How Releasing the Need to Be Right Can Heal Co-Dependency and Shame

Hi, I'm Dr. Zoe, host of Stronger in the Difficult Places. Today we are talking about how curiosity, not certainty, makes relationships last. My guest is Stephanie Ruper. She's an Oxford-trained philosopher and former Harvard researcher whose forthcoming book, The Certainty Cure, shows how trading certainty for curiosity transforms our lives. So I'm super excited to talk about this. I've been talking a lot about this idea of How the things we think we know, most of which they're just not true, actually sabotage us in our lives. So I'm excited to have this conversation with Stephanie. Get ready to talk about how all the things you think you know probably aren't true. Tune in. Stephanie, I am so excited to talk to you today. I, I don't talk to a lot of academics, although I do talk to a lot of writers. And so I just love to, to vibe with people in a slightly different space. So welcome.

Thank you. You know, I was, I was in academia for a very long time, and I've studied at many universities. I left on purpose because, you know, I always thought that that's where I needed to be to live the life of the mind.

Yes.

And then realized that that wasn't true at all. So yeah, so I like to think that I sit at that intersection. I try to honor, I try to honor all the worlds.

Today, so I want to know, because you've had such a rich academic and personal journey from Oxford-trained philosopher to author of The Certainty Cure, which is coming out, and we're going to talk about that. What drew you to study certainty? And what made you realize that our attachment to certainty is actually, or could actually be a problem?

There's a lot there.

Yeah, big question.

I think the foundational moment for me Was actually in high school. I remember riding in the backseat of my mom's SUV and having my world explode when I realized that there were 8 billion— then 7, now 8 billion people on this planet, and the full 8 billion think they're right about everything.

I say that so much. I wrote that about that in my book, Stronger in the Difficult Places, is that idea. And this is how it affects relationships. We all think that the way we think is the right way, all 8 billion of us, and we can't all possibly be right, which means—

Yeah. And I, I gotta say, like, for me, the real beauty of relationship,

yeah,

deep intimate relationship, romantic relationship, friendship, is how it forces me to get outside of myself. Because if I want a healthy relationship, that means For me, doing everything I can to understand that they have their thing.

Right.

And to give them benefit of the doubt, right? Give them benefit of the doubt because— and that personal relationship thing we're talking about, understanding them, for me, in The Certainty Cure, in my work in general, applies to all people, right? Rare exceptions aside, everybody out here doing their best.

Yes, right.

Everybody out here doing their best. And so when there's conflict, when there's friction, you know, I mean, people can have malicious intent, and it's important to boundary against that. But aside from that, conflict, friction, these are just points where we have opportunities to get curious about what's going on for you and what's going on for me. This is a sign that something important is happening to me. So I can get curious about that. And then I can learn. And then hopefully, we can move together more helpfully.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I love that word curious. And curiosity is so hard to have when you are offended, right? When you're sitting in this place of offense, We do not go to curiosity, we go to defense. And yet I do want to invite the woman listening to start to explore what that would look like. And curiosity doesn't mean we are rationalizing behavior, doesn't mean we're accepting bad behavior, but it does mean that if we can understand that our partner has had a different life experience. If we look at him or her from the moment they were born with the temperament they were given all the way up until this moment, all the things that they have done, all the ways that they see the world make complete sense, even if they are completely opposite of our own, right?

Yeah, exactly. And it's, it's literally, Like, it's some of the hardest stuff we can do because it is literally impossible to get outside our own experiences.

Yeah.

And so, you know, there's, there's a lot of, um, it's a lot of really interesting ways to talk around that. Like, some people say you should try to have fellow feeling and let your feelings connect with their feelings and try to understand what they're going through. But there's also this cognitive level, like you were talking about, trying to look at all of the different Experiences they've gone through and make sense of it intellectually. And I think that that's when harmonizing those things is really important, right? Like understanding that we can use our minds and we can use our feelings. Like they're not separate things. When we're trying to be curious about other people, we want to use our hearts and our minds, I suppose.

