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You are a business owner who wants to prioritize people and planet over profits (without sacrificing success). That can feel lonely—but you are not alone! Join host Becky Mollenkamp for in-depth conversations with experts and other founders about how to build a more equitable world through entrepreneurship. It’s time to change the business landscape for good!
Faith Clarke (00:00.237)
to just respond to whatever you say and then weave in some of the stuff I made up for the workshop because I was like yeah this is exactly what's going on here so
Becky Mollenkamp (00:10.631)
Well, hello, Faith. We're going to have a little conversation about something that happened recently and then talk about discomfort because there's a lot of discomfort woven into that story and think it should be interesting. How are you this morning?
Faith Clarke (00:24.605)
think it's good speaking of discomfort because there's a bunch of navigating the daily life that we live. think if we don't have a good relationship with our discomfort, everything is going to be tossed all over the place just based on weather and people being sick and then politics. So today is one of those days when I'm managing my discomfort.
Becky Mollenkamp (00:51.598)
Very interestingly, so am I because of a social media post I won't get into here, but it's been interesting recognizing all the ways that discomfort shows up. But the thing we're going to talk about specifically is something that happened, I guess, last month, but it wasn't that long ago where we were in. We have a little group of mastermind of like four of us. I think that's where we were talking about it. And you had, yeah. And you had mentioned that you were having your car was in an
accident with a deer and unfortunately neither survived either the deer nor the car. And that you are now in a position of needing to find a new vehicle very quickly. And as I think many of us can relate when unexpected financial hardships arise where you're like, where is this money supposed to magically appear from? You know, I don't have that just sitting around. And so we were talking about that and I sort of went into the mode thanks entirely to the
relationship that with you and Tyena and Jordan, the folks in this community that I've been so blessed to be a part of and the reconditioning of my own brain into a more communal community, collective way of thinking. I, and I'm so happy and proud of myself and just that my brain immediately went to, then how do we, we solve this problem? Which is definitely not how I would have shown up years ago. I would have been like, that sucks for faith. Hope she figures it out.
Instead, my brain this time just really quickly went into, okay, so how do we solve it? And I started thinking, who do I know? I know some people I bet that help put some money towards this problem. And so I believe I asked your consent to seek out some financial support from other people and you gave that. And so I started by posting in some communities I'm in.
Faith Clarke (02:40.979)
Well, before we go into your process though, I just want to reflect just even the lead up before you got involved, since we're talking discomfort, how many factors come together to what I call pitch us over, you know? And that in our lives, we're constantly, so many of us live on the margins of our capacity. And we are told
Becky Mollenkamp (02:46.86)
Yeah.
Faith Clarke (03:09.989)
As much as you and I are in this work of liberation and all this type of thing, we are told that we need to be self-sufficient and fix it ourselves. I mean, that's the purpose of the car insurance. So that if, you know, they call this particular thing the deer hitting your car is the same as lightning striking your car. It's a no fault act of God type of situation. It should be straightforward.
And yet, I found myself with so many points of fear because number one, my kids were driving, black-bodied humans meeting up with white cops. had a whole, a whole thing. So I think I just want to frame the fact that I step into the moment that you are meeting me. I'm already activated, inflamed, hyper-protective, and not sure how to navigate. By the time it was, I'd had
15 or so different conversations with the insurance company because of a hold up that basically we could deconstruct in another recording. That was just empire, right?
Becky Mollenkamp (04:20.376)
I was gonna say that because the insurance company was doing what corporations do, right? And doing their best to try and not pay you.
Faith Clarke (04:24.541)
which is doing what governments do and doing what, there's so much of what we experience, which is large systems working for their own end, an end that we don't even know what that end is sometimes when we are the individuals on the inside of the experience. We're just like, yeah, but I'm the one without the car though, or whatever, right? So, you know, we talk about the fact that the more,
marginalized identities you hold, the more tapped out you are, the more under resourced you are, the harder you have to work just to, right, be on level. I'm there moving my hands as if people are going to be all seeing this. And so by the time I had had multiple moments where I was on the phone with insurance company or tow company, almost to tears, where I am willing to find, use rent money.
to pay something just to get the problem to go away. And so when I shared with you all, I think I was ready to wrap it up. I had taken a break from it for like two weeks and the problems kind of dragged out. And just the way corporations, empire organizations are, while they had let the problem drag out and therefore increased a variety of costs associated with the problem.
they were now ready to, oh, the 30 days according to your policy are up and so you're gonna lose the rental in four days. You need a car, no, well, you don't need a car, but you're gonna lose this rental. So we haven't handed you money and you're gonna lose the rental. And then, I presented that to you.
