The Road Less Traveled
Laurel Irwin
Connecting the dots, exploring the corners we take for granted. Colouring each section of the canvas with more detail through Conversation. Sharing stories in depth.
Episodes
32. Secure Base - An Alien Model of Marriage
What if we stopped defining partnership as supervision, and instead encouraged our spouse to be all that they can possibly be? What if we were fully responsible for ourselves so that they have the room to do that? What if marriage could make us more of ourselves, and we could continue developing as adults, even influencing and receiving from the world beyond our family? What if expansion doesn't have to stop when we graduate college, and what if marriage wasn't a ball and chain?
31. Stealing Agency
Who do we feel most loved by?People who empower us and ignite our own capability? Or those who do our work for us?Whether we're talking about our spouse, friends, or children, I don't think it's loving to do anything (repeatedly, long-term) for them that they can do for themselves.Read this article here: https://substack.com/@roadlesstraveledonline/p-190405800
30. Chris Poffenroth and Pilgrim's Progress
Chris tells his story of escaping Canada and sailing solo to Mexico. Plenty of obstacles appeared, dangers threatened, and misadventures occurred, but God provided and rescued at every step along the way.To learn more and support Chris' ministry: https://www.kingdomvoyages.org
29. Direction Versus Destination
From: https://substack.com/home/post/p-156816900Each and every action has a direction. We need a vision, but it need not be an inflexible blueprint of specific timelines and circumstances.The first step is know yourself. What are you good at, what do you love? What brings you to life, and what opportunities are calling to you? Which lofty ideals, indeed, appealed to you repeatedly since you were young? What do those things feel like, over and above what they might present as?Once we really accept that our individuality is a gift, we can drop the pressure of external expectations, and begin to move in the directionof these aspirations and skills, block time to allow creative inspiration to come to us, and decide whether it’s the gym or the driving range we are going to today.There does, indeed, need to be a pull toward a certain direction, and while we hold that trajectory, we can look down at our feet, be where they are, turn them slightly in the direction of the goal, and do something today that brings us that way.It can be a much more gentle process than we originally thought, in this culture of hurry.
28. Truth as the Gateway to Adventure
How do we transcend the predictable?From: https://substack.com/home/post/p-157117721Jordan B Peterson: "If you say the truth and nothing else, you will have an immense adventure as a consequence.You will not know what is going to happen to you, but you have to let go of clinging to the outcome. You have to let go.The truth will reveal the world the way it is intended to be revealed. The consequence for you will be that you will have the adventure of your life.The other part of that ethos—which makes perfect sense to me and I cannot see how it can be any other way—is that whatever makes itself manifest as a consequence of the truth is the best possible reality that could be manifest, even if you cannot see it.”
27. Individuation as the Pathway to Loving Others
Perhaps the only way we ever create the room to love others selflessly, to truly desire their growth and flourishing, is to become radically involved in our own journeys.
26. Unbelievable
Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights, page 205 paints a beautiful picture of why the word "unbelievable" diminishes the very things we all want to believe more in.
25. The Red Book, 311
This excerpt from Carl Jung's The Red Book, pages 311-312, explore the idea that striving to see our efforts take shape in the material world bind up the actual power we possess within our minds to remain good, even to be fulfilled at all. Notice the connection between binding up our efforts in material shapes, and the unconscious proclivity to manipulate others and take them into the service of our need for validation. Interestingly, Jung notes that there are many such people desperate to escape their own selves, so we have willing pawns for our scarcity-based formations. Only by integrating, accepting, looking squarely at our propensity for evil and control can we prevent it from overwhelming us or taking others captive.
23. Life As A Prey Animal
To what extent do you want to live your life as a prey animal? In this episode, I explore the dangers and benefits of breaking free from the herd, the marked zebra phenomenon, and missing the safety of what you've left behind. Jordan B. Peterson & Warren Smith Interview:https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000679402431Warren Smith Youtube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@SecretScholars
22. The Unlived Life of the Parent
The greatest burden a child must bear is the unlived life of the parent. (Carl Jung)When we as parents (or coaches, mentors, teachers) don't actualize our own potential or hearken to our callings, we have one of the following effects on those following and looking up to us:We live vicariously through them, putting pressure on them to finish our dreams for us. Then, nobody lives their lives, because they're busy aping the ones we were too afraid to live for ourselves. (Who will live your life if you do not?)We suffocate them when we are afraid of them outshining us. Their souls shrivel and the light goes out of their eyes. This is the story of the Oedipal, devouring mother, or the evil stepmother in Tangled. This happens when we aren't actualized ourselves, and our children/students are all way have to ensure we are worth something.In either case, we lose the person we love, because instead of inspiring them into expansion, we either drive them away, or we drive them to dilution and decay, thereby losing them through a thousand silent concessions.