Yeah, I love that. I want to talk about The Certainty Cure, but first I want to talk about What we're kind of talking around here is that I love what you said when you said we cannot get out of our experience. And so I'm thinking of a woman who may have some codependency, who may be struggling in, in a difficult relationship and trying to figure out, how do I know the line between boundary and curiosity? Like, when should I be applying boundary and when should I be applying curiosity? Or maybe it's not a— Yeah. Either or, but can you talk a little bit about that?

So when you're talking about codependency, you mean boundary like against you know it's something I like to think about is that we think about boundaries as often as like a barrier against an external thing. But to me, the the real boundaries, the difficult ones to honor, are the ones we have to draw on ourselves.

Amen. I think that that is all that boundaries are are rules that we create for ourselves. It is not a rule we create for someone else.

Yeah. And I think, I mean, these things can shift, right? But it's a matter of, I always orient towards health.

Right.

What do I think is healthy for me? And it, I had some real issues being a radical overgiver and having some codependency in terms of relationships where we're like outcompeting each other for who can give the most kind of stuff, you know? And I had a partner 10 years ago, just, he was like, stop, stop, you need to— and it didn't, it didn't make sense to me for a very long time that I was creating anxiety for myself by trying to anticipate this person's needs and thinking that I needed to do all of these certain things. Right. And so boundaries that I ended up having to create was to say, Within myself, like, I, I will not check my messages after 10 PM.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and, and some of the boundaries are very vague, like, I, I don't want to overextend myself for people. But for me, it's often been very helpful to be really concrete. I will not check my messages after 10 PM, right? Or I will not, I will not respond to somebody motivated by fear. I think a lot of what I did in my life was interact with people out of a fear that I was going to lose them.

Yeah.

Right? Oh, I have to, or I'm going to hurt them. I'm going to offend them. I'm going to offend God or something like I'm going to hurt somebody if I don't just give everything I have all the time. And I had a boundary against myself and finding practical ways to do that really helped me mold that. And one thing that really helped me do that was telling myself, we have to be the change that we want to see in the world. And if I want other people to have healthy boundaries, I got to be that example. I got to be that change. And so it's a really funny kind of workaround because it was for other people.

Yes.

With other people. But, but it helped me get into that habit of setting that, you know, and I really do believe that orienting towards healthiness— what is healthy for me, what is a healthy relationship— is ideal. And then if stuff comes our way that isn't healthy, we can identify it immediately and be like, sorry, no, I don't do this. Both of us. Because a poor healthy— like a relationship that's in poor health is bad for both people.

Yes, absolutely right. If one part of the relationship is unhealthy, both parts are. So I think about it as, um, I will not abandon myself.

Hmm.

Right? What does self-abandonment look like? And often when we are experiencing these codependent relationships, we're trying to control other people's behavior, and we are abandoning ourselves in the process to try to make them happy so that when we feel happy, so that we feel good. Um, so, okay, that, that was good. That was good talking about the difference kind of between Boundaries and, um, what was the question I asked? Boundaries and

curiosity,

right? Like, curiosity. Yeah.

I will say you mentioned, um, what did you just say? Self-abandonment. You know, I think it was— has been so hard for me to, in my past, not abandon myself because I was so lonely. And out of my loneliness, like, I didn't want to be abandoned,

right? Yeah,

by anybody. But I was willing to abandon myself if it was going to win me the companionship of somebody else.

Yeah. Yeah.

And, you know, I, I think that that's— I think we're social beings, you know? So I think it's really important, like, you don't want to be alone in yourself, but I think also building really healthy friendship networks family relationships, you know, having a diverse pool of different kinds of relationships can— it was very important for me, helping me stop self-abandoning by just feeling held in community more of the time.

Yeah, yeah, that is so good. So let's talk about The Certainty Cure. It's a very enticing title. Is there a cure?

Yes.

Okay.