Becky Mollenkamp (06:05.326)
Yeah, yeah, I was only trying to rush to the story thinking I would just explain what happened really is me talking too quickly so that we could then move into both sides of the discomfort. But I appreciate the framing of what was leading up to that. So just to quickly sort of what happened then was I reached out to a few communities that I'm in and a few people gave me gave some money towards this, not me. They gave it to me to put to you because I thought it felt easier for it to come through me. And then one
just handing over one amount to you so you didn't have to deal with all of the like administrative parts of all of this. And then I started to get the bug of like, well, got a little money. I mean, we could even make, could we get more? Could this like, could we solve this gap that you were sort of feeling of, I think it was sort of a $3,000 gap is what you were feeling to be able to get a safe and reliable car. And so then I put it out, I sent out a couple of emails to my list. I put it on in a couple of other places, but mostly it was in these.
smaller communities I'm in with people that really kind of know me and then in my email list. And over a week, a little less than a week, so I'll just skip all the other like what happened exactly, but like over the course of a week, about 50 people gave varying amounts, everything from nine to what was the biggest one, 200 or 300? can't, no, 500, one person gave, that still blows my mind. So from $9 to $500, 50 people, were able to,
Faith Clarke (07:24.681)
500.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:32.718)
turn over to you $2,000. So it didn't hit the 3000. I was kind of hoping, but we got to do. Oh, thank you. 2500. That's right. Because we were at 2000 and then that 500. So, so nearly got there, right? Nearly got to $3,000 in the space of a week through the power of 50 people saying here's some money. And I, we were going to talk a little bit about like, cause I realized I experienced all kinds of discomfort. And also it was interesting to understand.
Faith Clarke (07:37.801)
You turn it over to $2,500.
Becky Mollenkamp (07:59.81)
what it sh the light it shine on my own discomfort of asking for myself. So I had very little discomfort in asking other people because it wasn't asking for me. So it felt easier to a big degree. Some of my discomfort was in my feelings of one, I did feel a little of like, am I going to annoy people? Are they going to like exit off my email list? Which, by the way, a good number did not a huge number, but there it did. I saw a decline during that time, which is fine because those aren't my people. But I had those fears coming up of like,
Oh, are they going to not be on my list anymore? Are they not going to like me? You know, that kind of thing. But also I felt this discomfort of I know some of you people who are seeing this and aren't giving money and I know you could give money. It wasn't so much because honestly, the people gave money. There was I didn't have a whole lot of like, know you could give more. It was more the people who didn't give in this feeling of I know you could and why aren't you? And is that a reflection on me? Is that because you don't believe me? I also had a lot of discomfort in people like
Are people going to think I'm scamming them and I'm going to pocket this money or whatever? And then people I didn't even know who gave money. And then that raised some discomfort for me too of like, who are these people who don't even know me giving money? how can they? I don't know. Just like, felt, it felt really weird. It was one thing to receive from people I know because there's a relationship there and that felt okay. But the ones that I didn't know for some reason, that felt really weird to me and a little uncomfortable in that. I don't know, like maybe I owe them or.
I don't know, I'm not even sure what the discomfort is in that, but that was interesting. So I had a little discomfort along the way and we've talked about that, but we haven't talked so much about your side of the experience of this because you were like, let's do a podcast about it. So I'm really excited to hear from you about what the whole experience was like for you, where it felt comfortable, where it uncomfortable.
