Searching, Not Lost

Alexandria 0:01

Welcome to Renovating the Soul. I'm your host, Alexandria Robinson, and this is a podcast about the real unglamorous work of becoming. The work that actually requires something from you. Hard questions, honest answers, and the willingness to look at the foundation you were handed and decide what you want to build on it. That's what we do here. So wherever you're coming from today, I'm glad you're in it with me. Let's get into today's conversation. I started the season with the question, What if you're not lost? And I said then that you don't look at a house under construction and call it lost. You say it's being built. The room not being finished doesn't mean you built it wrong. I also said this season was going to have more questions than answers. And after an entire season of asking questions about rejection, health, homeschooling, killing, hard things, self-trust, relationships, faith, and myself, I think I finally have language for what I was doing, back what you're doing, back what we're all doing. I wasn't lost, I was searching. And those are not the same thing. Searching means you're asking, reaching, examining, trying to understand something you don't fully understand yet. Maybe searching is not evidence that something has gone wrong. Maybe searching is part of being alive. And we've hinted at this, right? We've said that in the in the lost episode that maybe I'm not lost, right? Maybe I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be, and where I'm supposed to be is in this searching. And maybe one of the most gracious things we can do is remember that we aren't the only ones doing it. Welcome back to Renovating the Soul. I'm your host, Alexandria Robinson, and this is the final episode of season three. Y'all, it's been a ride. It's been a wonderful ride. Y'all have been showing so much love, so much support. I mean, it's been overwhelming in a good way. I'm like trying to find the words, and I'm like, I don't know how else to describe it, but overwhelming in a good way. I really came prepared for a jam-packed season. I came prepared to be a little more polished and professional. And, you know, here, here I am in the studio instead of at home. And it got an editor, like all of these things, and I just say that it was all worth it. Um, you all have loved on these episodes. You all have shared the episodes, you all are texting me and taking notes and talking about the episodes with me. And I just appreciate that so much. Every week this season, we've taken an idea, a belief, a pattern, or a question, and we looked at it a little more closely. So I want to end with the question underneath almost every question we've asked. And not just on this season, but throughout this whole podcast. What are we all looking for? And I don't think the answer is one

What We Are Really Looking For

Alexandria 3:00

thing. But I think it can be meaning, belonging, love, security, purpose, truth, success, freedom. Some assurance that the life we are building is actually going somewhere. The point is the searching looks different for all of us. What we think we are searching for looks different for the other person. And the thing we're searching for is not always obvious because searching doesn't always look like searching. I don't think many of us will be talking to each other, going like, hey, I'm searching, you're searching. What are you searching for? What are you searching? I don't think it's that, right? That's why I'm I'm addressing it in this way is that this was like an epiphany for me about everything that we've discovered about me asking, why do people respond in that way? Why are they doing it this? Why are they doing it this? And we're gonna, you know, get into this a little more in a moment, but it also gave me a different posture and how to see and treat other people. So what we're looking for, what we're searching for, again, it's not always obvious because it doesn't look like searching. So somebody chasing promotion after promotion may be searching for significance. Someone who cannot be alone may be searching for security or connection. Someone obsessed with being admired may be searching for worth. Someone accumulating money may be searching for safety. Someone deeply religious may be searching for certainty, meaning, truth, God, or belonging. And someone questioning religion may be searching for truth too. And some people search through work, relationships, religion, politics, substances, status, achievement, attention, control, creation, therapy, conversation. I mean, it can look so different and so vast. And I'm not saying that all of those searches are equally healthy, but some ways of searching can absolutely destroy us or other people. I am saying that underneath behavior that looks completely different, people can be reaching for surprisingly similar things or in similar ways. The goal isn't necessarily to stop searching, maybe it is to search with more self-awareness, more wisdom, more grace, and less destruction along the way. I originally planned a couple episodes. There were a couple episodes that were supposed to be in here, but it just didn't work out. I do this thing where if I'm working on something and I'm working on an episode or I'm trying to get my thoughts together and they're not coming together, I just haven't been forcing it. I've done that in the past with the pod where I forced an episode and then I'm looking at the other side of it and I'm like, why did I do this? I it just didn't come together how I wanted it to. And there was an episode that was like that, um, that was building a life you've never seen. And like I said, the more I worked on it, the more I realized we had already been talking about it all season. And it's what we talk about on the podcast in general, right? And so I was just having a hard time

