How to Bring More Grace Into Your Life | Julia Baird

Can grace truly change everything? In this thought-provoking conversation, Julia Baird, author of Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything https://amzn.to/4e9EK45, shares how cultivating awe, wonder, and the capacity for grace has sustained her through battles with cancer and life's darkest moments. From profound acts of forgiveness to the untold generosity of blood donors, Baird explores how opening your heart to grace can light an "invincible summer" within - even when the world feels brutally dark. An uplifting listen for anyone seeking light amidst suffering. You can find Julia at: Instagram https://www.instagram.com/juliabaird/ | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/the-transformative-power-of-grace-stories-of-awe-forgiveness-and-moral-beauty-with-julia-baird If you LOVED this episode yo’ll also love the conversations we had with with Dacher Keltner https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/NjRhNWNhOGM3NmQ1YjgwMDExNThmYjk2 about awe. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Or is not something beautiful and lovely? It makes us strong. It makes us strong. And it's not just bungee jumping in the Grand Canyon or big dramatic African safaris or, you know, deep sea diving, although you can find it in all of those things. You can see it in your own potting beds. You could see it in the park down the street. If you're watching like I am at the moment, there's a little tree hollow where these little lorikeet parrots have just had little babies and watching them every day. And you can see it in the extraordinary decency of a neighbor. It's in ultimately expanding. It connects you to other people and it is the very best of who we are.

• 0:41Jonathan Fields?

  So have you ever been so deeply moved by witnessing an act of grace or moral beauty that it viscerally shook you? I remember one night in New York at the height of the pandemic, when the city felt like kind of the scariest place on earth. Every evening at 7:00 PM, my window and millions of other windows would fly open and a thunderous roar would erupt across the streets as New Yorkers cheered and banged pots and screamed their thanks for the healthcare workers risking everything for us. Just the sound of that collective gratitude would bring me to tears. And in moments of shared awe and elevation, I was reminded how grace cuts through hatred and suffering and fear, restoring our belief in humanity's highest potential.

• 1:25Jonathan Fields?

  So have you ever felt that undeniable physical uplift and psychological uplift in the face of someone's simple decency or profound mercy or an act of a complete stranger? Maybe even you. If so, you know, the power of grace. Wouldn't it be nice if we could access that feeling, that state more or less on demand in everyday life? My guest today is Julia Baird, award winning journalist, bestselling author and host of the Not Stupid podcast. Julia has spent years studying and writing about one of life's most profound, yet often overlooked experiences, the mysterious force called grace. In her latest book, Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything, she takes us on this intimate exploration of grace.

• 2:10Jonathan Fields?

  Powerful narratives and fascinating research from the world of science, philosophy, and spirituality. And Julia's personal journey through cancer, grief, and immense challenges, it also gives her a unique lens into our shared human capacity for forgiveness, dignity, and what she calls moral elevation. So whether recounting her travels to witness bioluminescent life in the ocean depths, or sharing incredible stories of people forgiving the unforgivable, Julia really illuminates the paths that can lead us into a more grace-filled life and relationship with the world. You may just feel that shiver of awe and elevation as we dive into the mysterious, the beautiful, and perhaps most ordinary part of being

• 2:51Jonathan Fields?

  human: grace. So excited to share this conversation with you. I'm Jonathan Fields, and this is Good Life Project.

• 3:04Speaker 02

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• 3:37Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Steel. So I am not in the studio today. I'm actually out on the trail in the Rockies at about 6,000 feet above sea level in Boulder. The leaves are exploding with color and it's just stunning out. And yes, I'm wearing my favorite Steel hat, and just last night I was wearing one of my favorite Steel jackets, which, if you know me, is not unusual. I wear the hat almost every day, and my Steel jackets pretty much live on me all fall and winter. There's even a Steel shop back in town, practically in my backyard. Here is why I love them. Steel is designed and tested in Jackson Hole at the base of the Tetons by locals who ski, and bike, and hike, and climb, and fish there pretty much every day. They have been at it since 2011, so they They know warmth and they also know style.

• 4:22Jonathan Fields?

  Everything I have from them, it works great. It holds up in every condition and also looks awesome. And their hometown down is 800 filled down, but it feels more like just your favorite hoodie than a puffy. And ski season is almost here, so gear up now the way that the locals do. Go to stio.com/goodlife for 20% off your order. That's S T I O dot com slash good life. stio.com/goodlife. Stio, designed and tested in Jackson Hole. Good Life Project is supported by Ernesta rugs. So a small confession, our front porch has been the most neglected corner of our home since we moved in. It's the first thing anyone steps onto and it's been kind of greeting people with a sad, too small mat. Ernesta sent me their samples and now they're making us a rug.

• 5:07Jonathan Fields?

  And the cool thing is for $10, you get five oversized 12 by 12 samples. So you see the colors at real scale in your own space before you even get it. So we lived with all five colors for a few days and cool morning light and golden afternoon light. And we're sure to be roused on the sky, but Caldwell just kind of kept quietly winning. The thing you're certain about isn't always the thing that fits. And because Ernesta rugs are custom sized, cut to the ins. The one we ordered is made to our exact six and a half feet by nine feet space, not close enough. Visit ernesta.com and order five samples for only $10 and you'll get $50 toward any rug of your choice. That's E R N E S T A dot com.

• 5:49Jonathan Fields?

  On the inside of your left forearm, you have a tattoo with three French words, which translates roughly to an invincible summer, which is actually part of a line from 1954 work from Camus, Return to Tepasa. The full line is, "In the middle of winter, I found there was in me an invincible summer." What does this mean to you?

• 6:14Speaker 00

  I'm so impressed by this question. You've really done your research because I've never, I don't think I've ever written about having that tattoo. It means to me that even in the most difficult times of my life, even in the most horrendous, bleak, kind of muddy, just dark zones, I have been constantly surprised to find that within me, there is something that still hungers for light and for goodness and for awe and for all the good stuff of life, all the best parts of being human. And that that drive in itself has lit me up and that drive in itself has created a summer for me in my winters. So I wanted to have it tattooed. And I mean, the whole, I've got a little,

• 6:58Speaker 00

  oh, wait a minute. So I've got this funny elbow. Can you see? Okay, there we go. I wanted to have it there as well, because anyone who's spent a lot of time in and out of hospitals knows that that is where you get punctured and bruised and cannulas going in and out. The end of surgeries, it's often quite, it's a very like contested zone. And I wanted to remind myself of that anytime I was going in and out of hospital, that I had that to hold on to.

• 7:23Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And for you going in and out of hospital, it wasn't just the sort of occasional annual update or physical, like there's, there is a very substantial winter for you when you reference that.

