78: Valerie Livesay, Inviting Our Full Selves into the Light

"It is an incredibly scary thing to do to face into the parts of self that we seek to deny, that we felt like we had obliterated. And to recognize that they live within us still is really frightening. And it can be painful to re-encounter them and there can be so much incredible loss in seeing the self that is full and whole and imperfect. And there are such beautiful gifts to be found from exploring our fallback." — Valerie Livesay The growth we undergo as adults isn't always expansive. Stressful times can make us shrink. Adult development theorists call this shrinkage 'fallback'. Writer Valerie Livesay illuminates in this episode how cultivating a willingness to confront the fear, pain, and loss of coming to know and embrace every aspect of ourselves has informed her research and experience of fallback. Pandemic Companions episode in which Valerie defines fallback