Passive or Active? Which is most appropriate?

Bill: Welcome to the True You Podcast. My name is Bill Tierney. I'm a certified IFS practitioner and a compassionate results coach and an author involved in three different projects right now. Pretty excited about that. And this is my co-host, my partner Dr. Martin Kettle head, who I call. Marty, how you doing Marty?

Marty: I am good. Thanks, bill.

Bill: We have a topic that we discussed, and that's as much as preparation as, as we have for the topic. We discussed it, you proposed it, I like it. And uh, I wanna get into that here in just a minute. But before we do, I wanna acknowledge we've had a lot of guests recently. In fact, it's been a long time since it's just been you and I having a conversation. And while it's been great to have the guest, I kind of miss being able to just connect with you the, the, your voice and my voice combining for, for the synchronicity that happens. Uh, that's not exactly the word I was looking for, but for, for what happens when, when we get into conversation.

Marty: I like the word synchronicity.

Bill: Yeah. It's just wasn't the one I was thinking of.

Marty: Uh.

Bill: Uh, so one of the things that we discussed before I hit record was do we want to just be kind of casually checking in since it's been so long since you and I have actually connected on air recording and podcast about what we're up to these days? This recording is happening in, in October of 2025. And so when I, when I throw that out there, Marty, what's it, what have you been up to?

Marty: Well, it's really my, I have such an interesting job. I just love it. It, there's never a dull moment. And right now what I'm, what I notice when you say that is that I've got some individuals and some groups, 'cause I do both kind of coaching, um, that are at a very early stage. A business, you know, they're like fresh. Um, they're, they're smart just graduated or, you know, um, just formed a company and then I, and they need to grow and get organized and, and, and future oriented. And then I also have some people, like right in the middle of their careers. You know that that phase where things are plateauing and you wonder what it all means and where it's all going. And then I also have these precious people who are sort of toward the end, um, and they're transitioning like, I'm not gonna be here every day and I gotta leave this team. Uh, you know, in charge of the business that I built. Um, and so the, and or the leadership team is deciding, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna try and get acquired and, you know, and into some other bigger company. And so they're setting themselves up. So they're, I just notice how great it is for me. And I would men, you know, in that context I would mention, you know, like. I've got right now, I've got great perspective on, you know, beginning, middle, and end of business processes and what it takes and how those processes re relate. You know, like you could see the people who are just starting, who have no vision in the future, or the people who are. Finishing who didn't, you know, didn't set themselves up to finish beautifully. Um, and so I am, I feel, uh, particularly, um, valuable to people in business right now, leaders, especially because I've got this perspective and I'm excited about it. And I've started to, you know, relate some of these people, like you should talk to him.

Bill: Oh wow.

Marty: Yes, he's just getting started, but he's got some perspective you could use and vice versa. And that brings me so much joy and satisfaction to see, you know, them get connected

Bill: And are they, are they connecting with each other?

Marty: They are?

Bill: Oh, how exciting.

Marty: Oh, I just like over about it.

Bill: Yeah. That's awesome. I.

Marty: So yeah. I have space in my of business. Um, I am accepting new clients, not, you know. Not, um, a lot of space, but, um, and I'm excited. So that's me.

Bill: Well, I'm curious, uh, when you say you're doing groups, what, how many groups are you doing and what's the focus of the groups?

Marty: One group is a leadership group and they're all leaders and they're all talking about their trials and tribulations as leaders. Um, they're all great people, but it's when you step into the role of leading. Suddenly there's all these questions about, but, but, but what about this and what about, it's part of the reason that the topic for today came up

Bill: Which is, go ahead and name it now that you've said it.

Marty: being passive versus being active and when it's appropriate to be, which,

Bill: Yes, yes.

Marty: Um, and the other group that I'm leading is. They had an inkling that what they wanted, how they wanted to, they were growing. They're growing. They're in the middle. And they liked Gino Wickman's book Traction, and they wanted me to lead them in the EOS process, which I've done kind of informally with individual leaders before, but now I have a team that's going through that whole process just by the letter, and it's very effective. That book.

Bill: Gino Wickman Traction. He's written a few others around the same idea. EOS stands for Entrepreneurial Operating System.

Marty: That's right.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah, that's good stuff.

Marty: Oh, it is.

Bill: I've used, I've used it with some of my clients as well.

