Shannon Weber on Agility In Giving and Receiving + Growing Your Empathy Muscle — EP85

Candice Wu 0:01

It all started when I saw this note on my friend’s refrigerator that said, “Brave is…” and there was a handwritten section that said, “what you have done.”

Candice Wu 0:12

Brave is what you have done. I thought that was the sweetest thing. I don’t really know what this note was referring to. But I had a feeling it was coming from love from a person who cared about my friend and was proud of her. So after I talked with my friend about it, she referred me to Shannon Weber, who I’m so excited to have on the podcast today. She talks about risking falling in love, Empathy Adventures, agility and giving and receiving, cultivating healthy dialogue with her son, reimagining our own true script for life, and how to lead instead of save people.

Candice Wu 0:53

Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to the Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, Embodied Healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

Candice Wu 1:29

This episode is brought to you by the Sound Sleep album. It’s an album of 11 healing experientials and meditations that will guide you to feeling more grounded, restful, and embodied in your life. It’s for anyone really, even if you have good sleep, it can help you feel in your body in your daily life and be more present, connected, and enjoying your life.

Candice Wu 1:55

The healing experientials bring you deeper to a way to help your nervous system, calm and deepen, and helping you look deeper into the aspects of your sleep issues, if you have any sleep issues. You can order the album at CandiceWu.com/soundsleepd and all that money goes to helping to create more podcast episodes for all to enjoy. Thanks so much for your support and I hope you enjoy it.

Candice Wu 2:28

What fun to come to a website and for it to say to you, “You found love.” That’s what you can do if you go to Loveyou2.org, you can download all sorts of beautiful love notes that are sprinkled all upon the website, such as, Note to self, I like, your happiness matters, I love you because, you’re a wonder, good luck in your honor, or brave is — like the introduction I talked about.

Candice Wu 3:07

This is the beautiful work of Shannon Weber who just brings magic and love and sprinkles that all around the world, and this is her story of how she started the love notes, and the idea that sprung from in her relationship with her children.

Candice Wu 3:26

In this episode, she also talks about missed connections and moving from disconnection to vulnerability. How to find a different way of relating when you find yourself in enmeshed — or codependent-relationship, that’s a tongue twister.

Candice Wu 3:43

Also, she talks about noticing white fragility and saviorism in all of us, with gentleness and compassion, and how boundary creates connection in other spaces in our lives, and the icing on the cake is a love note for you later in the episode, so be sure to tune into that, as well as Shannon’s explanation of Empathy Adventures and how to bridge an empathy gap. Why it’s important and why it’s interesting to develop your empathy muscles and strengthen your ability to take those adventures into vulnerability.

Candice Wu 4:20

You can find that extra “Stamp Your Passport Empathy Adventure” explanation and discussion at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. You can also find all of Shannon’s HIV work as well as her book, Show Up Hard, and all the lovely notes that you can download at the show notes in the link as well.

Candice Wu 4:43

So now let’s jump in and meet Shannon.

Candice Wu 4:48

Shannon, I’d love to start here today by just saying something to you that I’ve seen on your love notes that you spread all around the world. There’s no one else like you.

Shannon Weber 5:02

Oh, I have goosebumps. Wow. Thank you.

Candice Wu 5:07

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Shannon Weber 5:10

What a thrill to be here.

Candice Wu 5:14

I’d love for you to share how the love notes came about and what it is for people who don’t know about it. It was delightful for me to see one on a refrigerator door of a friend of mine and ever since that, I was just like, “Who does that? Whos notes are these?” And it’s you!

Shannon Weber 5:36

It’s me!

Shannon Weber 5:38

It’s one of my favorite stories to tell, so thank you for asking.

Shannon Weber 5:42

So, when my kids were quite young, and I would travel for work, they would miss me and as it would happen, I would also sometimes miss important things in their life, which was also devastating to me. And so I started leaving these little trinkets, we called them “Jujus” a little word from my childhood, from my mom and these little trinkets and a note, and I would leave it for my three kids, and so I’d leave one for each of them. And then they could hold the little Juju in their pocket and so they have a tangible reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt.

Shannon Weber 6:25

And so I would say to them, so even if I’m gone, or I’m missing, you doing that reading, that school, or I’m missing this practice or game, you can have a piece of me in your pocket. And so it was this great ritual we would have and sometimes, you know, before something that they were really anticipating or nervous about, we would get together in a circle and they would put out all their Jujus and they pick one to take with them and the other kids, and I would each tell the kid who was nervous about something, you know how we would be there with them when they were going to go do this brave thing.

Shannon Weber 7:00

So, it was this whole ritual that we had created to stay connected and to love and support each other. And so one day, they said to me, sometimes we need a piece of you even when you’re here and I felt overwhelmed by that on some level, because I already felt so stretched thin and in so many ways spent as a single parent of three young kids. I thought: I’m already giving so much and it was so curious to me because I thought I’m showing up in the best way I know how when I’m here. How is it that you could want even more of me?

Shannon Weber 7:12

And I was curious? Well, what is that? And I thought, well, maybe it’s the being able to, you know, with the Juju that they had autonomy over, you know, the choice over when they get the juju and they could take that, fixing when they needed it. And so I thought, “Oh, I want to create something like that for them.”

Shannon Weber 8:02

So even if I’m around, but in whatever way I’m not available to them and in the way that they need, they could still access that love, which ultimately what is that, it’s like that deep knowing inside of ourselves, that is reflected back to you as a kid, by your parent. But really, it’s like accessing who you are inside. Right? So in the end, is it really about me as the mom or am I this, you know, being in relationship with them, I’m this mirror of accessing that. That love —

Candice Wu 8:32

It’s a beautiful piece.

Shannon Weber 8:33

Yeah. So I made this love note then that said, “I love you” on the top, it was an eight and a half by eleven piece of paper. I love you on the top and on the bottom, these little pull tabs that said I love you too. And I put this on the fridge —

Candice Wu 8:47

I saw that somewhere.

Shannon Weber 8:48

Yeah. So I put that on the fridge. And I said, “Okay, so you said you needed a piece of me even when you’re here. Here it is, this is your take what you need love note system. It’s right there on the fridge. I’m just very pleased with myself too, that I’ve come up with the system and then that love notes sits there and they don’t touch it and I am so inside proud of myself for this clever thing I came up with.

Candice Wu 9:14

It’s so clever.

Shannon Weber 9:15

And it was such a funny thing, because I was like, “I am so proud of myself that feels so clever that I’ve come up with this system but the kids weren’t engaging with it.”

Shannon Weber 9:26

Then one day, it was early in the morning and I had woken — I love waking up early before everyone else and I walked into the kitchen and the note surprised me. It was as if the note was for me and the “I love you”, like, what came to me is it was my grandmother’s voice and she had passed on the year before. And I was so deeply touched by the experience of thinking that my grandmother was saying, “I love you” and that I could take a tab that said, “I love you too grandma” and keep it in my pocket and so I did. I took it and I kept it. I put it in the little pocket inside my purse and then it was magical for me how every time I went in my purse to get my chapstick, to get my keys, to get my, you know, my bus card, whatever, I would find that note from my grandma even now as I remember it, I feel myself tearing up.

Shannon Weber 10:24

Because it was so meaningful to have that little reminder of love and again, as I was saying about, it wasn’t really about my love for my kids or me bringing back to them their deep connection and it’s the same thing for me with my grandma.