Faith Clarke (09:49.031)
Yeah. So I'm part of the reason why I queued it up the way I did is because I want to acknowledge that whatever discomfort we feel in the present moment is also in company of context. Right. And so there's a way that perhaps had I not been not felt as worn down by the system, I would have been in different management of like the physiology, what this felt like to be
in a vulnerable situation to need to ask for help. So one of the first things I remember you asked, hey, do you know anybody who could do a GoFundMe? And I felt discomfort at that for a variety of reasons. Well, first of all, could I do a GoFundMe? For sure, I was not gonna be asking for help for myself. And I know that that's tied to what does it look like? I don't want to reinforce stereotypes. I love...
social psychologist, we'll find it and I'll put it in a show notes, Claude Steele, stereotype threat. The acknowledgement that if there are stereotypes around an identity that's important to you, you spend energy just tracking that stereotype and not wanting to live into it. And so the image of a black woman not being able to make it was in my head.
And as much as I speak about what empire does and why that's relevant and why that's not my fault, still, was like, it's like I was holding the burden of the stereotype and I wasn't doing it consciously, but I knew that I was like the knee jerk reaction. And when you said, okay, so you would do it. I was like, okay, I felt the relief of that. else asking somebody else with a more powerful identity asking on my behalf.
And then I felt the stereotype or are they it's a different it's a different discomfort it's the one that says but I don't want Becky to be perceived as Performing as performative as wanting to solve a thing I like there's a way that I experience you and experience it and experience what was happening in our call as personal and
Faith Clarke (12:18.409)
communal support and I didn't want people to look at what was happening for you and make that be about, yeah, white people stereotypes, right? So that was a part of what was happening for me. Another part of my discomfort is that every time I read, you know, I'm on your email list, so every time I read you,
reaching out and saying, hey, this is what we got and this is what's going on and this is what mutual aid means. Like again, it was about being on the receiving end of this attention. Yeah, I felt kind of way. They brought up about my old stuff about like, what does this look like? And shouldn't I, a business person, as a consultant, shouldn't I look like a person that is, I just kept talking. Shouldn't I look like a person that is more successful than
Becky Mollenkamp (13:13.522)
Good.
Faith Clarke (13:16.04)
So there was that every time I got the email and I remember one of the emails as you talked about me I was just like I didn't I'm not gonna say here how I said tone it down but in essence in my mind I was like you're saying too many things about me can you just say less about this and less about that because I there's a way that I felt exposed and and so that was part of the thing and then the when
Becky Mollenkamp (13:35.248)
I can imagine.
Faith Clarke (13:44.169)
as money came in, I felt so grateful. just acknowledging that my discomfort, I was grateful that I had the relationship with my discomfort that allowed me to keep moving forward and not take action just on it. Because there was a part of me that could have just stopped, said, okay, one email is enough or whatever. But I...
Allowed myself to be on the receiving end and that was interesting because it challenged Because you were doing that I sent out email to two or three other people and two people were very positive they were just like yeah sure send us the link and One person kind of came back and said no they couldn't help and I think you know similar to your own commentary given that I knew people had given nine dollars and These are people who didn't know me and this person knew me. I felt like
Do you understand my life with kids with a disability, what it means to be without a car? There's a way that not giving, like not giving money that you would spend on coffee added to my sense of being invisible. There is the visibility and seeing and being witnessed that was there, but it also sharpened the contrast for the people who didn't give. And I'm sure that
Becky Mollenkamp (14:59.41)
Mmm.
Faith Clarke (15:11.069)
they are not making it about coffee or not coffee. But for me, it's like, we understand people's day-to-day lives? I don't live in a place where it's possible to live without a car, and it is winter. And so yeah, so there was discomfort and judgment around some of that that showed up as well. And none of these discomforts were facts.
but they could have led to behavior and could have gotten me into arguments or had me retreating or a. Yeah. Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (15:48.486)
right, or had us shut it down and not, then you not be able to receive. Yeah. I had, it's interesting. So my discomforts were around perception, perceptions of me largely, and yours were also around perceptions of you, which is, I think just speaks to how we are as humans. We're so, we're so wired that way about, and I think it's, I think it's biological in a way of like, we, we, how we are perceived by the community.
whether that community is actually our community or not, mattered at one time in midlife or death, right? Because if your tribe, if your community were to say, we don't want you anymore, you couldn't survive as a solo human back in a certain time in humanity, right? Like it just wasn't possible. That stuff still lives in. Yeah. Well, right, right, right. It might be.
Faith Clarke (16:31.433)
And it's still not possible. No, we just pretend.
