Let’s explore the reality of cancel culture and how we can all become more compassionate communicators.
After being cut out of someone’s life recently, it got me thinking about the state of modern relationships and this culture of excommunicating anyone that we don't agree with. In this episode, I share three frameworks for restoring harmony and healing relational wounds.
Cancel culture plagues our world with depleting emotions like fear, distrust, and anxiety. It might seem easy to block someone online or in real life, but in reality, when that negative energy gets trapped in the body and manifests itself in other ways. Of course, there are situations where it makes sense to uphold boundaries and protect yourself, but when you simply disagree with someone, there are alternative solutions to canceling them.
I’ve witnessed the power of forgiveness first hand, and I share two ways that I practice forgiveness for myself and others. I also try to incorporate transparent, authentic, and open communication skills into everyday life and stay grounded in Don Miguel Ruiz’s teachings about The Four Agreements.
Listen in as I unpack the reality of cancel culture and how we can all become more compassionate communicators.
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Dana Frost 00:07
Welcome to Vitally You, a podcast created to introduce you to the tools that will be your roadmap for feeling younger while growing older. I'm your host, Dana Frost, a wellness expert, life coach and energy medicine practitioner. Here's what you can expect conversations about vitality from the inside out with guest experts in the field of health, culture, and spirituality, and solo episodes along the way from me where I do deep dives into the topics of aging, heart intelligence, energy, medicine, and your innate capacity to heal. If you want to feel younger, while growing older, this is the place for you.
Dana Frost 00:52
Hey, everyone, welcome to the Vitally You Podcast. I'm Dana Frost, your host coming to you this week for another solo episode. And today's episode, it's an honor of May, which is mental health month, and I'm going to talk about something that's been personal to my own mental health recently. So I want to ask you have a question, have you ever been canceled? We tend to think about being canceled only if you're a celebrity or someone with significant social media influence. But I think it's found a place in our modern psyche, and is expressed in our interpersonal and professional relationships. I don't agree with you or what you're espousing.
Dana Frost 01:36
So I'm going to cancel my relationship with you or you unknowingly do something that is offensive to someone and they cancel you or vice versa. It's easy. Silence block check done. Keeping that in mind, how many of you have been canceled? Or have you canceled someone else? So what's the energy behind this canceled culture? So I found this in the urban dictionary, an internet phenomenon in which people shun others from social media, like ostracism. Kancil culture existed, to weed problematic social media users out either this or to hold people accountable for their actions. But now it's devolved into insecure people shunning anyone, and anything they despise. So in today's episode, I want to address the more personal side of cancel culture, and how it impacts us on a micro level. So I was recently cancelled by someone I collaborated with. And I have to be honest, I was stunned. I still have no idea why I was suddenly persona non grata and blocked.
Dana Frost 02:54
And this experience drove me to start really thinking about the state of modern relationships. And this phenomenon of breaking ties with anyone we don't agree with. Or when there's been an offense instead of doing the hard thing. And working through emotional waters and reconciling. It's evident to me that there's a lot of fear, trepidation, anxiety and distrust of others in our relationships. And I think that it's the result of this continual drip of distrust at the macro level of things that we see on social media. If you do one thing that is experienced as offensive, it's very easy to cancel and walk away, because that's the modeling that we're witnessing on the macro level. So the way that I am reading Kancil culture is that it's very masculine, it's hard, focused energy that does nothing to heal wounds and bring harmony to a situation. It's aggressive, even if it's passive, it's depleting, which means it down regulates immunity, and the human body, psyche and soul. I would go so far as to say it negatively impacts our longevity.