Shannon Weber 10:41

So then, I began to wonder what it would be like to be able to share that magical experience with other people.

Shannon Weber 10:49

And so my kids and I took that original flyer, the one that says “I love you” on the top and has the “I Love You too” tabs at the bottom, we printed them and we start hanging them up around everywhere we went, on bulletin boards and on telephone poles and, you know, sneaking them in places and leaving them for other people to find.

Candice Wu 11:13

I love that.

Shannon Weber 11:15

And then from there, people started saying, they would see the love note on our refrigerator, or they would see it where we’d hung it up around town or where we ever were visiting. And they said, “You know, I want that note too. And you should start a website.”

Shannon Weber 11:29

And so then I thought, “Oh yeah, that’d be amazing.” Because I want other people to experience this feeling I’m having on both sides. I have this profound experience hanging the sign. I have also a profound experience whenever I run back into one of my love notes, and I’m surprised by it myself.

Shannon Weber 11:47

And so I created a website and put up the love notes so people could download it and print it and hang it themselves, and then share their story if they wanted to and so from there, really grew to various kinds of love note templates and different ways for people to engage in writing love notes and creating these tangible reminders. You know, again, like the Jujus I had with my kids, but what is a reminder of what cannot be seen, but can only be felt? And what are these proofs of love that we can give and receive?

Candice Wu 12:26

It’s beautiful. It’s like a network. It’s just growing of Juju.

Shannon Weber 12:31

Yes.

Candice Wu 12:32

Stemming from our hearts, who came up with the name Juju?

Shannon Weber 12:36

Yeah. I remember it somehow, a name from my mom, referring to something from her childhood, which was the word has a meaning of, it’s a treasure to you and I have that may not be a treasure to other people. I don’t know where it came from, but that was how we refer to it. So, we would have this little trinkets, you know, that I would keep as a kid in my pocket or in these little tiny purses or, you know, hide them in little boxes, and they were treasures of things that meant something to me, but may or may not be a value to other people.

Candice Wu 13:13

That’s so sweet. I love it. And it’s such a reminder of connection.

Shannon Weber 13:19

Yes.

Candice Wu 13:20

And like our need for connection to stay connected in some way, to what gives us life and love and what gives us that sense of I know who I am.

Shannon Weber 13:32

Yes, absolutely.

Candice Wu 13:34

So you’ve created an art out of loving.

Shannon Weber 13:38

Yes. The practice of what does it mean to be in the world, to love and to be loved.

Candice Wu 13:44

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 13:44

And I’m super fascinated with both sides of that. I mean, as if there are only two sides, there’s not but I’m so fascinated by the fair, you know, the exchange and how — what’s it like to play in the different spaces of giving and receiving love in the variety of ways that we can do it, and that completely fascinates me. How can I be agile in that and in what ways can that spark agility and other people to move in that space?

Candice Wu 14:18

As you’re describing that, I was thinking, as you’re describing the the flyers you made and the little tabs that said, I love you too and this now, this giving and receiving of love, I have been spending a lot of time with horses, as you might know, and others might be hearing about on my podcast too and it’s so joyful when I bring a carrot and I give it to them and they just like, they grab it and they sometimes, they stand there and nibble on it right in front of me.

Candice Wu 14:48

Other times they just like, turn their back and go crunch on it in the corner because that’s how they want to do it. But I was just thinking about that. The way that they receive that love, that gift, that’s like, they don’t need to say thank you to me, that’s their “I love you too”.

Shannon Weber 15:07

Oh, I love that.

Candice Wu 15:08

It’s like yum, I’m enjoying this.

Shannon Weber 15:10

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:11

And they might not give me the time of day after that.

Shannon Weber 15:14

Yeah.

Candice Wu 15:14

But that’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:16

Right.

Candice Wu 15:16

So it’s just seeing them receiving it this way and seeing how I could see that in life, you know, people are just enjoying the thing I gave or the expression that I offered and even if they’re not, whatever they’re doing with it, it’s theirs to have.

Shannon Weber 15:33

What’s beautiful about that is how you do that without an expectation. And so I think that is the commonality between these two experiences we’re talking about, which I think as you say, is this metaphor for life. Because if you are showing up with the expectation around, I’m giving the carrot and this is the scripted response that I need or want from a horse, you know there goes the magic and there goes also the opportunity for you to see that metaphor for life.

Shannon Weber 16:05

I think that same thing about love and this for me, the love notes is this tangible aspect of other ways in which we love but what is it to put up the note and to have not an expectation for what comes back. What is it for me to receive from someone else without an expectation for what follows and that is such a beautiful space to be in.

Candice Wu 16:32

It’s so clean, feel so clean, like an untangled with the expectations. I know, whenever I’ve expected out of people and horses will show me it especially they tend to go away.

Shannon Weber 16:48

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:48

Like, when I expect something. They’re just like, “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Shannon Weber 16:52

When it says scripted.

Candice Wu 16:53

And they walk away from me.

Shannon Weber 16:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 16:55

Yes. Right. It’s so pressured.

Shannon Weber 16:58

It’s true.

Candice Wu 17:00

So Shannon, what would be the love note that you would write yourself today?

Shannon Weber 17:10

Well, you know, when we were meditating, I mean, we weren’t meditating, we were giving a pause for the soundcheck for 10 seconds, but I was closing my eyes and really wanting to connect with you. I actually picked up my pen and wrote this note, and it said, “When I arrived, there’s so much light.” And I don’t know that that’s necessarily the note. Yes, anyways, that’s what comes to me is that when I sat there with all that space and wanting to be open and connected with you, I was overcome with just how much the light there is.

Candice Wu 17:47

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 17:48

So maybe that’s my note to myself.

Candice Wu 17:50

Beautiful. I love it. I feel so much.

Shannon Weber 17:53

And what does it take to arrive? Right?

Candice Wu 17:56

Yeah, you speak about this in your book, Show Up Hard, about connections, and the journeys and adventures, and the concept of missed connection. I would love for you to talk about that, with this topic of what does it mean to arrive?

Shannon Weber 18:16

Oh, I love that you made that connection. That’s, great.

Shannon Weber 18:22

So in the book, I am talking about this framework for how we can show up as helpers and create connection for the purposes of helping someone in crisis or creating change, but to not burn out. And so one of the ways I talk about, that people can choose to show up in the world is through a missed connection and sometimes we think of that, or I’ve seen people taking that framework and they’re having judgment around it, “Oh, it’s a missed connection, that’s a bad thing.”

Shannon Weber 18:51

The reality is that we have a missed connection or that way of engaging in so many parts of life, that’s how we go to the grocery store, we ride the bus, we’re walking down the sidewalk, we can’t have empathetic deep connection for every single moment of our life.

Shannon Weber 19:06

In fact, you know, having that boundary creates the opportunity for us to have this deep connection in other spaces but as it relates to how do we arrive and for what I wrote to myself, which is when I arrived there so much light, is that to move from a space of missed connection to being a compassionate witness, which is what I talked about in the book is about how to connect with someone else in a space that you don’t get over-involved and overwhelm, a couple of things you want to have to really deeply know yourself and know how you can peel back that layer so that you can have empathy and connection.

Shannon Weber 19:47

And you also have to have the ability to not just know yourself, believe your own worldview and your own sense of what the world looks like and step into the shoes of someone else and be able to see the world or at least try to, really try to see the world through their eyes and their world view and that’s where we get empathy, and that takes courage, and it takes energy to let go of our own worldview, and be willing to step into someone else’s worldview and see how the world looks from their eyes.