Becky Mollenkamp (16:38.873)
possible, I guess, to a degree. Well, you're right. It's not because you can't make no one's making their own food and all of that. You're right. We pretend. But anyway, so I think that stuff still lives inside of us. And that fear is totally real in that it is a real fear that has can have really harmful consequences. And yet we bring that fear and put it onto all kinds of places where it's not actually true. It doesn't matter if a stranger on the Internet.
rejects me that doesn't affect whether I am able to live and the people who know me and love me even if I were overstepping making a mistake doing something wrong there they're gonna they're gonna like gently lovingly call me back in even if I were doing something right but most of them are just gonna say we love and accept you and we want to help but it's hard because we worry about how we're perceived so I was worried also as you're talking about this thinking okay this is bringing some of it back and remembering
I worry, am I going to be perceived as somebody who's like falling into this white savior trap? Am I going to be seen as somebody who's trying to buy you, by the community, by my community, you know, by myself? Am I internally falling into some of that belief system of, I'm here to save the day or, you know, whatever. And I had to kind of like, would have to keep checking myself too and remembering, like there was a point where you said something about like, how many donations have we gotten or something? And I was like,
They're contributions, not donations, because you're not a charity. This is not a charity. You're not a charity case, right? And having to remind myself of that, remind others of that. And then also reminding myself of like, because there's times where I want to be like, I'm doing this thing or I'm raising this money and I have to try and keep checking myself to be like, we are collectively doing a thing for a part of we, right? And it's because again, as I said, this is not how my brain was wired. Two years ago, I would have been like, God, that sucks for faith.
Right? Hope she can figure it out. So I was proud that my brain went to the place of collective thinking. But I can tell you, even through it, there were still those moments where that old part of my wiring shows up going like, look at Becky. Look what she's doing. Isn't she? She's so great here. She's helping. She's, you know, leading. She's whatever. And having to like check that part of my brain as it showed up and remind it like, wait a minute, that's our that's the old way of showing up. That is not the truth here. The truth is
Becky Mollenkamp (18:56.868)
we collectively are doing something to help a part of our community, right? And that's all this is. And it's me being, all I'm doing truly is acting as a facilitator for redirecting money as a collective decision that we are making to say, want to collectively route some of our money to this problem. Not even necessarily to faith as a person, although there's that, but it's to this problem that's existing inside of our community. We want to support that.
But I had to watch myself because that stuff kept coming up too. And then a lot of that perception of others and myself on myself. So it's interesting to watch all of these layers of discomfort that come up through something seemingly simple.
Faith Clarke (19:34.493)
Yeah. And I think like I added in the layer of my own perception and the perception of us as partners in this, in our venture. because on the one hand we're giving all the powerful things that we're giving. but true restorative practice is about symbiotic relationships is about reciprocity is about, you know, it's not transactional and
To teach it also means to allow yourself to live it. And so part of, even if people were, I felt protective of you, as I said, and protective of the perception of you, and also the only way me, you, we get close to what our voices would be saying and the stuff that needs to really be healed is to act.
when we try to think it through and heal first and all the things ahead of time to make sure we're doing the right thing, that's perfectionism. And that relationship to perfectionism will never bring us into liberatory practice. So it has to be that we do the next right thing. And as we're doing it, we meet upon both the self that is doing the true work
And the self that's there like, I'm a pat myself on the back because I'm allowing my, you know, and, both of those selves and all of those selves live in, in us at the same time. And so there we are. No one is exempt from. Yeah. And we aren't sitting down judging the people who gave like, I'm sure people who gave gave in an entitled way or whatever. There are people who gave for all kinds of motivations and that's not my business. I'm just like, thank you very much. Right. Thank you very much. You do your work.
Becky Mollenkamp (21:24.944)
Yeah.
Faith Clarke (21:29.723)
I do my work. It doesn't even really matter if Savior Becky showed up. Then we get to have a look and dialogue with Savior Becky. In the meanwhile, thank you very much.
