What’s shifted? Reflecting on past episodes

In this episode, we’re looking back at the moments from past conversations that stuck with us. The ones that shifted something inside us weeks or even months later. As we celebrate a whole year of Life in the Grey (what?!), we’re revisiting the episode that changed the way we see relationships and unpacking why some dynamics feel so complicated once we’re a little older, wiser and more healed.

 

Related links:

• Episode 009: “Is it me? Rewiring relationships without gaslighting myself”
• Episode 001: “Are you a failure? When proven methods don't work for you”

✨ Ready to be a little kinder to yourself? Download our free 5-day self-compassion challenge—with daily prompts, gentle exercises and tools to help you stop the spiral of self-criticism and start speaking to yourself like a friend.

Creators and Guests

Host

Faith

Faith is a Singapore-born advocate for holistic wellbeing, informed by decades of personal exploration into counselling practices, therapy and trauma recovery. Although not a psychologist, she has developed a nuanced understanding of emotional wellness through her healing journey. Married and living in Singapore, Faith shares her home with two beloved cats and nurtures a passion for jump rope, finding both joy and valuable life lessons in it. Her outlook embraces a blend of physical, spiritual and emotional health, allowing curiosity, compassion and intentional consideration to guide her as she navigates the gentle greys that lie between life’s extremes.

Host

Melody

Melody is a passionate advocate for empowering mothers through connection, faith and digital engagement. As the project leader for Mums At The Table, a vibrant community for mothers, Melody leads efforts to create meaningful content that helps mums navigate parenting while fostering deeper relationships with their children and local communities. With a background in media and communication, Melody uses her expertise to engage mothers in digital spaces, equipping them with practical tools for parenting and personal growth. She lives in Sydney with her husband and their primary-school-aged son.

What is Life in the Grey?

Life isn’t always black and white. Life in the Grey is a Mums At The Table podcast where we explore the psychological factors that shape our relationships, be that as a parent, a partner, or a peer. And don’t worry—it’s short because we ain't got time for fluff. Expect practical takeaways that you can apply to your own life, whether it’s navigating parenting challenges or finding balance amidst life’s demands. Join us each month as we share stories, insights, and reflections that encourage personal growth and foster a sense of connection in our community.

FAITH: Have you ever had a conversation that follows you? So, some conversations are like stones that get dropped into a pond. There's the initial splash, the immediate impact, you think the conversation is over, but then a day, a week, a month later, right, a phrase that was said somehow reveals the ripple effects.

MELODY: Yeah, you keep thinking about it and without meaning to, you ruminate, is ruminate the right word? But yeah, you think about it.

FAITH: Yeah, you go, it comes back and then today we're looking at the ripple effects. Welcome to Life in the Grey. For anyone who's new here, Life in the Grey is a space that Melody and I, Faith, we explore the messy, beautiful, often confusing middle ground of our emotional and relational lives.

We don't promise neat formulas, we don't have them or easy answers. Instead, through our own stories and psychology-informed reflections, we hope to create a little more space to breathe, to be human. And . . .

MELODY: To be compassionate to ourselves.

FAITH: To be compassionate to ourselves. I love that. And to everyone who's been listening with us and reflecting along, thank you. It's really a gift to be able to share this space with you. And I cannot believe I'm saying this, Mel, but we've officially been having these conversations for a whole year.

MELODY: I know, right? Who knew?

FAITH: And yay! Yeah, and today is a check-in. We're going back to a couple of past conversations to explore what's landed and what might look different with a bit more distance. So, Mel, you're gonna kick us off and maybe give us a bit of an intro to this next clip.

MELODY: Yeah, so this one, this one really stuck with me. Okay, so it's from episode 9 and it's titled “Is it me? Rewiring relationships without gaslighting myself”. It was, in itself, it was a really big conversation for me because we were digging into relationships that bring us joy but also drive us a little bit crazy. Yeah, I don't know about you, but I have a lot of that kind of relationships. So friendships, kids, even just those everyday interactions that can bring you joy but also can push all the wrong buttons. And what I loved about the conversation, right, was that it wasn't about blaming ourselves or carrying shame, but it was about asking a gentler question. Could my own expectations or even my past experiences be shaping the way I'm reacting right now? But there was one thing that you said that created a mind-shift in me. So let's just roll the snippet first and then I'll share more about how this conversation changed the way I think since.