• 7:33Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's true. So in about, about 10 years ago, I was diagnosed with a, they thought it was ovarian cancer, but it's a very kind of rare abdominal cancer. And the treatment for it is really quite brutal. They will, you know, like just go in and remove organs and pour hot chemo inside you into your abdomen and then, then say, then stitch you back up and kind of good luck. And it takes ages to come back to be able to walk and like eat and function again. Um, so I've had that like four times now. So yeah, it led to fairly intense moments of reckoning for me.

• 8:13Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm. But how amazing that you can now look down, just glance down at the inside of your left arm and see both the memory of, of all of that, like that is where so much of this, you know, happened. Um, and then also that line is just the constant reminder. I also love that that's actually the closing line of a longer stanza in that particular work. The opening line is, there is merely bad luck in not being loved. There's misfortune in not loving. That line is actually a line that stayed with me for a long time.

• 8:44Speaker 00

  Bad luck in not being loved and misfortune in not loving, yeah, that's true.

• 8:48Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and I feel like so many of us are experiencing some version of that in the world these days.

• 8:53Speaker 00

  Yeah, right. And why do you think that stayed with you?

• 8:56Jonathan Fields?

  I feel like so often, we feel like the, the experience of, of loving and being loved is something that we're constantly trying to wrangle, to lock down, to have some sense of control over. And, you know, the first part of it kind of acknowledges the fact that, you know what? You have some level of agency and control over you. And even there, you know, kind of ish.

• 9:19Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 9:20Jonathan Fields?

  Right? But the rest of the world, the people around you, circumstances, you really don't. And at the end of the day, you don't want to as much as you think you do. But you do have agency over giving yourself to others, to causes, to ideas, to people, to pets, to the environment, whatever it is. And that, that's where, because you have agency there, the misfortune is in not actually exercising that agency. And I feel like that's been a really interesting, powerful reminder to me. I'm curious how it lands with you.

• 9:49Speaker 00

  I agree with that. I mean, it reminds me instantly of the whole, just the, the tenet of Stoicism, that you can't determine your circumstances, but you can determine how you respond to them. And I think that's really what I've learned. And in a way, I have drawn from this, it's called the Stockdale paradox, which from a, Stockdale was a prisoner in Vietnam and was tortured in the Hanoi prison, you know, where John McCain had been as well. And he wrote afterwards, and he was in the air force, so it was shot down. And he wrote afterwards about what it was that sustained him during that time. And he was very brutally treated. And he said, in a way, it was like a stubborn kind of optimism, in the sense that, he said, the people who were simply optimistic were the ones that didn't last.

• 10:34Speaker 00

  We'll be out by Easter and then they weren't out. We'll be out by Thanksgiving and they weren't, or Christmas and they weren't. And then the ones that were like, I'm fully aware of the circumstances of I'm in. I'm not going to deny it. I'm not going to get out of it with like, there's some elements of like the positivity movement that I think great on some people because it's like, just be cheerful and just look on the bright side and.

• 10:53Jonathan Fields?

  The old toxic positivity, yeah.

• 10:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, like him, where you are can sometimes can be completely suck. You've you've lost, you know, a dear partner has died or you've got a terrible diagnosis, but you can still hold on to the idea that somehow you will prevail. And that in the prevailing, you can point yourself to the good things. And I think that's what I've been writing about for the last few years is like, how in these times, I've just been so surprised about the things that have given me strength, not just have been nice to tinkery and not that are just optional extras, but these things are pillars of strength like awe and wonder and grace being a form of awe.

• 11:29Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I know you, um, I think it was last year, or maybe it was actually a re-airing of a special that you did on hunting awe.

• 11:36Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 11:37Jonathan Fields?

  And I think I remember part of that was sort of looking for phosphorescent underwater life and things like that, um, which I don't know if you've read Matt Hague's new book, The Life Impossible.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  I haven't yet, no.

• 11:49Jonathan Fields?

  You would enjoy it. There's a reference to that experience of yours, um, not to you, but to that I think, and also the notion of awe and joy and grace. It's, um, I found it really moving.

• 12:00Speaker 00

  Oh, he was, because my, because my last book was called Phosphorescence on awe, wonder and the things that sustain you when the world goes dark, which is why I became. So it was a metaphor for me about finding light in the dark, but I actually became obsessed with finding bioluminescence in the natural world, especially in the ocean. But yeah, he, he read that book and he was very kind about it. So I'm a fan of his work.

• 12:22Jonathan Fields?

  Interesting. You may have inspired something in him.

• 12:26Speaker 00

  We will see. I can't claim anything, obviously.

• 12:29Jonathan Fields?

  As you shared, a lot of the writing that you've been doing recently is, is really focused around, it's not sort of like this toxic positivity and like, oh, look at the bright side of everything, the silver lining, but it's this notion of can we find grace no matter what's going on around us? So I think an opening curiosity for me is, and this is the entire focus of your new book, you know, how do you define grace in this modern world that we live in? And, and also, why do you think it's seems or feels so elusive to us today?

• 12:58Speaker 00

  I think in part, the reason it's elusive, seems elusive today is because of the nature of politics today, and the politics that is playing on fears and anxieties, and because of the nature of algorithms. So people literally making money from us being outraged and anxious and afraid. So we see it in our communities. You'll see it from a local firefighter or from a paramedic or a nurse or people working with those with disabilities or in aged care homes. It is all around us, in blood donors, people that every couple of weeks will go and have someone stick a needle in their arm and pull out their very blood, not because they know a person that that needs it, not because they can direct it going to someone they really like.

• 13:42Speaker 00

  It could go to a complete jerk, you know, someone that they disapprove of on that number of levels, but they do it because there's a human need for it. And I think fundamentally, grace is about that. It's not about considering the recipient as someone who's worthy, but you're doing it because of the importance of giving people the benefit of the doubt, of allowing people to see people's humanity, of mercy, not merit, of ways of breaking a cycle, which is just about vengeance and retribution. It's about stepping back and seeing the entire context in which a person has operated and what might have led them to that point, which has harmed

• 14:22Speaker 00

  you or which has hurt you. It is sometimes forgiving the unforgivable, loving the unlovable. I think the idea that it just goes beyond the eye for an eye or the fact that someone merits or someone deserves something. We know grace when we see it. For many people, grace is a touch of the divine. For other people, it is the very best of humanity, which somehow transcends the everyday, but is often contained in the everyday. You know, Marilynne Robinson called it, you know, like a reservoir of goodness, kind of beyond the everyday, which is, you know, the way that we can treat each other. You do hear grace spoken about sometimes. I heard it,

• 15:02Speaker 00

  I jumped out of my seat when I heard both Barack Obama and Michelle Obama use that word at the Democrat National Convention. And I think they were trying to refer to The idea of caring for your neighbours, of respecting the fact that people can disagree with you. We have to accept that we can disagree with people. Sometimes people can have really good values, good intentions and end up at different points politically, or even the same values as you and end up at different points completely. So I think those kinds of understandings would kind of un- unknock some of the heavily tangled ways we have of speaking to each other now, which could be very destructive, very detrimental and very negative.