Marty: And it's, I mean, it's a little scary for them because the more aligned around, you know, who we are, what we stand for, the customers that we wanna serve. The more it becomes clear like, who doesn't belong on this team?

Bill: Right butt, right seat. That's one of the principles in traction,

Marty: It is, right. I sorry, what did you say?

Bill: right butt, right seat.

Marty: That's right. Exactly. And, and, and you know, sometimes it comes to head. There've been two people already since I started work with these guys at the beginning of the summer that realized, you know what, I'm not really meant to be on this team.

Bill: Yeah, and often,

Marty: we got clear what this team is really about and that's gonna save a lot of drag on that individual's part as well as the team's part.

Bill: and, and it gives them choice. They get the clarity to choose that rather than to have that done to them .

Marty: Exactly, exactly. Right.

Bill: Yeah. And sometimes also, and Gino writes about this in his book. It's not, not that they don't belong on the team, it's just they're in the wrong seat in, in the team.

Marty: That's sometimes the case. Yes, exactly.

Bill: Yeah, I was, I was talking with, um,

Marty: But in this case, there, these two people, they, their seat is in a different company.

Bill: yeah. Yeah.

Marty: Hmm.

Bill: Or maybe they need to be entrepreneurs or something. One of my, one of my clients is in a position where he deals with people that are in the wrong seat and was telling me about someone who, he moved to a different seat and they're doing so much better there. My, my daughter is the COO for a company in Boise, and I had the pleasure of being able to. Shake hands and meet a lot of those people This past Friday when I flew down to see, to visit with her and, uh, loved their culture by the way, there, there's f-bombs flying all over the place, but she introduced me to, um, one woman who was really struggling in her position in sales and, but they really liked her, so they moved her into the warehouse to manage the warehouse, and she's killing it. She's just doing a great job over there. And, and so, yeah, that, that's a

Marty: great.

Bill: principle.

Marty: story like that in the, in part four of my book too, A guy who I recommended to a client, they hired him on my recommendation and he wasn't working out as part of the, uh, the C-suite. And, um, and he was, some experience in marketing, but he wasn't working out as a CMO. So, you know, my. Client came back to me and said, why did you recommend this guy? Anyway, we, the, where it ended up is he's now in the analysis department. He loves it. He does great work there. It's just, you know, right. People in the right seats.

Bill: Well, and there's an element there too that that needs to be underscored, and that is, he loves it and he's doing well. I'll bet you he didn't love being the CMO.

Marty: No, he definitely didn't.

Bill: There's a real correlation between what we love and what we do well.

Marty: That's right.

Bill: We're willing to take some risks if we, if we love it.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: to try new things, to learn new things if we love it, where we can't muster up the motivation and the inspiration to take the risk of learning something new. If we're not into it,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: we don't love it.

Marty: And sometimes there's an adjustment. That makes it, oh, now I quit. You know, now that I can work at home or now that you know, we have casual Fridays, I'm okay with it.

Bill: Well, now that I, now that I've been given, given authority to match responsibility, I'm good with it.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Well, you asked a few minutes ago what I'm up to. Um, so much my, um. I don't think I've talked about this on the podcast just because we've had so many guests and I haven't had an opportunity to mention it. Uh, but my wife and I just celebrated 12 years of marriage.

Marty: Congratulations.

Bill: thank you. And we found, uh, ourselves in an interesting experience. We drove to. Seattle from Spokane. It's about a four, four and a half hour drive. And, um, Kathy's been in Seattle and driven around Seattle a lot more than I have. So she asked if she could be the one driving in town. Well, driving around in Seattle as a, as an out of towner is really quite stressful for both Kathy and I, both me as the passenger and her as the driver. And it, it, um. That tension vibrated outside out of us, into each other. And we had, we spent a week in Seattle there to celebrate our 12th anniversary, not liking each other very much. We had a lot of tension between us and, uh,

Marty: Wow.

Bill: you know, we found our groove here at home. We, we both work from home, we work together very well. We've got clear agreements about who does what and when we do it. But, but over in Seattle, that wasn't the case. And so. It wasn't until the day that we were driving back that, that we were able to address it directly and, and, and work it through and talk about what, what happened and, and, uh, what feelings were heard and what assumptions were made and what harm had been done, and how could we, how, how could we repair it? And, you know, once, once everything that had happened had been acknowledged, then the next thing that there was to do was to talk about, well, what could we do to make sure that this doesn't happen again in the future? So we came up with the process and we agreed to it, and this has been, I wanna say six weeks ago or that once a week we, uh, respond to six prompts that we both identified in this conversation on the way home from Seattle.