Building With An Incomplete Blueprint

Alexandria 5:50

making it like one solid episode. But there is one part of that episode that I didn't want to lose, and that's the blueprint. And obviously it's for innovating the soul. We've hinted at this and talked about the blueprint a lot, right? But a blueprint is a technical plan created before the finished structure exists. Someone who understands the structure has already decided where the walls go, how the pieces connect, what has to carry weight, and what the finished thing is supposed to become. But life doesn't always work like that. Most of us are framing walls from a picture in our heads of a house we've never even stood inside. That blueprint part was about what you do in this life without being able to see it first or see it uphand. We are building the visible life, the marriage, family, career, education, you know, home, finances, right? While also building the invisible life, our character, our boundaries, beliefs, emotional health, habits, self-trust, and understanding of who we are. And we're making these, you know, like ordinary Tuesday decisions without knowing what those decisions will mean 10 years from now. And that's scary. And one of the hardest parts of my life for me right now in this season is that so much of it is understood in hindsight. And I've been wondering and I've been so terrified because I'm like, will I only be able to learn these lessons after they happen? Like, when am I gonna be able to have the upper hand in knowing what I know? And I and I honestly, you guys, I still don't know how that works. I don't know if I'll ever know what I need to know before, right? I think I'll, I think it maybe just be life where you find out later, right? And so we're doing a lot of this without knowing and and in learning in hindsight. You choose the school, you marry the person, you leave the job, stay at the job, right? You have the baby, don't have the baby. You move, you stay, you forgive, you leave, you start over, and only later can you see what that choice built. And I think that of course, as we go on, there's refinement, there's maturity that happens, but I still think part of life is going to be learning things after it happens, right? And so, of course, we search. We're trying to build something while living inside the construction. And that episode, you know, building a life you never seen is is married into this. We're all searching. I just I put them together, right? And I want this to be where I acknowledge you, me, and other people who don't have examples up close. Because a lot of us, a lot of us are building lives that we've never seen. And when I say up close, I mean our home environments, who raised us, people around us, right? They have not done the things that we've wanted to do, right? If you're a first generation college student, that means no one in your immediate family went to college, so you didn't see that up close. If you're going into this career field of, you know, choose your poison, whatever it is, right? You're going into this career field and no one else has done that around you. So you don't have any mentors or examples or, you know, things like up close where you've been able to have someone sit you down and say, here's what I did, here's what I didn't do, here's how I'd guide you, here's here, let me answer your questions. A lot of us are doing that. And it's not just jobs and careers either, it's marriage. A lot of our parents are divorced or never got married, and we're trying to build these marriages with no blueprint, with no thing in front of us that can tell us, okay, don't say that. Okay, say that. Sometimes you say the wrong thing and you're like, hey, why did I say that? You do the wrong thing, you're like, oh my gosh, right? Obviously, the point is that we're learning as you go, but in this particular moment, I just have to acknowledge and I have to hug like those people who are trying to do this almost alone or without being able to know what's on the other side. And I think for a lot of us often, myself included, you we pull from inspiration from other people or things that we see in like the magazines or online, right? And it's easy to gravitate towards the stories of other people outside of us because we don't have it up close. So I almost need to know that this thing is gonna pay off, that this thing is gonna be positive, that making this decision is gonna be better for me or better for my family, you know, or better for my life, like whatever it is. And I think this is why stories of people who have gone before us matter. And the story is not a blueprint, right? Somebody else's

Borrowing Wisdom Without Copying Lives

Alexandria 10:30

life cannot tell you exactly what to do with yours, but stories give us glimpses. They let us see consequences we haven't lived long enough to experience yet. They show us what people treasure too late, what they wish they had worried about less, what mattered after the money came, after the children grew up, after the marriage ended, after their career changed, after life did what life does. I think one of the easier examples I can say about that is that you hear a lot of people putting this emphasis on dating now. Why? Because you've learned from people who got a divorce and said, we never made it about us, we made it about the kids. And when the kids were gone, we didn't know who each other were was. 18 years, could you imagine 18 years of living under the same roof with someone and not knowing them? And then your children are gone, you have nothing to communicate about. And so when a lot of us have learned that those were the reasons why people's marriages end, we emphasize dating now, getting to know each other, being friends now before the kids grow up. And so that's how we use other stories and patterns in life to help inform our decisions when we don't have that up close and personal. Sometimes listening to somebody else's hindsight allows us to borrow a little of theirs. Wisdom is partly learning from a life you didn't personally have to live. But even then, we still have to decide what applies to us. That's why I said the it's not a blueprint, it's not going to tell you exactly what to do or where to go. In fact, I'm reading this book called The Psychology of Money. It's a great book so far. And in it, he talks about how it's hard to decipher, and I'm kind of putting this in my own words, whether someone's success is based on luck or like we're talking about, like this idea of a blueprint or intentional decisions that can be replicated. And so, because of that, he suggests that we look at patterns of humanity instead of individual stories. And I I agree. When I heard that, I was like, oh man, I've been such a story person. I mean, you see, you guys seen in the, which I'm not, I'm not taking it back, but in the episode where we said we are built for hard things, I use story after story after story of person because they are inspiring. But the difference in what he's saying is, and he's talking specifically about money, is that he had two examples. One who made his success from breaking the law, and another who ruined his company from breaking the law. So what are we to do with that? Am I said to break the law? Like most people would say, no, I I I shouldn't break the law. But his point was that sometimes it works out for people and sometimes it doesn't. What's more telling or what's more helpful is to look at patterns of humanity, patterns of um how people got where they're at or what decisions they made right as a collective instead of one individual story and trying to replicate that story for yourself, conscious decisions that you can replicate. And I want to put in here that how you can sometimes tell, let's just say, how I've been able to tell when someone has like something that they did and they specifically followed is when they're giving advice. You can hear this when you're asking couples who are like older and who've been together a long time, and you say, How did your marriage last so long? And they go, Oh, God, it was the Lord. And then, and then I go, Okay, it was an accident. That's exactly what I say. I'm like, Okay, it was an accident. They don't know what they did. They probably don't even really get along, but it was the Lord. Keep God first, you know, keep them centered, right? Or just something generic. Even people who are like, um, what advice do you have like for people who want to be successful? And they're like, oh, stay focused. Stay focused. Don't get distracted. I'm like, okay, so you don't know. You're just giving me something, right? Because if somebody came up to me and said, Well, how have you made your nine years of marriage work? I'd be like, okay, let me tell you, you got time, sit down. Let's talk about how I had to learn to keep my mouth shut. Uh-huh. Let's talk about how we I I couldn't shut down because I'm a shut down. I'm a shutdown. Don't talk, don't leave me alone. Can't do that. Let's talk about how I had to adjust to him being a morning person and me not being a morning person, but I don't want to, you know, be bring the bad energy. So I got to smile and find a way to compromise. Like I can literally sit down and give you a list of actual things that I did because I'm making the intentional, you know, conscious decisions, right? And so I think stories are great for inspiration. And sometimes, again, people can tell you exactly what they did, but that still doesn't guarantee that it's gonna go the same way for us. And so here I'm suggesting that many of us who don't have this blueprint, we look to stories because we don't have anyone else, right? But I caution us to just be careful trying to replicate someone's life without really knowing how they got there and to instead look more at patterns of humans like we're talking about now. This idea that we're all searching is a human pattern. It's not a one-off phenomenon. It's not an anomaly or, you know, just a few people, but everyone's looking for something. And it doesn't always show up in healthy ways. It can also be unhealthy. And it doesn't look the same for everyone, right? Quincy and I live in the same home, but our searching looks different. I tend to search through questions and conversation and reflection and lived experience and asking why until an answer makes sense. I'm just thinking about things all the time. My brain never shuts off. And I just did this to Quincy the other day where he left for like a hot minute. We were on vacation and he left for like a hot minute and he came back and I just hit him with the I've been thinking about. And he's like, What happened? Like, what and what what'd you see? And I was like, nothing. And this is in my brain. Like I'm I'm thinking about this, but like, here's what my thoughts are, right? Like, and so that's how I kind of roll off for it. Like, Quincy is much more likely to go toward truth through books, science, data, you know, evidence, like what holds up and what can be demonstrated. It's not to say that I don't do what he does and what I do as well. It's just we tend to lean on those things a little more, right? And so his searching may start like mine, where it's a lived experience, a question, something you're thinking about, but he's going to find the books and the science and the data, like he's gonna find the stuff to look it up. Whereas me, you know, I might be just going on Instagram, like I might just be in my head about it, like whatever it is, you know? And so the whole point is that we can care about some of the same questions and approach them completely differently. And part of loving another person is learning not to require their search to look like yours before you respect it. Two people can be searching for meaning, connection, truth, wholeness, or God and look completely different doing it. The difference doesn't automatically make one of them unserious or foolish or rebellious or wrong. And I think

