Episode 51: Walking Each Other Home

Hello my friends, welcome to episode 51. A few days ago on my daily walk, I came across a lady and her dog walking on the same paths I was walking on. It’s wintertime here if you are listening to this podcast when it first drops at the end of November and though it has been relatively warm out there are lots of ice patches from the snow melting and freezing along this pathway. So this lady was stopped as I approached her and she asked if I would be willing to help her.

A tiny bit confused I said yes and asked what she needed help with.

She responded: “The ice.”

Then I understood.

I offered her my arm and we slowly navigated our way across the ice patch together. We made it safely though I am not sure I would have been much help in a slip but maybe just the reassurance of doing it together was all that she needed.

Once we were back on the cleared path, she was fine and we went our separate ways.

This experience got me thinking about the Ram Dass quote that I often hear which is:

“We’re all just walking each other home.”

Sometimes we are physically walking someone through a hard time or just through an icy patch. Something that scares them.

Something that they are not sure about.

Something that is a danger to them.

Like I did.

But sometimes we are also walking each other through our emotional experiences and our thought processes.

Sometimes that waking each other home looks completely different.

Sometimes me sitting in my therapist’s office, and she tells me that must be hard. That must feel so painful. Sounds like this is occurring, and you receive this true validation, that your experience that you are having is real, and though people may tell you it is not, it is real, now that you can see it, now that it is acknowledged. I can now work with someone, who can teach me the skills to work through it, to learn from it, to rise above it, to let go of revenge, and to take all power back in my life.

So sometimes walking each other home looks like validation.

And sometimes it looks like best friend validation – which I think is so different from therapist validation. And best friend validation is a person who completely believes your story and has your back no matter what. I often say it is what did they do to you. How dare they! When are we getting revenge?

Or that oh that is hard, when are we going for ice cream? Or whatever else would make you feel better?

Rather than the therapist, coaching validation is where we know your emotional story feels real but you don’t need to react to it or act on it.

And truthfully, I think both types have a place, and we need both.

Sometimes it looks like coaching.

This is what you are thinking.

This is what it is creating for you.

That is 100% responsibility for your emotional life.

Even just some of our mindsets or thought processes we just need to stop, let them go, and never think of them again.

Sometimes we need very different things at different times.

And that walking each other home can look like so many things.

Sometimes we are walking people home that we don’t even know we are walking home.

I hope this podcast is reaching people that I don’t know.

I hope that there is an idea that is walking them home.

Walk them to the highest version of themselves.

Walk them to an opportunity that is far greater than they are currently pursuing.

I think that we forget that we have an obligation to each other walk each other home.

Dr. Jody Carrington talks about walking each other as helping your children emotionally regulate. Out of the fight, flight, freeze survival system back to having access to your prefrontal cortex.

It’s exactly what my therapist does for me. Helps me heal the trauma or survival responses that are triggered and not get stuck in fight, flight, and freeze, and allows me to gain access to the very highest version of myself. To my highest way of thinking and being.

We are all here to help each other.

We all have the ability and I think even the obligation to help.

So often we say we are not…. Fill in the blank.

So we don’t do anything.

People don’t need us to be that.

People need us to be us.

What is the thing you have been holding back on? B/c you are a little bit scared that you think others think will be a little bit weird.

I have been holding back on things for years b/c I think people will not like them and I will be judged for them.

What are you holding back on that needs to be shown to the world?

You have amazing skills.

You have something extraordinary to offer the world and no one else is going to offer it.

We need your ideas.

We need it presented in the way that you present things.

So often people will say you are wrong or you presented it wrong b/c you didn’t do it their way.

But what they forget is that there are people we will reach that they can not reach b/c of how they present things.

So instead of us being judgmental, critical, and controlling of each other. What if we walked each other home?

supported each other in our crazy ideas.

Received their goodness in whatever way they presented it.

What if we stepped back from our judgments and stepped into walking each other home?

Bringing out the best in us and allowing us to bring out the best in others.

We each have an extraordinary gift.

We each have the ability to make a difference in someone’s life. We are the only ones that can do it.

If we don’t step into our extraordinary gifts, the world just loses out on them.

And we have a less extraordinary place.

You know what it is.

It is nudging you.

Let’s make this place a little more extraordinary by of us walking each other home.

It will be fun.

Have a wonderful week.