approach to the world at large. Tune in for an episode that promises to stir reflection and maybe even inspire a change in how you navigate the tightrope of trust in your own life.
Thanks for listening!
We are live. Good morning. Good morning, is it a good morning?
Speaker 2:I feel like we start that every time. Is it a good morning.
Speaker 1:I think about this all the time and it should not take over my brain waves this much, but it does, and I don't know why. But I think about the fact that we say well, in Spanish too, right, they say good day. And we say good morning, good afternoon. And that is wrong. We should be saying is it a good day, is it a good morning? Not forcing a good morning onto you. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:When your children are yelling at you and you haven't gotten enough sleep and you're exhausted. No, that's like you're gonna have a good morning no matter what. And I'm like, no, I probably won't, I'm just barely like hanging by a thread.
Speaker 2:No, Literally some days oh, today's one of those days for me Hanging by a thread, hanging by a thread, yep, okay, so I'm Liz, I'm Rachel, thank you.
Speaker 1:You're Rachel.
Speaker 2:Most days. Yeah, yeah, welcome to our podcast. Padcast he Padcast, the Padcast, the Padcast. Oh, I'm working on some music for our podcast.
Speaker 1:Okay, I have. Clearly we're not getting any help. I know we need to talk about this off air for a second because I have some really good ideas, but I have forgotten to send them to you. Excellent, because my brain is so scattered this week. I literally I, to use your word literally feel like I have the attention span of like a nap and I'm like I can't like one thing. I have a no, ah.
Speaker 2:I have the same lately. I swear the older I get, the worse. It's so bad. Focus is hard, focus is very hard. Well, our podcast outlives that 100% my focus issue. What are we talking about? Yeah, I don't remember. Oh, dear God, okay, okay, okay. So, um, today, today, what are we talking about? To find this? Trust, trust.
Speaker 1:Trust Mm. Hmm, and that's a big one. It is a big one. We tackle the big ones, we just go right in, just dive in Right in 50 feet down already. Yup, no, I think that the reason I was thinking of trust is, like, um, the correlation between, like cult, really deep religion, faith movements and their trust in what they're being told Right Can't be questioned. Right, that's faith, that's what they consider faith, yes, yes.
Speaker 2:Okay. Well, anybody who believes in God is faith, not trust.
Speaker 1:Well, but you're trusting that your spiritual self is um correct in assuming that this is a thing Right. You're trusting the church. Every relationship is built on trust.
Speaker 2:That is 100% true. Including your religious organization or your spiritual self to the spiritual, your job, it could come with your job. It can come with any types, for sure.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, yeah, I just this just reminds me. This is a perfect example and I did not even think of it until right now Um, one of my girlfriends. So I went to the Bay Area this past weekend to hang out with some girlfriends and I met up with so a girl that I went to my graduate program with and she's now a mom and she's got two kids and she's gorgeous. She does after approving dance, um, and she started working for Oakland Unified School District as a dance teacher. So just recently, like within the past year, california passed some legislation that funds arts in all public schools.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So but yeah, and that includes like paying teachers that dance teachers, music, right, right, right. And I'm like this is amazing because it's usually always overlooked and you know they have like some. Well, that's the first thing to go.
Speaker 1:First program to go is the art, and I'm like no, no, no, actually every single kid should have a dance education. But so that's the good news. And so Oakland Unified School District hired nine dance teachers, which are split across all their schools. So like she'll teach it like two, two sites or whatever. And then, right, they kind of split them up. Yeah, Um, she started and I'm like why are we having a teacher shortage? This exactly. But the trust level that she had to exercise, I'm like you know, holy hell, I would have quit like the first day, Right. And she had to wait almost seven weeks for her first paycheck because HR department couldn't figure out how to get them on payroll.
Speaker 2:So like, all these, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1:Yes, All these new hires rolled in right, Not just dance but a couple other ones too, Like I guess the like the front desk girl, attendance lady or you know off front office, yeah, had the same problem. She had to wait like eight weeks to get her first paycheck.
Speaker 2:But basically.
Speaker 1:HR just screwed up. So my girlfriend is like you know, after, and they pay you once a month, right, okay? So you know, the first month goes by and she's like I don't have a paycheck, you know. And so she's you know. Of course it's this bureaucratic nightmare to try and figure out what went wrong or what's going on?
Speaker 1:And did they actually quote unquote hire her and is her contract, it's all these legal things? And she, just she was like, I was like this, close to walking out the door, I was like, oh honey, I would have just protested and not showed up and been like I'll show up as soon as you send me my paycheck, because Right, exactly.
Speaker 1:But, that level of trust where you're like, I don't know, I've been working for a month and a half and I haven't seen a single dime of my paycheck, and I was just blown away. And then I'm like, yeah, and we wonder why we can't like we don't have enough teachers and you know, while they're underpaid, obviously they may get paid, we don't know. Kind of, but that level of, but you know, she was like, well, I didn't wanna leave the kids. And I'm like, yeah, that's every good teacher is like yeah, we don't wanna like screw over the kids, we're still gonna do our job. But at the same time it's like, yeah, but we still have to make money and that's just you do still have to support yourself.