Grace, Mercy, And Accountability

Alexandria 16:55

a lot of the damage we do to one another begins when we decide that everybody must search the way we do before we extend them dignity. And this is where I want to be precise with my terms. And y'all thought she was getting away from the definitions, but no, I just put them later in the episode and I didn't put them up top. But I want to um be precise with my terms because grace doesn't mean pretending everything is okay. Quincy always puts it simply: Grace is getting what you don't deserve. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve. And for this conversation, I also think of grace as room, room to be unfinished, room to learn, room to get something wrong and correct it, room to become. Sometimes people in our lives need grace. They need patience, understanding, another conversation, another opportunity or context they may not have fully earned. And sometimes they need mercy. They may absolutely deserve your anger, your response, or your wrath, and you you choose not to give it to them. And it's not because what they did was okay, it's because sometimes you have decided that you do not want to become what that response would require of you because you change. Every time someone does something and you respond in a way that you don't want to, it hurts you. I've been going through Once Upon a Time, the show on Disney Plus. I love Once Upon a Time. So I've been going through this again. There's an episode where Snow White, she gets revenge for like the first time in her life, and she um hadn't never done that. If you know, you know, Snow White, she's pure, pure in heart, pure in beauty, she's all of these things, but she decides to get revenge because this person had hurt her so much, had done so much damage, and she's like, There's nothing else to do but to have this person killed. And so this person gets killed, and when she goes to the evil queen, that um the person she killed was the evil queen's mom, and she goes to the evil queen and she's like, have your revenge, like kill me since I killed your mom. And the evil queen takes her heart out and she's like, she doesn't crush it. And Snow White's confused. But the evil queen looks down at the heart and the heart has a little black hole. And she's like, once you've blackened your heart, you've already started to do damage to yourself. And she puts the heart back in. And I'm like, oh my gosh, if that's not life, if that's not exactly what we're talking about, that when you choose not to forgive, that when you choose not to have mercy, that when you choose to get revenge and, you know, put your wrath, it doesn't blacken the other person. It blackens your heart. It messes you up, right? It hurts you, it hurts your soul. And so sometimes you're giving this mercy in particular, because mercy, again, is when they deserve what you're giving them. Sometimes you are giving mercy because you do not want to become what that would produce in you, right? And neither grace nor mercy eliminates accountability. You can withhold wrath and still set the boundary. You can extend understanding and still tell the truth. And you can understand somebody and still leave. I wish people would get that one the most. Oh my gosh. Like, you do not have to be there for everyone, and that's not what I'm saying either. You know, grace gives context, accountability deals with impact. And as I think I've mentioned this before in other episodes, is that sometimes we get accountability and judgment mixed up, but they are different, right? Judgment, the way I mean it here, is when I have when I decide that I have enough information to tell the whole story of who you are, why you did what you did, and what one behavior says about your entire character. All right. But I can understand somebody's childhood and still say they cannot speak to me that way. I can understand why somebody developed a coping mechanism and still acknowledge that it is destroying their family. I can understand that somebody is searching and still refuse to let their search destroy me. I don't know why I keep thinking about this, but I'm just gonna say it. Because usually when I'm thinking about something that's pressing on me, it's like, okay, just say it. I think about people who are in cults. People who join cults, and a lot of people judge those people and they're like, how could they, how could they not see the signs? How could they, but I think this idea of searching would allow those people to kind of just like loosen up a little bit. Because people who join cults are no different from you and I. It's just that their search looks differently, right? But like I'm saying, it doesn't mean that just because they're searching for the cult, it doesn't mean I need to join it or I need to, you know, um say that the cult was okay. No, but I do and I should be a little more gracious because I don't know exactly what they were looking for. Some people join cults because remember, cults aren't just limited to like religious cults. There are all kinds of cults out there, right? And so sometimes people join these things because they just want community. They want to be around people because they grew up without parents or in broken homes. You don't know why they're joining it, but they're willing to be a part of it and take all of the craziness because they think that it's Means they're getting something, whatever that getting is for them. And I'm not asking us to become more naive. I'm asking us to become more gracious. And one of the biggest shifts for me this season, this whole season, right, of my life, not just of the podcast, has been learning to ask what else could be true. And we talked about this when we talked about support from family and friends, right? That somebody's silence can hurt without automatically meaning that they hate you or they want you to fail. The facts matter, but the story we attach to the facts matters too. We've talked about that. And sometimes what looks like laziness is fear, right? What looks like arrogance is insecurity. In fact, some of the people that I know who kind of walk around like they have it all together are the most insecure. What looks like certainty is somebody desperately trying to feel safe. What looks like rebellion, maybe someone finally questioned what they were handed. And I've seen this firsthand. I've seen somebody actually go through this phase where they are processing so much at one time. Their family, um, their siblings, their upbringing, right? Deaths, things that have just happened to them. Um, and they're processing all at once. And it looks like rebellion. It really does. It looks like they just, you know, are just going working against the the people, their family members, but really they were, they were questioning. They were struggling. They were, they were finally seeing people for as they were and not what they've, you know, kind of masked them to be, right? Um, but obviously sometimes it really is laziness. It is arrogance, it is lying, manipulating, avoiding responsibility or hurting people, right? The point is not to invent a softer explanation for every bad behavior. The point is to stop pretending that our first explanation is automatically the truth. So again, we're asking these questions throughout life that I encourage you to ask. When whether you're in a car and somebody cuts you off, or whether you're in a store and someone's kind of rude or someone's bad with customer service. Again, I'm not saying that they should do those things. I'm just saying on your part, maybe you can start asking what else could be true about this person? What have I not seen? What conversation have I not had? What part of their search do I know nothing about? And now

