While we can all always aim to be kind, loving, compassionate, really conscious and courageous communicators, sometimes our less evolved parts do come out. I recently made some relationship decisions, and they brought up a lot for me around emotional maturity and intelligence. In this episode, I’m unpacking the nuanced considerations and analysis that I’ve been going through around engaging with people and building intimacy and connection.
As always, I share my stories not because I believe my experience is universal and I handle everything perfectly, but because I know some of you will relate to parts, if not all, of these experiences and I hope that they are useful in your own reflection and development, too.
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In episode 425 of the Embodied Podcast we discuss:
(1:04) What the Wild Soul Sacred Body Membership is and who it’s for
(4:23) A decision I made last week that used up all of my bandwidth for emotional intelligence and maturity
(6:17) Learning the lesson of being careful about who you confide in
(8:30) My thoughts on unsolicited advice
(12:29) The distinction between being evolved and mature
(14:42) Feeling cathartic after speaking honestly with certain people in my life
(18:22) Why I don’t necessarily agree with the concept of ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’
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- Learn more about the Wild Soul Sacred Body Membership (registration closes May 22nd)
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Quotes from this Week’s Episode of the Embodied Podcast:
- I notice people like to really distance themselves from poor behavior, when in reality, no one is above poor behavior and everyone goes there sometimes.
- Part of emotional maturity is not needing to be understood by everybody.
- Once you engage with your inner world, which includes your ancestors and your divine support squad, and really do your work, then no one can know you better than you know yourself, or truly know what’s better for you than you do.
- Just because something worked for you, does not mean it will, or even should, work for everyone else.
- ‘Nice’ is often dishonest, sweeping things under the rug, fake as fuck, and manipulation.
- People who bury the truth to keep the peace will always be at war with themselves.
- When I didn’t have the energy to uphold my own standards and just let my most shadowy self out, I realized that I’d really been suppressing those parts of myself and that was not serving me. It was like instant alchemy for me to go there.
How was this episode for you?
Was this episode helpful for you today? I’d love to know what quote or lesson touched your soul. Let me know in the comments below OR share the episode on Instagram, tag me your stories @elizabethdialto, or send me a DM!
About the Embodied Podcast with Elizabeth DiAlto
Since 2013 I’ve been developing a body of work that helps women embody self-love, healing, and wholeness. We do this by focusing on the four levels of consciousness – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
In practical terms, this looks like exploring tools and practices to help you tune into the deep wisdom of the body and the knowing of the heart, which I believe are gateways to our souls. Then we cultivate a new relationship with our minds that allows the mind to serve this wisdom and knowledge and soul connection, rather than override it, which is what many of us were taught.
If you’ve been doing self-help or spiritual development work for a while, these are the types of foundational things that often people overlook in pursuit of fancier concepts that often aren’t practical or sustainable. Here, we will focus on building these strong foundations so you can honestly and thoroughly embody self-love. If you’re feeling it, subscribe to the show, and leave us a review wherever you listen from. You can also keep up with show updates and community discussions on Instagram here.
Transcript for Episode 425 “When Keeping It Spiritual Goes Wrong“:
Elizabeth DiAlto 00:00
If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all, is an adage for people who don’t want to face anything real or uncomfortable, aka the truth, who played safe and don’t want to rock the boat? Who will avoid conflict and the truth in favor of what faux peace and harmony that’s actually more dangerous than the truth will ever be. We can tell the truth with love. We can face uncomfortable conversations and conflict with kindness, compassion, honesty, and respect. Takes work takes practice. We’re not always all going to be perfect at it. But it’s so fucking worth doing. Something really landed for me after the conversation with this dude, that people who bury the truth to keep the peace will always be at war with themselves or as a friend of mine put it will always be fragmenting themselves and I’m a big hell no to that. I’d rather rumble with my shadow anytime and be whole than fragment myself off and the name of some fake ass morality. That’s shoddily held together by lies and emotional immaturity.