Speaker 2:You do not wanna be on the street.
Speaker 1:She's got two kids. I'm like, oh my God, I don't know how you did that, but that was a you know, that's a trust. You have a trust that when you go to work you're gonna get paid. You have a trust that you know when you get into your car it's not gonna. You know like breaks aren't gonna fail, you know.
Speaker 2:Right right.
Speaker 1:There's trust in like every single daily activity.
Speaker 1:But I thought, in terms of our podcast and then our you know book coming forthcoming, is that we need to like break down that idea of trust and what its relationship is to.
Speaker 1:So we got our trust broken I mean 100% Like in so many different areas, like our figures of authority, our relationship to any kind of spiritual or religious organization or higher being or Right yes, our just basic structure and organization of our life. You know, in our circumference of our world, it was all just shattered, and so I thought it would be interesting, like to define for you, or we can talk about it, defining what it was like in, you know, the cult, what it was like trying to, so defining that, and then also defining like, or how to, what we did coming out of that cult, to reestablish trust in some of those relationships, because it is directly related to that deep, deep level we had when we were formidable in our younger years For sure, growing up that this was infallible, it was the one and only that's what you do and this was the one, and only authority.
Speaker 2:And you were not. Yeah, and you were not allowed to question the trust Like you were not-.
Speaker 1:So that's part of it.
Speaker 2:Though that's part of the define, yeah, it's just like the trust you were expected to trust. No matter what, I think trust is earned.
Speaker 1:It should be earned. We discussed this a little bit like with when we talked about forgiveness and yeah, right, that sort of thing, same idea where Sure you do give trust or you place your trust into something with you know, a contract or an unspoken agreement, you know like faith, you have faith. They're almost interchangeable Faith is a spiritual connotation and trust is sort of relational.
Speaker 2:I think faith is believing in something you can't see. Trust can be broken. You know what I mean. I guess your faith can be broken too, but you're trusting a person, Right that's what I mean. So trust has more and believing in something you can't see or explain.
Speaker 1:Right. But faith is also something, or trust is something you can't see or explain, but you have the evidence of it based on your interpersonal relationships.
Speaker 2:Well then, I guess people would say faith is the same Right, because they say, well, god did this for me, like this is his proof that he is, you know, doing this in my life, or whatever. So, or he provided, I mean we could say that with like when we were struggling to eat and we would find food in the dumpster. We were like, oh, thank God, he let us find food in the dumpster.
Speaker 1:Anyone in any other period of time would understand how batshit crazy that is. The thing about faith and science that just continually challenges my belief in humanity is the fact that and I've heard it said over and over again in some podcasts and some things If we destroyed all the science books today, every single one of them, nobody believed in science anymore. Right, in another 100 years or 100,000 years we would have the same exact science books, because the theorems hold up, the math holds up. That is known. It is in our universe. That is known. We could recreate every single scientific theory gravitational pull, right.
Speaker 2:Well, not theory scientific facts, Facts?
Speaker 1:well, they're theories. They're theories because, right, we're constantly learning more but the same the scientific method. Yeah, the scientific method would come up time and time immemorial. It would always come back the same. If we took every single religion out there today Islam, judaism, christianity, catholicism, any of them and we burned everything, we threw it all away, guess what? It would never come back the same. Now would we find some other way of expressing it or doing it in a different?
Speaker 1:yeah, absolutely, but not the same. It wouldn't right. All it is is just an idea and it's basically monkeys throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks, and that's how-?
Speaker 2:Well, and that's why there's so many versions of different things? Yeah, that's not bad shit.
Speaker 1:Crazy it is, though it is just it is so predatory in terms of our human vulnerabilities for something bigger than us because of our mindset that is based on trust and based on. We need something bigger than us to believe in to live with our miserable lives when I'm like, yeah, but we have science, let's, you know, coal half the population figure out how to make this planet not die. Well, humanity, the planet's gonna be fine. I'm gonna sneeze.
Speaker 2:Okay, are you though?
Speaker 1:It was right there.
Speaker 2:It was there. It was there Right there. All right, I saw it.
Speaker 1:Okay, anyway. But the trust thing, though, is in religion. I feel it's predatory because there, the evidence that we think we get from that faith right, or the trust in that, is in our own damn minds. There is no personal relationship Like I trust that you're my sister and like you're going to tell me the truth, right, and you're going to call me out on my bullshit and you're going to right. And if I say I'm going to meet you, you know, in the morning for a podcast phone call, I will, and that's evidence of our trust, right, we got on the phone call, we did this, yes. Then it's constantly reinforced that, okay, there's our trust, or our faith in each other that we're going to do the things we say we're going to do. Same thing with the job, but in religious context, I feel like it gets. Any evidence of that is all internally we created ourselves, and that is not, that is not trust. You know, that's like you. You just said it like something that's not there and we can't see, and then that's right.
