What does it take to build a workplace culture where people feel safe, valued, heard, and able to do their best work? In this collaborative episode of Restorative Works! and The Behaviorist, Dr. Claire de Mézerville López is joined by IIRP Instructor and Implementation Coach Jennifer Hiestand and Founding Partner at Work Wisdom, LLC, Sarah Colantonio, for a roundtable conversation about trust as one of the most essential elements of healthy relationships.
Drawing on restorative practices and positive organizational behavior, the conversation explores why trust serves as a foundation for strong workplaces, teams, communities, and relationships. Sarah describes trust as a "comfortable relationship with the unknown," while Jen connects the concept directly to restorative practices' focus on building, sustaining, and repairing relationships. Together, they explore how trust can be cultivated intentionally rather than treated as something abstract or automatic.
The conversation introduces three key drivers of trust: authenticity, logic and reasoning, and empathy. The guests discuss how each contributes to people's willingness to trust one another, and how recognizing where trust breaks down can help leaders and teams address challenges more constructively.
Sarah Colantonio has served as a professor of communication at both Millersville University of Pennsylvania and Penn State University since 2003. Sarah has studied mindfulness since 2004 and participated in training and certifications with Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach. She is also certified in Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Influence Style Indicator (ISI) through Multi-Health Systems, completed training in Equity-Informed Mediation (EIM) through Resolutions Northwest in July 2020, and holds a Master of Science in Communication and a bachelor's degree in psychology. Sarah co-hosts The Behaviorist podcast with Work Wisdom Founder Kedren Crosby, where they share helpful, concrete practices for elevating leaders, teams, and companies to become the best versions of themselves.
Tune in for a thoughtful conversation about workplace trust, restorative practices, positive organizational culture, relational leadership, and the everyday actions that help people build stronger communities.
Transcription
Claire de Mezerville López
Hello and welcome to this collaboration between the podcasts The Behaviorist and Restorative Works! We came together today to share a roundtable discussion with Jen Hiestand and Sarah Colantonio, with me, Claire de Mezerville López, as your host, to explore how to build and support a positive work culture based on trust. Before getting started with introductions, I just wanted to say hello. Sarah, Jen, thank you so much for being here today.
Jen Hiestand
I'm so excited. Thank you.
Claire de Mezerville López
So before getting started, allow us to introduce ourselves to our audience. From the IIRP, we have Jen Hiestand as our guest. And Jen, I'm going to tell our audience a little bit of all the experience that you bring to the table. Jennifer Hiestand is an IIRP instructor and implementation coach. Previously, Jennifer worked with the IIRP model programs, Community Service Foundation, and Buxmont Academy, or CSF/Buxmont. She worked with CSF/Buxmont for over 20 years in various roles. As a school counselor, she provided individual and group counseling for at-risk youth, all of which is informed by the principles of restorative practices. She was integral in implementing motivational interviewing and aggression replacement training in her school settings. Jennifer is well-versed in restorative practices and is committed to implementing them in her personal and family life, and she completed her master's degree at the IIRP Graduate School in 2026. Jen, congratulations. And Sarah, such an honor to share this conversation with you. Let me pass the word to you so you can introduce yourself and this conversation.
Sarah Colantonio
Thank you so much, Claire. Jen, it's really good to see you again. And yes, so my name's Sarah Colantonio. I'm from Work Wisdom. We are based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and we're a firm that focuses on positive organizational behavior. And I think we found that we have some similarities in our focus. So, Work Wisdom, my wife started Work Wisdom back in 2015 but she started this podcast called The Behaviorist that's been going for, I think it started in twenty sixteen. And the focus of The Behaviorist is to provide accessible information about how to have better workplace cultures and emotional intelligence. We're gonna talk about trust and all of those things that that help us get to more joy and meaning in the work that we do. And so, we bring in guests, and I think this is our first crossover collaboration, which is really cool! But the point is that we want tools that people can take away after listening to an episode that they can apply later that day or within that week in the work that they do. And so that's what gets us excited about doing the podcast and keeps us really on the cutting edge of what research is being done and what's coming out. So, I'm really grateful to be here as a representative of Work Wisdom and the podcast The Behaviorist. Thank you for having me.
