Last year I had the opportunity to interview a returning favorite, Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, and her sister Carolyn Bever, which produced two of the most thought-provoking episodes of that year. We discussed how to parent your perfectionistic child in part one and part two of that interview. During that conversation the idea of self-expansion was brought up, and I knew we would need a whole future episode to deep dive that topic.
Today is that day. Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife joins me to explain what it is, and why self-expansion will improve every area of your life, including relationships (her major area of expertise!) She offers unique insight as a therapist that will help you ask yourself the tough questions and see what type of self-expansion is possible in your season. Tune in and learn how your pursuit of growth in this way is one of the kindest things you can do for your relationship with your self, and with others.
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TRANSCRIPT
Monica Packer: Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife, thanks for coming back on about progress.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah. Thanks for having me. Monica
Monica Packer: Definitely our most returned guests, but also our most highly favored . So I’m always happy to have you here, especially to kick off the new year when a lot of people are feeling this high energy buzz of wanting to be better, and we’re gonna kind of ride that wave a little bit, but maybe in a different direction than they’re expecting because it’s less about us trying to help them meet certain metrics or prescriptions of what it means to be a good person in 2023 and more about this bigger picture idea of self expansion.
I would like to start by setting this up though, that you primarily work with couples like you work with, within marriage therapy and sex therapy. But it’s so curious to me, and all the work that I get to listen in on with your podcasts and, and, and taking your courses too, is that you do a surprising amount of work with individuals and like bettering themselves. So let’s start there about why in your experience professionally and even personally, why in order to improve all areas of life, including relationships, people have to start with themselves.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Well the, the way I tend to think about it is that couple’s work is a good elicitation window on the individual. So first of all, when I used to do work one on one with people, I would hear their story about who they were, which was always distorted by, I mean, this would be true for me too if I were to, it’s always distorted by our own narrative about ourself, not necessarily what we do.
And there’s often a disconnect between what we do and what we tell ourselves about what we do. And you often can’t see that as a helper unless you can see this person in relationship with others. So even if my goal were only to help individual, It’s a great way to do it because you see more about who the individual actually is and where their liabilities and vulnerabilities are in their relationship to themselves.
So that is what we do in relationship is often a function of how we’re in relationship to ourself. And so it both shows you where the person is limited. Like, why won’t you validate me, spouse, why won’t you make me feel good about me? And we’re looking outside of ourselves to answer a question. That best is addressed within ourselves. So there’s that reason. But also because as you come into a more peaceful relationship with yourself, you’re more able to create an intimate, loving relationship. So if you are not at peace with yourself, you don’t really wanna let someone in on who you are, you want them to reinforce you, perhaps, you want them to give you the things that you desire in your life, but you don’t really want them to know you and to know them because knowing them is also deeply inconvenient if you have your own agenda about how the marriage should go or how your life should go. So the more we come to accept ourselves in a very honest way and I can talk more about what I mean bythat, the more room you have to accept another person, the more room you have to care about them. Not as a function of reinforcing you, but just as a function of caring about another being who is similar to you in the sense of being vulnerable and flawed.
Monica Packer: This whole topic was inspired by, you know, just a small thing you brought up in an interview we did with you and your sister Carolyn, on parenting our perfectionist children and, and trying to parent them outside of
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm.
Monica Packer: You said something that has stuck with me about self expansion.
It was just those two words put together that I was like, whoa, I wanna know way more about that.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm
Monica Packer: I would love to hear about what you think self expansion is and how does it work. Also in relation to starting with acceptance, cuz that’s
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: mm Yeah,
Monica Packer: sure part of it.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: it is. Yeah. Yeah. So self expansion, human beings, we want to grow. In fact, I read a quote recently that I probably will include in a book that I’m working on, which is something like sin is, sin is the refusal to grow,
Monica Packer: Hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: and that is that as organisms we want to develop. We want to create, we want to learn, and so we have this inner drive to expand.
You see it in children, like they’re just, you know, seeking to understand the world that they’re, that they’re in and understanding themselves. In doing that, the people that are most happy and most happy in a marriage have experienced self expansion within the marriage, within the relationship that they are able to grow into.
That they like. They’re able to conquer new things, learn new things. The people that are the least happy, feel a sense of constriction that they have to be what keeps their spouse happy, or they have shut down their life to keep a kind of false stability so much that they feel resentful and unhappy. So, you know, I do this podcast called Room for Two. The double entendre and it is that the happiest couples have made room for two people to thrive in marriage, and this is something that we deeply desire as human beings.