Self-Compassion And Invisible Progress

Alexandria 24:20

we're going to talk about ourselves. We're going to flip the script onto ourselves. Because all of the internal honesty we have practiced this season is only useful if it eventually produces grace, not just toward other people, but toward ourselves too. If all this self-awareness produces is contempt for who you used to be, we've missed something. Self-awareness without self-compassion can become a more articulate version of self-hatred. And I want to say it again, even though you can rewind it. Self-awareness without self-compassion can become a more articulate version of self-hatred. The goal of looking within is not to find more things to condemn. It is to understand yourself more clearly so you can build more wisely. A lot of us, again, we're making decisions without access to the ending. You're allowed to acknowledge that. You're allowed to be tired without calling yourself a failure. You're allowed to change your mind after receiving new information. You're allowed to look back and say, like I've been saying a lot in this season of my life, like I would not make that choice now, without hating the version of you who made it then. And I would I would kind of throw in there too, like without hating others. She was searching too, he was searching too, you're searching too, I'm searching too. Give yourself credit for the invisible building. That's what I think is a little bit harder. The boundary you finally held, the reaction you interrupted, the apology you gave, the thing you stopped numbing, the belief you questioned, the way you learned to trust yourself, the way you stayed when you normally run or left when you normally stay. Building doesn't only count when somebody else can see the finished room. And then here comes the harder part, right? Extending some of that same understanding outward. Because like I said, we're quick, okay? We're quick to look at someone and be like, you can't, you shouldn't. But then when it's us, it's like, well, you know, I'm going through a lot right now. But you wouldn't want someone treating you the way that you might have treated someone else, right? Or the way you treated that person, right? And so you do have to extend some of that outward. The people who raised you were searching to. And this one might be hard for people. This one is hard for me. Not in the way where I'm like, I don't want to forgive them, I don't want to acknowledge they were searching, but in a way that really humbles me. It really brings me down to like no one handed them anything. They weren't trying to hurt me, they weren't trying to, you know, not set me up for success. Like, I'm sure that wasn't their intention, or at least I'll hope it wasn't their intention, right? I think the reality of renovating the soul and this kind of work, introspection, you don't even have to call it renovating the soul, just whatever you want to call looking within, is that it's uncomfortable and it's hard, and many of us are not doing, and many people are not doing it. Family, people who raised you included, they were trying to figure it out as they went to, and some did the best with what they could, some failed tremendously. Some have never figured it out. It's really heartbreaking when you think about it. And in the last episode, when we're talking about, you know, exp questioning Christianity, I had started talking about how people are dead within churches. But I I also invite that to life in general, that many people are are zombies, not in the you know, zombie apocalyptic kind of way, but but almost in the same way, except visibly, like when you see the zombies in the movies, you can visibly see that they're changed and they're dead, but they're walking, right? The show is literally like the walking dead. But if you think about that with us, a lot of people are zombie-like. They look alive, but they are actually dead inside. They are hurting inside, they're masking a lot, and that applies for the people who raised us too. Because so many of us are not wanting to do this work. It is hard. Okay. I show up on this podcast and I put it all in this pretty package and I make it look like it's so easy. It is hard to sit with yourself. It's hard to sit with your thoughts and your pains and your mistakes and your successes. Probably not as hard, but you know, it's hard to sit, I would say, more with the bad and the uncomfortable things. It's hard to see a situation or even feel yourself pained by something because you don't want to acknowledge that they hurt you. You don't want to acknowledge that that situation took a toll on you, uh, took a bigger toll on you than you're willing to admit. Like people don't want to do that. People aren't doing it. That's why you get the hurt people, hurt people thing. But I'm kind of making it a little bigger where I think that a lot of us are, again, these zombies, where we're walking around, we can have clothes on, we can present like we're living, but really inside we're dead. That's why this podcast and this work is so important to me. But I will not ever pretend like it's just an easy walk in the park. In fact, I know that part of the reason why people can't really buy into this is that, you know, the episodes are not just like a kiki, and we're not just gossiping, and we're not just, I'm like, I'm like hitting y'all hard. Like, so what are you gonna do? So who are you gonna become? And what's going on in your soul? It's like, what I want to look at my soul. I want to scroll Instagram and go on vacation and twerk and do whatever I want to do and make my money and have my job. Like, I get it, right? I get it, okay. Life has already got a lot going on, okay? I can think of like five things going on right now that I could just shoot off the top of my head that are just plaguing social media, plaguing our lives. So I get it. It's a lot, right? But, you know, the acknowledgement here is that others are where we're at too. That if I'm a zombie, there are other zombies around. I really love this zombie analogy, actually. The more I think about it, because, you know, in order to become a zombie, you get bitten, from what I understand. My kids play a zombie game now. Not, not now, let me explain. Not a video game. Okay. They started the zombie game with each other and their dad. Okay. They were turning each other the other day, or was it vampires? One of the two, okay. One of the two. I don't know. They're always doing something. So they was doing either zombies or vampires, but we were just playing a zombie game, uh, my husband and I. And yeah, you you have to bite someone in order for them to turn into a zombie, right? It's the same thing with vampires or werewolves or whatever. Well, not werewolves, but I'm saying that because the video game had a werewolf in it, so excuse me. But the I'm saying that because this can happen depending upon who you're around. That if you're around someone who's dying inside and they can't bring the life back, so to speak, they bite you by influencing their thoughts, their ideas, their habits, right? The environment.