I do. It's really funny because I've been working in the health space for 15 years now. It's a side business to my doctoral studies. And anyway, the language of cure is very tricky. It's very tricky. It's very complicated. And in fact, in my book, I use the phrase certainty addiction, which is also, you know, another one of

those. Yeah.

Also. Um, appropriation of hard language. But I also— yeah, yeah, yeah. I also— I actually believe certainty addiction is clearly not a classical addiction, and it's clearly not— it doesn't have the same kind of power as substances, you

know.

But I talk about it as an addiction because I believe that our attachment to certainty is driven by the same thing.

Yep.

Pain and fear. And, um, I think that we cling to our beliefs.

Yeah.

We run towards certitude because it feels safe. Um, something that I actually don't talk about in the book that's coming out in November because it's like a little bit more advanced philosophically, and I was trying to just keep the book simple, is, is, is my thought that we cling to the beliefs that we've had so far because they've worked so far. And I mean worked, it doesn't mean they were good for us. Right. You know, I think a lot of the quote-unquote unhealthy or negative beliefs and scripts that we adopt over time have a survival function. We adopt them because we think they're helping us Stay safe. I mean, that's to me where things like codependency come from, right? Somehow we learned this is a relationship pattern that's going to keep us safe. So anyway, I think all of our beliefs are like this. We sort of formed them at some point,

right?

They worked, kept us safe, they helped give us feelings of identity and belonging with the people who shared the groups. And then our world— I mean, today everybody's, everybody's in a huge panic about how unsafe our world is today, okay? And so we, we, we, we cling.

Right.

We entrench and narrow and with the— under the illusion that this is going to keep us safe. But it's, to me, it's doing the opposite.

Yeah.

Because what's actually going to help us be safe is remaining curious and open to exploring new ideas and engaging other people as if they mean well and seeing what happens. So long as we're pondering against, you know, harmful behavior.

Yeah.

And that's really the crux of all of it. And, you know, I have experience working in health and philosophy and spirituality and across all these different domains. It's just over and over and over again, consistently releasing our certainty, cultivating an attitude of curiosity unlocks growth, you know, and ultimately can feel scary at first, But becomes the safest thing.

Yeah.

Because then you're sitting in a space of, well, it's okay if I'm wrong. It's okay if I don't have all the answers today. I'm gonna keep going. And I'm just gonna keep going. And eventually, I'm gonna put together the pieces. I'm gonna figure it out, you know? So I think, I don't know, I think it's, I think it's a really chill way to be.

It is. It's a very free way to be. And I love that. It's okay if I'm wrong. It's okay if I don't have all the answers. And especially growing up in kind of a classic fundamental Christian home, there was, whether overtly or subtly, there was the message that you don't question. And that questioning in and of itself is a demonstration of a deficit, a lack of faith, all of these things. And, um, I think what I learned, what I had to learn and didn't learn until adulthood, was it is in fact the questioning and seeking and curiosity and coming to my own understanding that strengthens my beliefs, right? Because my beliefs aren't tied to a fear, like, I must believe this because— instead, it's, I believe this because I've done my own searching and come to this stance. Um, I think that that was really solid what you just said. And I don't want to get off into a tangent because I know we're talking about relationships. So if we talk like using all of that information, all of that language, how do we apply this practically in relationships when we have disagreements? When I have a partner who has grown up so differently than I am and sees the world so differently. And when I want to get offended, if he and I don't see the same on something. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, like, I just like a quick example. Yeah. When I was 20, um, I'm an INTJ if people are into personality typing or whatever. Very organized and like on time. Relentlessly, persistently. I'm not anymore because I realized other people aren't, so I just stopped. I used to always be really on time, and I had this friend who was chronically late.

Yes,

and

I would be that friend, just so you know.

And at first I was like, she doesn't love me, she doesn't respect me, she doesn't care about me.

Yes, yes, all the meaning, right?