• 15:43Jonathan Fields?

  Now, I mean, that lands in a really powerful way. You know, I often hear the phrase giving grace as if this is something, it's almost like an offering, a gift, a blessing, something that you're giving to someone else. But at the same time, what I hear you describing, and this has been my experience, I think, as well, is that grace is also a state. It's a feeling within you. You know, like when you feel like you are experiencing grace, I'm curious, what are you feeling?

• 16:08Speaker 00

  It's a lift, yeah. There's studies that have been done on this, on the physical impacts of people witnessing an act of moral beauty, of great decency, or courage, or ability, or generosity. I mean, sometimes you can see it when you're watching, you know, the Paralympics, or when you're watching people overcome incredible hurdles. But when you see that, there's a couple of observations. The first is it's infectious. It makes people more likely to do that and behave in ways themselves, to try to act to alleviate other people's suffering. The other finding is that it is around the idea of moral elevation. So you watch it and you see something good happen to something else that they're not,

• 16:52Speaker 00

  again, that they're not necessarily deserving. And once you see that act of goodness, it can affect your heart rate. It can, as can forgiveness, and your contentment, your capacity for your level of happiness and satisfaction with your relationships. People say to me, and it's also the ineffable, there's also, I don't know what that word is, like, I've spent a lot of time trying to, trying to put my finger on like mysterious ideas. Like, when you see something, it's like that, it's just. It lifts you up and in a way that's hard to describe. When I first started writing my awe, I was like, what is that feeling I get when I'm ocean swimming and the edge of a very vast ocean?

• 17:34Speaker 00

  What is that feeling when you're walking through a forest or mountains where you are? Or when you're sitting on a hill and looking up at a canopy of stars? There's something beyond, and that's what you get with grace. Or across, Dacher Keltner from the University of California, Berkeley did a study on, it was 2,600 people across 26 countries. They, they got them to keep diaries of their awe moments and tried to find out what the most common experience of awe was. And I really genuinely would have bet my house on it being nature. And obviously that was a really strong theme, but the number one thing people said was seeing one of those acts in another person. We experience awe, that sense of being stopped in our tracks and actually comforted.

• 18:19Speaker 00

  I find it very comforting to know there's people like this in the world and that people love like this and are selfless like this. And it kind of makes it worth going on.

• 18:29Jonathan Fields?

  No, I love that and such a fan of Dacher's work as well. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by Talkiiatry. So you know that moment when you finally say, okay, I need some help? That takes courage and then you start calling psychiatrists and hear, we're not taking new patients or our next opening is months away. Talkiiatry exists to change that. Unlike therapy only platforms, Talkiiatry is psychiatry. It's a 100% online practice where a medical provider can diagnose conditions like anxiety, ADHD, depression and more, and prescribe medication when it's appropriate. All 800 plus clinicians are in network with major insurers, take a short assessment,

• 19:13Jonathan Fields?

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• 19:38Jonathan Fields?

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• 20:22Jonathan Fields?

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• 20:40Speaker 02

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 21:14Jonathan Fields?

  It's interesting you reference, you know, we are, we have this human drive to try and quantify, to try and define, to try and make tangible the intangible. You reference this in a really kind of like interesting way that I had never heard before, but maybe this is, maybe I've been living with my head in the sand for years. Early in the book, with this conversation around an experiment that was done to try and determine the weight of the soul, to literally quantify the weight of the soul. Take me there.

• 21:43Speaker 00

  Okay, so I love the idea of this experiment. It was more than a century ago. It was 1907, and it was a Boston doctor. And his name was Duncan McDougall. And he wanted to work out, did human beings have a soul? And could you actually measure it? So he tried to measure people at the point of dying. Like, he went to nursing homes and aged care places and would... Would put someone on the scale just before they died and just after, a very difficult thing to actually pull off. And one person actually died on the scales. He then determined in his first kind of bachelor reporting that there was a difference, that the body was twenty one point three grams lighter after the person had died.

• 22:27Speaker 00

  So he decided that was the weight of a soul. Now, even at the time, the other physicians and medical researchers were horrified by the inexactness and the, I think, sloppy, you know, method by which this man had claimed this. It was moot, it was argued about in the New York Times. And that number is held, you know, held on in the popular imagination. You'll hear in films, twenty one grams. I kind of like his imagination and his audacity. I think it's more of an imaginative enterprise than a scientific one. He did then do it with dogs, by the way, and he found no difference. And that was another scandal, because that means dogs don't go to heaven, which we all know is not true. So, um, yeah, I love that experiment.

• 23:12Jonathan Fields?

  It is fascinating, huh? You're like, we're just trying to look at everything around us and say, like, how can I lock this down? How can I measure it? In the conversation around Grace, though, I'm curious why you felt like this was an interesting piece of the conversation.

• 23:25Speaker 00

  I mean, I'd always been fascinated by that experiment. And because I wanted to write, actually, I was writing about nurses and I was writing and I've watched nurses, I've been in medical environments so much. And you see, you know, blood and gore and pain and distress and people with dementia struggling, you see people come in with, you know, ice problems, all kinds of addictions. I've just watched this for years. I watched nurses be assaulted and be called all kinds of names. And I've watched their care, their tender, relentless care for people they don't know and may never see again, or will likely never see again, for complete strangers. And the idea that you treat a person in front

• 24:10Speaker 00

  of you, not just like as a lump of flesh, but as a soul. If you don't like the word soul, and just like a deeply human person with their own needs and desires and. And there was something that happened during the pandemic. You know, the pandemic was a time when we all stopped briefly and applauded people who all the time put their own lives on the risks, who face, you know, like deadly infections and are often poorly paid and are keeping us alive. And I thought that was great, the sound of applause around the world. And I kind of would like it to continue at like six o'clock every night if we could just applaud the people in here who are staffing our hospitals and care homes. But there was one example that really, really struck me and it was in Brazil and where

• 24:54Speaker 00

  the, at a time when, you know, it was really raging out of control, COVID, and the medical system was overwhelmed, the hospitals were overwhelmed. And I don't know if you remember how many nurses were actually quite traumatized by the fact that people were coming there and really, really ill and some of them dying and they couldn't have their loved ones with them. And they just found, it was so heartbreaking to watch. And there were these two nurses in Sao Paulo, Brazil, who decided, they talked about it on their lunch break, about how could, how could they do something about this? And they got these rubber gloves and filled them with warm water. So they tied one on the bottom here and one on the top there and kind of knotted it together.