Marty: Um,

Bill: We journal about that and then we con connect and have a conversation over dinner on Sunday nights.

Marty: nice.

Bill: been amazing. The, the first prompt is what's alive inside. And for those that are familiar with nonviolent communication, the influence, that's where the influence came to for that suggestion

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: is identify what's alive inside and then share that with each other and, and we don't limit that just to what's alive inside in regards to our relationship. It's just what's alive inside.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I'm here to get out and work in the garden, Kathy might say, and that's alive inside. Um, or I, I'm in the middle of an article that I wanna write and, um, that's, that's what's alive inside for me, or I'm worried about this thing or that.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, and so anyhow, I, I don't wanna take up the whole episode talking about the, the six different prompts, but it might be a good topic for one of our episodes.

Marty: Um, the putting together, uh, these questions for couples.

Bill: Yeah, I would say, uh, these are six points of connection for couples.

Marty: Uh huh.

Bill: Um, and what it's done for us is relieved us of the tension. It's reconnected us. Um, and it's not, it's not about playing nice with each other because NICE is a performance. It's about being real with each other. But in a loving way.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, and there's, there's nothing more loving in my opinion than just naming when things are misaligned so that we can get aligned again as soon as possible.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: So that's what's been happening, uh, when in my relationship with Kathy and I, I just am delighted with it that we co-opt this, we built it together, we created it together from a, a kind of a breakdown we were having. So that's, that's been great. I have a new partner, uh, Rachel Parks. Rachel Fink Parks and I are cre have created a program called Elevate, the Alchemy of Coaching and IFS. And it's a training program for established successful coaches who have heard possibly about IFS and wonder how they might use IFS in coaching and would like to be trained in the IFS model. So that's what we're offering

Marty: Well.

Bill: and, uh, we're in. Process of building that training. And we have a, a workshop coming up here soon on October 24th, 2025, if you're listening to this, after that date. Of course, we've already done that. But, um, the name of the, the company or the of the program is Elevate and, um, very excited. We've already got people registered for a March 26 cohort, 20, excuse me, March of 26 is what I meant to say. So that's very exciting. Uh, I mentioned that I've got the three books going on. Our, the Parts Work Guidebook is at the publisher now. My book, one of my memoir Trilogy, is also at the publisher. It was gonna be a book, now it's gonna be three books. And I did self-publish the Compassionate Results Guidebook and, and, uh, busy kind of marketing that and telling people about it too. And that's a, that's a coaching guide, uh, for anybody that wants to use IFS to get some results. So that's, that's a lot of what I'm up to these days. So we ready to shift into your topic?

Marty: Well, yeah, or I wondered if you wanted to talk about the, the topic that you said we could do some other time. Would you rather do that topic today? Um, these questions, um, for on Sunday evenings.

Bill: Why don't we, why don't we plan this for next week? Why don't we plan about the, the six points of connection for relationships next?

Marty: Okay. Okay.

Bill: I'm gonna,

Marty: good.

Bill: I'm gonna make a note as you, as you maybe explain the premise for the conversation you'd like to have today.

Marty: Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of times these topics come from what's alive in my clients

Bill: Yes.