And then, and then, like, but I was actually learning about, like, personality types, understanding different ways of being in the world that I thought, oh, she just has a different relationship with time. It's not me, it's time she's got an issue with. And, and so I'm not saying everybody needs to go, you know, take any of the variant of personality tests that exist. I don't think that would hurt, probably. Yeah. But, um, I think really in a conversation and an interaction, When I start to feel uncomfortable and my partner does the same— oh, he's so— he's just lovely. My partner does the same. I like— if I— sometimes I know why, sometimes I don't know why.

Oh, that's good. Yeah.

And I might— and my partner actually, so for him, he often doesn't know why

and

I think, you know, he was raised in a context, wasn't supposed to be in touch with his emotions, you know, be a man, don't be in touch with your emotions.

Right.

Um, it took him until his 40s to get into therapy, and he's like, I have feelings and can articulate them. Yeah, um, 2 therapists, very cool. Um, and so, but so what happens for him is a feeling of discomfort or unsafety arises, and he doesn't quite know why. And then so something we might do is be like, pause. I'm not feeling great about this. Let's try to unpack it together, or let's set it aside. I'm going to go think about it. And then we'll join back up and we can, we can, we can discuss what's happening for me right now. Right? Because—

Right.

When I'm, when I feel uncomfortable, it's because I feel unsafe. Generally, I think. And That's really important to honor and try to work around. And sometimes, I mean, sometimes in a conversation things can get super duper unsafe and every, you know, you start, then you're activated and then you start being defensive and offensive. You're throwing insults, you're receiving insults, like you're just hurting.

Yes.

At that point. And that's a nice point to pause and be like, let's de-escalate. We can maybe do that together, but maybe we can't do that together. So you go over there. I'm gonna go over here, just gonna like calm down, and then, and then we can talk about it. We can apologize for any hurt that we've, you know, and then talk about what was happening for us and use that as an opportunity to learn more about each other. You know, I think, you know, sometimes again, I'm hurt. I'm like, you didn't say this, or you didn't show up in this way. But then I learned something about his childhood or what he was It's like, okay, cool. And then we can make a plan that navigates between our differences, you know? Oh, okay. Like you, it's really important for you to hear from me after this kind of incident. I'll make sure that I text you. I wouldn't have done that naturally, but I'm going to do it now. And I'm like, I'd like 2 emojis. He's like, cool, 2 emojis. I mean, that, that degree of specificity is okay. You know, um, those are my thoughts. What are your thoughts?

No, I think those are, those are great thoughts. And what I find is that, and Which is why I love your word curiosity and love the fact that when it comes to certainty, your answer is curiosity, really, because I think that's what we have to do. So when I think of my relationships, whether it's with my children, whether it's with my partner, when we come to that crossroad where, oh, we think differently about this, or, oh, I'm offended now, officially offended, We want to, we want to blame. We want to make global statements about the other part, whether we're doing it internally, just like you did with your friend. Oh, she— you've decided already all about how she feels and what she thinks about you based on her, you know, being late, chronically late. And so we create these statements that we're sure about, about these people, and then we're then offended about the statements. As opposed to, and this is what I try in a practice, is saying, okay, let me understand. And sometimes I say this to my partner, sometimes I say this to my children, and sometimes I just say this to myself. Sometimes I need to take that pause, like you said, and go, okay, let me, let me get curious about what their experience might have been in that moment. And I, you know, I love what you said about how you cannot take yourself out of, of your, you know, experiences or existence. But there is that place of empathy, I think, is that space where we can try. And even in the trying, I think we get somewhere because then we begin to almost put themselves in our place or put ourselves in their place, however you want to look at it. And we can begin to have some level of understanding, even if it's just accepting that we can't fully understand, if that makes sense.

Yeah, it really does. And something that's really powerful for me is Like the longer-term stories I tell about who this person is, right? So I like, I have old stories of he doesn't care, he's inattentive, whatever, whatever. And I, when I have moments of hurt, I go back to the old stories.

Right. Yeah.