Speaker 2:Well, that's, that's God, for you know most religions. You can't physically see him, right, you know. So that's what I mean by faith and trust. But also people say they trust in God, or they trust that God will do this, or God will heal them, or you know these types of things, so they're believing that because maybe they've heard of somebody else that has that has done that before. You know, like he's healed somebody else, or you know, and it, if you don't believe in God at all, it could be just a scientific thing that you know your body created this thing that made you immune or fixed the problem. You know, or you ate differently, and it fixed the problem. So people can contribute it to whatever they want to believe. I think that it boils down to basically how you believe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So quick side note Sure, someone sent us an email, yeah, and I know that Never got it. I know, yeah, I know this it never came through.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking maybe they sent it to sister, declassified, or sisters.
Speaker 1:Well, the other thing is I said, well, why don't you just forward it to my personal, because it's someone I know? And they said they did, but I was like I still haven't gotten it. So that's ongoing, but anyway, let's so, liz, since you're supposed to be the defined as person, I know I talked a lot there. What is what did trust look like for us in IFB culture growing up? So what did it look like? Give us an example. Did you, did you? And you already said it was unquestionable.
Speaker 2:I mean you weren't allowed to say it out loud in our minds and in my mind, especially at the age of my abuse, I believed that this person that I trusted was not somebody I could trust any longer. That was a trust breaking moment, okay.
Speaker 2:So that's a trust breaking moment, yeah, and then I'm trying to think of like actual trust scenarios. You know, I trusted that what they told me that I had to be there or God was not going to forgive me, whatever, um, I mean, I, we were there, mom made us go there was no actual. I think when you're a child you're not really given as many opportunities, necessarily free will, to trust. We were not, yeah Well, we definitely weren't, um, but I don't, because your parents are the ones telling you what you have to do and who you have to go with and they may trust them, you know, but as a child you don't really. I just trusted that and while I trusted my mom right, you know, we trusted mom I trusted that mom was, mom, knew what she was doing. I mean raising three children on her own, with the help of a cult.
Speaker 1:Um takes a village, I think it takes a cult.
Speaker 2:The cult's not the answer.
Speaker 1:Um well, here let me ask you this list, okay, um, cause I think, okay, uh, bigger and better, okay, no, you remember that that whole thing, bigger and better, yeah, remember what we did? Okay. So, my God, okay, there's, there's. There's a couple of things there. One is the trust that you put in, like going into the physical neighborhood and talking to people that you weren't going to get harmed, or right. There's implicit trust that's already given and taken there. So that's one thing, talk about that. And then the second part of that in trust is that once we did that thing, the bigger and better. I'm going to explain this for you listeners. Liz is going to in just a minute. Um, but I'm I'm guiding you because I think this is what we're talking about. So there's the trust in in the actual doing of that fundraiser. And then the second part of that is the trust that, okay, well, we just got all this money and we give it to you. Yeah, for X, y, z, that was a trust Okay.
Speaker 1:Okay, so talk about that, because nobody knows what we're talking about right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Okay, so what was it? This is probably from seventh grade on for both of us. We were in a youth group that, um, we trusted the leaders, you know, um, and we would have fundraisers to go on trips. Because we went on probably one to two trips a year. We would go to Indiana, we would go, I mean we would go on like road trips, like with a yellow bus. We trusted that that bus was going to get us the X there.
Speaker 1:It's exactly what you guys think. It is too yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, we drive, you know, thousands of miles on this, on these buses that they had purchased for like a thousand dollars back in the day, you know. But anyway, um, we would do fundraisers and we would go to from house to house. So we would go up to the first house and we would say hi, we are from la la la, I'm a cornerstone Baptist church youth group and we are having a fundraiser and we are wondering if you have something in your house that you would give us for free.
Speaker 1:Um yeah, it can be correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't they start us all out with like a dozen eggs?
Speaker 2:No, because that was an egg. It's on, okay, okay, so bigger and better. So you would say, I want something from your house. I mean we had multiple fundraisers, but um was something from your house that you would give me for free. So I mean I would be like, okay, let me think about this. So I mean we would get a pen or we would get sometimes. Sometimes people would give us $10, you know well. Then you took whatever they gave you and most people they're like beggars get off my porch.
Speaker 2:We're pretty freaking good about doing this fundraiser. So then we would go to the next house and we would say, hi, we're from cornerstone back to search youth group and we're trying to raise money to go to a youth conference and we would like to see if you have something bigger and better than this. Whatever it was this pen or this, you know $10. And so it would go like that until you got something pretty freaking massive, like I remember one time we got like furniture, toilet. You'll get all these things and then we would like sell them to make the money. So the total wasted time Now the egg is on was a better money maker, which is what we started doing after the bigger butter, which what we would do is we would start out with an egg and we would go to house and we would say, hi, give our spiel again, we're wondering how much you will give us for this egg.
Speaker 2:And they would give you an amount of money. And you go to the next house and you're like hi, I just sold my last egg to your neighbor. Do you have an egg? I can have. And then you would take that egg and you would go to the next one and sell it. Those were good. Good, I was a better fundraiser, although in this day and age I think if kids went out and did that, people would be like what the hell they get the cops called on them. Oh yeah, we did get the cops called on us before. I mean it was kind of interesting and a lot of people would participate. We did raise quite a bit of money doing that, but when we're done with the fundraiser, we would have two girls at a time, so there was two girls and two boys together in these groups that would go from house to house and I mean we are like these naïve handmaid's tail dressed.