Claire de Mezerville López
I have been so excited about this possibility and the possibility of us learning together. So, Jen, Sarah, let us start with the questions and Sarah, allow me to start with you. Describing the mission of Work Wisdom and on preparing for this conversation, we talked a lot about trust.
Sarah Colantonio
Uh-huh.
Claire de Mezerville López
How we came to choose the topic of trust as the heart of this conversation.
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah, I'm really curious what Jen thinks about this too. But I believe that we came to talk about it because trust is so foundational. I think if you talk to people who are in pain in their workplaces and there are issues and it feels heavy, oftentimes when you dig, dig, dig, dig, dig down into what's going on, it's usually because there's a lack of trust. So, we can talk about a lot of different things, but usually it comes down to that. And on the other side of the coin, if you talk to people who have a lot of joy and meaning and focus in their work, it's usually because they are trustworthy or they're experiencing trust on their teams. And so, I think it all comes down to trust. I think it's the building blocks for any culture of an organization, for any community, for family, you know, whatever gathering of humans that we have, I think it makes sense that for our first collaboration on this podcast that we would talk about something this important.
Claire de Mezerville López
And Jen and I were talking about how different people might have different definitions for that word. Sarah, what does trust mean in your experience? How is it cultivated, fostered, earned? And what role does trust play in building community?
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah, I think that can get us tripped up a little bit when we talk about trust, but what does it really mean? You know, for some people, I think we know how it feels, right? Jen, do you feel like you know how it feels to trust others? Claire, do you feel like you know how it feels? But to really simplify it, I'm gonna steal the definition from Rachel Botsman. She's a trust fellow. And she says that trust is a comfortable relationship with the unknown. It's a comfortable relationship with the unknown. And I always think about this story that my wife, Kedrin, who started Work Wisdom, always talks about her son when he was a little boy, and they would go to the YWCA or the YMCA to the pool. And he didn't know how to swim, but she would stand in the pool and put her arms out, and he would be on the side, and he would just jump into her arms, into the pool, because he had a comfortable relationship with the unknown. He didn't know how to swim; he didn't know too much about the water, but he knew she would catch him and make sure everything was okay. And so when I think about the definition of trust, it's like, you know, Jen, maybe I don't know how you're gonna do something, but if I trust you, you've got it covered. And so, when you have that kind of relationship with somebody, I feel like there's some comfort there, a comfortable relationship with the unknown. Does anybody have a different definition? What were you gonna say?
Jen Hiestand
I love. Sarah, I just enjoy you so much because of your energy. I just, I love this energy and everything that happens from it. And so, of course, the definition that you gave us, which is so brilliant, has the word relationship in it. And that's the word that always jumps out to me, because with restorative practices, it is the study of building, sustaining, maintaining, and then repairing relationships. So I think it is only so natural that when we got together and we're talking that when we started to boil it down to what is some of that foundation, it comes to this word trust, which is such a heavy word. You talked about, what do I feel? I feel heavy. Like there's so much responsibility, but there's so much hope. It's just this big word. It's like, how do we pin it down? Because there's so many facets to it. So yeah, I think that's what it comes down to is how do we trust one another, these relationship creatures, these social beings, how are we going to interact with one another? And the best interactions come when we do have that belief in one another, belief in ourselves or that trust in one another, right? So, I think it really aligns with what I didn't look up the definition, but I will absolutely I wrote that down because I can agree to so much of what you just said there.
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah, I love the simplicity of it.
Claire de Mezerville López
Yeah and also I think the definition, I agree, it's a beautiful definition: that comfortable relationship with the unknown. I struggle with the unknown; I love control, but I was also thinking, you know, how trust feels... but you really, really know when you are not feeling it. You really, really notice the absence of it, or when you feel that you are not in a space where you can experience trust, and also trust not only in people, but also in processes. And you know how it feels when you don't have it. So that makes me feel very curious about how to build it.
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah. Yeah.