Candice Wu 20:29

Yeah, this is interesting, because I pulled this quote from your book, do you mind if I read it?

Shannon Weber 20:35

Please.

Candice Wu 20:36

“Beginning on an Empathy Adventure may feel risky. As we leave the comfort of our own worldview and narrative. To explore another’s, we risk falling in love. We risk feeling deep connection. We risk changing our own mind. We risk returning from this Empathy Adventure as a different person.”

Candice Wu 21:00

Like we risk falling in love, that one really hits me in the heart.

Shannon Weber 21:06

Yeah, tell me more.

Candice Wu 21:09

I don’t know.

Candice Wu 21:13

Because when we see something else, and we let ourselves fully in, to witness that, to open our heart to that, it feels like we can find something outside of ourselves. But when we fall in love, it feels like it’s a match inside of ourselves, somewhere and so we get to know ourselves through opening ourselves to what we think is not us.

Shannon Weber 21:42

Yes.

Candice Wu 21:42

Like, you know, that we have to, we think we’re leaving the comfort of our own worldview and then we find that actually, there’s just more of us somewhere that we were not seeing before —

Shannon Weber 21:56

So beautiful.

Candice Wu 21:57

— through someone else showing it to us.

Shannon Weber 21:59

So beautiful. Yeah, it takes such courage to do that. Because we develop these narratives about ourselves that allow us to go through our day and get our things done and do our work and cope with traumas and stress. And to be willing to shake that up, you know, or to risk that one of those, like a piece of our safety net, which is that narrative, we tell ourself about who we are, and how the world works. It takes tremendous courage, we also risk being rejected, we risk the feeling of being wrong, of kind of losing a piece of our foundation of what we believe is right by going on these Empathy Adventures.

Candice Wu 22:54

That’s true. And I think so much of us, at least in my own experience and what I see, when we’re not having empathy for someone else, there’s often something I’m trying to protect, with myself, and I might have to feel some version of pain or rejection or hurt if I take another person’s view.

Shannon Weber 23:20

Yep.

Candice Wu 23:21

And see it from their hurt or their experience. So yeah, that makes a lot of sense, we do risk the rejection, we risk pain.

Shannon Weber 23:32

I think it’s okay too to choose at times to protect ourselves.

Shannon Weber 23:38

So, if we have trauma, or particularly if we have trauma that we haven’t healed from, I don’t think that the requirement is on a daily basis that we open ourselves up unprotected. You know, that’s not necessarily the challenge, or the, you know, the goal. And so it’s okay, you know, to recognize that there are parts of ourself that will protect and to know why, that it’s a trauma, or it’s something that’s unhealed, or I have an experience with and connecting with someone in this way, and I have felt betrayed before. So I feel held back in that way now.

Shannon Weber 24:16

And so in that way, knowing, very deeply knowing our own, you know, edges of connection is so powerful and again the requirement isn’t necessarily that we change, but that we know where those places are and through that, then it can create space for us too, you know, kind of have a risk at a time when things are maybe lined up for us in a different way.

Candice Wu 24:45

I appreciate that a lot. I think so many of the messages that we get on social media, and that we can just pass along, maybe sometimes unknowingly, is you just have to push yourself and power through and go for it and not protect yourself and be bigger or whatever people say, but the protection helps us.

Shannon Weber 25:11

Absolutely.

Candice Wu 25:13

As you said, yeah, it’s about taking it one step at a time for you, for ourselves and knowing ourselves. And that’s, I appreciate that, because that sounds like the true loving, coming into play, not how we have to be in the shoulds of all of that, but how do we really love who we are, where we are?

Shannon Weber 25:40

I do think it’s important for us to know what our privileges are. And I do think that it’s a time in which those of us who have privilege, there is a requirement on us to acknowledge that privilege and to do more. And we have to know what it — I have to know what the immense privilege that I have, and also how I have to invest in my own resilience so that I can show up but I do think that it’s required, of those of us who have privilege and opportunity to take what may feel risky, but to put ourselves out there and to be willing to be wrong and to learn to make mistakes so that we can create the change that’s necessary.

Shannon Weber 26:27

And it’s been on people who’ve experienced so many traumas and structural racism to do that for so long and so I think part of what I want to say too, is that it’s important that if you have these experiences, that you are really taking care of yourself, but part of knowing ourselves is knowing what our privileges are.

Candice Wu 26:54

And it sounds like you’re saying that, well, on one hand, there might be a time for just seeing the way you’re protecting yourself and appreciating that on one hand, or allowing that and using that to be able to move forward. It’s also — it doesn’t take away from responsibility to see our privileges.

Shannon Weber 27:16

Yes, that’s beautiful.

Candice Wu 27:17

Right. The acceptance of that protection. Yeah, it doesn’t just mean we sit back and say that’s it. But there’s still a responsibility —

Shannon Weber 27:25

Yes!

Candice Wu 27:26

-to see more.

Shannon Weber 27:27

Correct.

Candice Wu 27:29

Yeah. I completely agree with that. How is that showing up in your world lately?

Shannon Weber 27:36

Well, for me, personally, it’s been doing a lot of reading and being in conversation and reckoning around any fragility, or not any, but the fragility I have around race, and in what ways does my white fragility show up, and maybe a story I told myself, six months ago or a year ago was, “Oh, that’s too scary. I have to protect myself.” And I’ve now been able to see and learn, “Oh, no, that’s my white fragility,” and what does it look like for me to be willing to look at that, and to, even though it feels risky, and I may be wrong, and I’m going to make mistakes to keep showing up, so that I can learn and I can do better.

Candice Wu 28:31

I appreciate that. For some people listening, I don’t know if they may be familiar with white fragility, the term?

Shannon Weber 28:38

Oh, yeah.

Candice Wu 28:39

Would you? Yeah, just in case, would you share a bit about what you understand with it and how you experience it?

Shannon Weber 28:47

For sure.

Shannon Weber 28:47

I’m certainly no expert in the topic and doing a lot of active learning around it right now. So I can just talk about my own experience with it.

Shannon Weber 28:57

So for me, it’s been a way in which I told myself a story of, “Oh, I’m a good person, I’m doing good work, I’m not part of active racism, or I don’t have advantages from our systems, which are so racist.”

Shannon Weber 29:13

And really then shy away from looking at how my privilege has benefited me and then when I do that, then I’m not opting in anti-racism conversations in a way that really create change. If I stay in that space, then I’m really still part of the status quo.

Shannon Weber 29:32

And so for me, it’s been coming to learn how I have my privilege, it’s like a cul de sac going round and around of protection, where I feel uncomfortable and so then I stay in my privilege, and don’t crack that open, and, you know, learn more so that I can be a part of anti-racism work and create a change. And for me, that’s white fragility. And white fragility is making sure it’s about other people and not about you, when in fact, all the white people have privilege and have a lot more to learn.

Shannon Weber 30:15

There’s a fabulous book, I would just say, called, White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo, which is a great place to begin with reading and then there are so many wonderful conversations going on, and I would say wonderful and healthy conversations going on various forms of social media and blogs where people can learn more too.

Candice Wu 30:35

Yeah, I love April Harder on Instagram, especially the way — Yeah, she’s kind of like, no bullshit, which I appreciate. And on the other hand, she’s also very empathetic and non-shaming. So it’s like, we’re going to be no bullshit, but we don’t need to shame people into feeling like they’re a bad person, let’s just look at this in a way that we can look at it.