Speaker 2:Yes, covered from head to toe. Here is our covering covered our ears, you know all of the things. And we looked innocent as S and it was like it was like men and I had no fear. We trusted that these people were going to give us trust. Trust, yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, no, no, no. And there was like I don't think any of us will at least you and I, I know for sure Like we never went out with any fear that, no, that somebody would a deny us I mean, every once in a while we get rejected but we trusted that people were going to do this, they were going to participate. We also trusted like nobody was going to hurt us, like we weren't going to get kidnapped.
Speaker 1:We were going to get harmed by dogs or you know, right, there was there was some absolute trust given there. Absolutely, that was out of complete naivety. Yes, just stupidity, basically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we would hand over our money at the end of the day to the leader and think, oh, this is amazing, this is going to go towards our trip.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty sure a lot of that money went in pockets. Oh yeah, because of the way our trips went, we would have 12 people in a room, you know everybody's hotel room, one hotel room. Yeah, we would eat in a better jelly from the local food bank. Yeah, yeah, I mean. And there was a car wash, I remember, where we raised $10,000. We had a car wash where we raised $10,000. We did that every weekend For the entire, you know, summer. Yeah, many, many, many months, and I mean just the thousands of dollars. The fundraiser you and I went on where we trusted that they would pay our trip. My sister and I did a fundraiser on our own because nobody else showed up. We raised several thousand dollars from our family, family, friends. We just trusted that they were going to do that. I think mom had less trust than we did. After we got through a few times, oh yeah, but we, we would go on these trips and we thought, oh, it's because of our hard work, but I'm pretty sure that not much of that money actually went into.
Speaker 1:No, there was no. No, there was no fiscal transparency.
Speaker 2:There was no accountability for that money and it was a literal shit show, Because then when we the trip would come up, they'd be like, oh, everyone needs an additional $250. $300.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and basically what they used to buy peanut butter and jelly and white bread.
Speaker 2:Yes, Loppy Joe's, or gas, or gas. Do you remember eating all the cereal, expired cereal and milk? Oh my gosh, they would go. There was a food bank in our, in our town that was. It was 17 cents a pound, yeah, and they would go there to go to the food.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, it's because it was a nonprofit. Yes, fuck churches. For that, they would go buy bulk foods at 17 cents a pound because they were, you know church, non taxable, and then, yeah, they would feed us with that shit, which we basically paid twice for.
Speaker 2:Right For four or five times.
Speaker 1:So the trust there, though, was kind of yeah, there was a lot of trust.
Speaker 2:We trusted that they were putting the money in this thing and we were going to have this awesome trip. We trusted that there was. You know, that we were not going to be harmed from going door to door. I mean we did that in our soul winning efforts as well. Yeah, go up to strangers on the street, go down to speak with all the homeless people, which I don't think that homeless people are nest, are scary. You know what I mean. But as young, naive children, we were going up to people who you know, possibly could be on drugs, possibly could intoxicated, whatever. There was so many things. We had no fear. We trusted that this is what we were supposed to do and our leaders had told us what we were supposed to do and we were going to talk to these people and save their souls and we were, we just we trusted 100% that we were safe. Yeah, this is going to be fine.
Speaker 1:Right, so, and that's sort of what it was like, I mean, throughout our upbringing in that. So, there was always an implicit, you know, amount of trust that, without really even being aware of it too much, that we gave Sure and we put into it without question yeah.
Speaker 2:So what is your experience? Or what do you think? Moments where you knew you trusted something?
Speaker 1:Not so much. I think I distrusted everything from the very get go. Yeah, I was always questioning stuff. Um, I do think that I I certainly had that. I feel like every time we went out like soul winning or went on a fundraiser, I had to like pull out a personality Fair enough, meaning I didn't want to go. I didn't think this was on the up and up. I was kind of doubting you know, whether I really wanted to do it or not if I was absolutely in or not.
Speaker 1:Same thing with the car washes. But then you kind of like you put on a face Like when you meet relatives you really don't want to fucking see and you kind of have to just like throw on the face and pretend you're interested in what they have to say and act like you give a shit and yeah, just don't. So there's a personality that you kind of have to throw a persona right. Yeah, someone outside of yourself who you're not. So you're projecting who you think you should be for that situation in a fundraiser. So you kind of create that personality. And I'm not talking about like woo, woo, crazy. I'm listening to voices in my head. Yeah, I'm not saying that you have to fake it till you make it. Yeah, sort of go through the motions until it. You know you see some success and then you're like, okay, it's kind of working, all right, fine, yeah.
Speaker 2:I remember the first time I remember my trust being broken. I mean, the trust being broken was in I think I was in fourth or fifth grade and One of my teachers told us something that we were going to do and we all got excited about it, of course raise money. You know the whole thing. We were selling candy bars, I believe at the time World's famous chocolate bars, yep.