Jen Hiestand
Which I think is one of the things that we talk a lot about and Sarah. You talked about how we wanna have like, what's the explicit thing? What can we do? We know what it feels like, but what can we do? And I think one of the ways in workplaces or in family settings or in any place, any type of situation that you're entering into is to have those conversations about what does this job look like. Well, how do we interact together? I always say that we come together and talk about crafting agreements, like even before we begin, because we're all coming into the space. We don't know each other. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about what we expect from one another, what we hope not to have happen. And usually people want the same thing. Like when it all comes down to it's about being seen, being heard, being valued. But let's be really explicit about it. Let's talk about what does that look like to be seen, heard, and valued. And so, the power of coming up with some of those agreements together so that I can trust. Now, if I have a history or a relationship with you, then yes, like the story that you were talking about, so that it's easier for me to trust you. But when I'm coming into a setting where I don't know, we have no history or anything, or maybe my own past history that I'm bringing in with me, I don't trust people in the similar situation or job role or things of that nature. Then I think it's so important that with all of that, because that's why it's so important for us to talk about how do we want to show up? What can we agree to do to show up in this space? And then that becomes that foundation of how we can build trust, right? So we can either continue to grow and build from that, or if those agreements aren't happening, then let's talk about how we can repair that in order to build. I don't know, what do you think, Sarah, about what I just put into the space?
Sarah Colantonio
I think it's so powerful to have the conversation beforehand so we have some shared understanding. I love that idea of coming up with agreements. I wanted to share too, to even because I think the reason why the building agreement works so well is because it's explicit. We're being really concrete with each other about what trust means. Trust is such an abstract word and an idea that my definition of trust and your definition of trust- how you experience it, how I experience it might be vastly different. And I want to give you an example of how it can it can be even more layered. This comes from the research of Frances Frei and Anne Morriss. They are researchers; actually, I think they're married. They're out of Harvard Business School and have done an extensive amount of research on trust, and they discovered that there are three drivers of trust. There's actually really good TED talk. I don't know, do people still watch TED Talks? They do, right?
Claire de Mezerville López
I think we still do. I think we still do.
Jen Hiestand
I do. Yes. Yes. I don't know if I'm allowed to admit that or not, but I will. Yeah.
Sarah Colantonio
I mean, it's kind of an old one, but so Frances Frei talks about the three drivers of trust. And I want you to think about just for yourself, when you think about these, we call it the trust triangle. If there's one aspect of trust that really resonates with you, but the fact is you need all three. To really trust somebody, you need all three. And so, the first driver of trust is authenticity. Authenticity. Am I experiencing the real you? Or are you experiencing the real me? When we think about how to build trust and how to be trustworthy, we got to think about that, right? So, authenticity. Am I being real here? Or is it some persona that I'm putting on? And same with you. So, if I feel like I'm experiencing the real you, then there's some trust there. That's a driver of trust. The second driver of trust is logic and reasoning, like my ability to my decision-making. Do you trust my judgment? Am I making sound choices? Does my logic follow...
Claire de Mezerville López
Do I seem like a reasonable person?
Jen Hiestand
Right.
Sarah Colantonio
Exactly. Do I seem like a reasonable person? And so, do you trust if I'm gonna make a decision about something or even a prediction about something? You know, do you feel like that makes sense? Like I can believe what Sarah's saying based on what I've seen so far. So if you feel like the person has sound judgment, has even integrity, we feel we're more likely to have trust in their judgment and reasoning. But there's a third one, there's a third driver that's really important, and it's empathy. So, if you believe that I have your best interests at heart, and this is what Frances Frei discovered: if you have all three of those - if you have authenticity and judgment and then empathy where people feel like I have their best interests at heart, so I can trust her. I can listen to what she says. And I know that she's thinking of me when she's moving something forward. And so, what's kind of fascinating, well, first I want to throw it back to you. Is there any of those three that you're just like, boom, yeah, that's really powerful for me? Or do they all feel equally important? I'm curious.
Jen Hiestand
For me, all, again, I feel like sometimes we're saying the same thing, Sarah, but we use different words and language. So, for me, I use the word vulnerability. And that to me is exactly like what you were talking about, that authenticity. So, am I willing to show up in a genuine form? Am I showing up? Am I owning my mistakes? Am I taking responsibility?
Sarah Colantonio
Yes.