21. Who Will Live Your Life If You Do Not?
From Carl Jung’s The Red Book, page 187
20. We Live in a Pixel
The cumulative effect of small stressors, and how they bring back negative inner narratives. This episode is something I wrote in 2015, when I was working through my eating disorder and just beginning to learn what it means to take care of myself so I could extend care to others. Blog post: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/we-live-in-a-pixelLife is a picture, but you live in a pixel: https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/life-is-picture-but-you-live-in-pixel.htmlHugs being good for our health: http://youtu.be/GW5p8xOVwRo
19. Notes on Jordan B Peterson April 2024
Abel brought his best and got more. Cain didn’t, destroyed his ideal, and was left with less, his lineage becoming murderers.Abraham gave his best, and got it back. He sacrificed his best to what is highest.JBP also was talking about the Pieta, the mother’s crucifixion. The job of the mother being to offer her son (her best, herself) to the world, for it to have its way with him. So doing, our sons become men, able to contend with the brutality and complexity of life.We let go. Completely. Mary’s left hand is raised, perhaps for hope, perhaps to symbolize letting go, perhaps in worship. Jordan Peterson eloquently tied this into becoming friends with one’s adult children. How does one accomplish such a thing? By raising, then releasing them. Jesus Christ operated entirely by invitation, never by force. This is the same way your adult children come back to you as your friends. “The complete abdication of force.” https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/notes-on-jordan-b-peterson-s-april-23-2024-lecture-in-austin-tx
18. Accountability: I Don't Think It Means What You Think It Means (Anymore)
When I see someone dedicated to their craft, I am drawn to their character. When I see someone who’s been willing to buck the status quo of comfort and complacency, delay gratification in any way, alone if need be, I become less afraid of success and the loneliness that I previously perceived would accompany forward momentum.These single-minded growers keep me inspired, by the fact that they are doing it for themselves. I don’t want to miss out on progress, excitement, and new learning.They show me what is possible, and they prove that the common doesn’t have to be the inevitable.The best thing they are doing to create a positive impact on the people around them is to become their best self, spiritually, intellectually, financially, and physically. And that’s not even why they’re doing it!They hold me accountable by their very existence.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/accountability-i-don-t-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means
17. Composure and Confidence
Compose: To put together, construct.Confidence: To have full trustThe etymology of these words reveals why we are so drawn to confidence and composure, and can be found here: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/composure-and-confidenceThese things happen iteratively, laboriously, and always intentionally.
16. On Defibrillation
Love and self control combined?That's power.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/on-defibrillation
15. Self Sufficiency and Interdependence
A spectrum of modes with which to operate in our worlds:Isolation > Self Sufficiency - Dependability - Interdependence > CodependenceHow do we avoid the extremes, build a strong sense of self, and stop feeling at the effect of all of the opinions around us? How do we fortify our own confidence, so we can relate from a place of strength? What is the bridge between the extremes of isolation and codependence?https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/self-sufficiency-and-interdependence
14. Overwhelmed by Beauty
Beauty tells you to be more than you are. Beauty tells you to aspire to that which is beyond you.What bothers you? That’s what calls you forward into who you could be. That’s what calls you forward into participating in the process of setting the world right, and there’s meaning in that.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/overwhelmed-by-beauty
13. Connection > Consumption
Healthy non-sexual physical touch has been banished from proper society. We are the only primates who live this frigidly.Where did the innocence go?Why do we automatically conflate feelings of appreciation, understanding and admiration with a desire to consume or own the person?What if we could love without seizing and grasping at the object of our affections? What if we learned to do that so well that we could give love and true encouragement to everyone we interacted with, while also being able to drink in the inspiration of a beautiful mind, to admire a capable body, to curiously study a vast and intricate soul? What if doing so expanded all of our hearts, emboldening us toward our own personal challenges in the process? Innocently, purely, seeing each other’s value?https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/connection-consumption
12. DisTraction
What are they distracting us from?Dis:The dis prefix is a negative prefix that means “not, or none.”Traction:The force that causes a moving thing to stick to the surface it is moving alongThe power that is used to pull somethingA way of treating broken bones in which a device gently pulls the bones back into placeThe support, interest, etc., that is needed for something to succeed or make progressDistraction:The preclusion and impossibility of stability, grounding, momentum, power, movement, alignment, and progress.......No big deal.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/distraction
11. Fully Alive