And, and, and then I'm, if we're not in contact or we're not, you know, doing that, it's like I, I have all of this narrative telling I can do. We can all tell the stories of ourselves and our relationships. Like, the power of interpretation lies within us.

Yeah.

And I think it's very difficult, you know, the way that we tell stories ebbs and flows based on like whether it's cloudy outside, you know, or had breakfast, or if I had a fight with my mom or my boss or whatever. Like, there's, there's all these different influences, and if I'm feeling negative I'm going to lean into negative stories. And I need— I often, I do a lot of checking myself. I do a lot of checking myself because I have this instinctive, you know, I know I have had some friends who have been— had like a really powerful intuition. And often in life that has served them so well. But then they have an experience with their partner and they have an instinctive reaction. Right. And it's like, this is the way this story goes. And I'm making this a part of the big story of us. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa,

whoa,

whoa, whoa. And something that I actually like to do is I keep a long list of data, like concrete things that have happened in my relationship that talk down the narratives that I'm inclined to tell, right? Like I have stories that I learned in my childhood, like love is going to be unavailable, right? Like father, whatever male figure is always going to be unavailable. I'm never going to whatever, never going to this. People are always going to abandon me. These are the stories I run to. And I have a Notes app, like I have a huge document in my Notes app where I list all of the examples of how my partner has not abandoned me when I could have been abandoned.

So good.

And so when I start telling those stories of, oh, I'm going to be abandoned, I invite myself to go to get curious about whether that's actually true.

Yes.

Or if it's cloudy outside or You know, I ate too much tofu because, and then my estrogen, whatever, you know. I'm like, get curious about how true this is and, and look at, look at the data that you have, um, and try, you know, to, to tell an honest story. Of course, like, sometimes we're, we're convincing ourselves that things are sunnier than they actually are, right? Yeah. So there's all different kinds of ways that we You know, mold the narrative.

The story. Yes.

And so I just, for me, it's just really important to stay curious about, like, with myself, how true is this? Is this the narrative I wanna be telling right now?

Mm-hmm. I love that. And I read somewhere in your work about kind of holding truth lightly. And in my work, both as just a human in my relationships, right? But also as a therapist and as a writer, Especially for us writers, because we write things and we put them down on paper and then we publish them and they are like sealed in ink somewhere, right? And I know that can be really scary because often by the time our writing gets published a year or, you know, 2 later, we may already think differently than that book that we wrote. Um, and, you know, I work with a lot of writers and this isn't a writing podcast, but We, we get so attached to this certainty of, I must think this way, and if I think this way now, I must continue to think this way, and I must think this way about my spouse or my partner, and if I do, I must continue, almost to the point where it's like, I've always done it, so I have to continue. And I'm trying to think of what my point is here. It's about holding things lightly, right? Which means that we can have truths, and I think it's important for us to really stand on a truth that we have in this moment because it matters, especially if it's something we're fighting for, something that we think is really valuable in the world. And yet also recognize that there could come a time where this thing that I believe so strongly and am fighting for, that someone or some information is given to me and I could change my thought about that. But for right now, this is how I feel, and it's okay to stand strongly in that. And then we have to be able to hold that for the other person too. I don't know if that makes sense.

It does. Um, a contrast. So I like to, I like to think of all of my beliefs. There are my beliefs and their hypotheses, and I always want to revise them. And I don't— I think of it not as abandoning them. But what I invite people to do is not to try to be correct per se, but try to broaden and deepen understanding.

Hmm.

And so if I have a belief, I want more understanding around it. I want to learn more about what's related over here on the edges. If I can go deep with that, I want to learn more. And if that— so for me, learning more around a belief Honors it.

Mm-hmm.

And then if I end up moving away from it with time, that's awesome, because all what I'm— the highest thing I want to honor is truth. And I sort of see all my beliefs as— the metaphor I use is a lily pad. So I'm a frog on a lily pad, and I like it, I can stand on it, but I'm looking around for another lily pad. You know, and, and I'll hop to the next one. And so I'm able to stand, but it's light. I'm not— I haven't built a castle. I'm not shooting arrows from those little slit windows way up on the castle. Right. Yeah.