Shannon Weber 31:05

That’s beautiful. I can’t wait to look it up.

Candice Wu 31:07

Yeah. Thank you for sharing this. It’s really lovely to hear you talk about it in that way, and I, I’m Chinese American, and I know I have a lot of privileges too, and so I don’t opt out of those conversations, either with myself. And I think it can be easy for someone who’s a person of color to just say, well, they’re not part of it at all. And that I think, perpetuates a level of shaming, because it’s to say, like, that’s not me at all and I think it’s all of us, because it’s the water we breathe, to some degree, you know, in some aspect, some more than others, some way more than others, but it’s there, it’s living in us.

Candice Wu 31:56

Lately, I’ve been looking at how am I living incongruently with myself and congruently with something that is holding things in place that keep the wounding happening or holding a construct that doesn’t really, that hurts.

Shannon Weber 32:17

That’s powerful. That is very powerful.

Candice Wu 32:21

Yeah.

Candice Wu 32:23

So, I also caught on to these words, in your book, about confusing leading with saving, with saving people, and I think it fits right here.

Shannon Weber 32:34

Yes.

Candice Wu 32:36

Yeah, I would love for you to talk about that. And you wrote this beautiful checklist of how to spot if you, as a helper or as a person in the world, even that’s, you know, wanting to make a difference. How do you spot if you’re trying to save people, versus being that compassionate witness and leading?

Shannon Weber 32:57

Yeah, beautiful.

Shannon Weber 33:00

So I think for so many of us, because of the stories we tell ourselves, the experiences we’ve had growing up, we can really be scripted into believing that we are doing good, or we are creating change, as we save other people. It almost as if it gives us, you know, it’s such an active process. It’s almost like we can kind of collect this story and it’s a proof of us, doing something in the world, when in fact, it’s really not change that’s happening because the other person isn’t, you know, making the change that’s required.

Shannon Weber 33:37

And oftentimes, it’s us avoiding dealing with our own stuff, because we’re so focused on what they mean for someone else. And some of the tips I give in the book for thinking about it as if we’re working harder than the other person, like, how vested are we in this outcome of this story?

Shannon Weber 33:54

I share all of this because this is my default mode. I write about it, because it’s something I know so well, even after the book is done. How many more times have I done it since the book has come out? So many times, it’s my way of being.

Shannon Weber 34:08

And so it’s a reminder for myself of like, you know, where’s my ego in this story? You know, have I projected myself as some sort of hero in this narrative, of some problem that’s sitting there? And when real change gets created, it’s by the person who is in the crisis, who has the problem, being empowered or seeing their own power to create the change that’s right for that.

Candice Wu 34:37

Yes. I love how you said that.

Shannon Weber 34:39

Yeah, because back to that kind of magical thing we were talking about, when we were talking about love and how this agility to be in different ways of giving and receiving love and through that space, that’s where the magic is, well, that’s similar here and that the magic will come when it comes from inside the person who’s in crisis, or who needs help.

Shannon Weber 35:00

And in fact, when we are so attached to an outcome, and we have such a narrative about ourself, saving this person, I know what happens to me, these todo lists can come up automatically in my head. I know all the right answers. I know just what to do. We, in fact, —

Candice Wu 35:17

Right.

Shannon Weber 35:18

— scripted and leave out the opportunity for the magic of something more awesome than we could ever imagine happening.

Candice Wu 35:27

That’s beautiful.

Shannon Weber 35:28

I would say the downside, well not the downside, the other part, the other side of that, is that also, nothing can change and the things don’t get better, and that’s the risk. But that is the way in which we have to create that space, you know, so there’s the opportunity for that magic and the things that we could never imagine happening.

Shannon Weber 35:53

There’s also the opportunity that the person does not change at this time, and they may change another time. We certainly know this experience in our life over and over when we have people whom we love, and we’re in relationship who suffer from addiction or mental health issues, that this may not be that time that might not be their choice in that moment and yet it is still on us, to be the compassionate witness and create the space for them to have the autonomy to choose and find the way that’s best for them.

Candice Wu 36:29

Absolutely. Yeah, I think it’s really, especially where you say that if the person doesn’t feel empowered in themselves, that the magic isn’t happening in themselves, if we’re just doing it for them, or giving them the answer that we think is there. You know, just swinging back to the conversation, we’re just having previous to this, the topic of privilege and dependency, non-dependency, there’s this way that it feels like it perpetuates, having people dependent on you.

Shannon Weber 37:08

Yes, so true.

Candice Wu 37:10

Feels privilegy?

Shannon Weber 37:12

You know what you’re so right.

Candice Wu 37:14

White privilege, right?

Shannon Weber 37:16

Correct! The Savior complex.

Candice Wu 37:20

Yeah. Right, and we can taut ourselves from our ego thinking that is we’ve done something good here and I think that is a clue to say, “Wait, what have we done?”

Shannon Weber 37:33

What have you done?

Candice Wu 37:34

What have we done? Not in a critic like, not in a shaming way, but like, “What am I doing here?”

Shannon Weber 37:40

It goes back to the thing you were mentioning right now about where’s this incongruent or congruent. And yeah, so it’s not a thing to be shamed about. But is this congruent with what I believe to be the higher path or the path that’s going to create this deeper change in the world? And so many times I think it’s no. It’s our default way of showing up. It’s the way that has gotten us through to this point.

Candice Wu 38:07

I know this place very well too, like, this is definitely my default way. And I even remember, in college, my friends, and I would be like, we’re going to save the world, because we’ve done this, like, cool project that did help people.

Shannon Weber 38:20

Yeah.

Candice Wu 38:23

But yeah, it was like — Yeah, maybe wonder, is this in our nature to want to save what is that about, and as I go deeper with myself with that, it’s about proving myself that I’m enough and that’s all about me, not about someone who has their own autonomy and just wants someone to love them by seeing them as they are with our own power.

Shannon Weber 38:50

You know, I think it’s also about having meaning in life, I would say that, I agree with you. Because I think it’s the same thing for me, there’s a huge part of my ego, always, and I think it’s important to acknowledge that and shake hands with the ego and, you know, find a way to walk together. But I also think that it’s we want, and crave meaning in life, and maybe the way that we think that there’s meaning is by some superhero, or -shero story, that’s from some movie narrative, or now, it wouldn’t even be a movie, you know, it only be a one minute video that somebody saw online.

Shannon Weber 38:51

True.

Shannon Weber 39:28

But in fact, you know, creating, or having meaning in life and creating meaning out of our life —

Candice Wu 39:35

Right.

Shannon Weber 39:35

— is a much deeper and quieter process and it may, in fact, not be seen in that same way or acknowledged in that same way, that real meaning and that real change in the world is that quiet and everyday work that it’s not as glittery and fancy as our egos might want to believe.

Candice Wu 40:01

I love that I really connect with that, the quieter and deeper process, and I’m wondering how that, how that shows up for you?

Shannon Weber 40:14

Yeah, I think about that, in my life right now as it relates to work that I want to do in the world, and also, as it relates to parenting, my kids who are in their late teens now. And when I think in these settings about what is the, you know, when I wake up in the morning, and what is that impact that I want to have, it what was required to make that impact is this deeper work of wrestling one with my ego and getting straight with that, and then figuring out that kind of background work that infrastructure, scaffoldings, that needs to be there for whether it’s my kids or the work that I want to do in the world. And it’s not the glittery, or the frosting on the cake, you know, the final touches that we kind of might dream about. But it’s creating the infrastructure and scaffolding for bigger, bigger work.