Monica Packer: So it’s, it’s, it’s innate to our makeup
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: and a part of our. and happiness with every other area in our life that we like to point the finger to, to blame
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: can often be really connected to just this lack of expansion.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yes,
Monica Packer: Right?
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: that’s right. And we can be complicit in our non-expansion. Right? For sure. So it’s not just other people doing it to us because it’s uncomfortable to grow and it’s uncomfortable to move out of the stasis. So while we want to grow, we also like stability. We like security, we like predictability. So we’re always in this tension between two things that we desire and if we don’t tolerate that tension and choose wisely within it, we struggle to be happy.
So we want to expand, but we also want stability, and both are legitimate parts of the human experience. And.
Monica Packer: I’m glad you brought that up because I think a lot of why, most of our listeners are women, women are holding them selves back from self expansion is because they think it must come at a cost to that stability and that connection to others. And you’re not only saying the opposite is true, but both are like in dance with each other.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: That’s right. And a lot of times women have been given the message that they’re the responsible for the stability part for home. Men are out doing the adventures and expanding. Yeah. And women should be, you know, keeping the stability at home and sacrificing to that end. And that’s the inherent reality of the feminine.
And while there’s goodness in that and truth in that idea, and sometimes that is in fact the most, right? The way to be truest to yourself is to sacrifice expansion for a while. That if it’s done out of a kind of rigid idea of what it is to be female or to be a good person, if it’s done out of fear, will, then it will cost you and the relationship.
Monica Packer: So for women who are at the starting line here, you said something about acceptance. Does that need to come before self expansion?
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Well, no. I think that there’s a kind of paradox and acceptance. A lot of times the way I’m helping people to change is by telling them truthfully what is. That is what they’re doing that’s a problem. What they’re doing that’s self betraying what they’re doing, that’s betraying of another person.
Because to see what is truthfully is often is exactly when it changes or what allows something to change. So there’s that version of self-acceptance, like to acknowledge what is. And not be running from it. Because a lot of times our, that’s why there’s this often disconnect between clients reality and what they report individually is we’re so good at telling ourselves self, self justifying narratives that allow a false stasis or a false security.
And so when we can speak truthfully to ourselves about what is. Even though that hurts often, it’s often uncomfortable, it often makes us feel bad in a sense about ourselves. That that’s often then what allows us to choose differently and to do something more in line with what we value or what we believe is good.
And then that often, that process often drives a deeper, truer self-acceptance. That is more ability to be at peace with yourself as an imperfect growing organism. That it is not my favorite, that this is true about me, but I acknowledge it’s true and I want to do it differently. And even in that imperfect striving, there can be a real self-compassion that you are like everyone.
A human being in development, doing it imperfectly, but not as a way to coddle oneself, but to care about oneself and still value that striving process.
Monica Packer: What huge difference.
I think a lot of how it’s framed for us of acceptance is, is kind of along the same lines as of self-love. You know, that you just fully accept every part of you,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: which also underlies like this idea that you don’t change and. And I have feel like I have lived out what you’ve just described though of, you know, that first of level of acknowledging what is leading to a deeper piece, but also acknowledgement of where you lack being able to work at things differently because of that deeper form of acceptance.
And that’s probably where you like expand, right?
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: That’s right. It’s like, you know, we, we have this fear, I think we’ve talked about this before on your podcast, but this fear that if we accept it means we’re just gonna like phone it in at that point, you know, we have to hate our way into, hate ourselves into a better way and. It just doesn’t work. And I mean, any parent has probably seen that If they acknowledge the good, the effort, the ways their child is doing things well, like it motivates and it mobilizes towards something better still.
So, and when we focus on what we get wrong in ourselves or in others, it, it kind of crushes the capacity to keep striving. So there is this ability. You know, I often talk about this idea that the truth sets us free. It quite literally, it hurts, but it literally frees us up to grow and grow in truthful ways, in alignment with our highest selves.
Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: well, I’m raising my hand like I . I want more of that. For the other women listening who do, what does this look like? Like actually played out, you know what, what’s kind of a roadmap they can follow to prioritize self expansion this year.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: I do this Art of Desire course, which is a sexual and self development course for women, and, and in this creation of a more solid self, I talk about the liabilities of a reflected sense of self when you’re needing to prove yourself to others. Sometimes we prove ourselves or attempt to by…
well, there’s a lot of ways, but one way women often do it is they self-sacrifice too much, right? They kind of back burner their dreams, back burner, their desires and you know, doing that too much is really costly, like we’ve talked about. So when I’m talking to the women about how do you start to establish a self that you’re more at peace with a self, that you are not so dependent on approval from others.
That I focus on two areas. So the first area is a lot of what we’ve been talking about, which is addressing where you know you are compromising your integrity. And what I mean is like, you know, you’re not being kind enough in your relationship. You know, you’re not being fair, you know, you take too much or you act too small or, you know, you’re, you’re looking at areas in your life where you’re not living up to your higher values, and in my experience, mental wellbeing has a lot to do with not living in a contradiction within ourselves. because it costs us a lot. It costs us our peace. It pressures us to ask others to tell us something about ourselves that we don’t believe and they don’t believe, right?
It, it costs us so much more. I mean, it gives us in a sort of immediate drop from our anxieties, but it doesn’t solve anything. And so going courageously. Towards those places that you know, you lie to yourself or that you self deceive or you ask others to give you a picture that you want, but you know isn’t quite true.
That helps people tremendously. So that’s why I have the courage that sometimes people say they think I have. In speaking honestly with people like in my room for two podcasts, I’m talking pretty honest to people about what I see them doing because. . If people can see it, then they can do something about it.
And in doing something about it, they free up their lives, they expand, they feel better about themselves and about their relationship, but their partner and their kids, or whoever else is in relationship with them also feels better about them, right? Because they see a stronger, better self coming to the table.
So there’s that. So that’s area number one. And it’s a big area, but it’s, and it’s,
Monica Packer: interrupt you really
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: yeah. Sure.
Monica Packer: because one other thing that I have learned from you about the way, one of the hard truths we have to face or where we are complicit in our own martyrdom, and that one’s like a whole other tricky layer to unpack. I mean, it’s not like blaming the victim, but
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: No, yeah, I hear you. So this is like, you know looking at our resentments. Is often the entree into these questions like is, there’s something here that I’m upset about, that I need to address that there, that I really am participating in something that isn’t fair, that isn’t viable for me, and that I need to stand up and address.
In my life, you know, a work situation, a relational situation, something going on with a child that I need to change this because my resentment is signaling to me that I’m compromising myself in an important way.
Monica Packer: Okay,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Then there’s the resentments that we love. Okay,
Monica Packer: Okay. Tell me
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: The
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: the ones that make us feel superior. The ones where we roll our eyes and say, you know, people just, you know, are all selfish and thank goodness for me because, you know, blah, blah, blah, and
And we actually participate in this sort of inflated over functioning.
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: So there’s this martyr energy that we can certainly participate in and actually set up our relationships to tell us that we are the better one. Rather than looking at our role in this supposed self-sacrifice that gives us this extra hit of being needed or superior. So looking at your resentments from that, like how much am I invested in this and is, I just need to grow up and stop, you know, being the over-functioning, resentful one.
And or is there something here that I really need to address differently that I really am being taken advantage of and I need to step forward? So looking at our resentments is a big deal.
Monica Packer: Okay, we started with addressing the truth,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah. So addressing the truth and, and living according to your higher self. So let’s just start with that. I don’t even like what I’m doing.
Like, what do I need to do to respect me? Cuz I, I don’t have control over everybody else. I only have control over me. So that is an important alignment there. It’s extremely important.
I can’t overstate it. It’s just really important to be honest with ourselves. The second area though, is what I sometimes call like this fulfilling the measure of our creation that as beings on this, We are all unique, which is remarkable in and of itself. And we have, we have unique gifts and capacities and interests and situations.
And the thing that makes people the happiest, okay, is this expansion, but also knowing that you make a difference, that you have a contribution to offer to the world. And if we don’t, then our desire is to be destructive. Okay? Cuz we like the feeling of efficacy. And oftentimes people who haven’t grown and haven’t grown into some one that they respect will find a sense of power in a destructive ethic like that.
They are the, you know, they’re criticizing people at the family party. They’re like, you know, they’re trying to look for a way to have an impact in a negative sense. So this question of how do you have an impact in a positive sense is a lot of us have the idea that there is something we are supposed to.