Dana Frost 04:16
Because of this. You think about that when you're in the energy of wanting to cancel someone or you've been canceled. You're experiencing this is from Heart Math. And those of you who have heard my heart math teaching, that is those are depleting feelings. And so your body responds by pulsing chemicals that are there to support you, but they take over and they're trying to help you survive in this difficult time. But that actually is very taxing to the body. And so I think that it actually really down regulates our health. And then I was thinking, Well, you know, in my case, what I had to do, we sent leaves just really soften. And I had to go through the things that I'm going to share with you today, these three frameworks I have for relationships. So in the heart of it kind of overarching, I think that we all just need to chill out. Because you know what, we have this one thing that we cannot escape, and that is our humanity. We make mistakes, we offend, we disappoint, we disappoint people we actually love.
Dana Frost 05:32
We disagree, because it's impossible to be in agreement with everybody 100% of the time. And we have different perspectives and backgrounds. We might even have what feels like a Kenyan size, difference and opinions. But are these reasons to cancel an X somebody out of your life? You tell me, to be human is to be imperfect, and to bump into one another? So what do we do with our imperfections? We all well, I should say we all know, but many of us know Brene Brown's work on the fact that we are imperfect. And she would say embrace your imperfections. So I do want to make a caveat before I go any further because I could easily be called out on this one point. In the case of abuse, okay, physical, emotional, sexual mental abuse. These are all valid reasons to cancel the abuser and create a boundary of protection and safety around yourself. Okay, so let's just talk about why should you not cancel someone, canceling doesn't erase the relationship, you have these ties with people, you can't erase the ties that you have the relationships you have, regardless of the kinds of relationships whether it's a casual, professional or personal, we do create energetic ties between us and what impacts one impacts the whole we're not islands, we're not, you know, we're not on an island by ourselves.
Dana Frost 07:09
We can't just shield ourselves from the relationships and the interactions that we have one another. Every action in the world has a ripple effect, that spreads out and impacts all of us. So in reality, I would say our actions are contagious. And the more people engaging in the action, the stronger the contagion is. And so I would posit that the cancel culture is a contagion. And it's very dangerous and disruptive. If I dial down into the depths of the canceled culture, its victim consciousness, and ultimately, its cancelling of the self. It's self hatred, because what we don't like in others, is a mere reflection of something in ourselves at some level, it might be buried deep in the unconscious mind. But when we take a deep dive into our own psyche, we usually find that we are triggered that, you know, when we're triggered, there's something in there that's resonating at some level, and we don't like it.
Dana Frost 08:18
And so we want to push it away, the easiest thing to do is to cancel and falsely believe that you are walking away. But your body always keeps the score and it doesn't just walk away, what's been recorded in your body doesn't just disappear, it goes and finds places to hide away, unless you do the work. And you clear those energetic connections. And you bring peace to those scenarios in your relationships. And so what are those alternatives to canceling? So these are the frameworks that I want to talk to you about today. They're my relationship frameworks. And I'm curious if you have a relationship framework, what are your beliefs about mating and relating? What do you believe about being human about worthiness and fallibility? Are you okay? With imperfections in yourself? If you're not okay with imperfections in yourself? You're not going to be okay with imperfections and other people I can tell you, there was a major shift in my life when I was behaving in a way that really wasn't aligned with who I knew that I was, and I was embarrassed by my behavior was an aggressive behavior.
Dana Frost 09:37
And I realized that one I was just hurting and so I was lashing out because I was hurting. And, you know, I realized that we've heard this but it's very true, hurt people hurt people. And so it really it the seismic shift in my own life was how can I ever judge other person, how could I ever, you know, I was fallible. And if I would hurt somebody because I was hurting, then it was very easy for me to see, oh, when people are lashing out or they're hurting others, they themselves are really the ones who are hurting. So okay, so let's just look at some of these frameworks. Okay, our beliefs are going to drive our actions. So I have three. And the first one I learned when I was a child. And I used to, I think I was about six years old when I used to go to church by myself on the Church Bus. And so from a very young age, through the Christian faith, I learned this idea of forgiveness. The Christian faith has this idea that we are imperfect, and they accept that, and we accept that we will hurt people. And so their practice of forgiveness, that's the pathway to course correct when there's been an offense. And I have found it very useful. In my own life, I have relied on it heavily forgiveness for myself and forgiving others.