FAITH: Not everyone starts from that kind of dynamic. Some of us formed our closest relationships when we were still wounded, which means that the dynamics that we started with then might not be healthy now because when we first started, we chose not from a place of wholeness.

MELODY: So yeah, it's interesting because it's kind of knowledge that I know but knowledge that I didn't know. Well, I guess maybe it's something that I didn't really think about. This whole thing about not everybody comes from the same baseline of safe relationships, right? While I know that people have difficult relationships, while I know that there are people who have traumatic states, all that kind of stuff, somehow or other, I still immediately come from the assumption that we choose others, we have relationship with others, and that is in a circle of security. Even like interactions with other people, right? We come through a baseline of non-trauma, so to speak. And I used to dispense my opinions accordingly with that kind of assumptions. I guess a bit of an example I could give is with the whole, you know how sometimes we look at other people, right? And in relationships and stuff like that, and we go, oh, why would she or why would he, why would she choose someone like him? Or why would they choose someone like them? And it's like, I wouldn't do that. And it's not that it's something that I do very often, but I think that encapsulates the kind of thinking, because I'm putting my experiences and my perspective onto how I would behave onto the other person, and thinking, well, I wouldn't choose that, why would you choose that?

FAITH: So like your own boundaries, your own standards, your own values, you superimpose on someone else and assume that that's the same baseline that they start from too.

MELODY: Yes, so I recently wrote an article about how we should always choose connection over correction. It was in the context of parenting, and I extended it to how we relate to others, how we should choose to empathise and understand the other person, take time to pause before we lash out, which sounds great, right? But then I had you speaking in my head, and it was this thought that, wait, there are people who may be in unsafe relationships, or even people who will choose the wrong kinds of connection through no fault of their own. And so in honour of the lesson learned, and in honour of you, I ended up writing this extra paragraph. And so this is what I wrote.

“It's true that it's not something that will work with everyone. Sometimes the wounds are far too deep, the hurt too strong, and sometimes for a variety of reasons, the other party may have no desire to connect or be connected to. When that happens, we need to also know when to stop so that we protect ourselves.”

See, the reality is that I never would have written something before this mind-shift. I would have simply assumed that everybody should try to make a connection with another person, without it occurring to me that, you know, perhaps the other person isn't someone that you should really connect with, or that this need to connect with someone could be taken to such an unhealthy level that you hurt yourself. So yeah, thank you for speaking into my head and living rent-free in there.

FAITH: I was going to say that it's like I get to live rent-free. At least something's free here. That's amazing. I mean, this is a real treat because this is what we want to do, right? I mean, we have conversations with each other so that we can get curious and we can remind each other to get inquisitive and then we can push a little bit, you know, sometimes the frames that we tend to live with and test out like, okay, is this all it is? Because we don't know what we don't know. And that's why we rely on other people, right? Conversations with other people and putting ourselves in a curiosity mindset to say, okay, this might not feel comfortable, but what is this trying to tell me? What's happening here? And just getting curious, not judgemental, right? Which is why I said, you know, like when you said at the beginning about being compassionate towards ourselves. Yeah, because we're curious and compassionate and it's very exciting. It's very exciting.

MELODY: Another thing to learn here as well is that, you know, just because one of the things that I find that we do, that I do as well, is that, you know, when I learn something new, a part of me gets defensive. A part of me goes like, oh, well, I should have learned that. Or why am I? Like defensive towards the other person. And so it was like, oh, no, I already know that. So I try to discount what the other person has to say. But the thing is like, you know, whatever the other person teaches you, right? It's not a judgement on who you are or the value that you have. You've just learned something new. It doesn't mean that you were worse off or you weren't a good person beforehand. You've just learned something new. There's no value. There's no judgement in that sense.

FAITH: The reality is our brains are wired to protect us. So when we see something that could potentially feel like a threat, could potentially harm us, we want to protect ourselves. And so this whole defensiveness is really just ourselves trying to protect. And it really takes an effort to put ourselves back into this curiosity mindset and then remind ourselves to separate what this person is saying versus how we feel and how we feel might not actually be driven by the surface experience. Which is very interesting because I think this leads to the clip that I wanted to share. So can I share? OK, all right.