I am where I am supposed to be.There is a path set before me, each choice leading to the next, that only I can walk. Only I can play these roles and exert this influence on the quest unique to me. Nothing is wasted.It’s a mandate.It’s a beckoning to come out of the shadows, shake off the fear. To be fully engaged in now, and use the past as fuel to walk boldly into an unfamiliar future.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/fully-alive
10. Friendships and Stoicism
I rarely read books or essays multiple times, but this one was an exception. It’s called Completeness, Self-Sufficiency, and Intimacy in Seneca’s Account of Friendship, written by Carissa Phillips-Garrett.Carissa takes us on an expanding and provoking journey, meandering through many contradictory lenses through which to practice friendship.She explores at length the tension between self sufficiency and intimacy. The question is asked implicitly: What interconnections build a full life?In my view, friendship is drastically neglected in religious and philosophical writings, which usually focus on romantic and familial relationships, as well as how to help those in need.In stoicism, a true friend is someone who “activates our virtue.” The Buddhist idea that “there is no self without the other” is invoked here, as many of our expressions and principles cannot be embodied or enacted without another consciousness with whom to interface.In Seneca’s account of friendship, as explained in this essay, there are three key ingredients to friendship: trust, self-disclosure, and attachment. These ingredients are what make individual relationships unique and irreplaceable.Pondering the ideas in this essay and allowing them to colour the lenses through which I see and experience my own relationships has refined and defined, given a framework to, my beliefs and practices around solitude, reciprocity, sacrifice, and time spent within friendships while maintaining that “full self,” which is central to the stoic philosophy and imperative in a grounded, peaceful life.I would love to hear what you think. The essay is here: https://www.academia.edu/54211894/Completeness_Self_Sufficiency_and_Intimacy_in_Senecas_Account_of_Fhttps://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/anph.2021.0052https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/friendships-and-stoicism
9. Flipping the Script on Dopamine Sourcing
We could live on a constant series of small highs from voluntarily taking on discomforts that make us better. It's not a harder road than the "comfortable" one, once you're on it.Inspired by: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/huberman-lab/id1545953110?i=1000587689256 https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/flipping-the-script-on-dopamine-sourcing
8. Grit is Developed When There is No Escape
When we cannot change our circumstances, we are challenged to change ourselves. - Viktor FranklPerhaps God's plans have more to do with our development, leading to our fulfillment, than they do with our ease.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/grit-is-developed-when-there-is-no-escape
7. Chosen or Needed
Isn't it more of a compliment to be chosen from a place of strength, rather than to be used to fill holes in someone else's life? Wouldn't that mean that those people, those growers, see and accept me as I am, while simultaneously believing enough in my trajectory and potential to know they won't need to leave me. And how do we build the net, in relationships, to catch us when we DO need someone desperately?https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/chosen-or-needed
6. Saying Words
People actually don't know where you stand unless you tell them. What changed my life the most was a combination of love and truth, encouragement to be more than I was birthed out of a place of being accepted and valued exactly where I started. https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/saying-words
5. Conversations Save Lives
Without free speech, there is no clear thinking.https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/the-jordan-b-peterson-podcast/id1184022695?i=1000578074407https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/conversations-save-lives
4. Purpose: To Seek and to Solve
The function of the mind is twofold - to seek, then focus on, and to solve, problems. When it finds neither to do, it drops a level, to chatter. It is actively seeking a problem to solve, a matter to focus on. It will literally create problems because it is not being put to use for a higher purpose, or a problem that matters. https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/chasing-excellence/id1170629044?i=1000561781908https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/purpose-to-focus-and-to-solve
3. Personal Fulfillment and the Will of God
The fact that our deepest needs are God’s most distilled commandments to us and His will for our lives shows me what a loving God he actually is. The very thing He commanded us to do is ALSO the only thing that fulfills US.https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/personal-fulfillment-and-the-will-of-god
2. Changing Someone's Mind
Nobody wants their worldview torn apart if the result is loneliness. - James Clearhttps://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/changing-someone-s-mind
1. Slight Corruption
When Lucifer comes along, he appeals to that innate need of a human to dominate and rule things, and twists it ever so slightly. They had an instinct of curiosity, of dominion and progress and improvement already. He just tapped into that and re-routed it slightly.https://www.christianity.com/theology/theological-faq/how-did-lucifer-fall-and-become-satan-11557519.htmlRead from my blog: https://www.roadlesstraveled.online/post/wanting-the-one-thing-we-cannot-have-adam-eve