What is a Good Life? #172
What If It Were Easy? with Dr Myriam Hadnes
Hello and welcome to What is a Good Life? A project exploring the big questions around how we live and what actually matters.
This week, I’m reflecting on my conversation with Dr Myriam Hadnes - behavioural economist, facilitator, and host of the Unprofessionalism podcast. It is a beautiful exchange around communication, courage, and what it means to feel truly accepted.
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Take care, Mark
1. My Weekly Reflection
There is a really telling moment in this interview.
Myriam is at a radical honesty workshop with her partner, and it is now her turn to share what she finds annoying about her. When she gets it all out, she is surprised by how well her partner takes it. Her partner even considers some of what Myriam is saying to be understandable.
I don’t think we have any idea as to how resilient we are and how relieving it is to be met with someone else’s truth.
Even if it can be jarring to hear at first, how it generally tends to soothe my nervous system after my initial reaction relaxes. Our truths don’t need to align or agree, they simply need to be true and to be heard.
The absence of this honesty continually keeps us at arm’s length.
I once interviewed a filmmaker, Nic Askew, who said this about attention:
“If you’re going to give someone your attention, why wouldn’t you just give them your full and undivided attention. How would you hope to ever know someone if you didn’t give that?”
Much later in the interview with Myriam, she touched on a beautiful moment where she felt totally accepted and seen for who she is. A moment of unconditional love from another as she was judging herself.
How could we ever expect to be accepted by another if we keep so much hidden?
And it is a continual process as we are always becoming.
It won’t always be smooth but it feels very worth it to me. Life will continually offer us these moments to tend to whether it is on a retreat or in the everyday.
A few years back, my wife and I were walking to the park with our dog and we were getting a bit pissy with each other.
We’d had an argument where I felt she hasn’t taken any accountability and she observes that my reaction to that is too much. She tells me what I call a lack of accountability is simply how her brain works differently to mine.
True.
She then folds me over with a one-liner:
“With all you write and the work you do with yourself and others, you talk about people being themselves and acceptance. I am just being me.”
I have nothing to say for a moment as we have come to a halt. What she said is undeniably true. That she’s been consistent on this front since we met, it is part of who she is.
I then tell her that when I respond with anything other than roses and butterflies, I don’t feel like I am being accepted for who I am.
She smiled and nodded and she took my hand as we walked on.
The patterns continue in some ways but the tensions never quite feel the same.
I had a conversation last week in which someone shared with me the etymology of courage. It was not about some brave and heroic deeds, but revealing and sharing what feels true to our hearts.
2. This Week’s Questions
What feels true to your heart that you would be better off for sharing it?
In any situation it may apply to, what would you do if you weren’t afraid?
Thanks for reading What is a Good Life?
3. Weekly Clip From The Podcast
4. Full Episode - What If It Were Easy? with Dr Myriam Hadnes - What is a Good Life? #172
Listen to or watch the full conversation with Dr Myriam Hadnes below.
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About Me
I am a writer, facilitator, and podcast host, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed over 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.