Show Transcript:
Damon Frank (00:02):
You're listening to the recovered life show the show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives. And here is your host, Damon Frank.
George Snyder (00:13):
Hey, it is Damon Frank with reovered life and I'm here again with our favorite or absolute favorite life and recovery strategy and strategists. George Snyder. How you doing George?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Hey, Damon. Good to see you always good to see you. We have fun doing it.
George Snyder (00:31):
We do, we do it. I was laughing at the end because you know, I really enjoy doing these because we always have a chuckle. I always learned something and I always leave better off than when I came. Right. So I that's the magic combination for me. Uh, but yeah, you know, and, and this one, particularly when I decided that I was going to ask you some questions on this specific topic, I thought, Ooh, this is going to be a doozy. This one's going to be good. And let's tell everybody what the topic that I'm going to talk with you about is tolerance. Tolerance is a topic. And I have to tell you, that's all you hear typically in recovery is be tolerant, be tolerant, be tolerant tolerant of others. People aren't like you everybody's the same. I like you hear this constantly, but you know, as the host of the old school men's mastermind group, would you dove into this in a session? What I want to know is, and the big question is why is being tolerant so important in recovery?
Speaker 3 (01:35):
I think what, as we share our narratives that we share our story, you realize how you're constructing your own reality. And what I think of you creates my reality, what you think of me creates yours. So you see how your w so it becomes important because it's building not, not the world outside of you, but the world that you are inhabited, they were across section. We're a, we're a diverse group of guys where it just in our own group, we have diversity. We have a full range of so, you know, economic status, et cetera, et cetera. But we identify, as we said before, you identify and are in recovery through your weaknesses, through what brought you here or your vulnerability, uh, rather than your strengths. So when you begin to realize that everybody else is fighting a battle, everybody else has come here, not at their best, not like you come to, to, to recovery and saying, my life is so fantastic. I think this'll just make it a little bit better, you know, be the cherry on top. It's not that at all. So we come in kind of beaten down. It is useful as we begin to rebuild our, our story on who we are and what we're doing here to be tolerant of the others. But it's, it's about the way we frame our own reality, I think. Yeah.
George Snyder (02:54):
And, you know, and I think too, a lot of what I found through, you know, attending this particular session was, and what I heard from, you know, like you said, this cross section of people that we have in there is that, you know, tolerance is a thinking issue and it's a listening issue as well. It's the inability to listen because you've already, pre-framed what you think is going to happen. And the impact that I learned about from specifically from the old school mastermind was when I stopped listening, I stopped growing. So it's not about many people think it's like, have no boundaries do what you know. And so many people come in with codependency issues. It's not tolerance isn't that you can have boundaries and you can stand up for yourself and you can assert your opinion. But tolerance is about being able to listen without having this huge, massive, emotional reaction and just shutting everything down.
Speaker 3 (03:59):
Well, and so much of it is for me is about suspending my judgment, if I can get there, because my judgment, I use judgment as a defense. You know, I, I think I know what you think of me. I'm a bad psychic, but I think I know what you think of me. And so I'm gonna, I'm going to come out, right. And where are you? Who do you think you are? You're not so hot. So then I justify treating you badly because I'm projecting what I think it defeats. I got to suspend that judgment. And I do that. If I can get my, if I can be in a, if I have the opportunity to be in a group of people and get to hear other people's stories, you begin to identify.
George Snyder (04:40):
Yeah. And you know, a lot of it we discussed were tools and strategies about how to frame your thinking at the very beginning to slow yourself down. So you're not in this combative place right off where, you know, right from go, you know, I could tell you some of the most amazing things that have happened in recovery are people that when I first met them, I would say one, I'm never going to be their friend too. I can't stand them. Like, and, and then literally within a year period of time calling one of those people, one of my very good friends, right. Uh, because I was able to slow down and listen to what we had in common,
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Right. Again, that kind of identification realize if I can just be neutral, if I can just give myself the space to be able to listen. And I, I have had people, I, my head fills with white noise. I, I fear, I feel fear coming up. I don't know this I project. I think I know. And, but if I can just give myself that pause, if I can be neutral, if I can wait to find out I'm so often I'm surprised. So I was surprised in this group of people I didn't would not have expected kind of, um, kindness. Compassion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And where does that come from? That comes from, I'm going to get, let you off the hook. I'm going to let you off the hook and let you have your moment. And then we move forward. Right? Yeah.
George Snyder (06:18):
Why Tolerance?