Becky Mollenkamp (21:46.204)
Yeah. Well, yeah, and that's on me to do the work of tending to Savior Becky and quieting Savior Becky. And you're right. that's not, and, but I also think it's, it was a reminder for me too, of the spaces that we occupy and, and being really intentional and thoughtful about the spaces that we decide to be inside of, because like, I know
And I actually had a separate conversation with Tyena also about some of this, about some of my stuff that was coming up. And just that like having those spaces to go and be able to talk about, save your Becky's here. And for to have places where that will be held and not judged and not thrown back at you or whatever. under people who understand, like you said, perfectionism isn't the work. It's not about being perfect. It's not about doing this quote unquote, right all the time.
Faith Clarke (22:18.825)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (22:37.016)
and that having places where you can go to have those conversations too, when the messy stuff shows up as you're trying to endeavor to be a better human, you know, cause it will be messy. and so it's, it was important that I had those spaces as well, where I could go and talk about that kind of that part of it. and just a reminder too of like, this is mutual because I guess another discomfort that came up for me was this, and I think I talked to you about it. I know I talked to you about it, this feeling of.
What do I owe, quote unquote, owe these people who've now contributed to this thing, right? These 50 people, what do I owe them? And it's like, I don't owe them anything. This is not a charitable giving thing. There's no tax deduction. There's no write-off for them. They're not, like the whole idea of mutual aid is not, I'm giving this money with strings attached, right?
I expect to know how it's spent, where it's spent, why it's spent. I need my receipt for my records and all of that. And yet I'm so conditioned into that way of thinking about quote unquote giving. That's part of that my discomfort came up as like, need to like, what do I need to document to show to tell them? How many times do we need to fall over stumbling saying, thank you. Like, we grovel at your feet. And it was, I had to really check myself because I kept feeling this real strong urge to do that. But part of I think,
The modeling it is also helping those folks learn you're not obligated to any, like there is no, you're not owed any of that. And you may be feeling that discomfort. And now you get to sit in that discomfort of, well, how do I know how, where faith, is money? How do I know what happened? I mean, we did share an email showing a picture of the car and just sort of updating because I did feel like I wanted to share the lessons from this. And I felt like that was important, but not so much the like, you know.
Faith owes you a thousand thank yous and I need to show up and show that I did this and that. But it was hard because that discomfort came up too, a feeling like some sense of I owe them something.
Faith Clarke (24:40.999)
Yeah, and I think when we are, I think we're in a unique, not unique, but we're in a specific role here in our community because as catalysts, as agitators, as people are holding the space, we're both talking about some of this stuff and trying to live it out in front of people and talk about, put ourselves in the lab. And that's not everybody's work. A friend of mine and I were in a conversation this morning about
Taisi Coates' book, Message. in the tour and stuff, and people are asking him questions, my goodness, so what do we do now? And he's like, my work is the writer. And as the writer, I document what I see and I give it to you. You have to figure out what your work is. And so just to say that I know what we are doing is a reflection of our work. And people who might critique it or might say, hey, Becky's being whatever.
is they need to figure out their work. Us, what we are doing is living day to day and trying to hold the principles that we're talking about and seeing how they're showing up in our day to day lives and then sharing that with folks. And that's our work. So other people, I guess part of what I'm feeling in my body right now is first the thing that not everybody is going to do this work.
Becky Mollenkamp (25:40.572)
Hmm.
Faith Clarke (26:06.385)
Everybody, people have to figure out what their work is. And if this isn't their work, mind your business, this is not, it's not for them. Yeah, you can't critique Becky doing Becky's work and doing it like a human being does it or a faith or whoever. So this is my work is the constant noticing of how it feels to be vulnerable and to
to work through what in this America here sounds like everybody jumping on our side and being really hostile and violent about it and recognizing the feeling of risk like, my goodness, I might be on the receiving end of that hostility. What does that mean? While I'm just trying to live my life, just trying to live my life and breathe in and breathe out. And last quick point to the point of what you were saying about what is owed to folks.
Whenever that shows up for me, I don't argue with it, but I just ask myself, I breathe in air all the time, what is owed to the air? This system of living, there is no owing. There is breathe in and breathe out, we're all doing it. There is something that the person who gave received in the giving. That's just how the world works. And I have to just trust, you better receive the thing that came to you, but I know.
Becky Mollenkamp (27:29.69)
Yeah
Faith Clarke (27:34.909)
Thank you very much for the thing that came to me because just as I take in the air, I breathe it out. That's just how this is.
