Ease or Easy

On This Walk

How do we navigate between ease and easy?

My walking partner for today, Michelle Bannister, is a former colleague of mine who reached out to me after hearing a few episodes of On This Walk. She spoke about feeling this energy around the difference between ease and easy and we discussed how both have appeared in our lives.

In today’s conversation, Michelle and I dig deeper into that feeling of being comfortable in the chaos, the struggle of keeping things simple, the desire to belong, the importance of self-compassion and forgiveness, and dealing with our inner critic.

In This Episode

• (03:37) - The tendency to go to what’s familiar
• (07:28) - Michelle’s decision to walk away from her dream job
• (11:07) - Being comfortable in the chaos
• (12:41) - Paying attention to how things felt
• (14:21) - My struggle of keeping things simple
• (16:43) - Walking on the edge between ease and easy
• (20:54) - The toxic impact of social media
• (22:30) - The desire to belong
• (27:56) - Self-compassion and forgiveness
• (32:02) - Michelle’s acknowledgment of her childhood trauma and the impact it had on her
• (38:03) - Dealing with our inner critic
• (45:01) - How Michelle’s ‘visual vitamins’ help her attitude and mindset
• (50:43) - The practice of attunement and being intentional and present
• (57:53) - Trusting the process

Notable Quotes

• “I was admitted to a Master’s Program for the fall. This will be my second Master’s and I’m 58 years old. So there’s immediately conflict in my head when I even think about going back for a second Master’s. I can’t even count how many people have gone, ‘You’re what? Why would you wanna do that?’. So the edge for me has been, what do I really want my legacy to be? I have nothing left to prove about myself. And this ties to something you were saying about the difference between head and body. I feel like I've spent my whole life trying to prove something that was going on in my head, stories that I was generating about myself, about what other people had to say about me. And this has nothing to do with that at all. This is a hundred percent heart decision and direction.” - Michelle (15:47)
• “I know what it’s like to have to pick myself up off the bathroom floor and to go through different issues in life. And I’ve recognized that actually, not only did I get through them, they got me closer and closer to being true to who I am and living from this central place of who I actually am. And we spend so much time protecting that essential self, that true nature. But it’s the protecting that actually keeps us from getting back to it. And once you go through that, those are the times you’ve been broken up, broken open. But those are the very things that showed me the path to ease and peace. And then I got the confidence through going through that repeated process of building into it to recognize, yeah, I can do life this way. I can do it from the center of who I am and share out from that place. And it's not always gonna be accepted, it's not always gonna be affirmed. And I'm okay with that too.” - Luke (01:00:55)

Our Guest

Michelle Bannister - ​​I am a human mom, dog mom, stepmom, mother figure, spouse, sister, and friend. I am a meditator, writer, coach, teacher and student (formally and informally), retreat facilitator, reluctant entrepreneur, former corporate leader, retired opera singer, trauma survivor, gardener, musician, artist, cook, bird watcher and feeder, runner-turned-walker, traveler, and wanderer. I have realized that contrary to conventional wisdom—which says the longer we’re with people, the better we know them—my loved ones are increasingly mysterious to me as time goes by. This becomes apparent as I slow down long enough to witness their inner worlds as they are revealed.

Resources & Links

On This Walk

• https://www.facebook.com/dlukeiorio
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukeiorio/
• https://instagram.com/dlukeiorio
• https://instagram.com/onthiswalkshow