MELODY: So I was going to ask you, it’s like, well, thank you for giving me two lessons in one.

FAITH: Well, here's the thing. So this is the next clip that I wanted to share. And it came all the way from the very first episode.

MELODY: Way back?

FAITH: So I'm trying to be an octopus right now.

MELODY: You're not here. Come back to me.

FAITH: All right. I've got it. It's all queued up.

MELODY: OK, found the button?

FAITH: OK, here we go.

MELODY: But the thing is with anger, right? It may be the problem you see, but it's also the perfect mask for so many different other emotions. I may have feelings of inadequacies. That's why I'm angry. I may be afraid. That's why I'm angry. I may not have gotten what I want. That's why I'm angry. I may be grieving. That's why I'm angry. And the solution for every single one of that is so very different.
I like that. I like that we quote each other.

FAITH: OK, caveat, this was not planned. It just happened that way. But I think this is where it reveals, right, how the reason why I'm quoting you is because something you said broadened my perspective or it gave me an opportunity to explore something even deeper, right? So what you said resonates so much because like we were talking earlier about how it might reveal something deeper. And that's a practice that I'm trying to be more intentional with lately, especially when I want to understand why certain people or certain situations triggers outsized reaction in me. It's not just like when it gets under your skin, but there's a disproportionate reaction to something that has happened. And essentially, this practice is really about treating my first reaction not as the final word, but to see it as a messenger. So instead of just reacting to the messenger, like you don't shoot the messenger, right? The goal is to pause and then interview this messenger with compassionate curiosity to find out what is the deeper story. You know, what's the story or reality is, because our brains are wired for protection, what's the fear that's really sending it?

MELODY: Yeah, actually, that's the thing, right? A lot of times our reaction comes from, yeah, it comes from fear. There's some kind of fear. And the difficulty is that it's not always that easy or quick to unpack.

FAITH: Yeah, and do you want to go through an example?

MELODY: Do you want me to give an example or do you have an example in mind? Because what you thought, I do actually have a very quick example in mind, but you can go first.

FAITH: Please, go ahead. Yes, I want to hear your example.

MELODY: No, I think the really simple example, right, is this whole, you know, the “hangry” term. And this comes out, I do it, my son do it, everybody does it, right? And it's basically that, it's just that you are very irritable, you are very angry and you lash out disproportionately at someone. But the real underlying reason is just that you're hungry.

FAITH: I think it's very evident, especially in kids. Like I heard a story lately about this parent who said that she started preparing snacks to eat in the car because she noticed the pattern where she picked up her kid from school. By the time they get home, her two children are like at loggerheads with each other. And then she thought it could be because the last time they ate was at 9am and then now it's like one, they're hungry. But to get to lunch, maybe let's have a snack first. And she let them eat in the car and by the time they got home, nobody was mad at each other.

MELODY: Oh yes, there is snacks. So when my husband picks my son up, there is always an after-school snack for the car. And then when he comes home, there is another snack so that tides him through before dinner happens. These kids are always eating, but yes.

FAITH: Because they're growing, right? So that's one of the easy ones and I thought maybe I'll share an example of what I started doing after I thought about the layers and the layers and the layers. And it's like, how do you peel back the layers? How do you keep peeling until you reach to this spot that's like, okay, this feels like this is the bottom and then you can do something about it, right? Yeah, so I'm going to reach down, right? I'm reaching down right now to...

MELODY: Because you're peeling out the layers?

FAITH: Yeah, no, because I have all these like... I do my journalling...

MELODY: Are you going to take out an onion?

FAITH: Yeah, I do my journalling in all these loose leaf papers on the back of old newspapers, I do my journalling. So yeah, I'm just going to reach down so that I can see what I wrote.

MELODY: I thought you're going to pick up, you know, show-and-tell, right? So you're going to pick up like an onion and start peeling back the layers.

FAITH: You know, this is kind of like something like an onion thing where I started writing on these pieces of loose leaf paper just so that I can recycle, reuse.