And we want the security going back to this, we want the idea that God has a plan for us. The universe has it all laid out. We just have to figure out where the signs are about where we’re supposed to get onto this train. Okay? And it’s the wrong way of thinking. I get it because it’s the fantasy of security while we expand.
But that’s not how it works. We have to have. Then my favorite interpretation of faith is to reach into the uncertainty and tolerate the anxiety of the unknown.
Monica Packer: Hm.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Right? It’s like striving towards something that matters to you while you’re not good at it. While, you know, you don’t yet know. I’ll tell this story and then we’ll take it out if I decide.
It’s too revealing
Monica Packer: Okay. Go
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: of, of Christie, but, but my, assistant, was, you know, home, parenting, she felt like, I have no skills. I have no abilities. I’m not sure. That might be overstatement for how she felt, but I think she was not clear because she’d been home for so long that she’d had something to contribute. But this job opening became available and she was like, wait, who am I?
I don’t have any skills. I can’t do it, but I care so much about this work I care so much about. And thank goodness she didn’t listen to her fears. And she just said, I won’t. I’ll have a harder time forgiving myself for not trying. So I’m going. And she applied and she just was the right person, not because she had all these things nailed down.
You know, she’s done a ton of learning on the job, but that desire to contribute, it was a problem that mattered to her. It was a way of offering herself in the world in a way that spoke to her. And so she wanted to grow in that way, and she’s very clear like she’s so much happier, not just in her life, but in her marriage, that, you know, she’s just happier in her own skin because she’s found something that really matters to her, speaks to her, and has expanded her world and you know, and it’s the caring and then learning that often happens secondarily.
It’s not that you know it, therefore you go do it. So, you know, I listened to a pod once. I’m trying to remember what it. Something like 10,000 hours is what it was called as a project, I guess. And one of the things he was saying, and I’m sorry I can’t think of the person’s name right now, but he was talking about the fact that people are happiest in their careers when they are making a meaningful difference in a domain that matters to them.
So when I was training to be a psychologist, we, you know, part of my degree was helping people with career decisions and. Big ways that we would do that is give people measures like the R sec and interest inventories that would help you see, oh, you, you tend to be more social and artistic, right? Or inquisitive, or you tend to be more realistic.
And so this, these things are helpful because they do give you an idea of where your natural interests and inclinations are, but it’s not about just a perfect match between those two. That’s a nice. The bigger factor is where do you feel that you’re making a difference? Right? And what’s a problem that matters to you that might be a problem on the home front that might be a problem in your neighborhood that might be a problem in the larger, in the whole world?
Okay? Like the, the size or the scope of your influence is not so as significant as it is about understanding that what you do matters and that it’s something that speaks to your heart. And so this, you know, idea of, I, I love the body of Christ metaphor and Corinthians, because it so speaks to the fact that we all have need of each other, that we all find ways to contribute.
And sometimes we get caught up on the idea that I’m supposed to be the hand, and here I’m like the fingernail and, and we, we, we kind of, mm. How to say, dismiss our contributions rather than a kind of deeper acceptance of the larger project of caring about one another and working together, but striving to bring our best because we care about others and ourselves.
Right? This is a way to love God’s self and other. Mm.
Monica Packer: Those are great connections. The thing I love about your assistant story is it wasn’t like it was written in the stars, like Christie will be Jennifer’s assistant and that is her purpose. Undefinable purpose. It was more about her leaning into contributing to something that mattered to her. And if you would be willing to go with me on this track a bit for the women who are listening and they’re like, that sounds really great, but I don’t even know.
I don’t even know where I find meaning. I don’t know what speaks to my.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Right. Well, it’s good because there’s so many people that do feel that way, and in part because, well, there’s two reasons. Some people just are kind of born with a drive, you know? Like my daughter at age two was like screaming, wanting to get her hands on a violin. Okay. And, and she loves violin. Okay. So she had a natural inter, she loved listening to classical music just as a little person.
So there’s those people. Okay. And then there’s most of
Monica Packer: we think most of. Yeah, we think that’s what it’s supposed to be.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Right. Exactly. Exactly. We think that’s how it is. And if you don’t, if it’s not hitting you over the head, well then you have no talents.