Jen Hiestand
Am I also sharing with people how I'm feeling, though, too? So to say, hey, I'm curious or I'm excited. You did that right off the bat. Like Sarah, you come in here and hey, I'm so happy. Claire always opens up the podcast with sharing her own excitement, right? So you're sharing a piece of yourself. for me, I would use the word, that's the word that I would use, vulnerability. They use the word authenticity. And when you talked about empathy, you said that - you said you believe that we have the best interests of others. Recently, I did an activity. We were working with a work group, and they had two different facets. So it was like the tech department and the business department. Each department had great relationships. But collaboratively, there were some... You could just feel the tension. They weren't working together. And so, when it boiled down to what they talked about, we talked about agreements and they came together to have these agreements. They said, when they came up with saying, let's just assume that we each have the best intention, that we're showing up with that. And when you said that believe in that we have the best interests at hand, that's exactly what they were saying. So we're going to assume we have the best intentions, that we believe in one another. Not acting in any malicious way. Let's come in with that belief right from the start in one another, in each of us. Can we agree to that? And so, from there, again, things are gonna happen. There's gonna be mistakes, there's gonna be problems, but yet they understand, coming in, that we're not gonna point fingers and we're not gonna attack the person; we're going to address the problem, and we're gonna separate those two things. So, when you talked about empathy and the way that you defined it, that's what spoke to me, and that's what came to my mind.
Claire de Mezerville López
And what makes me curious about this is because I truly believe that empathy is the core, I mean, of understanding that we're seeing each other as people and we're being people before tasks, and your wellbeing is more important than a bullet point on my checklist. I mean, your dignity as a human goes before that. But I can also understand that maybe we might have conflicts regarding our priorities, or we might have different perspectives on how to solve a problem or on defining what's going to be more important in situations with conflicting resources. Or maybe we just, you know, kind of appreciate each other, be empathetic with each other, but not really like each other that much, as sometimes happens in the workplace. So, I'm very curious about what you're saying about how these values can sustain trust even in those difficult situations. Sarah, I'm very curious about the work that The Behaviorist has been doing and Work Wisdom is doing, and how the principles that you mentioned sustain that building of trust in leadership.
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah, I think I that that's a really important question because we do have to work together. And it's a bonus if there is a great deal of rapport and real connection, but that's not always possible. And I think that understanding the dimensions of trust, the drivers of trust can be really key because we can behave our way into being trustworthy even if we're not best friends. And I think, you know, that it gets more complicated the more people on the team and maybe how priorities are shifting. And so, an example of what we might do, you know, I've worked with leaders who have an, and this is a term that Frances Frei came up with, with those three drivers of trust, which is that every single one of us have a wobble. Every single one of us, we have a wobble out of those three, which means that if you think about the last time you lost trust with somebody, that might have been your wobble. It might have been the one that you're just not as adept at. So, you know, some of us might empathy just comes really naturally and we don't have a problem behaving our way into empathy because we know what to do. We know how to show empathy; we know how to center the person before the thing. But I will tell you, I work with a lot of leaders who empathy is not the highest priority. Why? Because they have a board. Why? Because they have maybe shareholders. Why? Because they have like all these things that they have to do. So maybe they're prioritizing other things. Maybe they're prioritizing the task, or maybe they're prioritizing the goal. And so what we can do, especially with this particular framework, is we can get a little more granular into what is the problem. Like where are we, Jen, just like you were talking about, like digging into why those two groups were not getting along.
Sarah Colantonio
Yes, they had different priorities, and they needed to understand what they were, but they had to kind of come to the one agreement, which is we have each other's best interests here. And they could agree on that. But if I have leaders who are maybe in conflict, if I can diagnose in talking with them where the issue of trust is, then we don't call it what you're talking about, Jen, coming to the agreements. But that's basically what we do. We can say, okay, this is where my wobble is, and this is what I can do to tighten that wobble. And the other leader can say, this is where my wobble is, and I can do the work to tighten my wobble. They can talk that out. It's so much more effective than just saying, I don't trust you. If somebody tells you they don't trust you, it's like a punch in the face. And then you don't really know what to do about it. But if we can have the conversation, I feel like you've got an empathy wobble. I don't know if you have my best interests at heart. You keep pushing this program that we've got to get done all the time. And so what can happen so that I can have a sense of trust with the that aspect of empathy or authenticity or even logic and reasoning. So that's how we know how to deal with the problem and we know where the issue of trust is. And at Work Wisdom, we do a lot of one-on-one coaching, or we do co-leadership coaching. And so I will say the difference with Work Wisdom and The Behaviorist is we will kind of workshop ideas on The Behaviorist or we'll share wisdom that we know so that people have at least a little bit of some of the internal work that we do if they, you know, if they don't come to Work Wisdom. So, The Behaviorist is a great way to talk about some of these concepts that can be really illuminating. If we're talking about trust and the drivers of trust, it helps us get a little bit deeper into the conversation. So I'm hoping anyone listening to this is like, my gosh, breaking down the three drivers of trust and that all of us has a wobble, maybe that's gonna be helpful enough. But I've often found that coaching people through those conversations can be helpful too, just because, and Jen, you probably had this experience too, it can be so tense. The lack of trust is, I mean, people want it desperately and sometimes depending on the type of person you are if the person has lost your trust, you're like I'm done you, you know, you've given up and you're not willing to go forward but sometimes if we can demystify it and have some different labels to it that are a little more descriptive, then we know what we're working with. That was a very long way to answer your question, Claire.
