SPEAKER_01 0:03

Universally personal. Have you ever walked into a room and felt a little too self-conscious about how you look or maybe even who you are in that setting? Well, you don't have to answer that, but today's guest on Universally Personal reveals how she dispenses with those exhausting internal mind gymnastics to remain completely or at least mostly centered. Our guest is Lacey Nice. Lacey is multi-talented, multilingual, and an incredibly warm and energetic human. But while her kindness and sociability take center stage, they sometimes overshadow her incredible depth and stability. We're going to get a real glimpse of that today. I'm your host, Greg Allen. Let's get started with Lacey on Staying Centered.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

So I think the best thing that I can do to feel like myself is just to say what I think and to let that just be that. Universally personal. I think that just saying my thoughts out loud when I think them or like labeling my feelings when I feel them keeps me centered. I don't do a lot of kind of worrying about what that looks like or what that seems like to somebody else, and I really never have. I mean, I just I think how I think and I'll tell you. The thing that throws me the furthest away from myself is when I am put in a situation where that can't be the case, and I try to get myself out of that situation as soon as possible. Saying my thoughts out loud when I think them or like labeling my feelings when I feel them keeps me centered. Throughout the entirety of my life, been uh at times a problem. I would say more so for my parents in childhood than it is a problem for me in adulthood because I just say the way something hits me is just kind of how it hits me, and then I'll let you know how it hits me when it does, you know. And so I don't really feel too far from myself at any point in time as long as I'm just able to communicate, you know, given the audience to communicate how I feel, and if I'm not given that audience, then uh tend to create it for myself, I guess you could say. But yeah, I think that's just how I stay centered, is just like to be forthright about where I am. Forthright about where I am. I don't really feel too far from myself at any point in time. Saying my thoughts out loud when I think them or like labeling my feelings when I feel them keeps me centered. You know, to get centered. I don't think I do very much. I feel and always have, in general, pretty connected to myself. I mean, call it what you want. Labeling my feelings when I feel them keeps me centered. In an employment context, it once caused a bit of a stink because we were being asked to do something that I didn't feel like was ethical and it was a just kind of a departmental thing. And I mean, I drafted a very lengthy email and copied all levels of management and sent it off and had a meeting with the COO scheduled shortly after that. Being asked to do something that I didn't feel like was ethical. Well, I'll just say that I still worked there. My manager and in fact her direct manager also left not long after that. So yeah, it is just is what it is. Just because you're telling me that that's what needs to happen doesn't mean that that is what needs to happen. Um, and I'm not impossible to work with, you know. I mean, it's only been in that employment-wise, in that one context, but I mean, there are just some things that are just it's just a no for me. Saying my thoughts out loud when I think them or like labeling my feelings when I feel them keeps me centered. But beyond that, just in in work, in life, in whatever it is, I'm often not telling somebody else what they need to do and don't really have a lot of interest in doing that. Like I said, as long as it doesn't feel like you're, you know, kind of infringing on somebody else's well-being or mine. Yeah, I just do me and say my piece. You can do what you want with that.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Speaking your truth feels amazing, but it also gives you a front row seat to just how differently everyone else's brains work. It's a beautiful thing until you run into people who think their way is the only way. Lacey offers a brilliant solution to that exact frustration when she answers the ultimate question: what do you think everyone needs to hear?

SPEAKER_00 6:19

I think, oh goodness. I mean, right now, in the current state of the world, I think something everyone needs to hear is you're not a center of the universe. Universe personal. I think that there are so many silos of thought right now, and your experiences inform your thoughts and your opinions and your perceptions, but there has to be space to see that yours can be equally true, but that there are others who had different experiences that informed different thoughts that led them to have different beliefs. There are others who had different experiences. And you don't have to compromise yours to accept, acknowledge, understand, and give even credence to the fact that somebody else has that same, same but different. Like that drives me funkers. And I think that there's just not a lot of comprehension that it can be both and. You know, you can have lived this way, you can think these things, but you've got to be able to see how this person might have lived that way, which led them to think this thing. There's just not a lot of comprehension that it can be both and. You are, right?