Monica Packer: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: the thing is, I once, I was at a women’s retreat, and I’m trying to remember the, the teacher asked this question, I thought it was so brilliant, but it’s like, it was something like, what are the things that people admire and talk about in you that you think are like, what?
Like that’s not a big deal like everybody does that you, that is to say that often the things that come naturally to us, we don’t even understand. As gifts or inclinations. And when people highlight them for us, we think they’re wrong because that’s just so easy. But that’s is, it’s easy for us. Okay. . And so, so what is the thing that what, so that’s one thing I would ask people to think about is what is something that others are often talking about that they value in what you do?
That they see it as a gift, that they see it as making a difference.
Monica Packer: Hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: The other thing is, are there things that you do that light you up? Even if you think they’re dumb, they shouldn’t light me up like they’re, you know, whatever. It’s just a weird thing that I like doing this, you know? But still they do.
They speak to you. There’s something about them. What are problems that speak to you that you think about a lot, like you wish you could solve or make a difference in? Is there something you could do on that front? So it’s just kind of looking at where the places that your heart either lights up or you find yourself wishing there was a way you could solve something
Monica Packer: Mm-hmm.
I’m tying this into just my own path to podcasting. What I love about what you said so much is, one, it’s allowed to change. So I’m not gonna likely be a podcaster the rest of my life until like I’m 99 years old if I’m able to live that long. That’s not my purpose.
But what I’m tying this into is it didn’t start with me with people saying, oh wow, you sure are good at interviewing people.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Right.
Monica Packer: That was never, never anything my entire life that came up. I don’t even think people would describe me as a good listener before podcasting. It’s like a special podcasting skill.
I forget to apply outside of my, my work, but, but what it was for me is just leaning into my interests, which a lot of women don’t even realize. That’s the path.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Well, and I would imagine for you a problem, you wanted to contribute to
Monica Packer: Yeah, you’re
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: problem. It’s one that you understood, you knew it in your own life, and you thought, I want to start conversations and help other women that struggle in the same way. So it was. An interest, but also like a problem you cared about addressing.
And that’s a driver in figuring out, how do I do a podcast? What microphone should I get? You know, I mean like all kinds of uncertainties about it. And you know, how, how do I, well, you know, sometimes people have said most of us are just winging it. And that absolutely true. You know, , lot of times people think, oh, they got it all figured out.
Not really there. I mean, there are people that are more skilled than you are on any front and you can consult with them and get input from them. But so much of what we do in life is winging it. We’re just stepping in and learning on the job, learning as we go, and caring enough about something to tolerate that process.
And it is tolerance it. You know, somebody once said, I can’t remember anybody who said any of these important things, but
Monica Packer: It’s okay. At least try. Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: They said something like you know, basically successful people have paradoxically a high tolerance for failure. That is, they’re okay with winging it. They’re okay with it flopping.
They’re okay with it. Not, I mean, they don’t love it. I never love it. Okay. But it’s like, but you can tolerate it and learn from it and try again and understand that’s what it’s all anyway for all of us is that’s that process.
Monica Packer: and how you keep expanding through it. It’s not like you arrive even within a def. Even if there is a definable purpose like violin for your
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: right,
Monica Packer: she has to
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: You never arrive.
Monica Packer: Yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: There’s like, it’s really the path itself that is really the life. It’s not, there are gonna be peaks in that path. There’s gonna be moments where you think, wow, that was, I feel good about this, or, I’m really glad that was an amazing whatever performance or accomplishment.
And then, you know, as soon as that you get over the high of that moment, like literally moment of it, , you know, you’re onto the next peak. What’s the next challenge? What’s the next endeavor? And so if we think it’s an arrival, we’ll struggle. If we think of it as an embracing a process, we will be much happier.
Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: And that takes us back to the whole purpose of us talking today, because people are at the starting line of what they think development looks like, that they reach a certain metric of success by the end of the year or another day or time. And this not only is a reframing, it’s a re wiring. Of what it looks like to grow and to develop.
And to me it’s so much more hope giving like that. A lot of people could be, I, I would’ve been depressed by that earlier, like in my life, being like, what? I never get there. Like, what’s the
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Right.
Monica Packer: to me, it’s much more hope giving now.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah, it is. And, and exactly. And it is an accrual of like feeling good about, you know, what you are creating, feeling good about what you are, where you are now compared to where you were five years ago. So there, there is this sense of creating something or developing something, but we don’t ever just go into full stasis arrival.