• 25:37Speaker 00

  So it was like a warm hand over the patients. And they noticed when they did that, there was immediate improvement in the patient's vital signs, you know, their blood perfusion and various things. And they replicated it elsewhere and at other hospitals and the same thing happened again. And that to me, that was just a rubber glove filled with water. But it was an act of love, actually, from a stranger to show you love. And when I contacted them, I managed to track those nurses down and they were like, we realized that that person was someone's mother, niece, daughter, friend. And they were loving him in that moment.

• 26:17Speaker 00

  And then how fascinating that that showed up and there was a physical response to it. People's health improved when they had that warm hand on their own, just a warm, warm glove. On their own. So that to me is part of the the idea of the soul. You're looking at a person and you are not just trying to bring them back to life, but you were showing them the kind of care and the kind of love that you would want someone that you loved. It was desperate or afraid or stuck somewhere.

• 26:49Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  To be shown.

• 26:51Jonathan Fields?

  No, I wonder if in in a way, the experience of grace is being able to close the gap between how you're living your life and sort of like a more authentic expression of that soul self, whatever it is that you believe is deepest inside of you. It's interesting. I was in New York in 2020, before we headed out to the mountains and during the absolute worst part of things, when New York was the scariest place on the planet to be. And, you know, I was one of those people where at seven o'clock every night, the windows flew open across the entire city and everyone was screaming and banging pots. I recorded a bunch of evenings of that. I can't listen to that recording now without just absolutely weeping.

• 27:32Speaker 00

  Ryan.

• 27:33Jonathan Fields?

  It's not the sound. It brings me back to this reminder that even in the absolute most terrifying moments of our lives, people who lived in a city generally didn't talk to each other. You didn't look at each other and like walking down the street. New York is not a city where you're like, hey, how you doing when you're walking down the street? You live your own lives. And yet, in this scariest of moments, somehow millions of people came together, not just to celebrate the fact that we're all here doing this together, but also that there are people who are also being out there in service of us right now. And so powerful, you know, and that to me is, that's grace also. You know, like the reminder of that feeling is like, oh.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:14Jonathan Fields?

  Oh, right, right, right, right. That's what it's about.

• 28:17Speaker 00

  I've got goosebumps in you talking about that. And goosebumps, by the way, is one way in which scientists measure grace. It's just the beauty in that. And it's the recognition of all of those people and all, everything, as you're saying, that they were serving us at that time. But also the commonality, the whole bunch of people coming together to applaud for all of our differences. Like even singing in a choir can be kind of an amazing experience of awe. Again, because we're so used to being discordant, to come together and be in harmony is because like a profoundly moving experience.

• 28:52Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so agree. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 29:00Jonathan Fields?

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• 29:44Jonathan Fields?

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• 30:12Jonathan Fields?

  You've used the word awe a lot and almost interchangeably with grace. What's your sense of how they relate to each other?

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Well, so if we think of awe as being something that stops you in your tracks and makes you think about the world, makes you realize we're part of something much bigger, makes you aware of kind of beauty and marvels, experiencing awe regularly is something that research shows makes you calmer, more content, more altruistic, more kind of conscious of being inhabitants of the earth. And I have just been, again and again, in my... Kind of darker moments, being reminded of how important it is to pursue and wonder as part of that, as a way that's not an optional extra.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  Like, you know, you might see some beautiful things when you go on holidays, that's really great, or, you know, when you go on a walk in the morning, you might catch the sunrise or the sunset at night. But a way of building this deliberately into your life is like so psychologically soothing and important that I have clung on to it like a life raft when I've been, you know, not sure if I should, what reason there is to go on, or if I can handle the pain anymore. And it's like, you know, Rachel Carson, who wrote The Silent Spring, she said the work that she was most proud of was an essay she wrote in 1956, which was about how to teach kids how to wonder. And she talks about going, you know, going around the woods with her nephew Roger, I mean, he was then four years old and, you know, shining lights into rock pools at night and instilling that sense of wonder.

• 31:48Speaker 00

  And there's just a phrase in this thing, she says, if she could be a godmother, if she could whisper into the fairy godmother of all the children in the world, she would say, please instill in them a sense of wonder that's so indestructible, that it will last against their whole lives and against, you know, sterile preoccupations, so that we will not become alienated from the sources of our strength. And that phrase has never left me because I then realised, or it's not something beautiful and lovely, it makes us strong, it makes us strong. And it's not just like bungee jumping in the Grand Canyon, not that anyone does that, but if they did, or big dramatic African safaris, or, you know, deep sea diving, although you can find it in all of those things.

• 32:31Speaker 00

  You can see it by watching in your own potting beds, you could see it in the park down the street, if you're watching, like I am at the moment, there's a little tree hollow where these little lorikeet parrots have just had little babies, I'm watching them every day. And you can see it in the extraordinary decency of a neighbour. And that's what I see them having in common. It's in ultimately expanding, ultimately it connects you to other people. And it is the very best of who we are.

• 33:04Jonathan Fields?

  Do you have a sense for grace being something that exists within you or between you and others?

• 33:13Speaker 00

  I think it's probably both. I think we witness it when someone is acting that way towards another person. Who might not merit it. And then I think you carry away the results of it. And I think sometimes you might not necessarily even call it that. Like, I don't even want to have a limited prescribed definition. I know where I've found it. I know where I've seen it after meditating on it for a couple of years. But I really want to start conversations about where other people see it. And I was just really struck by, like, it's such a big thing to experience grace, to see it. And we don't really talk about it enough. Like, what does it look like? What happens to you when you kind of come across?

• 33:52Speaker 00

  How do we get our kids to not just be good and kind, but we really be the decent person? He doesn't need to go in there and break up a fight. He doesn't need to forgive someone who's, you know, done whatever to them, but will. And then can actually transform a whole culture and a whole group of people. And I think the infectious contagious nature of it is really important. But to your question, so when I think about, so I spent quite a bit of time with people who'd gone through restorative justice programs. So the person who caused harm with the person the harm was caused to, and there's a whole bunch of provisos around that, the person who caused harm has to have some kind of contrition and remorse. It's really all about serving the needs of the victim who often doesn't feel served

• 34:36Speaker 00

  by the justice system. And there was one woman who, when she was 24 years old, she got a phone call in the middle of the night from her father saying that her brother had been killed by his best friend, just shot in the chest. She was mortified. There was a court case, that guy went off to jail. No reason was ever given for the shooting. It just happened one night after we were drinking at a pub. And she became consumed by that. She was eaten up by hate for that guy, for desire for revenge. Over a 10 year period, she had a lot of health problems. She started sleepwalking, she couldn't sleep properly. At other times, she got diabetes. Her father had a lot of, a series of bad health problems.