Faith Clarke (27:47.529)
So sorry, Beke, that your internet is giving you trouble.
Faith Clarke (28:06.397)
I'll also say here, we can stitch this in somewhere. I'll also say here that for the workshop that we have coming up, where we're going to invite people to bring a discomfort, bring a conflict, bring something, that as I was deconstructing just my own process and my process with clients, I realized that there are these key relationships that we need to be tending to be able to be with discomfort between people well.
And so whether it's a relationship with the self, I'm calling that personhood, we're gonna call that personhood in our workshop coming up, the relationship with the other and whether, like what's our heart towards difference, because often discomforts and conflict is showing up because of some kind of relationship to difference, or the relationship to the problem itself and the context that the problem is in.
and whether that's triggering our need to kind of be the most efficient, be the most right, you know, hustle or corporate or whatever it is. And I think that part of what we're going to do is invite all of us into a certain kind of relationship with these three domains in the upcoming workshop.
Becky Mollenkamp (29:28.15)
Thank you for continuing on. I'm a peek behind the curtain. I'm having internet issues. So I've dropped out of this call like three times. And now I'm just really hoping that the call is recording frankly, and that like my end of this will show up. I don't know. I know you were just talking about the workshop. Before that, I just wanted to say what you were talking about, the symbiosis and the air. That's where I left. Which is that it makes me think of Emergent Strategy by Adrienne Marie Brown too. And just reading that book is such a great place to start when you're.
thinking about some of these issues and the discomfort and remembering that like the tree isn't uncomfortable with its relationship with the air and the ground and the rain and those things are not uncomfortable that we can tell anyway. They don't seem to express discomfort. They know that they support each other and that that's just the way it is in nature. And so it's such a great reminder for that. I'm sorry, I missed everything you said about the workshop, but I'm sure it was great.
Faith Clarke (30:21.737)
Right, I just afterwards in editing, we can move things around. I just kind of encapsulated the model that we will be using because I centered it on our three important relationships, the relationship to ourself, our personhood, the relationship to power and the relationship to the actual problem. And I don't know if I use those exact words in the description, but yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (30:50.85)
I'm curious. Oh, I'm sorry. I was just saying, I'm curious in the example of what we're talking about with the car and in that whole experience, how would you outline those three places with that story?
Faith Clarke (31:04.499)
For me personally, my relationship with myself and discomfort, I have a bunch of practices in place to, I think for every relationship you need to be doing two things. You need to be monitoring what's going on here and you need to be modifying the relationship so it stays in a restorative and nourishing and generative place. And I have practices for that with myself already, with my personhood. But part of the checking is just the...
what's happening here for me in myself, what are my identity issues that are being brought to the surface, like what's going on in terms of this discomfort. Relationship with the other, in this case, the other is you, but also the other is insurance companies and tow people. And I had to, for me, correctly categorize what...
What is happening? And to recognize power over. I called in this last clip, I call it relationship to power. It is power over. And therefore that situates me in a certain place to the power that's being acted and helps me to not blame myself. This is not my fault. It's not because I wasn't smart enough. I had the wrong insurance policy. I didn't speak the right way to the right, you know.
Um, so there was a relationship to the other in terms of the insurance company, but also relationship to you recognizing my desire to care, take you and not, not let you experience, have the experience you're having. Um, and then what does it mean to be in a power with scenario or with you? That was me kind of pulling on my big girl thing and say, okay, I can talk about, I can be on the active side of asking for what I need.
And so that was, because there was a part of this that as the person creating the invitation, there is a power element there for you as well. And so part of me saying, I can also be part of this, that together we are doing it. And to hold that, that was part of the power sharing, that's relationship with the other. And then a relationship with the problem itself, it's not something that's happening to me.
Faith Clarke (33:22.377)
And it's not something that I need to fix in the perfect way. So I wanted to have had cash and so that I could buy the thing fully. What I ended up doing to get a safe car, I've had a honest conversation with the car dealership people who were all in a hustle themselves and they got me a loan that was at a rate that was sensible. And that's allowed me to both have a significant deposit.
but to pay for six months of my insurance. I think the relationship with the problem, once I am not needing to be perfect, not needing to be the most efficient, not needing to be the most smart, work the system, then it helped me, what do I actually need? And it helped me find other paths, which then allowed me to, the insurance is paid for for six months, thank you very much to all the people who contributed. And then I have, I've given myself a year to pay off the loan.