Elizabeth DiAlto 01:04
What’s up everybody. Welcome to episode number 425 of the embody podcast. I am your host, Elizabeth C Alto. And before we dive in today, a quick announcement that if you’re listening in real time, today is Monday, May 22. And this is the last day to register for the wild soul sacred body membership until the end of the year. If you’re a person who loves engaging with the great mystery, whether you call it God life, the universe all there is the beloved or something else. And you’re a stand for collective healing and liberation and leaving the world better than you found it. If you are a seasoned spiritual seeker, and love having consistent, timeless and reliable tools and resources at your fingertips, for integrating your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts that also help you embody and express your true purpose and power.
Elizabeth DiAlto 01:58
And most importantly, if you would love to have it all in a grounded and grown BS and bypass free space. That is a liberatory and sans any cringy New Age or whitewashed nonsense. We might be the community for you visit untamed yourself.com forward slash membership to see what’s included. Learn how it works and see if this is the thing you didn’t know you needed in your life. Oh, and one more thing about that I wrote this in an email last week. One of the reasons I love being childfree is so I can channel my unique and exquisite mothering energy into other things. And my very favorite thing to pour it into is the wild soul sacred body membership. So again, if any of that resonates for you, check it out.
Elizabeth DiAlto 02:43
Let’s get into the show. Now. I need to begin by saying how elated I am to finally get to call something when keeping it spiritual goes wrong. I know Dave Chappelle has had a major fall from grace with a lot of people in the last few years. And many would actually argue that he was always a piece of shit. But personally, I loved his stand up his earlier stand up and I loved the Chappelle Show back in the day, I was even in the audience at the taping of his special back in 2016, where he talks about the Care Bears, I know you really can’t make that shit up. And if you watch that on Netflix, by the way, I forget the name of it. But you see me laughing in the audience in a shot towards the end.
Elizabeth DiAlto 03:22
So anyway, regarding the title of today’s episode when keeping it spiritual goes wrong. One of my favorite Chappelle Show skits back in the day was called when keeping it real goes wrong. And in all my years living in air, quote, conscious spiritual communities in southern California, I would constantly be observing things happening and hear people saying things, and just imagine creating a skin out of all of it called when keeping it spiritual goes wrong.
Elizabeth DiAlto 03:50
Now, today is not the day for my skin. But I am using the phrase to bring up a few things that have gone on in my personal life lately, that I’m comfortable sharing, and may be beneficial for some of you to hear, as always, not because I believe my experience is universal in any way. But because I know some of you will really be able to relate to parts of it, if not the whole thing, and may actually be moving through similar things right now. Or maybe you have in the past. Or maybe you will in the future. And you’ll think back on this episode and be glad you listened. So at the time I’m recording this, I had a hell of a week.
Elizabeth DiAlto 04:23
Last week, I made a decision that was a long time coming regarding some personal relationships in my life. And I was navigating the enormity of that choice. Feeling both the disorientation of the change, while also appreciating the relief of doing something that I really needed to do for my own emotional and psychological safety. It was a lot and it used up all of my bandwidth for emotional intelligence and maturity, which as you know, if you listen to the show regularly is quite vast. And I’ll come back to this later. A few things that happened when my capacity was maxed out and I’ll come back to it because I think this is really important that people in any kind of leadership role, or people with any kind of platform or authority share sometimes that and how we are fucking up in present times, not just in the past, because I do notice people like to really distance themselves from poor behavior, when in reality, no one is above poor behavior. And everyone goes there sometimes, I just don’t think there’s any need to hide that it’s humanizing for everybody.
Elizabeth DiAlto 05:30
And of course, people who are attached to and enjoy being pedestal, alized will do whatever they can to protect the pedestal. Personally, I’ve seen how unhealthy pedestals can be. And I know I’ve mentioned this on the show before, when you have anyone on a pedestal. Someday, when you are ready to step into a new level of your own power, and embody them on a pedestal for you will be required to knock them off the pedestal. And often that’s not like a loving and pleasant experience, it’s usually quite violent.