unknown 8:12

There are others who had different experiences.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

There's got to be some sort of acknowledgement of that, and even to open your mind up to kind of follow that course with them to understand how they got to that position and to be willing to open and modify your own on that basis. Because you can say, Oh, I only saw this, I only knew of this, I've only had this perspective. But now that you're saying that that's yours, then I can see how you would feel that way. And if I lived that existence, I would probably feel that way too. And I think there's not a lot of that going on right now. If I lived that existence, I would probably feel that way too. You're not the center of the universe. And yet simultaneously, you are. But then it doesn't negate also what you came to believe or what you thought, but maybe knowing that there are other thoughts out there that you could open your own up to that. You're not the center of the universe, and yet simultaneously, you are. Because sometimes to exercise your own autonomy, you are stepping on someone else's. That to me is the line. But there has to be space to see that yours can be equally true, but that there are others who had different experiences.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

When the noise gets too loud, we all need a safe harbor to return to.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

There's nothing that we can't figure out, and I have that assuredness, and it doesn't mean that when we figure it out, it's gonna be fixed or that it's gonna be good, but it's gonna be okay, and I think that that's enough, you know. It's gonna be okay. So I think with my interest like in foster care and things like that, that that's part of it is that we do just have I'm very thankful for and am consciously aware of kind of the family unit that we have, and it almost seems selfish not to bring others into that, you know, because I think my gosh, when you think of how differently things in the world could look if everyone had that assuredness that things would be okay. That I I wish for everyone that they do have that, you know. My gosh, when you think of how differently things in the world could look if everyone had that. Assuredness that things would be okay. I wish for everyone that they do have that, you know. Assuredness that things would be okay. I wouldn't say that we really have a lot of forgiving that we do. Just because it's more of we're all consciously aware of the fact that we just have this unit and that there's a sense of security inherent to that family unit. So, not to say that there aren't annoyances or spats, but we don't really do conflict so much, I would say. It's kind of just like one or the other of us will call my mom or her mom or what have you and gripe about someone who's annoyed us in the family, and with the full expectation that the other person that we're griping about also will be calling them to gripe about one of us. And they will take kind of a Switzerland position, and then we'll all see each other in a couple weeks, you know. And then one of us will say something. I mean, you know, I'll snip at my brother or what have you, and and then we move right on along. That there's nothing that's that big of a deal in an argument that's gonna jeopardize like the underlying kind of foundation of the family unit. When you think of how differently things in the world could look if everyone had that assuredness that things would be okay. Yeah, I'm never not gonna say what made me irritated, but I'm also not gonna expect anything of it. I'm just telling you so that you know that you irritated me. Um, because I need that. And I'm not expecting anything of you because if you had been concerned with what I thought about it, you probably wouldn't have done the thing that annoyed me to begin with. So I don't need you to change anything. I'm just gonna tell you it irritated me. Yeah. When you think of how differently things in the world could look if everyone had that assuredness that things would be okay. It's hard for me to even grasp what that must do to a psyche, you know? And I am aware of that. Like I think about that sometimes, just the ways in which in which that must motivate people to act, kind of with reckless abandon. I can't blame anyone who doesn't have and never has had that sense of security for the way in which they might comport themselves in life because it just kind of feels like you're living with a skateboard underneath you that like it constantly could go awry. And that's gotta make you a little bit, you know, like engage your core a little bit to live your whole life that way. I do think that life resilience is definitely from the fact that I do have just this very nuclear family unit.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Engaging my core to stay centered? Really? I just think I'll lean on the people who love me. Whether that's our given family or our chosen family, like Ashley talked about back in episode seven. Lacey, thank you so much for giving us all something to think about today, and for just being yourself. It's a perfect reminder for the rest of us. Just be yourself and allow others the grace to do the same. Until next time, be fit, stay sharp, and listen closely.