• 35:22Speaker 00

  It was really kind of corrosive. And she told me that she would be looking at a sunset and thinking about ways she could murder this guy. And she eventually. Went to sit down opposite him ten years after it had happened. And she was able to say, this is what you did to me and my health. This is what you did to my father and his health. This is what you did to my brother's son, who was just a toddler when he lost his dad. And she said that when she was doing it, suddenly part of the way through it, she kind of lifted up and looked around because unconsciously, because she felt like something had been lifted from her. And she said to me that what she felt like she was doing was wrapping up everything he did to her and her brother and just putting it in a suitcase and leaving it at his feet and it was now his.

• 36:08Speaker 00

  And she was terrified that she wouldn't be able to love anymore. And especially her grandchildren, because to her now love was associated with loss. And she told me that after that, she don't know, doesn't know what exactly happened. But that changed her life and then she's now is able to really love and dote on her grandkids. And so that's an example of something happening between people, but her walking away and holding on to it herself.

• 36:33Jonathan Fields?

  The whole experience of restorative justice, I think I'm deeply fascinated by that as well. I know it's sort of morphed and taken on different names and different approaches, at least in the US these days. But it does feel like it is a blend of between others and then within us. And it almost feels like the experience, the interactive experience it generates is like the match that lights the fire of grace within us. You know, it's almost like all loads the bow, which is the big inhale, like and then grace is, grace releases it, grace is the

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Oh, that's good. I like that.

• 37:08Jonathan Fields?

  And so you can see how there's that relationship there, like the dynamic and how it almost

• 37:12Speaker 00

  Like the stopping and then the giving.

• 37:15Jonathan Fields?

  Right. And how it almost has to involve other people, but then it has to land within you and somehow release something.

• 37:20Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 37:21Jonathan Fields?

  It's interesting, you referenced also, you know, so much of this is about both experiencing things out in the world, but also even witnessing. And even, you mentioned earlier, the notion of of blood donors, which you write about in the book, you know, which is, these are people who are showing up, they, at least legally in this country, you can't know who this is going to. You know, and yet you show up and you give something that is within your body. You know, to someone else. And there's no rational basis to do this. Like, you're not getting paid for it. You're not getting compensated for your time. Nobody's giving you like $20 for every pint that you get.

• 37:56Speaker 00

  Like a milkshake or a coffee.

• 37:58Jonathan Fields?

  Right, exactly. But, you know, it says something that there is something within us. There's like a something that says, I want to in some way do something good. And in a way where I have no idea who the good is going to to land on. But I just, I want to be a link in that chain.

• 38:17Speaker 00

  Yeah, and it's one of the examples. That's right. That in itself, exactly as you've described it, is quite miraculous. And I spoke to some blood donor researchers who are like, we actually don't know. One of the mysteries for us is why people do it. Because, you know, you go and ask, you have to travel somewhere. Again, the needle, you get asked really intrusive questions, and yet, like, thousands upon thousands of people around the world doing it, and many more than that. And without knowing where it ends up, I think for introverts, I've often found that's a really good way that they want to give. They want to volunteer or give back to the community. But like, you know, knocking on doors or being part of something public is harder. So they're happier to do that. But I've been the recipient of blood donations

• 38:58Speaker 00

  myself, like many times now, often due to blood loss in surgery. And I remember the first time I got it. And I was, I had a nurse whispering in my ear all the time. It was so strange, actually. She started whispering about writing and like my purpose and how important this was. And I don't know, it was this kind of really intense moment. And then I had been so depleted and so exhausted. And then I kind of came to, it was like a shot to the chest, you know, I remember how much stronger I felt afterwards. And the thought that someone else's blood, their blood was running through my veins is such a wild thing. And I really like to honor those people who spend decades upon decades. I met super donors who do it,

• 39:40Speaker 00

  have done it every two weeks for 50 years, who plan their holidays around it, who make sure that wherever they're going to be every two weeks, they'll donate. And I think that is a beautiful and often unsung gesture.

• 39:53Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it says something about us, I think, just as a species also. There is some wiring. Maybe it gets short circuited by, you know, like, expectations or just, you know, culture, society, whatever it is. But there's something deep within us that wants to be a part of that sort of like chain of generosity. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 40:15Jonathan Fields?

  Your Life Project is sponsored by Vinted. So here's a question that I have been sitting with. How many things in your closet were bought for, let's say, a version of you who never quite showed up? Maybe it's the tailored jacket for the dinners you were gonna go to, or someday pieces with the tag still on them. They're lovely clothes. They're just not yours anymore. That's where Vinted comes in. So Vinted is a secondhand marketplace app where everyday people sell the clothes that they're not wearing to people who actually will. Listing on Vinted is quick and simple. You take a few photos, write a short description, and you're done. Once something sells, Vinted creates the prepaid shipping label for you. There are also no seller fees on Vinted, so whatever your piece sells for, you keep.

• 40:57Jonathan Fields?

  What I love about that is how it turns letting go into something that actually feels good. You get more room, a little extra money, and maybe a closet that reflects who you are right now. So see what's hiding in your closet. You might be surprised how much you can earn with Vinted. Download the Vinted app for free and start listing with no seller fees, so you keep everything you earn. This message is brought to you by Apple Card. Ah, fall, that cozy season where we swap the swimwear for sweaters and sunnies for scarves. But before the Halloween decorations are put away or Thanksgiving table has been set, there's already holly jolly music playing in the grocery store, reminding you that the year is coming to a close. Time to kick end of year into high gear.

• 41:41Jonathan Fields?

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• 42:09Jonathan Fields?