Claire de Mezerville López
But it makes a lot of sense because it's about uncomfortable conversations and how do you open the space and how you create a situation to have those very uncomfortable conversations that maybe you're not so eager to have. Jen, what has been your experience?
Jen Hiestand
Well, so again, what everything that Sarah says, I'm like, I know that this is, what I call it. And this is what I call it. And so for me, when getting ready to have an uncomfortable situation, I'm first going to name it for myself. So first comes me taking a look at myself. So even to say I'm really uncomfortable with what's happening right now. And then also getting curious to ask others. So, what happened that you feel like I lost that trust? What did I do? What happened? Right. So yes, I'm going to own my own piece, my own feelings, how I'm sitting in that moment, and also get really curious and ask those affective questions. So being well, we use affective language, sharing how we're showing up, and then also inviting somebody else to share: let me hear your story. Let me hear your perspective. I want to understand what's happening for you. We're really good at labeling everything, right? But what does that label actually mean? What are you trying to say? I really want to understand you, which goes back to what you were saying as far as trust. Like, really want to believe that you believe in me. I want to understand what exactly is happening here. So we ask. So for me, I ask a lot of affective questions, like what happened? What were you thinking? What's going on for you? How are you impacted? But then also having the space for me to share how I'm showing up too. Cause if I only ever ask somebody else questions, my kids taught me, then I become like the polite interrogator. And then I get the eye rolls and it's almost like I'm asking something for them, right? And so, I have to be willing to show up in that same space and share, this is how I understand the situation. This is my perspective. This is how I'm coming to this. And this is where I'd like to go, right? So, I also need to be vulnerable or authentic in order to say, this is what's happening for me. This is what my goal is. This is what my thoughts are.
Claire de Mezerville López
Yeah.
Jen Hiestand
What do you think, right? And so, we use the word engagement. So how do I want to engage with others to hear their perspective, because I only have my own. I only have my own story, my own head. And so I want to hear from others so that I can expand my view, turn my lens a little bit and get a full picture of what's happening there.
Claire de Mezerville López
And you know what I love is how you reflect those affective questions as a framework to become authentic, to be reasonable, to experience and share empathy. Jen, Sarah, I would really love to hear a little bit more of real-life stories and experiences doing this work and experiences that bring you joy or hope.
Jen Hiestand
So, I have a story that I'll share that, and it just was by happenstance. And it just really illustrated to me the power of relationships and the ripple effect. It starts with work, but then it really impacts all of our lives, and then vice versa as well. And so, it wasn't anything by my own doing. I was traveling. I get really curious, and I was with two other gentlemen who were sitting there, and it struck up a conversation with them. The question's always, "What do you do for work?" Or, "What are you doing here?" And so, I come to find out that they work in demolition. They actually would blow up bridges. And then they made the joke that, yes, they have a blast doing their job. So, they're working with these explosives to demolish bridges, so then people can come in and rebuild them. Pretty intense stuff. Talk about the need of safety. And so, these two gentlemen started talking about their job. And then somehow the one gentleman said, I just recently married. And I asked, what's that like for you? Like you travel, you're on the road all the time. What's that like? You know, you're newly married. And so, he started to tell the story about how his wife recently had a new job, and the CEO, the very first day she walks into this big building, the CEO is there to shake her hand and says, "Hi, let's go play ping pong." And she was totally caught off guard. What do you mean, ping pong? He's like, yeah, we're gonna go play ping pong. And then his buddy goes, yeah, and guess how long do you think that they play ping pong? And I'm like, I don't know, like a half an hour. Two hours. They played ping pong for two hours, he said, and then afterwards he took her out to lunch, and he explained a little bit of his rationale. Now he was like the boss's, boss's boss, right? Like very high up. So, it wasn't like a direct report or anything like that. But he said, listen, it's really important for me that you know who I am because in order for you to do your job well, you need to feel that you are safe and secure here so that if anything were to come up, you can talk to people about what's happening. Because if you're not your best self, then the company can't function at its best.