Speaker 2:and then she said the the person who sold the most was getting a hundred bucks and she didn't give me a hundred bucks and I sold most. So and I remember being so angry and so pissed about that and mom was just like you know, maybe you misheard the thing or whatever you know, because mom always tended to take the side of authority, which I don't necessarily think is. I mean, I think she was taught. A lot of parents, I think a lot of parents do that. I don't necessarily think it's the correct way to do that all the time, no, but there are also the parents who only believe their child and their child is full of shit and they take their side no matter what. So there are both extremes. But I remember that and that was like the first time I was just like, oh my gosh, I worked my ass off.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were super young going door to door selling wrapping paper and you know stuff out of a catalog that I found in the mail. We had a lot of trust in people. But I remember the candy bars we sold out. I had you as my health, you know unwilling participant. We sold it out of Safeway Pick and Save All the stores. Safua, and you know, sold candy like every waking hour after school and church, you know so, and I sold the most, and it was a fundraiser for the school which, there you go again. They didn't pay their teachers crap. So who was getting all that money? You know? Mind blowing, mind blowing Anyway, I mean.
Speaker 1:and those are all yeah, those are all traits of classical behavior, though, is like, yeah, you put it, pour everything into it with this promise of something, and then, yeah, it doesn't materialize quite the way you want to do, and then, all of a sudden, you know, but then you're roped in again for something that's even bigger and better, and yeah, kind of a pattern.
Speaker 2:So we kind of know what trust is and then so we need to go into like how to trust, which I think goes back to how did we learn to trust, or how did we, you know, after?
Speaker 1:one thing, one thing I don't think that. So I think this goes back to accountability and actions, actionable accountability so there was. We weren't given the choice to trust, we were forced to trust, so we were never allowed to extend that or to actually do that For me. I just don't think I ever did, I don't think I trusted anything, and I think that had more to do with, like dad, that that whole thing, because that was really early in my development and that definitely set a tone for the you know most of my life and I think in chunks of my life, you know, I've I've gone to where I was like, oh, I can do this, I can trust this person, this relationship, this you know company, this organization, this boss, this right education system, whatever, and then forget at times that trust is based, it's, it's a, it's an action.
Speaker 1:It is a constant back and forth of I'm going to say I'm going to do this and then I do it, and then you're going to say you're going to do this and then you do it, and that builds right a foundational structure of trust which, you know, the the wider and the bigger and the stronger the foundation it is, the harder it is to knock down. So if somebody fails you once you know, and you have this massive structure, you know, I think of it like a pyramid of some kind, you have this massive structure underneath it. Well then, maybe it just knocks off the top third of that structure because you have a lot of actionable accountability underneath. That makes you secure in that, even if you lose a little bit.
Speaker 2:And then you break a little bit of trust and still have trust in somebody.
Speaker 1:Right, and and since I mean so, I think probably more subconsciously than I even want to admit right, I'm probably more conscious of it than I'd like to admit yeah, also is that I keep track. I mean, I do, I keep track If you're, if I'm in a relationship and they're not being accountable by their actions. Yeah, trust is action, just like love is action. Yeah, your words don't mean shit to me. You can tell me, because that's what we were taught. We were taught that words are trust and I'm going to tell you I'm going to do this, oh, but then I'm not going to do it. Oops, that's not trust, that's not love, that's not care. That is the absolute opposite of that. So for me, I'm like don't tell me anything, show me, always. Show me. If you really believe that, then show me. You know, if you show up for me and you show me that's what you're doing, then I'm going to believe you and I'll start to think about trusting you. So for me, the trust is it's so much more work on your part and my part. You have to trust me too. So I need to show up, I need to be accountable and I need to make sure I'm investing in the trust that you're giving to me and you need to do the same for me. So it is a back and forth, just like love. You know you can't say you love someone and then never show up for them. You can't say you trust someone and then constantly right Undermine that by not showing up. And I mean, of course, there's always extremes, you know you always have. Okay, well, I had a, you know, mental breakdown, like our last week's podcast. You know there are some times that I'm not capable of showing up and I know that. But you know what? I'll tell you that I'm not capable right now. I am just not here.
Speaker 1:One thing I think in my adult life, especially later in my adult life, so, and what I mean is this after roommate four, well, about when roommate four was in, like starting to get older in high school, she got her independence, she started driving, you know, and then between that point, kind of a now is my adult relationships, and particular it's not male or female, it's just adult friendship relationships is that I've even noticed it myself where I'm just not showing up sometimes, right, and I'm like, well, what is that? I'm not trying to parse it out, you know what is it, yeah. And then I think a lot of it goes back to the fact that, well, a lot of my adult relationships, you know, some of them don't have kids or they've never had kids or they're not going to have kids. And there are a few there are probably three maybe outside of, like you right that have showed up for me like throughout that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I don't have that show upness from the rest of them when I was a single mom and like I'm in a bind and I'm having a hard time, but nobody ever really like, right, those, those few and far between ones, I tend to show up more for them and I know that that sounds a little crass, but at the same time it's because there's not a trust layer built yet. Yeah, now, that is also as much my fault as it is my friends that I, you know, I'm like, why am I just not showing up? Well, sometimes it's just work, I'm exhausted, sometimes it's, you know, I just want like a moment to myself to not fucking be around people, right.
Speaker 2:You know, right.