Candice Wu 41:19

And that’s that daily, like one brick at a time feel. It sounds like.

Shannon Weber 41:24

Yes, and not getting distracted, I think, for me by the things that can sometimes feel more fun or look more exciting or be more Instagram-worthy. But it’s like — and at the end of the day is that the one step forward or two steps forward towards that bigger and deeper change.

Candice Wu 41:43

Beautiful. It’s like one pebble at a time, one piece at a time. So what topics are up in the air for you lately? What’s alive?

Shannon Weber 42:02

You know, something that keeps coming up and I would love to talk about with you is, in the book, we talked briefly about the framework, and we talked about missed connection and compassionate witness, and then I don’t know that we named this third framework that we’ve referenced at many times, which is this enmesh framework or this martyr framework.

Shannon Weber 42:21

So we’ve talked about in our conversation, how that can be both of our default methods and it’s many folks for a variety of reasons. But something that’s up for me right now, which is, I’ve been asked many times by folks, can you move from an enmesh relationship to a compassionate witness relationship? And of course, I think the answer to almost anything in life is yes. But then it’s probably a matter of how.

Candice Wu 42:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 42:47

And so I’ve had conversations with people about how complicated that can be or how tricky that can be to move from an enmesh or an overinvolved relationship to one that’s balanced, or the compassionate witness in which we’ve removed the kind of power, the holding of what’s happening from ourselves and put it in the space for the, to either be shared or where the person who’s in crisis has got ownership of their whole story.

Shannon Weber 43:19

And I’ve reflected that these kinds of things will blow up one way or another. So it certainly behooves us to, in advance, try to avoid being in these sorts of situations and relationships. But for some of us were in these relationships, and some of them have gone on 10 years, 20 years, or even months into something that feels like a deep pattern, and it can feel really hard to back out of.

Candice Wu 43:47

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 43:48

And so I’d love to chat about that with you. If you have thoughts from your healing work, or you have experiences from meditating with the horses, and, you know, where are these kind of tips for once we’ve acknowledged that we are overinvolved, we’re in an unhealthy space, and it’s not necessarily something we’re just going to cut off.

Candice Wu 44:10

Right.

Shannon Weber 44:11

Because maybe it’s in a work scenario or a family scenario where it’s not like you can just move away from it. And so are the other ways to move from that into a healthier space.

Candice Wu 44:22

Well, Shannon, this is like the story of my life.

Shannon Weber 44:26

Oh, I did, I didn’t mean it to be that.

Candice Wu 44:29

That’s okay. So, I guess, I’ve never been asked that question from this space, so it’s great.

Candice Wu 44:41

I would say that as a default and when I say that, meaning just like, the imprint of my young life, and maybe past lives, or my ancestral role that I have taken up coming into this life has been of being responsible, where it’s not mine to be responsible for and that was a survival, and it does something, it does do something in the system, in the soul of the system of my family. I do believe that my doing so has done something. But I’ll go back to something you said in your book that staying enmeshed has a price.

Shannon Weber 45:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:30

And learning or shifting that also has a price, is what you said. It really resonated with that.

Shannon Weber 45:38

Yeah.

Candice Wu 45:38

Because when I did start to see that this was exhausting for me and it was a hard seeing, you know, my body was showing me this is more in my 20s, but my body was like, you can’t keep doing this with your family. You can’t keep doing this with the world. You’re just taking on everyone’s problems.

Shannon Weber 46:02

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:02

I realized that was a part, a very big part of my journey in healing my own body and heart and soul. And it didn’t have to do with healing everyone else anymore. It was where I thought that was the case. It was more about me at the point at which I begin.

Candice Wu 46:21

So, I’ve been in numerous relationships where I have become enmeshed with someone, found my connection with them through helping them and becoming their person, their go-to person or taking on the role of a mother or, and that sometimes was beautiful and lovely. And other times it was awful, because I also got the bad end of the stick. So to say, the rougher end of that, like if things didn’t go right —

Shannon Weber 46:55

Yeah.

Candice Wu 46:55

— I had to take the heat for that, too. So, yeah, and I would say that all of those different relationships that I’m referring to that were family, friendships, and also intimate partners, they all had different outcomes as I start to realize, and different ways for me to navigate it as I realized that this was the pattern that was going on with me and in this relationship. So yeah, some of the price that I paid was the relationship did end —

Shannon Weber 47:29

Yeah.

Candice Wu 47:29

— at some point, and —

Shannon Weber 47:31

Me, too.

Candice Wu 47:31

Yeah. And sometimes it was very successful in shifting that this is no longer going to be the case. But what it required was a lot of loving and brutally honest communication and boundaries that I didn’t have. I didn’t know how to put boundaries up at all. I didn’t allow myself to. I didn’t think they were. I didn’t think I was allowed to have boundaries. So giving myself that permission was a big step.

Shannon Weber 48:02

And even the ability to have the brutally honest conversation, I think that’s so challenging, when we’re in these scenarios, sometimes we aren’t even brutally honest with ourself about how off the relationship is. You know, another clue I’d gotten recently is if I’m explaining a relationship to someone who’s new in my life, and I have to explain how special are all the excuses, when ultimately the mirror back is for me like, oh, because it’s so unhealthy.

Shannon Weber 48:31

The story I’m explaining is actually so unhealthy and off. I’m having to really go and explain all the ins and outs, which have you been close to me that you already understand all the ins and outs of the wackiness. So, I think that this point about the brutally honest conversation, which starts with ourself, but then like, awesome that you were able to say that with another person like that, in and of itself is super powerful.

Candice Wu 48:59

Yeah, and I just think about what that required because it wasn’t easy. But it also required that —

Shannon Weber 49:08

So many guts.

Candice Wu 49:09

Yeah, and that daily, deep doing, and being with yourself over time and being with that person over time, the one I’m referring to is more of a romantic connection, but we had built a lot of trust in the relationship to be honest with each other and to tolerate the other’s brutally honest expressions.

Shannon Weber 49:33

Yeah.

Candice Wu 49:33

What I mean is saying truths that are hard to hear, but we found a way to say it lovingly, that we could tolerate it, that we could really look at.

Shannon Weber 49:44

That’s so beautiful.

Candice Wu 49:46

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 49:47

So beautiful.

Shannon Weber 49:50

And sometimes that’s available for folks and sometimes it’s not to, if it’s maybe in a work scenario, or a community scenario, depending on where the people’s privileges and you know, power differentials lie that may not always be available for folks. But I think being able to have this space where we can talk about it brutally honest, at least with someone, whether that’s a friend, or a therapist, or some other person so that it has sees the light of day.

Candice Wu 50:22

I love that, seeing the light of — so it sees the light of day, that’s beautiful. And sometimes just to add to what you’re saying, sometimes the other person or other people aren’t interested in hearing that truth at all, and that has been very hard for me.

Shannon Weber 50:37

Such a great point. Because for some folks, that way of engagement has served them and for you to shift it up, you’re not going to work for them. So you’re so right, it’s may not always be available.