Elizabeth DiAlto 06:02
So I’m about to get into some very nuanced considerations and analysis around engaging with people and building intimacy and connection for my note takers out there. And those of you who often listened to episodes more than once, this is probably going to be one of those episodes. So here we go.
Elizabeth DiAlto 06:17
One of the things I was navigating around what I will just keep calling my enormous decision last week was who to tell and who not to tell, as it’s the type of thing I can’t really avoid telling people. And as I experimented with that, I was reminded that people who don’t have context for things more often than not, cannot and will not understand them, which is okay. Part of emotional maturity is not needing to be understood by everybody. This also intersects with my favorite stance on offering unsolicited and non consensual advice and feedback, which can be summarized in four words, just don’t do it. When people don’t under stand things. And they’re at a certain level and their development and evolution, what they tend to want to do is fix it. Right? They don’t understand. And so they want to fix the thing they don’t understand, because that would eliminate it. And they’re uncomfortable, not understanding things, the more mature thing to do is be curious and get comfortable not understanding things. Because high, there is so much to know, let alone understand in this life. By the end of our lives, most of us will have only barely scratched the surface. So who fucking cares if you don’t get something?
Elizabeth DiAlto 07:41
But really let me not be blase about that, because there are a million reasons why people care. Obviously, I’m an advocate for healing those things and replacing the fear and the insecurity with a curious open mind and some genuine humility. But I digress. Back to unsolicited and non consensual advice and feedback, which Asterix is also often unqualified, on top of all of it. This is so unnecessary, and never the pathway to intimacy connection, or having your intention to be supportive, met and received. The best rule of thumb is to always ask, just check in first, give people the dignity of being able to say yes or no to hearing what you think about something personal to them, which they did not ask you about, especially when it doesn’t directly impact you in any way.
Elizabeth DiAlto 08:30
Something I bumped into a few times last week around my enormous decision was the subtler thing, or more subtle thing that people do sometimes, which almost makes it worse, because it’s still unsolicited advice. Only it’s in disguise, and comes with an extra side of condescension. Some people will tell a personal story to demonstrate how they handled the same thing or something similar in a different way. And they don’t do this in solidarity, which is possible, but it needs to be right or validate their own choice or stance kind of way. So rather than being an obvious or overt expression of unsolicited and non consensual advice. It’s more masked or covert, but it’s still the same fucking thing, which is both manipulative and gross. So similar to getting consent before offering people advice or feedback. If you have a story to share that relates to someone’s experience, and you’re not making an undercover attempt to help people see things your way, a small qualifying statement when you tell your story. Like, by the way, I’m not sharing this because I think you should do it. Just because I can relate goes a really long way and again, gives people the dignity of not taking anything away from their experience. And listen, we can really get ourselves into the weeds of nuance here. Because some people would argue, to not even share in solidarity. Just listen to the person with their issue. Let them have their moment and don’t make it about you in any way. Some people would say We shouldn’t be doing any of this. Don’t ask for consent to share your experience just don’t share it. Or some people might offer to say something like this phrase that I heard many years ago, which I love. How can I support you right now? Do you need comfort or solutions? Before sharing anything.
Elizabeth DiAlto 10:15
And I forget where I saw that I think it was a tweet. But anyway, I find that everyone is different with this. And there’s no hard and fast rules here. One part of intimacy is learning our people and knowing what they prefer. And honestly, that should be your friggin love language, it could be called acts of communicating in ways that make people feel loved, heard and seen. Personally, I love hearing other people’s stories and experiences again, as long as it’s not a covert attempt to get me to do what they think I should do. So one person I shared with last week who I quickly realized I shouldn’t have a valuable lesson for me even position their approach as if it was more spiritually evolved, which is so disgusting, because and I cannot emphasize this enough, we have no idea what anyone else’s soul contract is, we don’t know what other people’s karma is, we don’t know the complexity of the relationships and experiences in their lives. What is a more evolved choice for one person may not be so for another and truly, it’s just arrogant to think you know better for anyone than they do for themselves.