Speaker 1:But then I'm like looking at that a little more closely and I'm like, ok, is it that I don't trust them? I don't think so. I think it's that I don't feel like they trust me and, right, there's a, there's a correlation there between the two. So why am I not showing up for them? Right, is it me or is it them? And you know, I think it's better both Little bit of call me, little bit of call me. But how do I trust I? Look at what you do, I don't listen to what you say, and I think that's probably the biggest thing that you and I learned from growing up in that experience is you can say whatever you want, you can be the smoothest talker, which all of them oh my God, all of them were silver-tongued.
Speaker 1:You know oh yeah, politicians, if we want to break it down, yeah, so they would say what you needed to hear at the time to make you do exactly what they wanted you to do Manipulation, you know, mind fucking sliding to the hilt.
Speaker 1:So for me, I love words. I am absolutely going to listen, and especially if it's someone I do have trust with. Yeah, I need to hear words of affirmation, I need to hear you know things. But I am going to listen to those, take them to heart. But then watch what the fuck you do, yeah. So what are you doing? If you're not doing things, then, no, I'm sorry, go the fuck away Like I don't have time for that anymore. Yeah, and so I've lost a lot of friendships over the years because of that.
Speaker 2:Actions, oh my God, so much better than words. I think my last job gave me PTSD from the cult. I mean, I'm serious. I could see that as it was happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so you know the manipulation, the mind control the try and take all of your time.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean. That kind of stuff and getting so wrapped up in it. That was I mean, and I didn't see it until I'm outside of it. So can a job be a cult? Maybe, I don't know. I think people get like too involved in their job sometimes. I think it's okay to love your job, but I don't think that, being 24, 7. I mean we were on trips and I could not freaking quit working. I mean you remember, yeah, yeah, so definitely. So working for myself is definitely the way to go. I don't think that I can work for someone else. I have too much loyalty, I think I. I think that's one thing that I've never got ready for. I've never been ready for that. I think that's one thing that I've never got rid of in loyalty and trust, kind of our hand in hand a little bit.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, I think. I think that's true and I think that you're much, you're much better at giving trust and giving loyalty, like immediately and liberally. Yeah, I do give every, I do. I think that's one thing that I think is important to me is that I tend to. I think we both are this way where I will give you the benefit of the doubt until you prove me wrong.
Speaker 1:but you prove me wrong once especially if it's early in a relationship of any kind. I'm talking about employment relationship, right, yeah Right, any of those things, friendships, I think that's. One thing that I would say is that if you're in a relationship with your actions, then I'm out. I'm much more able to just go. No that, no sorry, because yeah, and I wouldn't say I've been burned more than you Not at any way, shape or form, but I do think it's because I was probably.
Speaker 2:A different way of looking at the world than I do and also I am more trusting than you are, I think. Just in general, I think that's true. I remember when I had kids and I thought I don't fucking trust anybody with my kids and I definitely was a little bit of a crazy overprotective mother for a long time until my kids started getting older and then I still tried to do that, but they were extremely good at because I was so overprotective at hiding and sneaking, you know, doing so many things that I would have never allowed. All kids are like that to some degree, yeah, but I mean, I think that mine got really fucking good at because, like you know, I hear stories now. I'm like holy shit, like it's kind of scary, but it is actually very scary.
Speaker 2:But the overprotectiveness, you know, I saw something on Facebook the other day and it said I would rather be the overprotective mom than the sorry mom and I'm like sometimes it doesn't fucking help. It doesn't help. Well, the sorry mom, yep, so anyway, but I don't think you can trust anybody and I don't think you should trust anybody until they prove themselves to you. They need to build that and you need to do that with other people too. Yeah, it goes both ways. It is a two-way street. With any, as with any relationship, you have to do things for someone else that builds their trust with you.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna ask you a question about your experience at the prior employment. Okay, so thinking about like how hard you worked and how much you did, just I don't know in a sentence or word, or what did you get out of it that made you do it, like what was your reward? So I've always been money motivated Right but were you getting money that was compensated Me doing this.
Speaker 2:Also. I was thinking that I was setting myself up for a better position. Does that make sense? So? But were you told that? No, but I thought by doing a good job, that I would prove that I was worth doing something else. So that's why I worked my ass off.
Speaker 2:Also, I dealt with people Like I dealt with so many people and with complaints and problems, and I had a boss who had over promised to people during COVID, no doubt and then it was my responsibility to deliver and I couldn't, because it was COVID and you couldn't get anything. And so I found myself running around like a chicken with my head cut off and at the end of COVID I thought, well, this is great, my pay is gonna go up, blah, blah, blah. Nope, oh, we're gonna cut your pay. Like it was just like a freaking knock you off your horse situation. But I definitely and I put 100% into anything that I do. I'm not person. You do that so well. I don't half-ass things. I don't have to do anything. I don't half-ass things. If I wanna do it, I'm going to do my best and I did my best for five years and it did nothing for me, like nothing, for I was thinking my career wise, you know, I guess it was a career thing.
Speaker 1:It was a career thing I think that you're right and I would agree with you and support that, because I do think that even I, from talking with you, like during and right throughout that whole job, I and wrongly so now, because I didn't even know that I thought that you had a contract in that, if you reached this thing, that you would get this right.