Hindsight, Regret, And Living Now

Alexandria 31:35

And then you become a zombie, right? But it's like, who comes with the zombie cure? I think part of the cure is like doing this inner work. So, anyways, I don't want to stay on that too long, but I just really love that analogy. But back to what I was saying, like the people who raised you were searching too. Your spouse is searching, your friends are searching, your children will search. The person whose choices make absolutely no sense to you may be trying to solve a problem you cannot see. And some people search consciously, like I was saying for me, like, you know, I'm paying attention, I'm looking, but there are a lot of things that I'm I I've ignored or just haven't seen or only seeing now. Oh, it's, you know, and that's what I'm saying. It's like it's kind of embarrassing where I'm just like, why didn't I see that earlier? Like, how did I miss that? Like, what was I doing? What was I thinking about, right? So some people are searching consciously where they're reading, they're questioning, they're going to therapy, right? They're studying, they're asking for help. Like it's a it's a real process for them, right? And it's showing up in their actions and what they do. And then some people search by repeating whatever they inherited because certainty feels safer than questioning, right? So that just means like what I seen, that's what I, that's what I'm doing, right? And some people attach themselves to money or relationships or work or achievement or control, whatever this thing is, because they think the thing they are chasing will finally answer the question underneath it. And understanding that doesn't require you to follow them, like I said, with the with the zombie thing, right? It doesn't require you to follow them, save them, stay close to them, or excuse what they do. It simply reminds you that you are looking at another unfinished human being. If I want grace for the decisions I made while I was trying to figure life out, I have to at least consider what grace looks like when somebody else is figuring it out too. Now, this next part again is just one of those things where I'm gonna say it with love and a little humor that we probably won't know what we got right until we're almost out of time. Which means until we're dying. Which sucks, right? Like it sucks. I've been I've been really coping with this. I haven't reached a finale. I am wondering, again, like I was saying, what I can learn ahead of time versus having to learn in hindsight, hindsight, excuse me. Will I always only learn in hindsight? I don't know. It's really been bugging me. I don't know. But I do know that most of us, I think all of us, honestly, we're we're operating with incomplete information. We just don't, we don't have all of the information, right? We're we're making choices with what we know at the time, and then we live and then we learn more, and then we change, and sometimes we look back and we cringe. Okay. Like the hindsight lessons can be brutal. They can be embarrassing. Like I was just saying, there's certain things that I'm like, man, why can't I say that, right? Like the thing you were certain about that you now understand differently, right? Or the person you misjudged, the pattern you couldn't see yet, right? In yourself or others, and like the thing that you wish you had valued, you know, while you had it. One of my, I think, um, I'm trying to I'm trying to be careful over here and say, like, I don't know if this episode was the first time that I thought about this, but I would say the way they said it has never left me. And it's the one of the last episodes in the office. And he's, and I think it was Andy, and he says something like, I wish I would have known that I was living the best days of my life when I was living them. Something like that, right? I'm I'm paraphrasing. And oh, first of all, those last few episodes made me cry, but that last one when they're all, you know, playing this song and doing all this stuff, like just tears me up. But when he says that, it just never stuck with me. Like, how do you know? How do you live, you know, without knowing that these are the best days of your life? Like, like, oh gosh, it just, I don't know. It plagued me because I'm like, gosh, I know. Because you're when when you especially when you watch The Office, right? And you're looking at them and they're just doing things in real life, too. They're not knowing how that how the show's gonna work out, whatever, whatever. But like also on the show, you know, you see all these characters go through all of these things and you're grumpy because it's work and you're doing all this. And then when it's time to leave that chapter, you're like, oh my gosh, I wish I had known to to like embrace it more or to love it more, to to complain less. And it's so hard, you know? And and so when I think about hindsight, I think about that. It's like I'm I'm really trying to figure out. And if anyone has any answers, any books on this, please send it my way. I'm trying to figure out will all of life or most of life be hindsight, or will there be things that I can know now, like ahead of time, right? Um, and I want to be careful here because incomplete information doesn't mean that everybody who hurts us was doing their best. Okay. Sometimes people knew better and did it anyway. Because as I've already mentioned, we're not using hindsight as an excuse to keep being like a nasty person. You can absolutely learn from your decisions now, okay? And you can absolutely make better choices, right? Um, and grace doesn't require us to rewrite those facts. It's simply asking us to hold the reality that none of us have ever made a decision with access to our entire future, right? And that's not a reason to stop trying to make wise choices. It's a reason to hold some things a little more gently, including yourself, right? And including the moments that you're living. And when we talked about patterns, there are some principles, right, of just how people who are happier are typically people who are helping others, right? Complaining less, like all of