Elizabeth DiAlto 11:15
That gets an asterix on it, too. And I’m gonna come back to that in a second. It’s kind of a paradoxical statement, because while no one has the power to know you better than you know, yourself. If you are not engaging with the work of healing, growth and transformation, plenty of people will be able to see you and know you and read you better than you’re doing for yourself, especially if they have skills and training around human behavior, or the dynamics and inner workings of what your experience as well, some people are just real deal intuitives, and they can see your shit better than you can, again, when you’re not engaging with yourself.
Elizabeth DiAlto 11:51
And let me clarify that. I specifically say no one has the power to know you better than you know yourself. Because once you engage with your inner world, which includes your ancestors and your divine support squad, and really do your work, then no one can know you better than you know yourself, or truly know what’s better for you than you do. And it’s worth making that distinction here. Because, again, there certainly are times and ways for people to see you and know you better than you know yourself. But once you engage, you do that work, baby, no one is going to be able to do that better than you.
Elizabeth DiAlto 12:29
Another distinction worth making here is between something being more evolved. And something being more mature, evolved is more subjective and can truly mean different things for different people, mature is more objective. And by the way, when I was writing this episode, I went back and Googled objective versus subjective for like, the 978th time in my life. So if you’re like me, and they remain fuzzy in your brain, and you tend to mix them up, I will read you the definition because I have to review this all the time to subjective and objective are two forms of perception. And the main difference between them is that a subjective point of view focuses on a personal interpretation of the subject, while an objective point of view is based on factual data. So evolved and mature is a good example. Because what’s evolved is going to vary based on the individual maturity has more clear and definitive markers. Now, I want to add something else here. Everything an offer up on the show should be regarded as a tested and proven best practice, from my experience, and not just my personal experience.
Elizabeth DiAlto 13:35
But typically with anywhere from 10s to hundreds to 1000s of people that I’ve worked with over the years, which you know, in the broad scope of there being billions and billions of people on this planet 10s to hundreds to 1000s of people is not a huge sampling. So I always like to remind people of this here and there, not only for listening to my show, but when you’re consuming anything really, if you listened to the real up level series, Alicia happen also touched on this in her interview, she said lived experience is not theory, it’s content.
Elizabeth DiAlto 14:04
So just because something worked for you, does not mean it will or even should work for everyone else. And I know I say things I’ve really experimented with and observed to be true with great certainty. That still doesn’t necessarily mean it should be treated as hard and fast rules, or that it’s right or true for you. Everything you ever hear me say that is experienced based here should be taken with a heap of curiosity and test it out in your own life. And if it doesn’t work out for you, don’t be out here like that pitch was wrong. Or what’s wrong with me this works for other people be like, well, she told me it may not work for me. And now I know that it doesn’t.
Elizabeth DiAlto 14:42
I mentioned earlier that I will get back to a few things that happened last week when my capacity for emotional intelligence and maturity was maxed out because that was navigating the enormity of my decision. And your girl went right ahead and read a couple of people to filth off Yes, all of the things I just spent 15 minutes detailing nuances and best practices for, I didn’t do any of that shit. And I have to tell you, there was a surprisingly therapeutic effect to it. The standards I hold myself to for being kind, loving and compassionate for conscious and courageous communication and for emotional maturity are ridiculously high. From an astrological perspective, we could attribute that to a Sun and Mercury conjunct in Virgo combined with having a Capricorn moon. Or I could just own that I have really high fuckin standards for this stuff, because I teach it. And therefore that makes it an integrity thing for me. Either way, when I didn’t have the energy to uphold my own standards, and just let my most shadowy self out, I realized that I’d really been suppressing those parts of myself. And that was not serving me. It was like instant alchemy for me to go there.