It’s just not with a human experience. And so the other thing I would say about this is that a lot of times sort of in the similar idea that we want a plan that God has given us, or we want some surefire failproof plan that doesn’t exist.
Monica Packer: We want the certainty
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah, I mean, who doesn’t? It’s, it’s, it is so much better, But on the other hand, what is really true is as we step forward, as we try things, we get a different vantage point.
So we’ve actually made it clearer, you know, what is true and what isn’t true about us, or what we desire or don’t desire as we take steps into the dark. And so, for example, There was a woman who wrote me after she’d come to one of the Art of Desire. and I give this exercise of, you know, how to discover your life’s purpose in five minutes or less.
And this is like an Adam Lipsig, he was a, did a YouTube or a TED talk on this. And so he’s basically, you know, what do you love to do? Who do you do these things for? Very kind of basic idea. Well, her responses were all, what do I. Laundry you know, could I do them for, you know, I clean up, declutter the house.
Who do I do it for? My kids, you know, basically, She said she went home and cried because she had this feeling of like, you know, my husband’s life has been all about expansion and creating things, and I’m just home backing everybody else’s endeavors up, and I don’t have any idea where to start. But she made a commitment to herself that she would stay open to invitations.
Like she wrote down a few things that she loved. . And one of the things she wrote down that she loved was meditation. So a few weeks later, it was like she invited some friends over and just said she wanted to try and do a meditation with them. And again, she’d never done it before. It was just something that she liked and she wanted to do.
And so she did it and they all loved it, and they said, that was so great. And then they said, will you do another one? Well then. A doctor was one of the people that came to the second one, and he was writing a book and asked her if she would contribute to the book he was writing. Then she did it, you know, several times at our Art of Desire retreats would do meditations based on the content that I was teaching.
And women would say that was so helpful to me. That was made such a difference. So it really, it went from this, like, I have nothing, all my specialty in life is cleaning up after people to creating something that she continues to do. Now she has a website and does lots of meditations and she’s, you know, she’s created something out of just this interest that she allowed herself to.
And some people might try meditation, for example, be in the same place and be like, oh, I didn’t like that. Okay, that’s not me. That’s okay too. Because now you understand something about yourself. But you could say, you know, what I do like though, is I like teaching or you know, or I like something else, or I like exercise, or I like, you know.
So you sometimes in figuring out who you are not, clarifies more who you are. Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: 100%. That’s definitely been my experience,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: so, I just wanna keep like asking you more and more questions, but I’m gonna try to, to keep it to just a few left. And the one that I really wanna hit on is just what I see perhaps as one of the biggest obstacles. We’ve talked about a lot of obstacles to self expansion, including just ourselves getting in our own way of what we think it’s a good person is supposed to be.
But one is that fear you brought up. Fear being something that can hold us back. To me it’s the fear. If I expand myself, that’s based on my own desires. And you, you teach a lot about desires. How do we speak to the women who are afraid that they’re gonna go like, full on hedonistic desire route,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: you know, where it’s just about them and it’s, and, and that’s really scary.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Mm-hmm. . Yeah, it’s so, it is a real concern because a lot of us grew up learning. You’re either selfless or selfish, and it’s one or the other. You either self-sacrifice or you’re a hedonistic, selfish person who takes from everyone else, and it’s like a, you know, it’s a zero sum game.
We are never going to use our gifts to trample other people and be okay.
Meaning not only is it bad for our relationships, it’s very bad for us. It’s not opening up desires that’s gonna turn you into a hedonistic, selfish person. It’s self justification.
Usually it’s victimhood, like it’s time for me. Now, I’ve seen people do this where they suppressed everything resentfully. Then they. You know, hear an idea that I should listen to my desires and then they are like, it’s your yes, see ya. It’s your fault that I was suppressed rather than recognizing their own participation in it.
Therefore, I have a right to be selfish and to hurt you back. And it, they use it to kind of swing to another version of, of unhealthy and hurt others in the process, including themselves. Because if you betray your relationships to pursue. Your desires, you will ultimately undermine you. You’ll undermine yourself because we, again, we need to belong and grow.
We need stability and security and growth. And so if you use your pursuit of growth to undermine your stability of your relationships, you will continue to not thrive. So I think that just, you wanna be careful that what you’re doing isn’t undermine your responsibilities to others, right? And so you don’t want to betray those commitments because it will undermine your self respect.