The Season Walkthrough And Final Questions

Alexandria 37:20

these little things that you can learn from just, you know, how people have studied humanity. And I want to say we're we're we're getting to the end here, but um, if you made it to the end of the season, thank you. Whether you listened to every episode or just a few, whether you took notes or just drove and listened, whether everything landed or some of it missed, like you you showed up and you showed up for me specifically, and I appreciate that. Whether you've, you know, been here since season one or just found me today with this episode, or whatever it is, like you play a role in this podcast, whether you know it or not, because you're listening, right? And I get those little ticks, the little number ticks. A lot of you are willing to sit with hard questions about who you are, where you came from, and what you believe, what you're building, what has hurt you, and what may need to change. And listen, I commend you because that is not nothing, that is the work. You don't leave this season with everything figured out, and neither do I. And I don't think we ever will, right? We're gonna keep learning until the very end. But maybe you do leave knowing yourself a little better than you did when we started. And hopefully that self-knowledge doesn't make you harsher, hopefully it makes you wiser, harder to manipulate, okay, more capable of love, and more gracious with yourself and the people around you. And for our last blueprint, every renovation eventually has a walkthrough. You go through the rooms, you look at what was done, you notice what held up, what looks different, what still needs finishing, and what you may need to come back to later. That is this episode, that is this season, that is this podcast. But at the beginning of this season, I looked at the unfinished house and wondered if it meant I was lost. Now we are walking through it. Some rooms look different, some are still under construction. Some things I believe at the beginning of this season or at the beginning of starting this podcast have changed, and you can go back and hear that. Some have become even stronger. Some questions created more questions. Okay. And that's all right. That is renovation. Maybe the goal is to become the kind of person who can keep building when the blueprint is incomplete. Curious enough to keep learning, humble enough to change, wise enough to listen, courageous enough to act, and gracious enough to remember that nobody else can see the entire thing either. That the soul is a home worth renovating. Not because it will ever be perfect, but because you have to live there. You are still under construction. So is everyone around you. Extend grace accordingly. And in the beginning, very first episode, I told y'all, I do not have tidy endings. I was still in it, and I'm just simply choosing to ask better questions. To ask more questions, honestly, to ask questions in general, honestly, not even better questions. Just start asking questions, right? Pushing back on just some of the ideas that I've always lived with. And, you know, I'm still I'm still in this renovating, right? I don't know exactly what the finished room looks like, but I do know that after this season, I think I have more grace for the woman standing in the middle of it. And I think I have more grace for everybody else standing in the middle of theirs. We are building, we are questioning, we are changing, we are getting things wrong. We are learning what matters, we're trying to make meaning out of what happens to us. We're all searching. So maybe the question I want to leave you with is not have you figured your life out? It's what are you searching for right now? And is the way you're searching actually helping you build the life and the soul you want to live with? Give yourself grace for not having the whole blueprint. Give other people enough grace to remember that they do not have it either. Extend mercy when you choose to, hold people accountable when accountability is needed, tell the truth about what hurt, set the boundary, leave when you need to leave, change what needs to change and stay when you need to stay, but leave room for humanity, including your own. The tagline for this show is your soul is your home, make it a place you want to live. And I think I just understand that line a little differently now. Renovating the soul is not, and it's really never have been, about arriving at a finished version of yourself. It's staying willing to look again, to ask another question, to clear out what no longer be belongs, to build with what you know now, and to be willing to renovate again and again and again when you know more. So we're not lost, or maybe we're not lost, right? But maybe we're searching, and maybe that is exactly what we are supposed to be doing. I want to thank you all for spending season three with me. No, I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. I don't mind crying, but I'm more, I'm like, it's like bittersweet. I am very proud of this season. I'm so thankful for what I put in and just how hard I've worked and the response that I've gotten because of that hard work. People have seen me. And I mean, I've gotten people who have commented and said, I can tell how much you put into it by the way it's crafted, by what you say. And that has meant the most to me. And I it's literally something I thought about, and I was wondering, can people see that I'm getting sharper and better? Can people see how how much I'm putting into this? And I'm saying, like, multiple people, after I had that thought, like reassured me without me saying anything, they're like, Oh no, I I I see how you're doing this. You speak with so much intentionality. I can feel your heart and your passion for this. And I have one friend, my friend Destiny, shout out to Destiny. Um, and she's like, she's taking notes and she sends me her notes. And I love that. Like, you are a person after my own heart. If you are sending me your notes on my episodes and I, and it's not all like, it was great, it was great, it was great. It was like, no, here's what I thought. Like, here's what I think. Destiny was also one of the people in the beginning who was like, I think you can do this. I love that. Like, please, if there's something Think I should do better, or there's notes you've taken that shows me that you're not just listening, but like you're digesting and you trust me enough to actually apply it to your life. That's crazy, right? Like, not that it's crazy because I obviously trust myself. I think you guys can trust me, right? But I'm just saying, like, to to have that level of influence in someone's life and to know how much I take that seriously, and to know that like my heart, my integrity, my why is the reason why I'm sitting here the way I sit here and why I do these things and why I decided to even start this podcast, right? So that I could have