Candice Wu 50:53

I think with my way of surviving when I was younger, I had to be very persistent. Well, people generally think persistence is a really good thing, I think it’s a great thing to be able to be persistent. But there’s always a balance to every kind of trait and there’s always good in a sense of good and a bad side or when it becomes out of balance. And when it is in balance with my persistence, when I experienced someone who was unwilling to go there, my persistence became really unhealthy and it was better to walk away in those situations or let it have space or something and that was hard for me. So that’s another thing I had to learn. Yeah, but how, what is your experience? And what are the thoughts that you have around it?

Shannon Weber 51:45

Yeah, something that I’m just paying so much attention to in my life right now and talking about it with as many folks as I can, so I can learn more, so it feels like it’s such an area of exploration for me. But I would say, one thing I got coached by someone to do in a scenario where I — so one of the things I’ve realized about myself is that it might take me 24 or 36 hours to really kind of process and integrate that something is off and I used to judge myself about that. And now I recognize that that’s part of who I am and there are so many beautiful aspects about myself that I’m not quick to, I don’t know the word, “judges” is right, but I’m not quick to decide about something because that’s a beautiful possibility. But where I’m struggling with it is like I maybe needed to have said something or set a boundary and I didn’t. And it will take me these 24 or 36 hours to really integrate and then articulate what’s up for me.

Shannon Weber 52:52

But I’ve also recognized that I can often feel in my body when it’s happening, that something’s off. But I won’t have all the pieces together to say something and so I was coached by someone with this great line, which I’ve been trying to use when I recognize in my body that something’s off. And what she said to me was, “Would it be possible for you to say something has offered me right now, I can’t quite name what it is. But I want to just say that, and I’ll circle back to it when I know what it is.”

Shannon Weber 53:22

And it’s such a great thing, because it just flags for me and I can do that in a way, it can have a neutral energy, or a, just a, hey, what’s up energy, but it also, it’s a way for me to acknowledge that my body has that feeling, that something’s off. So I’m not necessarily sweeping it under the rug, and then waiting till later, you know, to process.

Shannon Weber 53:43

But it also might — I’ve seen it happen where other people in the setting might say, “Oh, yeah, something’s off for me too. Is it this or that.”

Shannon Weber 53:52

And so in some ways, it’s created a healthier dialogue than —

Candice Wu 53:57

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 53:58

— or for me to get more inputs and information about what my body has said, “Hey, something’s up.” But I again, can’t quite articulate it at the moment. So that’s great, I’d like area place I’m practicing in.

Candice Wu 54:11

It’s so respectful of you and your process, and your body and where you’re at. I love it and I love that it opens up a conversation at times with others.

Shannon Weber 54:21

Yes. So that’s, yes, it’s good. And who knows what will come from that for me. Like, I don’t know that I’ll necessarily be able to integrate and then articulate things. Immediately. I’m not sure that’s the goal. Right? The goal is for me to keep showing up as my best self and the framework of my book, being a compassionate witness is in as many, you know, areas and opportunities as I can and so that may be my path forward to that.

Candice Wu 54:53

It’s beautiful. I mean, there’s no good reason to pressure yourself to, I don’t know, to be able to respond quicker.

Shannon Weber 55:04

Yeah.

Candice Wu 55:04

So trivial, you know?

Shannon Weber 55:07

I know that, but I do sometimes feel like, “Oh, I want to be that very witty and articulate and very self-knowing person that knows.”

Candice Wu 55:15

Yeah.

Shannon Weber 55:15

But really, it takes a run or a walk and a sleep, and, you know, some meditation, this is just the way my inner world works.

Candice Wu 55:27

I think I work in that way, especially when it touches something that might have been hard for me, in the past or traumatic, like it touches on some piece of that. But also, like, just with what you’re saying, like yeah, I would love to be this witty, quick on my feet person and I think I am sometimes.

Candice Wu 55:48

I’m watching Designated Survivor on Netflix and so many TV shows, or movies like people, it’s a script, people are so witty in an instant and it’s so exciting. But that’s just not the reality of human beings, in most cases.

Candice Wu 56:09

We need time to think about it. We don’t always say the funniest, clever thing, or the right thing and we need to be able to rewind and fast forward or say let’s do this again, or —

Shannon Weber 56:24

Truth. Yeah.

Candice Wu 56:25

Yeah. And what was the other thing you wanted to share?

Shannon Weber 56:29

Oh, yeah. So I was thinking of another way in which this experience is showing up for me which I am really enjoying is my middle child is 19 and he and I, so let me rewind by saying, we had talked about how these relationships will often end, they’ll necessarily end or they’ll be, I think, also energy that stays with it in a way that it’s not necessarily attractive for us, or that we, you know, we want to lean into.

Shannon Weber 57:03

And so I also challenge myself, in what ways when I recognize that these sorts of behaviors on my set are starting earlier, can I say something or speak about it sooner with the goal of that I can shift that way of engaging earlier on and keep it towards the healthier side? So that it won’t necessarily blow up or, you know, have this something of consequence that kind of lingers.

Shannon Weber 57:33

And so I’m really loving this experience with my middle child who’s 19 and he is graduate from high school, and he’s living at home and working. And so we’re in this really interesting space of reimagining our relationship. And so, I love that we are able to have conversations about it, and what’s hard and was easy for us and I just noticed this week that I started to get over-involved about something and I even reflected to myself, “Oh, I feel like it’s high school again. And I’m doing this.” And I had to think to myself, I mean, “Whose problem is that?”

Shannon Weber 58:15

It would be easy for me to get upset and be like, “Well, that’s his problem.” But I had to reflect I’m behaving in this way that reminds me if you know him at a younger age, and so I actually chatted with him and we have this beautiful practice now of doing these check and he calls them check-ins. And so we check in with each other to chat about how our relationship is going and so we have the check-in, and I said “I noticed I’m doing this”, and he says, “I noticed that about you too, mom, and that is not the best life for you.”

Shannon Weber 58:48

You know, and I was like, it is not the best life for me. And he was like, so but then he was, he, you know, he could ask, is he doing something that’s causing me to do that? No, it was me defaulting to this.

Shannon Weber 59:00

I was like, this is the story I’m telling myself about what you’re doing right now and so this is how I choose to respond, and he’s saying, well, this is actually what’s happening. And, you know, I want more of that in my life, you know, not just with him, which I’m just so grateful to know what I know and for him to be who he is in the world, so we can have the conversation and I hope to continue on a path that remains healthy and beautiful. But I want more of that in different relationships in my life, these sort of check-in and being able to say, “I noticed this about myself” and the other person saying what they notice then.

Shannon Weber 59:38

It doesn’t even take that long, to be honest. It takes trust, it takes vulnerability, right? But it’s not even a huge amount of time to be able to both end up kind of balancing things and being your better self.

Candice Wu 59:55

That is incredible, Shannon. I feel so, my heart just feels so wide open and like warm knowing that you and your son have this conversation and it’s a regular conversation and you can be so honest with each other. It truly shows how much trust you have built.

Candice Wu 1:00:14

And that he can even say, “Is there something I’m doing that’s contributing to that?” Wow!

Shannon Weber 1:00:23

Yeah, it’s a good space.

Candice Wu 1:00:25

It’s beautiful and I like this idea of reimagining a relationship, and it sounds like you’re saying, well, what’s going well, and what’s a challenge here or what’s not going so well or here’s what I’m noticing about each of us and how do we want it to be. Is that right?