MELODY: Environmental message there as well, people.

FAITH: So there's this person and let's call them Jo, all right, whose behaviour consistently activates a very strong reaction in me, right? The annoyance in behaviour. And so I could just sit there and go, oh, of course, because Jo is a horrible person, right? Jo is this, Jo is that, fine. And give all these labels onto Jo. But I thought, okay, you know, let's sit with the feeling and ask myself, okay, so what are the incidences that Jo or the actions that Jo does that trigger all these deep irritations and annoyance in me? And what's the pattern? So first I asked myself, what's the pattern here, right? And so I wrote down, you know, all the different incidences, which I'm not going to go into here, right? But I did notice that of all the things that they've said and done, there was a pattern of needing to be in control. At least that's how I see it, right? I read it as a pattern of needing to be in control, always having to be right, always shifting blame. But then I didn't stop there because this is not about the other person. It's about me. So then I had to ask myself, okay, so why does this specific pattern bother me so much? And then I journalled some more. I was like, you know, and then I go, oh, because ultimately this pattern is a signal to me that there is a profound lack of self-awareness. It signals to me that they lack the awareness to be aware that they lack awareness.

MELODY: That's a problem.

FAITH: They project their own unexamined reaction onto me, making me the problem because now they're not, refuse, they're not doing their own homework, but I have to like, it's the implications that I have to do the homework for them. My sense of responsibility starts kicking in and it's like, why do I have to do it? But I feel I need... So all this conflict starts happening inside of me. And remember, the brain is there to protect, right? It's there to protect. And so the brain is protecting me from feeling all of these really awful, like, tumbleweed of feelings. But then I didn't stop there. I could have just stopped there, but I felt like, can we go further? And I asked, okay, so why does them having a lack of awareness bother me? Because that's them, right? So they live their life without awareness. So what does it bother me? And you see, I keep digging, right? I just like peeling the layers. Okay, I'm mixing metaphors here. And it bothers me so much and I dug deep and it was because of the injustice. And can you hear my tone? As I'm telling you right now, it feels like . . . your body will know. You will know when you're starting to hit paydirt because I could hear the tone and I could feel myself as I'm writing, as I'm typing. I said writing, but sometimes I type too, right? So I can feel myself. The pen is really scratching the paper. It's going faster. I'm typing, the typing is getting louder. And it's the injustice. I hit on the word injustice and I was like, I felt that.

MELODY: Freedom fighter in you came out.

FAITH: Freedom fighter, yes. But here's the thing, why injustice? What is the injustice here? What's the injustice? The injustice is I had to do tough, tough work. Tough, tough work of reflection, of emotional unpacking, of repair and restoration. I paid a significant emotional price to be able to live by a new, healthier set of rules, right? Accountability, repair, self-awareness. And here's Jo. Operating on these old set of blame-shifting, defensiveness and not only not facing the consequences, but other people carry the homework for them. And here's another thing. The same people who punished me for the same behaviours are letting Jo get away with it. That, that was the injustice I felt. When Jo does something like this, I felt this injustice of they're getting the people who hurt me for behaving this way or the people who I felt hurt for holding me accountable for this way are letting them get away with it. That's so unjust.

MELODY: What did that change though? Oh, sorry.

FAITH: It changed because I realised that there was a core belief, there was a misguided core belief that was driving this whole sense of injustice, which is, and here's the thing, it was even deeper than that, right? So what's even deeper than that was not just, oh, I feel injustice and I know why. Then the question is, so what about that? What's the core belief here? And the core belief is, no matter how much work I do on myself, the world will let people get away with causing harm and will even enable them. That core belief. Can you see how it's so connected to hopelessness? And no wonder I'm getting all these strong anger reactions, all these frustrations. So then what's the reframe? Because the whole point of this is not just to say, oh, I know and that's it, right?

MELODY: Yeah that's what I'm curious about. So knowing all of that, what did it change?