What Happens After Season Three

Alexandria 44:40

my own space to really show up as me. And you all have given me that. I'm my silly, goofy, serious self. It's a you guys can see I'll go from like being serious to laughing in a heartbeat. That's like me. I'm just, you know, that's just how it is, right? It's I was saying that it's bittersweet because to be honest with you guys, I don't know if there's a season four. I don't know. I'm learning, and someone said this to me recently. She said, uh, you get bored of things easily. And I was like, Yep, that's me. I am a project girl, but I I haven't had a long-term project, and for a while I beat myself up about that. I was like, You did it, you had a photography company. You left that, you had a blog, you left that. You have, but sometimes seasons are up. And one of the things, one of the first things I learned in the podcast world when I was reading the little um how to podcast book is they were saying that sometimes you have a podcast for a season. You know, you see the murder mystery ones, they have like six episodes, right? Sometimes you have a long one where you you can just keep going on and on. Sometimes you outgrow the the space and you start another one, or you or you just you close up where you're at. And that's kind of where I'm at. After three seasons, 30 some episodes, even more that are not published. Maybe I'll publish the unpublished ones for y'all. Just and just, you know, since it's like, you know, who cares? Maybe I was overthinking it, right? But after all these hours, that I'm talking hours, okay, of putting into this, I feel complete right now. I feel like I've said what I wanted to say. I had plans for like a couple series and things I wanted to do, but in this moment, I feel really complete. And what I plan on doing is little things that I've always wanted to do. I just want to read a book. I just want to pour into my kids. I want to go to the park. And I say that because when I'm doing these episodes, they weigh on me so much that it's hard for me to function and do multiple things at one time because I'm thinking about what I'm gonna say. I'm thinking about is this topic gonna resonate? I'm like, I'm up late. I'm at 1 a.m., 2 a.m. and I'm just like, I'm oh my gosh, it's it's plaguing me. But I'm taking a little pressure off of myself to feel like I have to be the person to say it because I've put that pressure on myself for years. Like I have to be the one to help people, to save them almost. Like it has to be me because I know my heart and I know my integrity and I know that, but I also feel as though that has caused me to put everyone else before me and me last. And in Christian con culture and context, right? Like growing up Christian, that's what you're taught to do. But I just kind of see it differently now. Like, I need to take care of me. I'm going to learn how to sew. I'm gonna go to Pilates. I'm gonna start, I'm gonna get my little DJ kit that I wanted for my birthday. I told my husband, I was like, I'll wait till the podcast is over and then I'm gonna get my DJ set. I might go pick it up today when I leave. I don't know, but I'm gonna learn how to DJ at home for parties and my kids are we're gonna love it. Okay. Like I they're just very little things that I've always pushed off because I was always trying to better people, like I said, save the world, so to speak. You know, you go back to purposely royal, uh it's purposely royal dot blogspot.com, I believe. And if you go back to that, you'll see how much I've always wanted people to be better, right? Women to be better, men to be better, like just people, right? And I think just now I'm like, girl, what about you though? You know, like what about me? Um, and so there are so many things that I'm still learning, but it's hard to process and get better when you're always regurgitating. And so that's why I'm saying, like, I want to read books just for myself. I'm doing the Hunger Game series right now, but I'm also reading the psychology of money, like I mentioned. And I plan on reading the Bridgerton books and doing Boss Car Children with my kids. And like whatever comes my way, I just want to have a little bit of freedom, right? I want to get off social media. I want to have a reason not to be off social media. Like, there are just very little things that I want to do. And so I I say it's bittersweet because I I think at in this moment that this concludes what I've wanted to say and what I've wanted to do with the podcast. Now, I may have a couple of special guest episodes that'll sneak up as bonuses, so it's not like over over. But for me, in this space, I think this is my grand finale. Now, something may say otherwise, and I'll be back, right? Because that's just life. But as I see it right now, I don't, I don't know what more I would I want to say, right? When I listen back at the episodes, I have really said the things that I've wanted to say. Um, again, if you guys push me hard enough, maybe I'll release some of the episodes that I didn't, you know, share because again, I was overthinking or I just didn't feel like they were relevant in the moment. Um, but before I leave, I have a