I don't know if I will or if I won't, but I have, my shoulders aren't hiked up. I'm not, I did not leave the car dealership unable to pay my rent, which is how I went in, even with the donations, you know, so I think that contributions are contributions. So I think that that's the part of the thing is slowing yourself down enough to look at your relationship in each of these areas.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:22.594)
Mmm.
Becky Mollenkamp (34:31.82)
Contributions. Contributions. Okay.
Faith Clarke (34:47.271)
and then settle in to what's your wise self saying given your honest understanding of your relationship. Some of these relationships we haven't tended at all. Not everybody has been navigating their relationship with their self in the ways that you and I have been talking about. And so you may not, you may just be at the place where you're like, whoa, I get uncomfortable about a lot of stuff. And then some of that is just, we switch from judgment to curiosity?
you know, if that's the place you're at, where for me it was about, there are some practices that I have that I'm applying in other areas that I need to double down on for right now, because it's urgent, I need to move through this and it feels hella awful. And so I was just like, all right, it's a time for, you know, the proverbial drink the garlic and eat your vegetables and drink water for my soul. I had to be kind of doing some intense tending.
Becky Mollenkamp (35:40.576)
Yeah, and I think, you know, also, no matter where you're at on your own journey, it's never going to stop. I don't think I mean, maybe there are some amazing monks or something out there who no longer feel discomfort, but I don't think so. Like, I feel like the more that I continue to work on myself in some ways, it's like I think I even see it more. So in some ways, I feel like I have more discomfort. And it's not I don't think it's because there is more discomfort. It's because I'm noticing it more and I'm able to
key in on it more quickly, I'm more in tune with my body, my feelings, my thoughts, and all of those things that I can notice it more. And I think I'm better able to be with it, which is huge, and then being able to sort of figure out what do I do with it. But that's the biggest change. The change is not that discomfort goes away, right? Like we're going to be, there's discomfort constantly. And I think that's important for us to know that. Like the goal is never to, it's not to.
beat discomfort, to win against discomfort, to never feel discomfort again. And that's your sign that you have, you know, you've mastered this. That's not what it is. It's like, you're always going to have discomfort. And so it's where you add on that journey of, can you even recognize it as discomfort versus what I think in the past I would do, which is, right, just like I'm right, or I'm aggrieved or, know, all of these other things and not realize, no, I'm just uncomfortable. That's all it is. I'm just really uncomfortable. So one can...
Faith Clarke (37:05.672)
And yeah, not all this comfort, not all this comfort means some harm is happening, you know, and that because we have been so kind of trained to be, danger, discomfort equals danger, then we are misdiagnosing so many situations and then reacting, misdiagnosing in a snap and then reacting to our misdiagnosis. A lot of the work that we are doing with ourselves is to slow that process down.
Becky Mollenkamp (37:07.04)
Yeah, I can't even recognize it.
Faith Clarke (37:35.082)
because this email that I got is not a lion or tiger or bear, even though my body feels like it is. It's not, you know, it, it, and yes, there are threats and there are challenges, but I have the, when I let myself, I have this prefrontal cortex. I have strategic planning skills in the moment of the actual problem. I do have the ability. And so the discomfort is trying to protect me from something that's not really the thing that's happening right now.
And as we can build our relationship to discomfort, so it's actually in service, it's just information. And can I let that information be in service to where I want to go versus have me in constant defend and protect, which does not take us where we want to.
Becky Mollenkamp (38:20.319)
Yeah, I think it's like, I see it as what it is, which is discomfort versus the other ways I have in the past tried to categorize it that usually are about then trying to avoid it. And then can I be with it, which is a really challenging thing, I think, especially for white women. I'll speak to my group of people, which is that we have been so coddled in our lives and tended to and treated in a way that we have never learned to be with discomfort.