Marty: and, um. There's been, the question has come up from several people, you know, about when is it appropriate to accept and, um, let things happen and, when is it, you know, time to. Take action to do something about it. Right. And it's not always obvious. There, there are some cases where it is obvious, you know, oh, you know, it's, you know, it's time. The ball is right at my feet and the goal is empty. It's time to kick it in the goal. Oh, right. But the, but then there are other times where it's not, it's not quite so clear, you know, do I, do I tell my son? That, you know, that I, I think that the way he's dressing is inappropriate or that it doesn't look good. Or do I let him, he's in high school and maybe I should let him decide what he wears to school himself and just love him, you know, no matter what. And, and be passive about that. Um, when another example that came up just to sort of, you know, put some. in the spectrum here. I got a gentleman that I'm working with toward the end of the business side of his life. You know, he's used to being the CEO and calling the shots, and he's spending a lot more time with his wife, and she's like, whoa, you know. This is a two-way street here. You're, you're running this marriage all of a sudden, like as if it wasn't your company. And you know, I, I wanna be your partner and you know, I want you to listen and I want you to be open to my ideas and all this. And he, he's like, oh gosh, that's not what got me success business. And like, but obviously there, there are some places where. You know, he does, he does need to be in charge and at home too. But, so those are the, some of the examples that got me thinking about this question. I mean, I think it also comes up in spiritual, in our spiritual lives, and I'll stop with this. You know, there, there are times when need to actively get in there, do some work with your parts. You know, attend to them, be active at that. pay attention, provide the need, you know, what's needed, et cetera. times when you know, you wanna just, you wanna just be open and, and in a sense, passive. that you can pick up on the clues that the uni, the abundance of clues that the universe is sending you, And not just get an action and do something, whoa, whoa, whoa. Take a moment to let it in and might get some better clarity about what action to take. this is, this is the basis of the topic.

Bill: Love it, love it, love it. And I just made a few notes of what categories. And you mentioned many of 'em already, um, that this could apply to. Of course, it applies to anything and everything. We, we are, uh, beings having a physical experience here on the planet and we, we make decisions and we run our own lives, and we do so either passively or, or actively. So it's gonna show up in all of our relationships. If there, and, and probably the choice about do I, am I passive or active about this, uh, comes up in, in conscious awareness if the relationship is now challenging.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: if we go back to what I was saying about the tension that Kathy and I experienced in Seattle, for example,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: um, both of us went into automaticity. While the tension was building between us while we were in Seattle.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that's a real passive approach. Let's just hope things get better. Let's just, let's not address this. It's, you know, I had a part of me that was saying this, it's only gonna get worse if I say something about this.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: If I, if I open my mouth and start speaking about it, the, the energy behind my tension is anger, energy,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: I don't wanna hurt her. I don't wanna be angry with her. So I'm just gonna. Control this. I'm gonna manage it

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: in a way it's passive, at least on the, on the surface, but internally it's anything but passive. It's very active in there.

Marty: I see that.

Bill: Another category would be business and career, as you're mentioning, uh, the CEO who's retiring and then goes home and tries to CEO his wife and it doesn't work very well. So that, that takes care of both of those categories or it involves both of those categories. Uh, let me just do what I've always done. Is it Tracy Goss that wrote that book? What got you Here Won't get you there.

Marty: I don't know that book. I know,

Bill: don't know that book? That is so good. I'll, I'll look it up here in a minute. Uh, but that's the premise of the book. What got you here to, to this level of success is not gonna get you

Marty: right?

Bill: success in other areas or beyond in the same area.

Marty: I know, by the way, just to insert. I know a good friend, he doesn't live, but a couple blocks from here who's, he's got both of those going on at once. You know, like, this guy's going through the transition being at work every day to being at home every day. And this friend of mine who lives down the central part of Longmont, he's, he's got it going on at the same time like. At home. He's, he is the breadwinner. He's the law giver. He's the one who does all the handy work, you know? And, um, his wife also works, but, um, but at work, he's the softie. He's the peacemaker, he's the ame. You know, he's not. not the take control guy at work, and so he's, he also brought this topic up. I have a lot of people with this topic going on, but you know, like, who am I? He asked me, am I this guy or am I that guy?

Bill: Interesting. Yes. That is really interesting that he would ask. Obviously felt safe enough to have this conversation with you, but be asking that question of himself, who am I? Am I the, the softie that, that, uh, negotiates and mediates and or am I the in control guy that gets things done and runs, runs the show.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: it's Marshall Goldsmith that wrote What Got You Here, won't Get You There.

Marty: Uhhuh,

Bill: I'll have to look up Tracy Gus now to remember what great book she wrote or,

Marty: she wrote the last word on power.

Bill: There we go. Thank you. Yeah.

Marty: And Einstein said something similar about, you know, the science that got us here, or the mindset, I forget what word he uses, not the mindset that, you know, will, um, uh, get us beyond here.

Bill: Yeah. Something like you can't use the tool to, to fix the problem that the, the same tool caused. You can't use the brain to resolve the problem that that brain

Marty: right,

Bill: in the first place.