Gratitude, Shoutouts, And Support

Alexandria 49:10

few acknowledgments that I want to make for this season specifically. First, my editor Hannah, she has been absolutely amazing. And not just an editor where she would edit my episodes and send them back, but she gave me notes and feedback every single time. And she would say, you know, wow, I really heard this when you said this, or whatever it was. And that again, feedback means so much. So shout out to Hannah. I also have to thank the Sound Stage and specifically Jessica, who opened her doors graciously. I had looked for a podcast studio when I first started, and they're very, you know, rare in the Vancouver, Washington, Portland area. And then when I would reach out, they would never respond. And so when it came to this season, you know, I'm four kids in. I was able to do it at home because I had a nanny and I had a job and I can just sneak time in. But in this season, I said, I cannot record at home, or else y'all would have never had a podcast. It would have been in my car or my closet. And so I was like, okay, I want to come with video. I want to just do a very polished season. Like, here was my thinking. If this is my last season, I want to do it well, I want to give it all I got, and I want to see what the response is to it, right? Because I had never had a full season with video and you know, good, clean audio. And so I reached out to the soundstage thinking they're not gonna get back to me. I was like, they're not gonna get back to me. And less than 24 hours, I got an email back. And she's like, you know, I'm also a mom, I'm I'm uh also a wife, like I understand. And from the moment we met till even now, she's sitting right here. But for the moment we met, like she has been such a a gym. And even I was telling my husband, I was like, very, very nervous to record my episodes in front of people because I cry or I be deep in thought or whatever it is. So my very first episode, like you can, and if you guys watch back, I was like a little more reserved in the beginning than I got as we kept going because I was just overthinking. I was so scared. I'm like, oh my gosh, are they gonna look at me crazy? Is the content like, are they gonna judge me for this content? And I'm saying every single episode that I recorded with Jessica, she we in between the when we have to stop or after, she's like, oh my gosh, let me tell you my thoughts. Like, and and she's like, I love it. And we're and we're just talking. And she's like, and I and that just means the world, right? Because when I would record in my office by myself, I struggled so bad. I'm like, oh my gosh, is this making sense? Oh my gosh, should I say that? Oh, and I would turn to Jessica and be like, Does that make sense? Am I saying that? Does that say that right? And she's like, Yeah, like, and and it just literally boosted my confidence. It's strengthened the way that I can show up for you guys, knowing that someone's listening and they're like, Yeah, that makes sense. Or you can say it this way and same for Hannah too. Like having someone who's editing for me instead of me editing and cutting out probably good things that y'all should have heard, but I'm cutting it out because I'm like, girl, don't say that. Girl, don't this. And then I'm, you know, Hannah's like, no, this is great. Like, no, keep this in, or maybe no, let's not say this, whatever it is, right? Like to have people, especially women, because that's been one of my struggles in general in my life, is like having women who really see you, who aren't trying to use you, or who aren't jealous or manipulative, or just not no bad spirit at all between the two of them. But to have this space has made a world of difference. And I know you guys see it and feel it. How I show up. I've been able to get cute. Okay, I've been able to like come in here and sit down. And and and before I could only do content. I couldn't, because I had to edit and then I had to record, and then I had, oh my gosh, and then the kids are coming in and then the truck's going off. So seriously, if you are in Vancouver, Washington, or Portland, Oregon, or even Seattle, you want to drive down, right? Like you guys, if you need, and I'm gonna try to remember this without asking her because I think I know all the things that the soundstage does. But if you do podcasts like solo or if you have other people you want to do it with, if you're an actor and you need um, I believe they're called like audition tapes. So if you need to audition with a green screen or you want to do poetry, like please, okay. When I say these doors opening just means the world of me, as you can see how much time I've spent on on this, like it has meant the world. And I it would mean the world to me for you all to support her, those that are local and that you know need a space and especially a safe space and just somewhere where you're gonna get good quality work too, because that's hard to find as well. Is someone who it's it's crazy to have people who work hard for you without needing anything. Obviously, of course, you pay, but I'm saying, like, some people you'll pay and they still don't do it excellently, right? They they they only care about the money, and that's just not how Hannah and Jessica have been. They have cared for me in a way that I feel like reflects humanity or like how I would want to show up and how I show up for people. And it's I think it's only in this time of saying this and and sharing it with you all in this moment that I've really been able to reflect on like how much it means to me. And I'm honestly surprised that I got through that without crying. So kudos to the crybaby, because like, yeah, I will be a bucket of tears. But see, the reason why I don't cry is because then I won't stop. Anyways, but I I and and then last, I have to thank my husband. And I want to say this, like, it's I was practicing this last night and I was like, oh, my husband for holding down the fort, but I hold up. Okay, he can hold down the fort, he's a daddy. But I want to thank him. It's more than just like watching the kids when I'm gone. Way more than that. It's the fact that my husband seen me and knew that I needed this outlet, knew that I needed this space. He knows how much I care. He knows my heart for the topics that I'm giving. He's my guinea pig. Okay. All my thoughts that that the last episode we did started with him. I said, let me tell you what I'm thinking. And I think I'm gonna say this. Do you think it's a good idea? You know, and I'm like, all these episodes you guys have heard and seen are conversations that have started with him first. And he not only supports me in the generic way of just like, again, letting me come here, he watches the kids, but financially, right? Like making space in our finances on one income for me to be able to do this with nothing in return, y'all. I don't make any money off of this, okay? Everything is gone out. It's a passion project for real. Um, and and that, and then also again, being my guinea pig and having these conversations with me, which I don't think he would describe himself as a guinea pig at all. It's just our natural conversations. But then also being the one to push me. If I don't have an episode out, that man is like, where's the episode? What what what is happening? Okay. And he listens to every episode from the beginning without me having to ask. I'm not coming like, did you listen to me yet? Did you listen to me yet? I not and I and I hate to be that person, but I know marriages like that. I know people, friendships like that. And that's just not us, and that's not him. He listens to the episodes. He's like, oh my gosh, like I love this. Yep, I like what you said. Yeah, people need to hear this. Like, yeah, you're if you've met my husband, you know that like his word has value, right? Because of just how well studied he is and who he is. And so when he reassures me that like this podcast is a good podcast and what you're saying is so needed, it means more to me than like anybody else saying it, because I know that he's like, you studied the greats. You, you, he knows Greek and Hebrew, he knows the Bible and its original languages, and he studies all kinds of people. And you're saying that my little podcast that I'm over here rambling on and talking good, like, thank you, right? And not just to like stroke my ego or make me feel better. I couldn't do it without him, not because I couldn't find someone to watch my kids, right? Because that's that's thing, that's a practical matter that I could have found regardless. But I couldn't do it without him because he's really in my corner. He's really my best friend. He really sees me. And hopefully we'll get him on. And, you know, we'll see you guys have to keep a little eye out, and maybe we'll have a little bonus episode with him. But I I just I love him. I'm super thankful that we have the relationship and the marriage that we have that created space for me to be able to do this and kind of, you know, kind of get the kind of spoiled. I kind of get to do what I want because I'm about to DJ next. So, you know, it's wild. I just wake up one day and I'm like, you know what? I want I want to do this. And he's like, all right, okay. Well, so anyways, but tell what all my shenanigans. And I and I think, okay, last thing I'll say, and then I'm and then I'm done. One of the other things that has really convicted me in doing this is that sometimes who he sees at home is not who I am on this podcast. And sometimes the principles that I'm giving out, I'm not living out like at home with him. He'll get like the attitude and the anger and the frustration, and he still puts up with me, right? And so even that, right? He's not the type of person who's like coming around y'all saying, Well, she don't be stum dumb. Yeah, he doesn't act like that, right? Because he, you know, again, it's just not him. And and and we have our things and we work through it, but as a girl, I'm emotional and I'm the only girl in the house, and they drive me nuts. So yeah, I'm probably like, I am trip, I am triply, that's probably not a word, but I'm triply more emotional to them than probably like I would be to a girl. Because my boys and him, they just think I'm so dramatic. I'm like, so, anyways, I want to be super honest about that, you guys. I like I fail at living these out all the time. And he's very gracious and loving and supportive. So, again, thank you guys so much. Thank you for making it to the end. I really appreciate again every comment, question, share, like, every single thing, every single thing, every single time. Um, this season has meant a lot, and so I'm really happy and proud of just the way everything turned out and just the the love that you all have reciprocated from what I have put out there. Keep sharing it, keep listening. Go back to season one. I I binge the episodes all the time because I always find something new in them. For maybe my last sign off, I'll uh say until next time, let's keep doing the work to renovate the soul and remember that your soul is your home, so make it a place you want to live. Love y'all. Thank you so much.