Shannon Weber 1:00:47

It is. What’s interesting as you’re saying that, I wanted to tell you, “Yes, because we don’t really have a script for who we’re supposed to be right now.” Because where’s the script for, you’re 19 and you’re living at home, and figuring out what’s next, and so because there’s no script, we acknowledge that to each other. We’re like, we’re unplugging from this story about this path and that path and now because we don’t have a script, we’re going to talk about it and figure it out. But as you were reflecting this, I was gonna say, when do we ever have a script for what it’s supposed to be?

Shannon Weber 1:01:23

You know, we take these scripts that are given to us from society, from stories, we tell ourselves, from the movies, from whatever, and then we have that script dictate these various relationships and in reality, I am now recognizing through our conversation, like this beautiful opportunity that he and I are having is like, really, that’s what all of life ought to be. Because what script is there?

Candice Wu 1:01:49

Yeah, truly. Well, my mind just went to, well, there’s like, just in the work that I do with Family Constellations and the lineage, there is an undertow of the script.

Shannon Weber 1:02:04

Okay, good point. Excellent point.

Candice Wu 1:02:07

And then, as you said, like, there are these scripts that we take on from the world around us.

Shannon Weber 1:02:13

Yeah, it’s true.

Candice Wu 1:02:14

Like, we should be X, Y, and Z. But I think you’re bringing up the most beautiful, magical part of living is to ask what scripts really do we want to be following? Like, we can design this with our awareness, with our loving each other.

Shannon Weber 1:02:33

It goes to your being incongruent and where your incongruent reflection, right, like really having the courage and the awareness to look at that, those scripts or stories or paths. Right?

Candice Wu 1:02:49

Right.

Candice Wu 1:02:50

Wow. Well, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, Shannon.

Shannon Weber 1:02:53

Likewise.

Candice Wu 1:02:54

I want to just, yeah, I want to just ask you one more question, if you would be willing, if you’d be willing to share with our listeners today, one of your love notes that you feel our listeners could take in today, just from your intuition.

Shannon Weber 1:03:21

Yes, the one I want to share is this, “You are enough.”

Shannon Weber 1:03:30

And if I could, I would come into your house and I would take a Sharpie and I would write this on your bedroom wall, and I’d write it on the mirror in your bathroom, and I would write it on your kitchen wall, and I’d write it by your back door, and I would put it on the sun visor in your car, and I’d write it on the back of your hand so that everywhere you turn around, there was this note that was telling you that you are enough.

Candice Wu 1:03:53

I love it! That is so great. I definitely tell that to myself at times when I needed and could use the reminder at times when I don’t remember.

Candice Wu 1:04:09

And as you’re saying this, it made me think of maybe, think of like, Habitat for Humanity kind of projects and like, with what you’re doing with just leaving notes in public spaces. It made me think of, yeah, if you could go into people’s homes, like, if people invited you into their homes to love, I don’t know, what would you call it? To love it up.

Shannon Weber 1:04:39

I have lots of Sharpies. Invite me over anytime. I’m so happy to write on your wall.

Candice Wu 1:04:47

My five-year-old self would have been like, inviting you over right away. Well, my dad would probably be like, “What have you done?”

Shannon Weber 1:04:55

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:04:58

Spreading out on the walls.

Shannon Weber 1:04:59

That’s all I want to do, is write on the walls.

Candice Wu 1:05:02

Thank you so much, Shannon. Is there anything else you want to share today before we go?

Shannon Weber 1:05:09

Well, maybe I will just share that, if folks want to go to the love note website, which is Loveyou2.org, there are all these free love note templates you can download in six languages.

Candice Wu 1:05:25

Oh cool.

Shannon Weber 1:05:26

And lots of different ideas for how you can print the love notes and share them in the world. And so, I think it’s just so fun and people telling me amazing stories about what happens when they start very freely writing love notes.

Candice Wu 1:05:42

I love that. Do you have Chinese on there?

Shannon Weber 1:05:44

There’s Mandarin. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:47

There’s mandarin?

Shannon Weber 1:05:48

Yes.

Candice Wu 1:05:49

There’s — well in Chinese, all the writing is generally the same, even though the spoken is different.

Shannon Weber 1:05:56

Got it.

Candice Wu 1:05:57

So, yeah. Oh, that’s cool. I love that. And your book is that ShowUpHard.com

Shannon Weber 1:06:05

Correct. And there’s at ShowUpHard.com website, all the love notes that I wrote in the Show Up Hard book are available to download for free, as are the worksheets and then there’s also a free 30-day e-course people can sign up for where they’ll get a little email every day for 30 days with a little prompt and a little message or a love note. I think that’s kind of fun, too.

Candice Wu 1:06:27

That’s beautiful and I love that your book is designed like a workbook. There are these sections of questions and reflection. It’s great.

Shannon Weber 1:06:38

Thank you.

Candice Wu 1:06:39

Yeah, and do you want to mention your HIV work at all?

Shannon Weber 1:06:41

Sure. Also, too, I really love my work, I feel lucky to be doing it and I found it in direct a website called pleaseprepme.org and practice the HIV prevention pill and we help people get access to the HIV prevention pill. We have a directory and resources and then we do online chat and help people figure out how to get the pill and the associated services paid for.

Candice Wu 1:07:13

Beautiful and I hopped on there and I love how it’s speaking to all different audiences, whether you’re a man, you’re a woman, you’re trans, or I think you had some other populations on there that you were speaking to.

Shannon Weber 1:07:26

Yeah, we’re very keen on youth as well. It’s a really diverse and inclusive space. Yes.

Candice Wu 1:07:35

Beautiful. Thank you so much for doing the work you’re doing there and the love notes, just sprinkling your heart across the world and spreading that joy and love. So beautiful and I’m so touched to have you here today and I learned a lot and I appreciate you. Thank you.

Shannon Weber 1:07:57

Likewise, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate our connection and I have enjoyed your newsletters and podcasts and learning about you and your teachers and I’m really loving learning about horses from you.

Candice Wu 1:08:10

Oh, thank you!

Candice Wu 1:08:15

What I really loved about our conversation and connecting with Shannon is how real she is and how authentic she shows up as, and it feels like I can really feel her presence. It’s not like an extra layer that I have to cut through to feel a connection with her. It was so easy.

Candice Wu 1:08:33

I hope you felt that connection too and that informs or inspires you to find your own way to connect with others, your own authenticity, your own ability to empathize with yourself and also with others through showing up the way that you are, with who you are and with compassion.

Candice Wu 1:08:54

Thanks so much, Shannon for showing up hard and showing up on the podcast today. It was so much fun and I learned so much and was very opening for the love in my heart.

Candice Wu 1:09:08

And just a quick note, be sure to check out her discussion about Empathy Adventures coming out later this week or you can find it at https://candicewu.com/shannonweber.

Candice Wu 1:09:18

I hope you all find love in your life today, in every day, and also, perhaps sprinkle some of those love notes around your space or in your community spaces, maybe sneak around like Shannon and her kids do and just have an adventure with it and see how people react.

Candice Wu 1:09:38

Lately, I’ve seen a lot of pictures and posts on the US Mexican border and how our artists have been creating playful artwork and installations that people can interact with, such as seesaws that connect on both sides and where you can see the other people on the other side playing with you and also I saw a big painting. It seemed like a big painting, installation of a child’s face looking over into the Mexico side from the US side. It was really a sweet image and to me, those seem like playful ways to show our love and connection just like these love notes do. So I feel like this is one way we can bridge connection and make it safer for people to connect and make people feel or invite people to feel the love that we want to bring to the world.