Marty: right. Right.

Bill: Uh, okay. So then other areas, uh, money and retirement. You mentioned that as well.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: when am I, when do I just passively allow my money to do whatever it's gonna do and when do I get active and either make changes or, or just get involved in some way.

Marty: Yeah. Right, right. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then you mentioned spirituality and just the, the moment you, you've said spirituality, what popped into my head is personal growth, which what, which is what you and I both are helping our clients to experience is personal growth. Those, those clients that are coming to us, I would, would have to fall in the, into the active category. Often, however, what I notice is some, some clients will come, they've taken action, but once they get here. They want me to be the one taking the action and to become much more passive

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and that can, that can be problematic.

Marty: Yeah, that, I mean, you're right. E even that moment of considering and, and to jump into coaching that's full of passivity and activity, right? Like I give myself to the coach. There's an act, there's a passivity required of that. You know, at the same time, you're the action partner in this relationship. The coach isn't gonna go out there and make those phone calls for you.

Bill: Right. Yes. Yes.

Marty: I, there's a surrendering that's very key to being coached.

Bill: This reminds me so much of my early days of personal development when I was learning about surrender,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: um, through the 12 step programs, which is the third step, made a decision to turn my will in life over the care of God. As I understand God, as I understand him or it or them, Boy, such a difficult thing for me at 27 years old to even consider that, that I might surrender. I had survived for the first 27 years of my life by giving it everything I had and now to have, have it suggested that the the solution was gonna come about in a, some form of surrender. I would have none, none of it. I mean, I, I tried to perform it, but, but in terms of integrating it from, from my gut and from my heart. I didn't feel, I don't think I was even capable of it. That, that, that level of letting go.

Marty: And you know, now that we're talking about it, I'm thinking you're writing. I mean, I don't know about you, but for me that there's this of surrender and activity in the act of writing.

Bill: mm-hmm. Say more about that.

Marty: Well, you know, you, you do, you do have to be open to the flow. You know, like what, where, where is the topic leading me? Where are, where are the wor, what words look? And sound better together. What does the audience need? Like there's all this, all these energies to surrender to, and at the same time, you're actively creating something, a document or a, or a piece that you're writing that takes your act. You're, you're the agent that's making it happen.

Bill: Yeah, and sometimes it feels like I'm the agent. Sometimes it just feels like I'm the machine that that is plugged in to that flow, to that channel.

Marty: Right. A lot of books and seminars are, you know, uh uh, openly channeled the, this isn't me, this is channeled.

Bill: Yes, that's right. Yeah. And I suppose right next to that, and very similar, if not the same, is stream of consciousness

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and, and, and it's a matter of do I trust that, which I'm conscious of enough to follow that stream.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, here's an example of what we're talking about right now. I got a little stuck in, uh, I've begun now book two of the, of my memoir, trilogy, and, uh, I, I've got maybe, I don't know, 90% of that written already too, but now it's a matter of going through and sewing it all together and making sure things fit and filling in some gaps where I got a little fidgety around. Um, some shame that that got triggered for me as I'm writing about some of the things that happened during this period of my life and I kept coming at the, the experience of getting through and doing that writing, and every single time I came up against some internal resistance to doing it, fear of. Uh, writing about the things I might be ashamed of and having someone else read it. And, and then another one was fear that someone that I was writing about, that I had the experience with in my life may not want me to talk about this,

Marty: Right.

Bill: like that. And, and yet the, uh, the urge to write was there. And the frustration of not being able to, to address this was also there. So something happened. I, I had the thought, you know, I can, I can write about, I can write something for, for part three, for book three, and what would I write about? I'd write about my experience with Byron Katie when, when I was first introduced to the work of Byron Katie and how, how exciting that was for me and how I, once I learned it well enough, I was showing other people how to do it. And so I wrote this fun piece on a conversation where I meet a new guy. That's new to Byron Katie, but who's really suffering and, and so needs to help. And yet he's so defensive and and resistant to the process. And I pumped out about seven pages in 30 minutes. And it was fun. I mean, I couldn't write, I couldn't keep up with the memory and the inspiration for how to write about that memory well enough.

Marty: Uh.