At the same time, you don’t want to say, well, I can’t ask for anything from anyone. Therefore I won’t do it, because that’s a betrayal of yourself. It is good for others to support you in thriving. It’s good for children to see the that value. It’s good for a spouse to offer that because again, the goal is for all to thrive, and so sacrifice is often a part of relationships that you’re gonna put aside your desire to support in others, but you also can receive it in return.
That it’s about not using each other, but supporting each other in our respective growth.
Monica Packer: Thank you so much for speaking to that. I mean, because that, A huge fear of mine and it’s a huge fear of a lot of the women that I work with, even if they’re just trying to create their do so list for the year and, and that’s for the women who are like, I don’t know what speaks to my heart, and they need to just explore it.
But even then, we see them just stay on the sidelines because of that fear alone
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah. Right?
Monica Packer: I just wanna honor the expansion. I, you know, I’ve seen in you in, I guess seven years of, of being familiar with you and your work too. Your story started a lot of the way the women who are listening to this, you know, of, of being a primary caretaker and, and, and, and being willing to sacrifice for that, but also being at a turning point and knowing that it was time to expand in different ways and to have reciprocal sacrifice happening more within the family to support that.
And not only do I see this expansion of your own development, which you’ve shared in another podcast, how. That started with your own self-confidence, even
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: mm. Yes. Uhhuh.
Monica Packer: also expanding what you’ve been able to to do for other people alongside it. And it, it gives me a lot of hope and it also, you know, gives me motivation to just keep in staying in that process of, of expansion.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: it, it makes a difference. Just like to go back to the question of like, what about your relationships and what about the impact on others, but what about the impact of not developing, you know, because there is a way in which when you’re living in something that matters to you, it does feed.
you know, it, it does, it does give back to you, and so it makes you more full of life, more at peace with your. And therefore more at peace with others, you’re more able to give, not because you need them to give back to you, not because you need them to reflect back something that you haven’t addressed.
You’re freer actually to know and care about and invest in the people that matter most to you because you’re not asking them to solve something for you. So this is like one of the kindest things you can do in your relationship. I don’t mean you need to do something on the scale that, that I’m doing it currently or anything like that.
I just mean that finding something that matters to you. I, I’ve given this example in a couple other podcasts, but my dad died about three years ago. My mom went through a year or two of grieving and then made a decision to thrive again. I mean, again, it wasn’t like a conscious decision. I’m going to thrive now, but it was kind of turning and I had asked.
If she could drop something off at the UPS store for me. She walked in right next to, it was a dance studio, and she walked in and signed up for classes at age 89. Okay.
Monica Packer: Oh
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: And I know this is so amazing. And she came home, she’s like, Jennifer, I don’t know what I just did. I just, I, it’s crazy. I signed up for only two so I can get out of it if I need to or whatever.
But she went and she never danced before and she.
Monica Packer: Oh yeah.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: And she loved it. And then she signed up for more and more. She entered a competition in August, and she like, you know, took first place in the 90 and up category
Monica Packer: This is so, so cool.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: So anyway, you know, I don’t actually know if she took first place. I’m just saying like, there was, there weren’t many. I don’t know if there was anyone else in a, in a category. But she, but we just had a 90th party for her, all came together over the Thanksgiving weekend to celebrate and she danced for all of us.
And it was, it was remarkable. But the thing that was so great about it is my mother deciding to keep thriving and to keep living well. It’s a gift to all of us. It really is. It allows, it’s a model for us that we get to. We can also thrive. It also, There’s not like managing her because she won’t manage herself or her own happiness, you know?
And so that is tremendous, and we get to celebrate her being her. And it it, anyway, the, she’s just, it’s just amazing to watch her do it. We bless our, the lives of those around us when we live well. Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: just kind of bring this full circle too, as I, I feel like you described your mother’s turning to that decision to thrive more. But it’s also that turning is more of a returning, and that’s the kind of paradox I see with self expansion. It’s less that you’re like becoming a different person all the time.
It’s more like you’re becoming yourself more and
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: right. That’s exactly right. That’s exactly it. It’s so interesting cuz it is a paradox in a way. It’s like you’re expanding, but then you also feel more anchored in you. And I’m working on this chapter right now about spirituality and sexuality and. Oftentimes people talk about their experiences in this way.