  Good Life Project is sponsored by Bombas. So my wife Stephanie has been one of the great gift givers in our family. And her secret is that the best gifts often aren't the flashy ones. So the ones that people reach for on any given day without even thinking about it. That's why so much of my list ends up at Bombas. Fuzzy Sunday slippers for the friend who lives in sweatpants from November to March. Merino wool and cashmere blend socks for anyone who runs cold. That would be me, by the way. Ski and running socks for the ones who refuse to slow down. Also me, by the way. And water resistant suede booties. So cushy. My executive producer, Lindsay, actually more or less lives in hers. And here's what else makes it a good life kind of gift. For every item you purchase, Bombas donates an essential clothing item to someone facing

• 42:53Jonathan Fields?

  housing insecurity. One purchased, one donated. Over 200 million donations and counting. So every gift you give is really two. So head over to bombas.com/goodlife and use the code GOODLIFE for 20% off your first purchase. That's B-O-M-B-A-S dot com slash good life. Code GOODLIFE at checkout. One of the other things that you explore, I thought was really interesting in the context of Grace was kind of the notion of risk and impermanence. And to tee it up, you bring back that myth that we all heard as a kid, like the Icarus story. But you invite us to kind of rethink what that really means.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  I really love this poem by Jack Gilbert is his name. And it was about, it's kind of retelling the idea of Icarus. Also from the perspective of relationship. And he says in it, we forget that before Icarus fell, he flew. Before Icarus fell, he was just coming to the end of his triumph. And I thought about that in the perspective of relationships. And we often say if a relationship didn't last, then it was failed or doomed. Or it's always this kind of negativity around it. And ultimately, sure, some relationships can have unpleasant ends and some can come to a natural end. But then why are we always focusing on the end instead of these beautiful few years that you can have before that?

• 44:16Speaker 00

  And I wrote about a former partner of mine. Who died in a plane crash and coming to terms with that grief because it had happened about a year and a half after we broke up and that sense of he was such a joyful and positive person and I hated that obviously the way he died. He had so much more of his life to live. But I wanted to also in that grief and remembering him to remember that we flew and how important that is to honor kind of previous relationships and not always see them as as failures. Sometimes relationships go for finite periods of time and that's kind of okay. So yeah, it was the poem that really got me thinking about how we sometimes frame relationships or

• 45:00Speaker 00

  how often we frame it. It's just purely negative.

• 45:03Jonathan Fields?

  It also it's a reframe on to a certain extent the just the notion of our willingness to take risks and your willingness to be bold and also sometimes how we're punished for those to be like realistic and practical. And this is another thing that you actually sort of like point out, especially like depending on who you are, like what gender you identify as, what culture you're growing up in, you know, and that this can sometimes this can sometimes either enable or limit our ability to step into space and to be bold and to be risky and to state our minds and to actually like do the things we want to do in the world versus saying no, that's not appropriate. And I wonder if that stifling within certain whether it's a family culture, a local culture, political culture, whatever it may be, limits our access to experience everything we've been

• 45:47Jonathan Fields?

  talking about, to experience awe, to experience grace. Like when we're not allowed to show up in that way and risk revealing ourselves, risk bringing ourselves to the world, does that also limit our our capacity to experience awe and grace?

• 46:01Speaker 00

  Um, I think there's probably really something in there about being open to be able to make mistakes. If we allow other people to try things and make mistakes, like genuine mistakes. If someone, I don't know, does something cruel and vicious deliberately and then says it was a mistake, well, we know it's not. But there are a lot of people who do actually make mistakes in public life, especially say and do the wrong thing. And we need to be able to properly assess which ones of those make mistakes. Otherwise, if they all matter, then we lose our capacity to judge fully, I think. And that's the idea of being the the man or the woman in the arena, right? The person that is that is in there absolutely having a crack at it. And we often forget just the virtue of trying.

• 46:45Speaker 00

  So I think that we always have to be cautious around a censorious culture developing around which everyone always has to be perfect. I mean, I'm always tearing my hair out about it a bit because I've I'm also a biographer. I spent a year's writing a biography of Queen Victoria. So to spend that amount of time really thinking about a person and who were they and how do we assess them? How do you assess a life? In she could be completely cruel to a kid and beautifully generous to a household aide all in the one day. She could be capricious, she could be funny, she could be selfish, she could be reflect the attitudes of her time, but also be progressive on some, but be really strange on the others.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  So you're constantly needing to look at a whole person before you completely dismiss them and write them off because you've got to understand how strange attitudes form and what happens to them over a lifetime. Do people change? What makes people change? I don't know, like, do you know what I mean? Like, I could talk about this for such a long time because I'm so interested in history, but not enough history informs our current debates when we think about who we want as a leader. Some of our greatest leaders have been deeply flawed. So what do we accept and what don't we? And how do we? And do we ask for leaders who have a real fundamental goodness and decency to them? Is that what we want? Because I think that a lot of people really do. And we need to work out how to kind of demand that, I think.

• 48:08Jonathan Fields?

  And at the same time, except that people are really complicated.

• 48:11Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 48:12Jonathan Fields?

  This is, I guess, it was a couple of years back now. I had the chance to sit down with Daniel Kahneman, who sadly has now passed. And he was telling me a story of how he he was like Jewish kid growing up in Nazi occupied Paris. And he was five or six years old, walking home from his place a couple of blocks or from a friend to, and it was after dark. He wasn't supposed to be out. When he was supposed to be out, he was supposed to be wearing a sweater with, you know, a star on it, but he turned it inside out. And he's walking down the street and he turns a corner and he sees coming in his same direction an SS officer. And he's six years old, but he kind of knows what this means. But he's kind of trying to just, you know, like stay calm, breathe and like get home. He walks kind of toe to toe with the officer who looks down at him, bends down, scoops him

• 48:55Jonathan Fields?

  up, shows him a picture of his son, like pass him on his head and just like gives him a smile and says like, you know, like, go on your way. And he credits that moment and credits that moment to a certain extent with his just instant understanding of the complexity of people that led to this astonishing like Nobel winning career in psychology and this human behavior.

• 49:16Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:16Jonathan Fields?

  But it is so interesting. We'd love to simplify people. So this is another thing you write about it under this like, like fascinating word, sonder, right? You know, this understanding that everyone's life is so complex.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:28Jonathan Fields?

  And yet we really don't enjoy allowing space for that until unless and until we're kind of forced to.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yeah. And I think it's really, it's very dangerous. It's very narrowing. And it means that if we're savaging everyone who appears in public without really discretion for anything they've ever done. I mean, I'm not, I'm not talking about like corruption and so on here, then we are creating a climate in which the only people who can really prosper in public life are full blown narcissists who don't care and don't need to be accountable and are immune to that kind of criticism. I haven't seen the figures in the States, but I know that like, there's a lot of people turning away from public life and leaving their jobs because of threats, because of violence, because of, you know, I hosted a TV show for

• 50:19Speaker 00

  a long time and there were a lot of people, especially people of color, especially women, First Nations people that were really loath to come on because the level of abuse they would get simply for popping their heads up. And then there goes to the question of how people are judged for what they do. And as you've said before, that's exacerbated if you're all of those things as well. And if we look at female politicians, which I've got done a lot of academic research on, the question isn't whether or not they've done something wrong. It's a question is how harshly they're judged for it and what the consequences are deemed to be. So. That's a long-winded way of answering your question about, I think that's right.