Bill: And then I was able to go back into book two and get. Passed and through some stuff that, that I had been stuck on before. So in a way, these, this idea of passive and active, in that example that I just gave, there was a little bit of a surrender. Like, okay, I'm stuck. I'm gonna stop pushing, I'm gonna stop trying to make myself do something that seems to be too difficult to do right now.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: And I'm gonna go away and do something that feels good and feels right, and that that's easy to do.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And when I did that, it opened up something inside of me. Maybe all it did was created more capacity so that I could be with that shame and not have it feel so intimidating, so threatening.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's interesting, interesting. As you're talking now, I'm getting less clear honestly about when passive is appropriate, when active is appropriate. I'm thinking now I'm on natural examples, like I'm thinking about, you know, like the seaweed in the ocean, you know? Goes with the flow. It's attached at, some, some plants are attached to the bottom seaweed as actually, well, some of it is anyway. The point is, you know, there's, there's

Bill: Fun to watch your mind.

Marty: strength in flexibility,

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: Um, and you need to be a bit passive in that, in that in life sometimes, and go with it. Um. But then, you know, I'm also thinking of, you know, plants that grow out of a crack between in a rock and it breaks the rock open. You know, look at the, look at the Colorado River, you know, it, it's carved the Grand Canyon. Like imagine the water, how soft and supple and, you know, un, know, nonviolent to use

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: It's yet carved the huge valley, the of the Grand Canyon. So, you know, um, or so I'm thinking that, uh, there is a wisdom that we wanna tap into here though about when, when, which is what, what defines what, when to be passive and when to be active.

Bill: Yeah, and, and I don't know that it can be formulaic because I think it that it's determined by an inner wisdom

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that taps into, into when, when that's appropriate and when it's not.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: than in these situations, you wanna be active and in these situations you wanna be passive. I don't know that it can be black and white like that.

Marty: Well, then let's talk about how you tap into that inner wisdom.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: ' cause uh, I, we, I don't wanna leave. Maybe we have to, but I don't, I'm, my first impulse is not to leave our audience with what, you're not gonna tell us when to do what?

Bill: You know, I, I kind of like the idea of leaving them with the question for themselves to wrestle with. Seriously. I mean, these are some important and questions that, that I believe that we all are responsible for determining for ourselves anyhow, so that no matter what we say, even if you and I agree that we've found a, something we can conclude and,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and agree to.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I would hope that the listener would, would, if they feel unsettled, unresolved about whatever we might conclude that they would continue to pursue this for themselves. So if they find it interesting.

Marty: Yeah. Well. Though the one clue that I'm sort of, um, noodling on is from the Serenity Prayer, grab me of the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. I mean, if you can't change them, then why? You know, it doesn't do much good to get active about trying to change something. You can't. That's just going to make you frustrated. Um, and, and, um, the courage to change the things I can, that suggests to me, like look and see, like is it just a, is it a matter of, of courage? You know, if, if, because right, if, if it's, if it's just a matter of showing off or causing trouble or, um. Uh, just blowing off steam, If, if, if it's just active for the sake of itself rather than, oh, this is, this is an area where I could grow if I, if, if I had courage here, I could step into a bigger me. That, so those are, those are some hints, you know, like, is it something that you can't change? Then it would make sense to. Let it be and, and, be more passive. And if it's just a matter of there's a fear there to attend to and, and, then step into your true power and um, move, move into a space you haven't been before. Okay, well then, activity seems appropriate.

Bill: Yes, well. Uh, yes. Although I'm thinking of an instance where courage may point to towards passivity too,

Marty: Yes.

Bill: and I'm thinking of addiction and those of those that are affected by addiction, people that love people that are in addictions,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: by the way, are probably in their own addiction. So an example of this would be the, um, let's just say the partner of someone that is. Deeply into an addiction process so deeply that they don't consciously acknowledge that they're there, that they, they don't see the negative consequences of their addictive process. That the people that are around them are affected by kin. See?

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And, and, um, so typically what, what will, what happens with addictive process like this is that those, those people that are affected by it will do everything that they can. To try to get that person to change.

Marty: Yes.