Speaker 1:No, no, I was paid on commission, so basically, I know, but I but based on what our conversations were, I thought also that there was a potential position for you that was gonna open up and that you were working towards that. So that was.
Speaker 2:Yes, there was, but it wasn't ever said. It wasn't in writing. I was working for that position.
Speaker 1:Yes, it wasn't ever in writing, so you never had that conversation you never got it in writing, okay. So then I'm going to contrast that a little bit with my experience at the last studio I worked at teaching Pilates, and that was group classes, and I felt like I got a little bit abused, so they would always overbook my classes, meaning I had to do a lot more work, although I was paid per head to some degree, up to a certain limit, right.
Speaker 1:So I think the the year before I quit, where I was just like I'm done, I can't deal with you anymore. We had a company quote unquote meeting, which is BS because I was an independent contractor, so it's not as though I have any investment in the company, right. I was just like what's the best business for me, right, what's a lever, although I was bringing in a bang load of money for this owner because all of my classes were just absolutely full and I had, you know, tons of business for her. Sure, that company meeting, we sat down and she broke down this little schedule and she was like well, if we hit this amount of, you know, if you hit this amount of sales, blah, blah, blah, absolutely fair, I'm in.
Speaker 1:I worked my ass off, came time the next year and I was like here's what I did, where's my race. And she like whatever she wanted to negotiate, at that point where she was going to say, oh, no, well, we kind of didn't hit this mark exactly, blah, blah, blah. And I'm going to like give you, you know, half of whatever the raise was promised. And at that point I was like nope, I'm out. So like from that moment on, I was kind of like yeah, don't give a fuck. And the second I got the opportunity to go out and do it on my own, I did, and I was, in every way, shape or form, absolutely ethical about how I left and about how I did it, because I didn't want you know every single private client that I had, you know. I was like look, I'll set you up with another trainer, I'm leaving, I'm going to go do my own thing, but you know here. And then, all but like, one of my clients came with me.
Speaker 2:They weren't there for the studio, they were there for you.
Speaker 1:Because I'm like, but I was ethical about it and I was trying to be fair to her business because it's not my business. I was independent contractor. This was just. You know, I'm working in her studio, in her space, so I was being very cognizant of that and trying to do it correctly. However, you just can't fix stupid, and I was not. So I was promised this thing. You know what I mean. I was sitting in this room, in this space, and going, okay, if you hit this, this, this, this, then we're going to do this for you. And she didn't deliver, and so I was like I'm out, I'm sorry, I don't have time for that.
Speaker 1:The same thing happened with the job I just quit. I was just kind of treated like not that great throughout the whole it's been two and a half years now and it was just I kept getting shadow on, and then, you know, basically I had a last straw occur and I was like nope, I'm out. Sorry, I can make more money on my own doing my own thing. I don't have time to sit around and listen to your empty promises. You know, you asking me to do more without equitable pay for doing more. No, I'm not going to do that and that's financial and that's business relationship wise.
Speaker 1:I wish I were as good in personal relationships. I'm trying that's a good thing for me to work on is to go. You know what. In personal relationships it's the same thing. You know, if you show up for me you know one time out of 10, then I should take that. And you're telling me how much I mean to you and how much you trust me and how much I should trust you. You're telling me that, okay, then that means I don't trust you. Yeah, you're not in the circle of friends. And that's sort of like, I think, where I was telling you with what.
Speaker 2:What.
Speaker 1:Circle of trust.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking about Ben Stiller.
Speaker 1:Wait, was that the Fokker? Oh my God, what is it called?
Speaker 2:Zoolander. He's like an undercover CIA agent and he has the trailer and they go vits and the in-laws.
Speaker 1:Meet the Fokkers. Meet the Fokkers.
Speaker 2:You're my circle of trust, circle of trust.
Speaker 1:Circle. You're in the circle.
Speaker 2:I'm dying.
Speaker 1:Okay, anyway, I need to make a new year's resolution to watch more Ben Stiller.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, he's amazing Literally, and Will Ferrell yes.
Speaker 1:By the way, most good guys in real life.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe I've never met them.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just saying their public persona is. You know, they're not that far off of what their private is. Oh man, circle of trust, yeah. But I think that's the same with adult relationships too, where I'm like, you know, I reassess a lot. I'm like looking at it, going, okay, no, I've showed up for you, you showed up for me. Okay, we're going to stay friends and continue, and I do think it gets smaller or more contained. But I also think it's really important to also seek out other people too. In different groups and stuff Like volleyball was that for me. There's different circles that you kind of have to like call you know, call the chaff right, and just go to your you're, you're not a good friend, you're not shown up, you're not, you're not actionably accountable to a relationship, even if it's a friendship. Anyway, yeah, so how do you think you deal with trust?
Speaker 2:Last question, right now in your adult life, sure, I think that my first impression is to always trust people, but I think that I'm a little. I'm like trust with a little bit of hesitation. You know what I mean. Like when you meet new people, lowercase t, yeah, lowercase t Because I don't and I don't know if trust is the proper word for that but I take people at their word right at the bat, until they give me a reason not to. You know, show me otherwise, yeah, mm-hmm. So anyway. But then many, many people in my life that I trust.