Dana Frost 11:07
But I learned this at a very early age. So that I'll give you an example. By the time I was, you know, becoming an adult age 18. And I discovered my dad had been cheating on my mom, and they separated and there was just a lot of icky stuff going on. And I had a lot of anger, and they were apart for a couple of years. But during that time, I was working with a therapist to just understand what was I feeling and to work through this minefield of disruption in my family. And I really was able to come to a place of forgiveness. And simultaneously, I watched my mom come to a place of forgiveness as well. I watched my dad become humble and ask for forgiveness. And eventually they got back together. That's really the power of forgiveness and doing the work when you're mired in relationships where there's betrayal and difficulty and offense, and, you know, a lot of really ugly behavior. So when my husband and I were raising our kids, we had a forgiveness practice, and it went like this. If one child had done something to offend the other, we ask them to make a right by asking for forgiveness.
Dana Frost 12:27
And we actually require them to stand in front of one another, look each other in the eye, ask for forgiveness, the one who had offended, and then the one who was offended, had to say, I forgive you. And actually we had them use their names to know were they always sincere? I'm sure they weren't. But what happened, they grew up knowing that they can restore relationships, when they feel hurt, or they get hurt. They learned the basics of restoring the peace. When it's been lost. They had a framework for restoring relationships and made it easier for them to admit, when they were wrong, because they weren't afraid of being canceled or shamed. It made it easier for them to live with differences and disagreements because they knew harmony could be restored. They weren't afraid of permanent rejection. So I'm concerned a day that the collective is behaving from a rejection wound, behaving from past trauma, because we haven't learned how to restore harmony when trust has been broken.
Dana Frost 13:38
We're lacking the foundational tools for successful relationships. And if we don't have the tools, maybe you weren't taught forgiveness practice, if you don't have the tools, then the path of least resistance is really easy. We just cancel, we walk away we shut people out. And but it's really just not serving us. I don't know if you've noticed. But collectively, we aren't getting better at relationships, in spite of the fact that we have access to amazing human growth and development information. It takes tremendous amount of courage to have the hard conversation to look someone face to face and ask for forgiveness or ask them to help you understand what you think they've done. Those are hard conversations. So my second framework I learned in my life coach training years ago, and it's a relationship communication tool, using the synonym for Taoism. Tao Te a Oh, and it's called transparent, authentic, open conversation. Now, we need more of this. And I will tell you that I've never in all my coaching sessions where I've recommended this tool. I've never had a client report back and say,
Dana Frost 14:54
Well, that didn't work. I had that transparent, authentic open communication and that blew up in my face. Honestly, quite the contrary, what I hear is, wow, oh my gosh, that was so hard. But that was so powerful, it totally switch the energy or oh my gosh, Dana, I got exactly what I wanted from my boss, or oh my gosh, that conversation, it just, you know, restored that friendship, whatever, whatever. Whatever it was, the reports back have always been positive. It's really powerful to come into a relationship and be willing to have transparent, authentic open communication. In this model you share from the eye perspective, I would really like I need I felt this when or helped me understand why blah, blah, blah, or this is how I interpreted your action. Am I right? Clear, honest, open and allowing the other person to respond. I will say, if you're dealing with a narcissist, you may not get the response that you want.
Dana Frost 16:00
But I also have to say even with narcissists, there's there I've seen progress. And narcissists can be completely disarmed with transparency and authenticity. Because we are modeling one another all the time. So when you come to one, and you're modeling this and you are standing in your remember that pose that was online, the Superwoman pose, where you're standing strong, and you're rooted, and you're grounded all the way down to earth, and, and that pole just takes you straight up to heaven, and you're standing in your power. Even narcissist will soften and be disarmed by that. But your energy has to be clean, and clear and boundary. Okay. But I also want to say let's face it, we aren't. Most of the time dealing with narcissists, there are fewer narcissist in the population than not, and most people, I can assume most people have good intentions. Which brings me to my final framework. Many of you have probably heard about it, but it's called The Four Agreements. I was introduced to this framework. When my third daughter started fifth grade, we were living in Brazil.