Yeah.

Like, because that's a lot of what we do when we create a certainty. We erect these walls and we're like, this is it.

Walls, moats, all kinds of things. Yes.

Exactly. And there's the, there's the knight, you know, going back and forth on the drawbridge. But, um, but I prefer to think of it— I'm just, I'm in a rest. I'm on a belief.

Yeah.

But how can I honor truth? I can stand on this belief but also stay open to how I can learn more. And, and, and to me, changing that That is super cool. Um, it kind of blows my mind, speaking of writers, you know, in, um, philosophy. Yeah, we look at a— we look at a philosopher in the past and they've written, say, 20 books, Kierkegaard or whatever, 30 books, millions and millions of words, and everybody talks about this writer like this is what they thought the whole time. I'm like,

no. Yeah,

do people not change their ideas over 50 years?

I hope they have.

You know, something, something that's Really, when I was, yeah, when I was, um, I ran the book that I'm about to publish through a couple of AI services to get their thoughts. And one of them was like, wait, so you're saying that all beliefs should be held really lightly and like hypotheses, and yet you're publishing this book asserting that it's true? Yeah. And I'm like, yo, I don't think I'm not exempt from this. Yeah, this book is a hypothesis. And like, I'm just— yeah. And I think it's, it's great. Like, we have to believe things.

Yes.

And so what I do is just, I offer the best I have in this moment. This book is the best I have in this moment. I don't think it's perfectly true. It's on the way. That's the thing I invite people to be with truth. On the way, on the way.

That is—

it makes sense to me. I don't know.

Yeah,

maybe it doesn't make sense to other people, but that's fine,

right? It is fine, and it does make sense to me too. And I just invite our listeners, um, because I know in many ways, you know, what we're talking about is kind of philosophical, but it applies directly to your relationship because if you can keep that stance of curiosity, right, in your relationship, then you guys will be able to grow together. I often say that one of the biggest issues we have in relationships is we expect people to be who they aren't. And that's because we are applying our sense of truth and certainty onto them, and we want them to conform to us and not be who they are. And so if we can work more on becoming curious about who they are, then That truly changes everything. So go ahead, Stephanie.

Speaking of people being who they are, yes, you know, um, and applying this to real life, I like to, I like to think about the difference between like who somebody is and, and, and how we, how we are, right? And so like if, if you and your partner stay curious You said you can grow together. Like, that, that's a journey that never ends. And so whoever somebody is today, right, if you together decide that you're gonna create a relationship that's based on curiosity and openness, then there's this great adventure, right? Mm-hmm. Where, where you're, you're always learning and exploring. Um, and, and, you know, you don't, you don't know where you're gonna end up. But I think, I think that that's really cool. And it adds a dynamism, you know, an open-hearted dynamism where things, you know, generally speaking, I think can always kind of be getting better or more intimate or like whatever. Generally speaking, we all go through tough times, you know. Absolutely. But I, but I like that, you know, cuz we're all, we're all on the way. Right. You know, you do that together. Who knows? Okay.

That's beautiful. I love that. So for someone who buys your book, The Certainty Cure, what can they expect to get out of that?

Um, the salvation of democracy and relationships and their physical and spiritual health. Okay. So,

so let's put that in a little bit more of layman's terms.

Concrete terms. Yeah. So, um, I am— if you could give me any kind of title, it would be philosopher, right? I have studied, like, the books of truth. Um, but I've always been deeply concerned with health and all these different domains of life that I've been working in. I just realized over and over and over again, the answer is release certainty, cultivate curiosity. And so that's kind of the umbrella of what I offer to people. This book focuses mostly on personal relationships, the benefit of curiosity for personal relationships. And I started with The Salvation of Democracy because the book is— the subtitle is Heal Polarization and Grow in an Age of Addiction to Being Right.