• 50:56Jonathan Fields?

  It also touches us into the notion of the relationship between grace and forgiveness. And we're not saying, you know, and especially what you were talking about, I don't think either of us is arguing that there shouldn't be accountability for certain behavior. Of course, there should be. That's not what we're saying. But at the same time, how do you do the stance of understanding and acknowledging the complexity of individuals, of the human condition, of the fact that we all have, you know, we have the good wolf and the bad wolf inside of us, you know, the classic, you know, who wins the one you feed. And then when there are things done that lead to estrangement or harm, how do we, you know, and I would, I would argue, and I would imagine you would too, that like,

• 51:39Jonathan Fields?

  in those moments, often grace leaves the building and we feel like zero access to it. But like, is there a way that we invite it back? And this kind of speaks to, you know, the example that you were sharing earlier, the restorative justice example, where 10 years later, this, this woman went back. But what role, if any, then does the experience of forgiveness play in all of this?

• 51:59Speaker 00

  It's a very good question, and I really struggled with forgiveness when writing this book. Like, I really, I read everything I could and I thought about it so much because I was conflicted because I've grown up with the value of forgiveness and knowing how important it is. My mother was a very strong advocate. She spoke about forgiveness a lot. I'm sure she forgave me for a bunch of things, you know, like, and I can see how powerful that can be. But at the same time, as a reporter, I've seen a lot of time reporting on domestic violence cases and sexual assault cases. And I have seen how forgiveness can be weaponized, even broadly, you know, more broadly culturally, that like, that you need to move on and you need to, you know, forgive them. And it's just a guy being a guy, or he just has a temper, or what did you do to upset him? And

• 52:44Speaker 00

  I think that there are different ways of thinking about forgiveness because someone is a complete psychopath, for example, then there's no, like, you just need to cut them off. There's no sitting and repairing. This is a person who just simply kind of wants to harm you. And I think we do need to challenge a culture in which there've been many crimes that have long just been tolerated and there's been a culture of impunity. So I think for people who go through that, it's their own experience of self-preservation and then trying to work out what they want to do with anger. Some people talk about it an unburdening or a severing or whatever. But when forgiveness can happen, it can be a really miraculous thing, I think.

• 53:25Speaker 00

  I spoke to a man called Chris Carrier. He's from Texas. And he, I spoke to a man called Chris Carrier. He's from Texas. When he was a kid, he was abducted from his, as he was coming home from school and he got off his bus, he's about eight or nine years old. And someone came up to him and said, I'm gonna host a birthday party for your dad. I work with him. Can you come and help me get decorations? And he led this kid off, took him to his home, put a pick through him and then took him out to the Everglades and shot him and left him there for dead. And meeting Chris now as an adult is an amazing thing because he just radiates this warmth and generosity of spirit.

• 54:09Speaker 00

  And he talks a lot about forgiveness because what happened was when he, like, they could never find that guy because he left him there for dead. Four days later, people found him and he had cigarette burns along his little young body because people were trying to work out if he was dead or alive. He couldn't pick this guy in a lineup because he was wearing a baseball cap at the time and it partially shielded his face. So he grew up knowing that this person was in his neighborhood with that fear. I mean, now his face is still scarred. A couple of decades afterwards, Chris is now married. He's got kids. He gets a call from the detective running the case saying, we've, that guy that we thought might have done something to you, he is

• 54:51Speaker 00

  in an aged care home now and he is, he's confessed. Would you like to accept that confession? And he said, yes, I would. And he went in and

• 55:03Speaker 00

  He said he walked into the nursing home and there was a little guy weighed nothing, kind of wizened, close to death, no family or friends. And Chris had taken a friend in with him and the friend said, do you remember? At first he was kind of denying it and he said, do you remember leaving a kid for dead in the Everglades? And he said, yes, I did. And he said, what would you like to say to that person if he's standing here right now, as Chris is? And he said, I want to say I'm sorry. And then just started to cry. And Chris said, I can't, I want you to know that I forgive you. And he visited him every kind of couple of days until his death, which was only a couple of weeks later, bringing him his favorite treats, smoked fish. He brought him, um, he read to him.

• 55:49Speaker 00

  I think maybe he prayed with him. And he said to me that what he wanted to do was show his kids that there could be another way to break cycles of violence and vengeance and that it wasn't separate to justice. He's like, I wish that guy had gone to jail. He totally should have gone to jail. That's not about letting him off the hook. That's about, I think, seeing an old man frail towards the end of his life and saying, okay. And when you speak to Chris and you see the kind of the generosity of his spirit and his openness, it makes you just want to be more like him. You can see this is someone that has relinquished what hatred can do to you.

• 56:28Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  It's quite hard to imagine, isn't it?

• 56:31Jonathan Fields?

  I mean, that's all I'm seeing here thinking, I'm like, I don't think I could ever do that, you know? And I would imagine a lot of people are thinking the same thing, whether it's you, whether it's someone you love, like when you're on like Chris's side of it. Like I hear stories like that and I'm like, that is astonishing and gorgeous and.

• 56:51Speaker 00

  Impossible.

• 56:51Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 00

  Yeah, I get it. But I think that we hear a lot about retribution. We hear about people exacting revenge. I mean, like every second, Hollywood movie is all about that. We don't hear about those stories. We don't balance the ledger with there possibly being another way, which Chris says is was best for him. And which a lot of people are interested in listening about. And I wonder if it's because it seems rare. And again, like to, I think some people, people make mistakes a bit when they talk about grace in the sense that I've noticed people thinking it's very gendered, like this is just something women are told to do to be polite and to be nice and you know, the hallmark card thing.

• 57:32Speaker 00

  Or that once you decide, oh, I want that in my life, I'm going to live that way, that it's therefore complete and it's therefore easy as opposed to, you know what, I struggle to forgive, but I might nudge my way towards that. I might try to work out where they come from. You know what, maybe I won't forgive them, but I'm not going to try to kick them in the leg every time I walk past them. I don't know. There's, do you know what I mean? There's different ways of shifting and moving back from that.

• 57:56Jonathan Fields?