Dana Frost 17:13
And our teacher, for the first time started the fifth grade year with the book The Four Agreements. And she set it set the tone for the entire year, every she had all of the students read the book and write an essay about one of the Four Agreements, and then they read them out loud to one another. So let me go over the Four Agreements, be impeccable with your word. And then I'll go back and say a little bit about both of them. Don't take anything personally. make no assumptions, and always do your best. So let's go back. Be impeccable with your word. This is honesty. Use your words for love, not to tear people down or to gossip. It's so easy. I see this a lot with women. It's so easy. Maybe it's a lack of what to say in conversation. But it's just so easy to start nitpicking at other people. And instead of using your words to uplevel the conversation and being sure that you're always being honest, this gets back to the dowel, transparent, authentic, open communication, be impeccable with your word.
Dana Frost 18:23
Don't take anything personally. Jeez, can you imagine? If we follow this there would be no cancel culture. Right? I mean, if we follow don't take anything personally, we are taking everything personally and I fear it is to the demise of our culture. Realize that the actions of others it's simply a projection of how they are feeling. Don't be easily offended. It is it's a joy killing, it's absolutely freeing when you really just say I'm not going to take anything personally. Okay, the third one is make no assumptions. Express yourself and what you really want communicate clearly and then you avoid the drama just make no assumptions. Make, you know how do we make assumptions we without talking to a person and I think that this is what happened to me recently when I was cancelled. I think that they were thinking something that wasn't true about me they were making assumptions and it could have been easily cleared up if they would have come to me and asked for clarification. So making assumptions whether in any situation is actually quite dangerous. You we and we do this often will do this, you know catastrophizing about the future or catastrophizing?
Dana Frost 19:43
What other people think or yeah, just make no assumptions. Okay. And the final one is always do your best. Always do your best and give yourself the grace to know that you don't have a good day every day and every day your best when I change like what doing your best today showing up the best that you can, will look different than how you're going to show up tomorrow or in a year from now. But if every day you decide I'm going to do my best, you'll show up in the best possible way. And you're just going to feel really good about that when we are in relationships with others if we show up, and we know that we've done our best, that's all the we can do is show up and do our best. So the frameworks forgiveness, Tao, transparent, authentic, open communication, and the Four Agreements, be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally. make no assumptions, and always do your best.
Dana Frost 20:45
So I'm curious, what's your experience with the cancel culture? And do you have a relationship framework? Is it working for you? I'd love to hear what's working for you. I would love to hear what your thoughts are about the canceled culture. So I thought that I would answer my own question. What does feeling younger while growing older mean to me this week? And I have to be honest, it feels like having the courage to share this episode. To say yes, I've been canceled, and I think it's wrong. I think it's unhealthy. I think it points to a culture that will fail if we continue to cancel one another. It means saying the hard things even if it goes against the grain. And on that note, thank you for joining me this week. And I want to recognize that recognize and offer gratitude to lightwaves X 39 stem cell patch for sponsoring my podcast. If you missed last week's episode about stem cells, be sure to tune in, go back and listen to that. I want to say thank you to Gabby USA 10. For this review, she says enjoying your podcast.
Dana Frost 21:55
Thank you, Dana. I am a fellow coyote teacher and I don't even remember how I came across your podcast. But I really enjoy the subjects you bring forward and your perspective. You're very interesting guest and I aligned with the topics you discuss. Thank you for sharing your gifts with us. Well, Gabby USA, thank you so much. I really appreciate that. Okay, and on another note, I am recording this episode. It is will be edited and so the announcement for the giveaway I can't announce that yet because a full week hasn't passed so I'll be waiting. You won't have time by the time that this airs but I'll be excited next week to post the winner of the stem cell patch giveaway and as always, I am streaming love from my heart to yours