FAITH: Right, because the whole point of the excavation is to find a way to heal. And so I wanted to reframe because when you reverse engineer, right? So what's the reframe here? And for me, the reframe sounds like this. Hey, Faith, we don't know enough of every situation, right? And every angle to be able to conclude that the world is unjust. We don't know. We don't know everything. And so what we don't know, we have to make space for both the good and the bad. And because we like metaphors, we can think of like, a garden. And a gardener doesn't look at a garden and say, this garden is weeds. They say, oh, this garden has weeds that I have to attend to. And also nurture the flowers and the vegetables. And I'm the gardener. And this is my patch of garden. And what happened was, it didn't change what Jo did. It just changed my internal experience of it. Before my subconscious goal was fuelled to get Jo to see the injustice, get them accountable. Because I was held accountable, so they must be held accountable too.

MELODY: Oh, I would love to do that as well.

FAITH: But now I have an achievable goal. And that is, I take care of my own garden with compassion and integrity and with alignment to my values. And so now when I interact with Jo, in the times that I do unavoidably have to, I just think, hey, you know what? You do you, man. You do you. I'm not your mother. I'm not responsible for you. I just want to be responsible for my own boundaries, my own expectations, my own standards, my own preferences. I'll do the work for me, but it's not for you.

MELODY: So it's basically letting Jo go on their own journey.

FAITH: Yes, letting Jo go on their own journey. But because I'm responsible for my own boundaries and my own expectations, it just means that when Jo's getting a little bit too much, I release the control that says I got to hold them responsible. No, you know what? You do you, but I'm going to exit this conversation. If I need to, I'm going to go like, gently terminate the conversation in a tactful way and just exit. Or sometimes if I really can't exit physically, I just exit mentally. It's like, you do you. Okay, what you're saying is just for you. It's not, I don't have to pick it up. I don't have to be like, you're saying this and it means something for me. It's saying something about me. It doesn't have to say anything about me. It's just words that you're throwing out and it's just landing on the floor in between the two of us. And I recognise the words, but I'm not going to pick it up and smear it all over me and make it mine. It's like, nah.

MELODY: Well, I think we need to wrap up soon, but I've got one question though about this whole peeling layers, excavation kind of exercise. And whether you can tell me or not, I don't know. But how long did it take you?

FAITH: Sometimes when I do these exercises, it's fast. Because the bottom layer is just, you know, like some onions are small and some onions are big. This one, this one took me a few rounds. It took me a few rounds. Yeah, it took me a few rounds because I felt I hadn't hit rock bottom yet. I hadn't hit rock bottom. And even when I hit rock bottom, when I finally found out, okay, it's injustice and I could name it, I could describe it, right? I could describe what the injustice was about. It took me a while to figure out like, what's the core belief that's driving this sense of injustice. But once I hit that core belief, I could see it so clearly. It's like, wow, Faith, that's such a, like everybody, the world, nobody's going to hold it. Wow, even words like that, right? Signal to me like, okay, there's a lot of exaggeration here. Which means that it signals that something is off with this core belief. And then I was like, I felt like when I came to those words and I arrived at that space, that language, there was this like, this relief. You know, like when you have conversations with people and they are able to reflect back to you, their understanding, and you just feel like, you get it. And I felt inside of me, there were parts of me that were like screaming to be heard, finally saying, yes, Faith, you get it. And I'm like, yes, we get it. We get it, we get it. Yeah, and we can work through this.

MELODY: I guess the thing is, it's not an easy thing to do and it might not be quick and it might take time. But, you know, it's worth it in the end. At the end, it's worth it.

FAITH: I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is that I can really allow the words to just land on the ground and remind myself they're just landing on the ground. I don't need to pick them up. And then I just, the internal shift, the internal peace, it's so much better.

MELODY: So, well, yeah, it's been an interesting ride revisiting these previous podcasts, listening to our thought processes then, and then reflecting on, you know, the difference that it's made and potentially, hopefully, how much we've grown as well. This podcast isn't about having all the answers. It's about wrestling with the questions, sitting in the grey, noticing the shifts that happen along the way. And I guess it's also a reminder that the lessons don't stop once the episode is over. They keep shaping the way we parent, partner and show up in our relationships every single day. Thank you so much for listening and journeying with us.

If you found today's episode encouraging, we'd love for you to share it with a friend who might need it too. And of course, don't forget to subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. And what's coming up next month is another special episode where we read through the comments and responses from our previous podcast.

So we'll see you next month.