Candice Wu 1:10:47

Lastly, be sure to check out Shannon’s book at Showuphard.com if you are interested in the discussion about being a helper and how to support yourself with self-care boundaries, going on Empathy, Adventures, etc. And that can really help anybody who feels that they’re in a position of helping another.

Candice Wu 1:11:09

Thank you so much for listening in today. It’s great to have you here. Before you go I invite you to sign up for the bi-monthly newsletter that goes out with updates on experientials, podcasts, retreats, workshops, and self-love notes. You can find that at CandiceWu.com/embody.

Candice Wu 1:11:31

And before we go, I want to make a couple of shout outs today to Nick Werber who offered the music to the beginning and the end of the podcast that I still use today. Thank you so much, Nick, I love it. And also to Chris Spiegl, who does the editing and behind the scenes production of the Embody Podcast, as well as the website.

Candice Wu 1:11:54

Chris does an amazing job with the sound quality and editing the pieces so that they’re easy to listen to and completes it all on the podcast as well as communicates with all my guests and helps us out with any tech issues that any one of us may have. So I want to thank him and appreciate all the work he does for the podcast. Thank you, Chris.

Candice Wu 1:12:20

So with that, I will leave you all today with the inspiration to risk falling in love. See you next time on the Embody Podcast.

Introduction

Candice Wu 0:00

You are listening to Shannon Weber’s discussion around bridging an empathy gap, stamping your passport with an empathy adventure, and learning how empathy adventures can guide us into expanding our capacity for connection and creating change.

Hello and welcome. You’re listening to The Embody Podcast, a show about remembering and embodying your true nature, inner wisdom, embodied healing, and self-love. My name is Candice Wu and I’m a holistic healing facilitator, intuitive coach, and artist, sharing my personal journey of vulnerability, offering meditations and guided healing support, and having co-creative conversations with healers and wellness practitioners from all over the world.

You can find the full episode on Shannon’s story on how she created her love notes, as well as our discussions around vulnerability and intimacy, noticing missed connections, reimagining our script for life, how to lead instead of safe people, and how boundaries create connection in other spaces at CandiceWu.com/shannonweber. And right now, I will leave you in the loving hands and heart of Shannon Weber.

Opening By Shannon

Shannon Weber 1:28

When I was a college student, I was working in Switzerland, one summer, as part of a work-study exchange, and on the weekends when we had time off, and we’d gotten paid, we would go on adventures. I loved collecting stamps in my passport at the time, and I would go out of my way sometimes to go through a country or try to see if I can make my way through even a small country if even just had the stamp and my passport. It’s such a freeing experience, because regardless of how I experienced that country or the weekend for that period of time, if I like the food, if the hostel was comfortable or not, if the places I’d wanted to visit were open or not, I still had the stamp in my passport.

So, about 10 years ago, when I was at a transformative time in my adult life, I challenged myself again, with having these various adventures with the only goal of having the adventure and getting the metaphorical stamp and my passport, not being attached to the outcome of what would happen freed me to try new things, to experience the world and people and adventures, and different ways than I might have, otherwise. And at the end of the experience, if I ultimately decided it wasn’t for me or if it was particularly challenging in some way, I could say to myself, and I often talked about this with my best friend, “Well, I have the stamp in my passport.”

A Practice of Empathy

So, I bring this to you as a practice now when we think about empathy and how we might grow our empathy muscle, so, we know that 10% of our empathetic responses, and innate response which means that the rest of it can be learned or it can be built, it can be developed. And so, this practice of this Empathy Adventure Passport, which I introduced in my book, Show Up Hard, and this resource that I’m going to reference the Empathy Adventure Passport is available for free, for download at showuphard.com. This is a practice that can be really useful for people who are wanting to experience more empathy in their life, and for people who have, perhaps, a higher innate response to being empathetic. The Empathy Adventure Passport can be useful and helping us to understand our selves on our empathy adventures so that we can either more quickly access empathy or so that we can be more expansive in whom we feel empathy for.

You know, one of the things I’ve learned about myself is that I have a story, I tell myself that I’m a highly empathetic person, but there’s also truth that I have biases and assumptions, and these stories are stereotypes and narratives can be getting in the way of me being empathetic for some people. So, it’s true, I’m highly empathetic in some situations and some times, but I still like to challenge myself with these empathy adventure experiences, to be more expansive in my ability to access empathy for a variety of people.

Steps of the Empathy Adventure Passport

So, I want to just walk through the Empathy Adventure Passport and talk about the different steps, and I think it’s so valuable, by the way, to print this out and actually write it because there’s something valuable in the process of noticing of slowing down to notice, but also, because we’re writing helps us to integrate things. And so, for those of us who are on a quest to more deeply and expansively experience, empathy, this practice of writing about it can be really, really helpful in helping develop that muscle or skill.

So, as part of the Empathy Adventure Passport, we define what the adventure is, and sometimes these adventures are happening to us, so, it might be a crisis or a situation that comes up at work or in our community or in our family, but they also might be adventures that we seek out. So, if I notice an edge to myself, that I might task myself with finding an adventure, which helps me to tap into that edge, and to explore whether or not I can find a new edge. So, why is the adventure and then we reflect on what’s the internal narrative? So, with that story I tell myself about this adventure, that can be both who I am and the story or what I’m expecting about the other person or this scenario, but being able to identify our internal narrative is super helpful, because it can help us one acknowledge it and give it a space so it can sit there, but then it gives opportunity for there to be space for something else to be true.

We can also write down our biases, and assumptions, you know, what are we taking from our own worldview into this experience, which might impact the adventure? There’s a place then to write about what did you notice about your body? And I’m so keen on this aspect of noticing our body in these various experiences, because our body always gives us clues as to what’s going on, and so, the more that we can learn to tap in to the clues that our body gives us, then the quicker and sometimes more easily, we can navigate or traverse these challenging and or expansive experiences.

And then there’s the opportunity to write what’s the takeaway? So, what did you learn about yourself? Or, you know, what’s the summary of this empathy adventure? And it may be, “Hey, that thing is not for me,” and that’s, you know, you got your stamp on your passport, but it may be that we changed our mind, that we fell in love, that we came away with a different worldview or a new perspective, and that’s the beauty of going on these empathy adventures is that we ourselves might be changed.

And then finally, how did I return to myself? Because while we go on these adventures, to see the world through someone else’s eyes, and to experience the world in a new way, and this is part of how we create change in the world. We need to let ourselves know at the onset that we will come back to ourselves. So, we may come back change, and that’s the beauty of writing about it is that we can then integrate it and it can become part of who we are and how we show up in the world next time, and that can be part of the more tangible aspect of the passport stamp from that experience, so to speak, but I think it’s also helpful for these riskier and more challenging empathy adventures if we let ourselves know at the onset, I’m going to return back. It provides a sense of safety and stability that we can come back to that core of who we are, and give space to process it or to integrate it.

Wishing You…

So, I wish you all the best in having magical and expansive and wondrous empathy adventures. I have the Empathy Adventure Passport is helpful to you in navigating these experiences, and I’d be so thrilled to hear from you about how the Empathy Adventure Passport serves you and becoming more expansive with your empathy.

Closing

Candice Wu 8:38

Thank you so much for listening in today, to the discussion around empathy adventures. I hope to see you next time on the Embody Podcast.

You can check out other experientials, podcast guests as well as healing topics and self-love topics at CandiceWu.com/podcast.

See you next time.