Spiritual, transcendent experiences really peak sexual experiences is in, in one sense, like this expansion, like stepping out of your way, of being you, stepping outside of ego in a way, but in another way most anchored into yourself.
Monica Packer: Hmm.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: like people talk. Spiritual experiences is feeling significant and insignificant at the same time, like both themselves, but sort of outside of themselves.
So there is just something in that tension where we want and need both, and when we’re often in these transcendent experiences. We feel both, or when we’re growing into something, we feel both my mom’s anxious, she’s dancing. For us, it’s like it’s a way of being herself. She doesn’t know, and yet the way that she was beaming at the end of that dance says everything.
It’s like most herself, you know, expanding herself, stepping into a new way of being herself and most herself. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Monica Packer: Beautiful. Thanks for sharing about your mom. Until her we’re cheering her on. I would love to see , any
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: you the, I’ll send you a video. Yeah.
Monica Packer: love that. Okay. Jennifer, you have a lot coming up this year. You said, where would you like people to go if they wanna be in the know for what’s to come and also what they can dig into right now?
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: sure. Well, just going to the website is a good idea if you finlayson fife.com and you wanna make sure you sign up for the email list, just because our things tend to sell out so fast that the only
Monica Packer: really do. They really do.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah. The only chance is if you’re on the email list. So the other thing I would say is I started this podcast a little over a year ago called Room for Two, where I’m working with couples, so a lot of people know my principles and they know them from the online courses.
This is just a good addition to the online courses and a good place to start as well, which is where you’re seeing my feedback to couples that a lot of times people relate. They’re like, okay, that’s us. We do that. And so hearing my feedback is a way of helping them see themselves in their relationship pattern.
And so, so Room for Two is a, you can find it on the website, but that’s a great starting place if you aren’t familiar with any of my work yet. But the also, the other reason is if you subscribe to Room for Two, you get in ahead of the, the just the regular email list. So we have some events in the spring that they never even made it to the email list.
In the room for two group, they, they sold out.
Monica Packer: Oh, I didn’t know that.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yeah.
Monica Packer: That is so neat.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: yeah. Yeah. And then we have lots, we have several live events that we’ll be doing this year. So we’ll be doing some couples retreats, women’s retreats, a men’s retreat, and so yeah, that’s all, those will all get announced in the next few weeks.
Yeah. Yeah.
Monica Packer: we’ll stay tuned for that then. And definitely go to the website and subscribe to room for two. And I would say it’s like one heck of a deal. Like if, if you basically want to, I’m not in essence get therapy or coaching, but in, in many ways,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: vicarious coaching. It
Monica Packer: Yeah, then, then do that. Especially if, you know, budget budgets really tight, so, and I’m, I think you’re probably booked out till, I dunno, the millennium.
So that’s okay. Anyway, Jennifer, this has been, dare I say, one of my favorite chats we’ve ever had, and we’ve had quite a few. So thank you for what
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: we’ve grown together. That’s what’s so cool about it. I was listening to the per the very first podcast we did
Monica Packer: Oh my goodness.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: and I was like, oh my gosh, I have to redo
Monica Packer: that about myself.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: one sometime. We need to redo that one
Monica Packer: I, I know
I’ve,
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: that there’s nothing wrong with that one actually, but I can just tell that
Monica Packer: can see the change.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: I’ve developed since then so I, I can feel some of my anxiety when I’m answering some of the questions cuz I think
Monica Packer: That’s interesting. I’m, I’m worth speaking to myself here, so I was more like, oh boy. Let’s redo that one. But yeah, yeah, we’ve both grown.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Yes, we have.
Monica Packer: so thank you.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: yeah. Thank you
Monica Packer: for being here.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Thank you.
it’s just incredible to see her, you know, she , I’ll just tell this, but she. Had this, this, you know, dance dresses like ballroom dance. They’re kind of ridiculous and over the top, but, you know,
But my mom had this one that had like a slit, like all the way up to the thigh. And so, you know, he’s, she’s doing this dip and her whole leg is showing and it’s the best. It’s so great. So I teased her. I’m like, mom, what about all the modesty lessons? Like, come on,
Monica Packer: when she was like, shove it. I, I wa here’s my trophy.
Dr. Jennifer Finlayson-Fife: Exactly.
