Welcome to The Daily Ascent. I'm Molly Carmel, and this is the podcast I always wish existed, a bite-sized, on-the-ground spiritual note that can shift your thinking and your outlook on life, to make us all a little more awake, alive, and ascending. So today I want to talk about something that happened that showed me, again and again, how old wounds can show up even when our values are completely clear, and it's clear what the right thing to do is. So my oldest friend in the world, Jenny, called me to let me know that our high school friend, Jackie's husband's father, had passed away.
It's a long line, but it really, really matters, right, and that there was going to be a Shiva, which is a Jewish gathering after somebody dies. And Jenny asked if I wanted to go to the Shiva with her, and I should say, Jackie is someone who I'm pretty good friends with. You know, I talked to her a few times a year, I'm thrilled to see her anytime I do. She's not in my inner inner circle, but she's someone that I love deeply, and I've known and loved since I was probably like eight years old.
So in that vein, I also want to say, as I talk about a lot here on The Daily Ascent, that old habits die hard, and a little backstory. I was a fat kid in middle school, elementary school, high school, and you know, didn't have hair product yet. So I had this really unruly curly hair, and I always felt like I was kind of like hustling and striving to be with the cool kids, and Jackie and Jenny are the cool kids. And of course, over the years, I've become really good friends with them, and you know, on and off friends as a ghost through your twenties and thirties and forties.
But when I realized that some of my high school friends had been invited to the Shiva, and I actually wasn't on the invite list. I was sort of on the B list because Jenny was inviting me. My first reaction was to say to Jen, like, I wasn't invited. So why would I go if I'm not invited?
And Jen's father died two summers ago, and let me tell you something about Jen. She is a solid person on a bad day. But I think when her father died and she saw the outpouring of people around her during that event, it changed something and solidified something even deeper inside of her. And so she was really, really clear and really firm that I was going to the Shiva with her.
And she said to me, Molly, the last thing that people need when someone dies is worrying about who was invited or not. Like, you love Jackie. Jackie loves you. This is what we need to be doing in this world.
We need to be showing up for each other. It's all that matters, which let me make it clearer, senders is literally aligned with every single value that I have. So it was just this really old part of me, you know, this little sweet fat girl who was left out and bullied and whatever. She just showed up so big trying to protect me, you know, she didn't want me to be humiliated again or be left out again.
Jenny said very clearly to me, mall, we're going to this because this is the best thing to do. People remember when you show up and these are the kinds of things that we want to show up to. And I need to tell you, it like, it like got me so straight so quickly and I thought my God, I am so lucky to have friends like this. And I can tell you not to say like Shiva's and funerals are fun because we're grieving, but we're also connecting and we're doing what is actually the human thing we do when sadness and tragedy happens.
We gather. And so I want to say I went to the Shiva, you know, with fresh cones in hand and I had the most heart expanding and heartwarming time. I saw friends from my childhood and friends from high school. I hadn't seen in years.
I got to catch up with people. I got to see Jackie's parents. I got to see Jackie's grown kids who I really only get to see on Instagram. It was, it was just, I wouldn't say it's lovely, but I would say it was really, really heartwarming.
And the Shiva was called to end at four p.m. And Jenny and I ended up staying till about five, you know, we were sort of the last ones at the Shiva party because it was just, it was such a, it was such a heart expanding event. And that brings me to today's pocket stage. It's from Kate Bowler's book, No Cure for Being Human.
It doesn't have a great title, No Cure for Being Human. And Kate Bowler's a professor and an author and she just writes so beautifully about grief and loss and what it means to show up for each other. And so she writes, there is no way to stop the brutal fact that people we love will suffer and die. But there is a way to show up, to sit in the uncertainty and the pain and say, I'm here.
You don't have to earn my presence. You don't have to perform gratitude. I'm just here because you matter to me. Showing up is the most ordinary and most sacred thing we can do.
Let me reread that beauty for those of you in the back. There is no way to stop the brutal fact that people we love will suffer and die. But there is a way to show up, to sit in the uncertainty and the pain and say, I'm here. You don't have to earn my presence.
You don't have to perform gratitude. I'm just here because you matter to me. Showing up is the most ordinary and most sacred thing we can do. You know, what really lands for me in that passage is you don't have to earn my presence because that's kind of what I was doing or at least that young part of me was doing, making it about whether I was invited instead of just showing up because Jackie matters to me.
And so our word of the day today is two words. You know, sometimes I love a two word of the day showing up, showing up. And showing up is not about being invited, sweet little Molly. It's not about whether you're in the inner circle or on the list.
Showing up is about setting aside your own stuff, your insecurities, your old wounds, your plans, your needs to be included and just being there because somebody needs you. And showing up is what turns community from an idea into a beautiful lived experience. And showing up is not always comfortable. It's not always convenient, right?
And sometimes like for me, it requires pushing past old stories of not being wanted or not belonging. But showing up is how we love each other in real time. And let me tell you, pushing past my stories was like doing 15 years of therapy in one action. And when we can show up for each other in real time, we can really start to build the kind of world where people don't grieve alone, where people know they matter and friends, ascenders, if we don't need this right now, I don't know when we need this.
So here's what the shit that taught me. Old wounds don't just disappear because we've done the work or because we know better. They still show up. I talk about this all the time on daily ascent.
And they show up even when our values are completely crystal clear about what the right thing to do is, I mean, I know deeply that showing up for people matters and I know that grief needs community. And I know that Jackie loves me and I know that I love her, but that little 12 year old version of me who wasn't in the cool kid circle, you know, she also still lives in here somewhere. And when she heard that you weren't on the invite list, she panicked and that's human, you know, that's just humans being human, right? And so I don't think the work is to make these old wounds disappear or shame them or anything in between.
So it's just recognizing when they show up and choosing to act from your values, instead of from your trauma. And I really want to say like, when you act through old beliefs, or at least when I acted through old beliefs and I acted into the beliefs that I want to have, again, it was like 10 years of 10 years of therapy, one action. And, you know, going to that Shiva, even though that insecure part of me was like, you're not invited. That's really the action created the shift.
And, you know, Jenny gave me such a great gift in that moment because she didn't shame me for my reaction. She didn't make me feel bad about my insecurity. She just made it really clear of who I am and who I want to be in this world. And I am someone who shows up.
I know that about myself. And I am someone who doesn't let old stories about belonging keep me from being present for people I love. And you know, Jen was right. People do remember when you show up, Jackie couldn't have been more touched than I was there, honestly, being there matters.
And you know, I'm really glad that Jenny pushed me and I'm so glad I got to see Jackie and her family and all of my childhood friends because honestly, like that is what we're here to do. We are here to gather when things are hard, we're here to show up when people are grieving and we're here, most of all, and I say this to myself and to you, to set aside our own stuff long enough to be present. So your reflective question of the day, where in your life are old wounds or insecurities keeping you from showing up for someone and what would it look like to set those aside and just be there anyway? It's a good one.
And listen, I am right here with you asenders learning to show up even when the sweet little seventh grade girl tries to keep me small. We rise together. Until next time.