  Do you have a sense for whether, what's spinning in my head is I'm wondering, you know, like, if we have endured harm or grief for that matter, if, and oftentimes those happen at the same time. You know, like if you are oftentimes as you experience harm, you're grieving the loss of a state that, you know, like that used to be, that may never be recoverable. I wonder if in some way that unless and until we find a way to release the traumatic burden, the, the internal, the psychological burden of that harm or that grief. And I'm not saying forget about it or just like, I don't believe that, you know, but, but move forward with it, but integrate it in a way that unless and until we can figure that out, that we don't have

• 58:42Jonathan Fields?

  full access to our ability to experience grace in the same way or in the same depth anymore. Or do you think we can still carry that and still be able to step into all the other parts of life and still fully embrace and experience grace?

• 58:58Speaker 00

  Yeah. I think that, I don't think you ever kind of reach a state where you've perfected any of that. And therefore, I agree with you about not forgetting it. We are designed by evolution to recognize when harm has occurred to us. If you've put your hand on a boiling hot plate, you'll know not to put it there again. We're meant to learn from harm caused to us and hurt caused to us by people. But I do think this, as you've said, there's something very important in making sure that that doesn't become a burden to you. So when we talk about Debbie McGraw leaving the suitcase at the murderer's feet, leave it there. Make sure it's not something that you carry around that becomes a heaviness or a weight. Or hate that you can separate yourself from what someone else has done to you.

• 59:42Jonathan Fields?

  It's like, I almost wonder if, you know, like, if forgiveness is something that feels in some way accessible to you in your heart. If like, it's less about what the gift that you're giving to the other person. It's more about being able to maybe crack the door open to grace and the experience in your own experience a little bit more than maybe you could while you're still carrying it.

• 1:00:02Speaker 00

  I think that's true. And if someone sees you acting in that way, they're probably possibly more likely to be doing that themselves, you know? The witnessing part is a really big thing. Can I just say something very, this is going to seem very obvious. And since I've been trying to forgive harder since writing this book, because I think it is really important. And obviously, my, I'm not, I've not written this saying I'm an avatar of grace. So the other day I was saying to my dad something about, oh, this jerk, he can get stuffed. And dad's like, oh yeah, great, put that in your book. That's nice.

• 1:00:36Jonathan Fields?

  It's like a bastard. Thanks, Dad.

• 1:00:39Speaker 00

  And the one thing, and it sounds so simple, I know, but the one thing I've found really helpful every time someone drives me crazy is to just consciously make sure I sit and think about them, but where are they coming from? Where is this coming from? How do we get to the point when they're doing that? I would, I'm very far from someone like John Lewis, who spoke about, you know, the former congressman, civil rights leader, who spoke about walking down those, the streets on his civil rights marches. And he would look at the faces of people contorted with hate along the way. And he would look at them and say, what, what happened to you? What, like, what happened? You were a baby once. You were someone's child. Like, how do we get to this position of hate?

• 1:01:23Speaker 00

  And I, I have actually found that really beneficial to just sit and go, okay, why is it they're responding in this way? And, and where is that person actually at? Even if it doesn't get you to a point of like, You know, complete absolution. It nudges you to a place where you can let go of it a bit. It becomes less about you and more about where they are. And I do think it's also a practice. I speak to a man called Danny Abdullah. He had three of his young children and a niece killed. They were out at night. They just went out to get an ice cream. And a driver came along who was completely intoxicated and ran them over. And his grief was immense. His family's grief obviously was immense.

• 1:02:05Speaker 00

  And he and his wife decided quite quickly, and people were quite unnerved by how quickly and astonishingly, they would publicly say they forgave this man. And he said to me, it's not like you wake up, like, it's not like you say, I'm going to forgive them and then that's done. Like, you will wake up with that rage and that pain still, and you almost have to decide to live that way. And some days you'll be able to do it and some days you won't. So I think if we see it as an impulse, as a reaching towards a way that might be better and not like having to perfect it and be kind of like monk-like or, you know.

• 1:02:41Jonathan Fields?

  More like a practice than an action. It's like, yeah.

• 1:02:44Speaker 00

  I think it is that too.

• 1:02:45Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  I think we'll put ourselves off if we think, oh, I could never be like that. I love holding my grudges. I love nursing them at night. What was it? Fran Leibowitz talks about how she loves to sleep alone with her grudges at night.

• 1:02:57Jonathan Fields?

  I love her.

• 1:03:00Speaker 00

  And she's so good.

• 1:03:01Jonathan Fields?

  It's like the former New Yorker, me is like, ah, feels like home.

• 1:03:05Speaker 00

  I know. When I was in New York, like earlier this year, I was like, wow, am I going to be like, like, turning up like a vegan at a Texan barbecue, talking about relinquishing grudges? Forgiveness here? And my friends were like, we'll hold grudges for you. Yeah, but I don't think, I mean, some days you'll have bad days. You'll have people that'll really drive you crazy. But I think my overall point is if we talk and think and reflect and meditate on other ways of being and ways in which we've seen, witnessed, experienced behaviour that really moves us and really makes us kind of want to be better or, you know, just benefited from it ourselves. Someone who gave us the benefit of a doubt, someone who gave us a second chance when we're a kid, when we're, you know, a school teacher or a cop or like whoever.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  If we kind of talk more about what that means, I think we'll all be better off for it.

• 1:03:56Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so agree. It feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

• 1:04:05Speaker 00

  Hunt awe, relish wonder and open your heart to grace.

• 1:04:11Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm, thank you.

• 1:04:13Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 1:04:16Jonathan Fields?

  Hey, before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you'll also love the conversation we had with Dr. Keltner about awe. You'll find a link to Dr.'s episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields, editing help by Alejandro Ramirez, Christopher Carter, crafted our theme music, and special thanks to Shelley Dell for her research on this episode. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did, since you're still listening here, would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email,

• 1:05:01Jonathan Fields?

  even just with one person, just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you want to help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy. Tell them to listen, then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered, because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

• 1:05:53Jonathan Fields?

  Today's episode is sponsored by Nerd Wallet Wealth Partners. Are you on track for financial independence? If you're on track, the same way you're getting back to the gym, as in maybe next year, then this one's for you. Nerd Wallet Wealth Partners offers free tools for high earners who'd like an actual answer instead of a vibe, like their calculator that estimates if you're on track for financial independence. Plug in a few notes. Numbers to see how your savings path may support your goals. Think of it as a fitness test that you can take sitting down. Or their wealth building checklist for high earners. It's a step by step guide for prioritizing your dollars. Once you're making six figures. And if you still have questions, you can connect with one of their financial advisors who specializes in working with high earners in their 30s and 40s. Good news, this is one workout you can actually finish.

• 1:06:37Jonathan Fields?

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