Bill: Stop. Stop doing your addictive process,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: hurting yourself, and it's hurting me and I'm scared. I'm worried that you're gonna hurt yourself more and that you're gonna be on the street or whatever that might be,

Marty: Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Bill: and that this is a great example of powerlessness. What? We don't have power to change. God, grant me the certain need to accept the things I cannot change. Well, you can't change. Other people and the choices that they make and the things that they do. And so it seems like a, like a, an impossible puzzle to solve. There's a, there's clearly a problem. We have the person with the addictive process that's hurting themselves and others, and then there's the person that loves them and then thinks that it's their responsibility somehow to get them to change. Because if they, if they don't. Then, then what does that mean about them? That they don't love them? And so in Al-Anon, that's the focus, Alan, the, the Al-Anon program, the, the accompanying program to Alcoholics Anonymous. And so many of these others is for people that are affected by the alcoholic. And the biggest challenge for them is for, for the Al-Anon. And I, I went to Al-Anon for seven years, uh, and, and found that the biggest problem for me. With that lens, through that lens was letting go of the person that I really wish would change

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and allowing them to be on their own path. I just recently had a client who was realizing all that they were doing to try to manage and control their loved one and, and how it always backfired.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Uh, the loved one didn't want the help and saw it as, as, uh, interference and controlling. And pushed back hard. And, um, this person found themselves in a situation where they just actually couldn't do, they couldn't even contact their loved one to know what to do next or how to help them,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: and found out later that they had found their way to treatment

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and hopefully to a solution. So a forced letting go resulted possibly in their loved one who was involved in the addictive process finding their own solution.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: It's tricky.

Marty: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I like

Bill: I.

Marty: I think it's very interesting that sometimes the, it's, it. Like, like we talk about active listening for example, where yes, you're, you're, you're not doing anything but you're actively paying attention. And you could say, like in your example that that. That spouse was actively loving that person by not telling them what to do. Right. You know, so then we get into all these shades of, it's not that, it's not that everything either fits in one bucket or the other, passive or active, but sometimes the action is, is a non-action. But it's not without agency. It's not without impact. It's not without effect, So there is pure pa, pa, passivity, and then there's, I'm here. I love you and I'm not doing anything about your problem, But I'm here and I'm paying attention, and I, I'm hope, you know, I'm, I'm here to support, right?

Bill: and I'm here to have a good life myself. I'm I, I see that you have a problem, or at least it's my perception that you have a problem, but what's what I can know for sure is that I have a problem.

Marty: I noticed when my mom first started to go Al-Anon was when she first started. Doing her own stuff, like she started signing up for, you know, extracurricular or, uh, ongoing comm education. She started to get involved with this women's group. She start, she got a second job tutoring Japanese wives of corporate executives and before that she was just home fretting about my dad.

Bill: Right.

Marty: And then she went to Al-Anon and started to get a life

Bill: Yes.

Marty: her own.

Bill: Yes.

Marty: attacking my dad or trying to change my dad, but just like, like you said, having her own great life.

Bill: Well, and if I could indulge a little bit and get into my own personal history. I did get sober in November of 1982, and it would be easy to say that alcoholic synonymous got me sober because that's where I went, starting that very first day of sobriety and continued to go there for 35 years after that. Uh, but, but what be would be more accurate would be to say that Al-Anon got me sober. And the reason I say that is because my wife was going to Al-Anon two months before I finally decided I better go to a meeting because. Apparently she thinks I've got a problem. And when I went, I didn't go because I thought I had a problem. Certainly not with alcohol. I thought I had a problem with my wife because she was starting to act independently and I had been so insecure

Marty: There you

Bill: that relationship that the way to hang onto the relationship for me was, was to do the only thing I knew to do, which was to try to control her.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: she started going to Al-Anon. It really ruffled my f feathers. Like, oh, I'm losing her.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And she did many of the same things. She took on, she found her own friend, she got a job. She invited people over to our house, whether I liked it or not. Uh, and I didn't like it because they were involved in the 12 step two. She was her, the, the woman was in Al-Anon. The man was in aa. I just felt like I was the foreigner in my own home. It got really, really uncomfortable for me. But nobody was doing anything to me.

Marty: Right.