I love that.

And I decided, I decided to publish this book with this polarization angle because I mean, I think our society could, could, could use a little bit of this perspective, you know, and we're all aware that there's a lot of political tension in our world. Um, but like, what do we do about it? I, I haven't seen a lot of resources that invite people to take a look inside themselves and think, how, how are my emotional needs for certainty?

Yes.

Obstructing my relationships. And so the book opens with an anecdote about me and my father, because I was raised in a very Republican household. You know, Dad and I would ride around in the car listening to Rush Limbaugh radio and being like, get them feminists, you know? Yeah. And then I went off to college and I came back and I was picking fights with him. The family was gonna fall apart. And then I was like, oh, the problem's not Dad. The problem is me.

Hmm.

Because I went away and came back and decided I needed to change him and stopped respecting him and listening to him. And so I decided to relax, to stop trying to change him, relax my need to dominate and force my family to be what I thought it should be. Just like was with people. offered my perspective kindly, listened, asked good questions. And wouldn't you know it, you know, but we started having great conversations. I began to learn from my dad again. I realized he had valuable perspective.

Wow.

And I think, I mean, this happens in romantic relationships too, in friendships. You know, I really— the book is just a lot about like, what is the role that your beliefs have? Like, how are your beliefs and your attachment to your beliefs Getting in your way of feeling connected with other people. And I, I actually, I suspect that a large proportion of people are walking around the world feeling unsafe all the time because, oh my goodness, what if somebody disagrees with me in this space?

Yeah. And what does that mean about our relationship and me and us? Yes.

Yeah. And, and, you know, I mean, you go, you go out in the world and you see a signal that somebody might like, quote unquote, be on the other side. They're wearing a mask or they're not. They're wearing this color or they're not. They're wearing a rainbow or they're— like all these different things. You know, when we leap to conclusions and we sort of, we have this almost warlike mentality in a lot of our communities, church groups, schools, work, like everything is just really charged. And what I'm just trying to invite people into is Acknowledgement that other people are doing and thinking their best.

Yeah.

And this thing that you've been talking about, about getting curious, you know, you're stuck in your own perspective, getting curious about the other person. There's a reason, you know, a lot of people think their views aren't humane.

Right, right. Yeah.

But I invite softening around that a little bit because to them, they are.

Yeah.

You know, most people aren't trying to be inhumane, I don't think. So there's a lot of like broad social strokes there. Um, but when my— one of my dear friends read the book, she was like, this is so impactful for my marriage.

Yeah.

Because I'm softening around this. I, I'm learning to accept that I don't have all the answers. And a lot of what I do is provide people with reasons to think that's a cool thing.

Mm-hmm.

Like, it's awesome. I'm so excited that I don't have all the answers. What a relief.

Yes. Yes. What a relief. Now I don't have to hold, spend so much energy holding onto this because it's possible that it's not even true. Stephanie, wow. Thank you so much for this conversation and just sharing your wisdom and, and your perspective with us. How can people find your books? How can they find you?

Um, so you can just search The Certainty Cure if you'd like. Um, on all the social media, it's just my name, Stephanie Ruper. It's easy to find because it's Stephanie like Stefani, like Gwen Stefani. You can find me in, you know, in, in your show's show notes, I'm sure.

Yeah, I'll add it to the show notes.

Yeah, I— the place where I'm most active, I'm on Instagram, but I really am enjoying Substack these days. Oh,

I love Substack. Yeah.

Substack is just people like, there's ideas.

Yeah. Yeah. People are having meaningful conversations.

Seems to be more than anywhere where that's happening. So I've got a Substack. It's called Truth on the Way. Um,

okay, great.

Oh yeah. Come say hi.

I will come say hi. I think I'm already following you, but I will.

You are following me on Instagram.

Oh yeah. On Instagram. I know I found your Substack as well. So thank you. Thank you so much for coming on today and we wish you the best with, with The Certainty Cure.

Thank you. Thank you so much too.