And we've been really taught to be afraid of our discomfort. And so we don't know how to be with it. So can I see it as discomfort? Can I be with it? Can I just be, can I exist with the discomfort? And then like only then do you get to the third place of, and then what do I do with the discomfort? How do I like, I don't even say manage, cause that sounds like you're trying to tame it, control it. But it's just like, what do I do with this information now? And so those are sort of like, I think three steps along this process of discomfort. And I think for people who are
still that place, like I think if you are just getting that place of recognizing things as discomfort or if no matter where you're on that continuum, I think I think a workshop like with what Faith and I are planning will be really helpful with people. So I don't know how much you shared, Faith, about the workshop, but I'm you know, we're going to hammer out the final details and get everything shared in the show notes, the email, the wherever you're consuming this will have details about how to sign up for the workshop that's coming up in March.
Faith Clarke (39:46.61)
Yeah, I just shared philosophical stuff.
Becky Mollenkamp (39:49.058)
Okay, philosophically. Well then, we'll get to specifically soon. But it's coming and we'll have the details. Hopefully by the time we share this video, we'll have all the details attached to it. So if you want to join us, because the goal really is, it's not about mastering your discomfort. If you want to be in a space where you're like, I recognize myself in that, I don't know how to be uncomfortable. Or when I am uncomfortable, I don't know what to do with that discomfort. Or it scares me so much, I avoid it.
because I'm not sure how to be with it and how to exist and then like do something useful with it, then like that's what I think, that's what I hope people will get out of a workshop like this is that early part of just understanding discomfort is a way of life and avoiding it isn't serving you and it's often harming others.
Faith Clarke (40:39.57)
Yeah, and I think that when we can have that right relationship, then our conflict navigation has some space to breathe, you know? And then we can really arrive at solutions that serve us all.
Becky Mollenkamp (40:56.534)
Yeah, changes your relationship with yourself and with others. And those are really important. Well, thank you for having this conversation, because I think it's really interesting this whole it's just one of many ways that the stuff plays out. But it was such a big kind of like it felt like such a sort of big, clear example of where discomfort shows up. And then how do we navigate through that to not allow it to derail us from what we're actually wanting to get out of the situation? Because just like you, I think if this hadn't been for like if it hadn't been in support of you.
Faith Clarke (40:59.615)
Yeah.
Becky Mollenkamp (41:25.986)
I would have probably been much quieter. I wouldn't have done what I would have done. When I first set, said like we got $200. I'm going to be able to send you a couple hundred dollars. And I felt kind of bad about it. I probably would have stopped there though, if it was me, right? And I was really happy that we sort of persevered through both of our discomfort to get to a place where it felt like a really meaningful, by the end of it, to me, it felt like, oh, that feels like a meaningful amount of money that like.
is a difference maker. And that felt really good where if I had allowed my discomfort to shut it down sooner, I would have been, I would have come out of the experience feeling shitty. I'm glad I didn't. Like I felt really good by the end of it. And I hope you did too.
Faith Clarke (42:02.524)
Absolutely. I felt cared for because as much as we want to not make money be as meaningful a thing as it is, it is. It is. it's, you know, like you said, I wish I had the magic spell to change some leaves or something that we have a lot of into cash. And so just this idea of, wow, together, this is what was created. you know, so I really, was helpful is a very small word for
Becky Mollenkamp (42:12.576)
It is.
Faith Clarke (42:32.4)
what was possible in two days because I even thought I had to give up the car on Friday I think and realized that I have to give this car up on Wednesday so I bought the car on Tuesday and have to give up the rental by Wednesday so
Faith Clarke (42:50.026)
Looks like you're gone again. All right. This was amazing. Thank you so much for hosting this conversation with me. And anybody who's listening will send you the information about the workshop soon. Take care.
Becky Mollenkamp (43:08.258)
my god.
Becky Mollenkamp (44:02.429)
Well, thank you so much for sharing your story, faith and for sharing the experience on your side of it and mine. And I will include information about the workshop. So if you're seeing this and you're interested in our discomfort workshop, let me check out the details. We'd love to see you there. And I'll just admit my discomfort and the fact that this has had major technical issues. So if this episode even gets out, it'll be amazing. And I am feeling discomfort around. I hope that it doesn't sound horrible and you all aren't like super annoyed by it. But anyway.
Thank you very much for listening.