And so that was the message. And I was like, wow, that's so cool. And I got chills and I was like, that's such a great story. Thank you for sharing that. And I said, so how does that impact you? And I turned it back to the gentleman who was saying the newlywed and his buddy said, well, I can tell you how it impacts me. And I'm like, yeah. He said, I don't have to worry that my buddy isn't in the right headspace because he knows his wife has a great employment. That is taking care of our work. When he's traveling, he's in the right headspace that "I don't have to worry about my wife. I care about her, I miss her, of course, but she's okay. So, I can be centered." And he can work. And he goes, and for me, that is something I need. I need to know that my buddy is okay and his head is in the right space as we work with these explosives together. Couldn't make that story up if I tried. That's the power. That's what we're talking about here. The ripple effect that these two gentlemen are telling me this, the stranger, this story, but the power and the ripple effect of trust, right? You know, this is funny, but it was mind-blowing, right? That story. I I will never forget it.
Claire de Mezerville López
What I love about this story, Jen, is that recently we did an article about the relational intelligence in the era of AI.
Sarah Colantonio
I think it's super great.
Claire de Mezerville López
And one of the things that we were mentioning was that we spend a significant amount of time of our lives in our workplace, and that has an impact not only on us but on our communities. So that I think that illustrates that beautifully. Sarah?
Sarah Colantonio
I was just gonna say that it speaks so much to culture of organization and how if you can have a culture of trust. And we know the research supports those stories that companies and organizations that have trust, they are much happier organizations. They have much happier people in them. They have people call off less. Their productivity is better, all of the things, like everything's more effective and efficient, but there's so much more meaning and joy in the work that you do. And so, and it what I love about it is that it doesn't, you know, I think about the mission or like the meaning of the work that you do. And it doesn't, it really doesn't matter. Like if you can find that sort of thing, like the value or whatever it is to connect to. How beautiful is that? Shawn Achor, who is a positive psychologist, talks about an example of two different organizations. One was a company that was like a pest control company, and the other one was like a financial like, a bank or something like that. And he said he went and spoke to both leaders in both organizations. And guess who had the better culture and the more positivity? It was the pest control company. They had decided that even though they didn't make as much money, they had decided that what they wanted to do, it was not about pest control as much as every interaction that they had with a client. They wanted that client or potential client to walk away feeling positive. And so that meant in moments, because it was a door-to-door, you know, they needed to gain trust right away. And so being positive and not salesy and like all of that was really key. And I love that so much. I think it's so important to think about no matter what you're doing, you can find the relationship, you can find the meaning, you can find the connection. And, you know, I was thinking about different stories too and just the some of the events that I've been able to go to and how I even got connected with this podcast was the Lehigh Valley Chamber event. And I have to say that going into a place where I didn't know anyone, like I didn't know anyone. I don't even... it was wild how they even found me. The positivity, the warmth, the welcomeness, and even afterwards, people coming up and being so positive. I I feel like in a time where, you know, people are stressed about AI and there seems to be a lack of trust, to have an open heart, please. Because if I hadn't said yes to that event, I would have missed out. I would have missed out on like so much genuine care that basically, I mean, like I said, we're based in Lancaster, like you're our neighbors, Lehigh Valley was our neighbors. And I would have missed out. I would have missed out on that connection. And so trust is something, it doesn't have to be really nebulous. It can be infused in our communities, in our cultures, so we all can be a part of it. And it's such a wonderful thing. It is so hopeful. Which we need; we need hope. We need it as much as possible.