Speaker 2:I mean I think I probably have three friends like outside of you, yeah, or people that I feel like I can trust, that are outside of family, like I can think of three people that would drop everything come help me. I would do the same for them. But I mean I have hundreds of acquaintances, oh yeah, same. You know what I mean. And like I use the term fruit loosely friends, because there's not that level of trust. But I say acquaintances but I use the. We always use the term friends loosely. Like I'm going to my friends or, you know, I'm going out with some friends.
Speaker 1:Well, I like the meme that's going around right now where we should just say like bestie Sarah, bestie Liz, because that's kind of right it like the nuns do. Like sister Sarah, sister Liz. So I'm just, I'm just going to say bestie Sarah, bestie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love, it Right, I think that's.
Speaker 1:That's because that, like bestie, implies a higher level of friendship where we do and acquaintances, also feels very standoffish.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it really does, and I feel like they're more than acquaintances, right, right. So I mean I enjoy hanging out with them, or I enjoy you know whatever with them, but I don't want to trust them with you know, they're not in your circle of trust.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes Anyway okay, yeah, I agree, I'm in the same boat and I, but I do think it's really. I mean, I think as we age that there's a pro and a con there. As we age, the most important thing we can do is cultivate. The first part of cultivate is cult that is true Also, culture, but to cultivate deeper and more, you know, vibrant personal relationships with people, because as we age, I mean, we may live longer than them, we may die, but you lose friends as you get older, to death, disease, whatever. But I think the ability to really see and grow and, you know, try and make those really deep, good relationships where you do have good trust with someone to thrive and to feed those and to try and like really basically just blow the chaff away, is really important, because those are the people you're gonna need when you're like, how the fuck do I get through menopause? Yeah, like you should be writing a notebook.
Speaker 1:How the fuck do I get through menopause? Yes, you should be writing a notebook right now, like we need it, we need it, we need it. A blog, you know of. Like what the fuck do you do? I mean, I don't know All these women, especially like our mom's agent above, like they all just went through it and shut the fuck up and didn't even ask questions. And you know, I don't and I'm like I have all the questions and every time I go to the doctor I'm like so what's gonna happen?
Speaker 1:Are we gonna test my hormones? I don't know, is this weird? Is it normal that I sweat? What's going on with my armpit muscle right now? You know, I'm asking a shit ton of questions and the doctors are like Jesus, fucking Christ, lady, and I'm like, well, I wanna know, I wanna fucking know, like what the fuck is gonna happen. Is my vagina gonna like fall off and dry out? I don't know, like what happens, you know.
Speaker 2:What you don't know. Oh my gosh, oh dear, anyway. Yeah, that's a little challenging. I think you should ask questions, rachel. I don't think I've ever not, I think you more than me, but I have gotten better the older. I get at instantly knowing if somebody's using a computer.
Speaker 1:Oh, my God.
Speaker 2:Well, I think I've said this before.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, no, no, no, it is trust your gut and trust your instincts. Part of the reason and I think this goes, you know, movement, period, movement, body movement, because that's sort of my language is movement. But I again I think I've said this before on the podcast, I was sorry listeners for rehashing it, but when I was dating I said I'll give you 30 seconds. Yeah, in 30 seconds I can sum up how much of a douche canoe you are. You know, or if you're kind of like, at least, I mean the fact that, like somebody like drops their phone or some shit, you know when you first meet them how they react to that and how they respond to that in a like first interaction tells you almost everything you need to know about that person, right.
Speaker 1:If they go to the wrong spot, right, and they have trouble finding you, how they deal with that tells you almost everything you need to know.
Speaker 1:So you know, in that 30 seconds it tells you a lot about a person and that first impression I don't put all my eggs in that basket, sure, but you know a hell of a lot and because of my movement background I'm like, based on the way you move and the way you're responding. You can tell it from posture, you can tell it from if they're facing you, if they're facing away, if they don't look at you in the eye, if they treat the waitress, you know, and all of that matters. But it is very true, and I'm not a big second, I will give you a second chance, but I'm not a big second chance person anymore and that may be unfair, but I don't think it is based on what I know of body language, movement, interaction, all of that. I'm like, no, I think you should go, maybe learn some more and then, if you wanna, you know, figure your shit out and come back later, maybe. Anyway, for sure, all right, are we? Did we?
Speaker 2:wrap it up. Pressing the journey, did we do the?
Speaker 1:thing, did we do the thing?
Speaker 2:I think we did the thing. We talked a lot anyway.
Speaker 1:I know. I feel, like we're like a lot of talking. I know.
Speaker 2:We're always good at talking, all right. We'll catch you next time on the podcast. Catch you next time? Yep, we always. We email us. We welcome your emails, sisters, declassified at gmailcom and what else. We are live on YouTube. We are live on YouTube. We also have Facebook and Instagram not very active, just started pages, so we will begin to Find us on the socials Okay. Find us on the socials.
Speaker 1:Yep, alrighty, well see you later.
Speaker 2:See you later, all right, bye.