Bill: They were letting me smoke my cigarettes, drink my beer, stay, stay at the bar after work,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: stay drunk all the time. They were just letting me do it, but my wife was taking care of herself for the first time 'cause she was being taught how to do that

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and being supported in doing it. So, yeah, I, I gotta give props to AAN for helping me get sober if I hadn't gotten un gotten uncomfortable enough from. Hmm, my wife detaching from the, the dance that we'd been doing,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: never would've been willing to go to a meeting and get sober. So I got passive. I was, I guess I was passive. Nah, I don't know. I got active. I, I went to my first meeting and it was a complete manipulation, not in the least bit interested in sobriety, getting sober, 'cause I didn't have a problem. Uh, the problem I was trying to solve was trying to get my, my wife to like me again,

Marty: Hmm mm-hmm

Bill: even if it meant I had to pretend like I was in interested in sobriety for a while.

Marty: hmm.

Bill: And it tricked me, you know, I tricked myself into sobriety

Marty: But it stuck.

Bill: it, but only, yeah, not so far. It's only been 42 years, so we'll see.

Marty: I say it's stuck.

Bill: Yeah. And, and what a great start. You know, every day of sobriety was a great start to having an opportunity to actually get some choice, have some agency, and choose the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So, sobriety, great, wonderful baseline that felt almost impossible at first. And, and I was under the impression for the longest time that sobriety was as much as you could hope for. And that life would only get better if sobriety lasted more days in a row. And to a degree that's true. But after maybe the first 30 to 60 days or so, maybe the first six months, a lot of the wiring's been repaired. A lot of the, a lot of the internal, like biological damage is, is, has been healed and, and done.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: Now, what needs to be, uh, developed is, is the ability to live life connected to other human beings rather than being, as, being opposed to them.

Marty: I am so glad you said that. 'cause what I, what I've been sort of mulling over the last five minutes is maybe the, the, the key to seeing whether action or, or acceptance is appropriate is. What serves the connection?

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: serves the connection? You know, like it served, uh, you know, it served them, it served my mom to not be codependent weak, but to get in action in her life that had her be a better partner to my dad. Right. It's like in. It's like in music, you know, if you just play louder than everybody else in the ensemble, right? You have to listen and blend

Bill: Yes.

Marty: for this ensemble to have strength.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: if we're going for like in this connection. You know, do I need to allow, or do I need to assert right in this moment, in this connection, what is most appropriate and it's gonna change. Right? And so I like that. I'm not saying this is the answer, I hit on the truth that will last forever, but it's so kept coming at me when you were talking and then you finally said the word I think there's something really to notice there about why it varies when it does. It's, it's, you know, in that, in whatever, the connection, the relationship, the partnership, the team, there's, there's a time to give and a time to take.

Bill: I think you're really onto something here. I don't think it's limited just to connection. I think it's alignment with. The qualities that show up when we're being our authentic selves and, and tapped into that flow.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: And, and IFS has, has I earmarked some words for that because they're easy to remember. They're all C words and then there's a set of five P words. So what if, what if those could also be used to determine, um, when to assert and when to be passive? Like what is in, in the greatest support of. Alignment with compassion, for example. What is, what is in, what's, what's gonna support, you mentioned connection, uh, clarity. What's gonna support clarity,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: what's gonna support calm, courage, curiosity, creativity, confidence. And the ninth c choice

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: where everybody has choice, where everybody is, feels safe enough to be courage. Excuse me. Curious,

Marty: Right.

Bill: and then those five p words of perspective. When I've got perspective, does it, is that helped by passivity or being assertive and or active right now?

Marty: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: Presence, patience, persistence, playfulness.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then, this isn't a P word. The closest P word to it is permission, but it's freedom.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: What? What is in the service of freedom for me and those around me.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That's okay. I better take some action because the, the, we seem to be losing our freedom or I, I need to do hands off because I've got my personal interest involved here and it's taking somebody else's freedom away.

Marty: I just wanna acknowledge, I know we're gonna have to close soon, that, um, is, this is something we could all take a good look at right now in the, in our Changing Society where what's called for is getting an action and where what's called for is letting it be.

Bill: Right. Knowing when to be an action and what that action needs to look like.

Marty: Yeah, I just, you know, as we were talking, I'm thinking like, wow, this is really a timely topic because we're, we're not exactly just in the, you know, a plateaued state as a nation. We got some real work to do.

Bill: Yes, we do. Okay. We do need to close. What a great conversation. And I've note I've noted that next week we're gonna be talking about those six points of communication between couples, but also between anybody, between two individuals.

Marty: A, a corporate team, you know.

Bill: Right? Right. Okay, Marty, thank you.

Marty: Thank

Bill: Till next week.