Jen Hiestand
Sarah, I just recently heard that, too, and I wish I had written it down, but so I don't even know if this is true, if it was in a book I was reading on the beach or if it was in an article, but it was said that anxiety is the lack of trust. So whoever had written it. And I thought that that was really interesting, right? And so we do want to, for me, how I interpreted that was that we do want to feel that trust. We want to feel that connection within ourselves or with others or within the community or within our environment. And for me, it's like that sense of belonging. I want to feel like I have a place, I have a spot here. And when we don't feel that, it is so detrimental that it is what causes more of the pain, that lack of connection. So, I don't know, that was just something that came to mind as you were talking there.
Claire de Mezerville López
And I love that because it speaks about the need of strengthening community. Because if we go back, trust as being comfortable going into the unknown and just walking with an open heart, I'm going to keep those two ideas going around in my head. I think the only way to be able to do that, to jump into the pool, is if you know that there are other people that are around.
Jen Hiestand
Mm.
Claire de Mezerville López
And I think we need to build community for that in the workplace and in any other spaces. As we get close to wrapping up, Sarah, Jen, any final thoughts you would like to share?
Sarah Colantonio
Jen, you go first.
Jen Hiestand
Well, I'm very sad to hear that our time is coming to an end. I feel like I could spend hours and hours and hours talking to both of you. I really appreciate both of your energy, wisdom, and your knowledge. I've truly learned so much from both of you. And so that it is scary whether that authenticity, that vulnerability, that going into the unknown, that is scary. It's high stakes, right? Like, my gosh, I might get hurt or I might get, it might be bad and I might get burned. And yes, that is so real and that is so valid. And sometimes that is going to happen. However, if we don't push ourselves past that, then what do we miss out on, right? And so, yes, it's scary, but I think that's why it is so worth the while to take those big risks. And we can talk about it. Like, so when that harm happens and when we do get hurt, there's all the same things that we do to build those communities. It's the same thing that we can do to come back and talk about that harm, that harm, and we can learn from it. I mean, I think about so many times that I've learned the most from my failures, and yet I am still afraid of failing. And yet when I fail, that's when I have learned the biggest life lessons for myself so I can become bigger and better. I don't know, Sarah, what are you thinking?
Sarah Colantonio
I well, I think you might have just tapped into the next podcast topic, which is about courage, because I it's so funny that you're saying this, because I was thinking my final thought is around like having some comfort with the discomfort, being willing to do the thing, to kind of stumble a little bit, because it is true. Like we don't get stronger when things go smoothly. The smooth sailing is great, and it's fun, and you can relax and appreciate it, but we don't grow and learn. We don't, we don't even forge closer connection when things are super duper smooth. So if we can have some openness, some courage to face the unknown, the things that are really scary, goodness, we don't even know like the things that that will open up for us. And it does, I think, forge even tighter communities when we get through those tough times together and we can, you know, sit back and be like, remember, remember that time. So I will second Jen's admonition to have some openness and curiosity about the pain because it's inevitable, isn't it? Like these things are. Life is hard in a lot of ways, but there's so much goodness that's right there for us if we're scanning the environment for what is positive and what's open and where we can find other trustworthy humans out there in the world. I think you're right, Jen, it's totally worth it. It's worth the hunt.
Claire de Mezerville López
We're living in times of anxiety, and we need to invest in building trusting relationships. And I'm looking forward to that courage conversation. Jen, Sarah, I hope you start marking your calendars. Thank you so much to both of you for being on the podcast today.
Jen Hiestand
Thank you, Claire, too.
Sarah Colantonio
Yeah, thank you. Thank you both for doing this; it's always really fun. Time really did fly, and I forgot to ask you, Jen, about mutual accountability. So, we gotta talk about that as well at some point. But yes, thank you so much, and I can't wait! I hope this is helpful for our listeners as well.
Claire de Mezerville López
I hope it's the first of many conversations to come. And I want to thank you all for listening to us, for tuning into this shared episode. To learn more about Restorative Works!, log on to IIRP.edu, and to learn more about The Behaviorist, visit workwisdomllc.com. And let's continue to build transformation through dignifying relationships, civil discourse, and stronger educational communities. Until our next episode!