Elizabeth DiAlto 16:00
And, you know, the way I think of it is like to just act like a regular Falcon person, because in the broad scheme of things, the great majority of people on this planet are not out here, having any standards for being kind, loving, compassionate, and really conscious and courageous communicators, and having emotional maturity and intelligence. So to act like a regular ass person to say some shit that could have been worded better, in ways that were not worded the best at all, and in a few instances, had some venomous energy behind it. And then to reflect after and go, Yeah, that’s me, too. That was the therapeutic part. That was the alchemical part.
Elizabeth DiAlto 16:43
I spent a lot of time talking about how sometimes people’s best, right when we say people are doing their best with what they have, yes, and sometimes people’s best fucking sucks. And we can and should have compassion for that. But I rarely let my best fucking suck. So I gave myself the same grace, I give everybody else and away, I honestly hadn’t realized I almost never do. I also realized, in a way I hadn’t before, that it really is so much work to be kind all the time, even to people who were acting like toxic assholes. And allowing myself to be a regular ass person for a few moments last week was truly lovely, like a strange vacation.
Elizabeth DiAlto 17:29
And then because life is cool, and weird and wonderful, this meme pops up on Facebook a few days later that says, you deserve to celebrate not only who you’ve become, but who you could have become and fought not to be. And I loved that framing so much. I was reminded who I easily could have become, but really only am on very rare and extenuating circumstances, like a werewolf but less frequent because full moons happen every month. We all have the people we could have become. And I’m not sure the fight to not be those people ever really ends. I do think it gets easier. And I think when our capacity is intact, it’s barely even a fight. But I’m pretty sure this is my least favorite part about being fully human and fully divine. Being fully divine is way more fun. Being fully human is where all the shame, regret, guilt and achy feelings live. And we all have to go there sometimes.
Elizabeth DiAlto 18:22
On that note, there is one more thing I want to share here on this theme of when keeping it spiritual goes wrong. One of the people I read to filth last week was a man that I had been connected to for a while. And during our conversation, he really busted out this line. If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all. Like, are we a fucking kindergarten. And it kind of blew my mind because this is a person who puts him out there as if he is deep, and this statement is not deep. And despite how people wield it, it’s also not about being a bigger person or taking the high road. Nice is often dishonest. Nice as often sweeping things under the rug. Nice is often fake as fuck. And nice is often a manipulation. And this reminds me of something my buddy Dr. T says, If you accept half a truth, it won’t be long before you’ll accept a whole lie.
Elizabeth DiAlto 19:09
If you don’t have anything nice to say. Don’t say anything at all, is an adage for people who don’t want to face anything real or uncomfortable, aka the truth, who played safe and don’t want to rock the boat? Who will avoid conflict and the truth in favor of what faux peace and harmony that’s actually more dangerous than the truth will ever be. We can tell the truth with love. We can face uncomfortable conversations and conflict with kindness, compassion, honesty and respect. Takes work takes practice. We’re not always all going to be perfect at it. But it’s so fucking worth doing. Something really landed for me after the conversation with this dude, that people who bury the truth to keep the peace will always be at war with themselves or as a friend of mine put it will always be fragmenting themselves and I’m a big hell no to that. I’d rather rumba with my shadow anytime and be whole than if fragment myself off in the name of some fake ass morality. That’s shoddily held together by lies and emotional immaturity lies in emotional immaturity or not glue.
Elizabeth DiAlto 20:12
On that note, thank you so much for listening. We’ll be back next week with the last interview on the show for the foreseeable future. We’re gonna be doing solos moving forward and something I’m excited to get into after summer break, occasional guest hosts. So love you people mucho. Shownotes are at untamed yourself.com forward slash podcast. Remember to check out the wild soul sacred body membership if your own wild soul is calling you and you could use some real deep and embodied spiritual community support and mentorship in your life at untame yourself.com forward slash membership and that’s it y’all signing off