Kyle and I were recording the podcast the other day, and before we even got into the conversation, I found myself thinking about how strange everything feels right now.
I had just seen a clip of an AI-generated podcast. Like fully AI. A fake person, with a fake voice, having a conversation that sounded almost real. And for a second, it was impressive, but then immediately after, it felt… unsettling.
I thought, “are we really getting to a place where we’re going to be taking life advice from something that has never actually lived?” This is crazy. It feels fake…. because it is.
And it made me realize how much I’ve been craving something different. I am tired of polish and optimization. I just want something real. Messy. In process. Human.
That’s what this conversation with Kyle was born out of.
We’ve both been in a pretty intense season. He just came off hosting a huge event that took everything out of him mentally, physically, and emotionally. I was finishing parts of my book. We were both building, pushing, creating, and showing up at a high level for a long time.
And at the same time, we were noticing what it was costing us.
Less presence. Less spontaneity. Less of that feeling of being with each other instead of just managing life side by side. Do you know what I’m talking about?
We took a trip to Wimberley for our one-year anniversary, and he asked me a question that I actually think every couple should ask each other:
“What do you want more of in year two?”
And I didn’t have to think about it for very long. I said, “I want more of your mess.”
And I could feel, as I said it, that it landed in him in a way that wasn’t simple.
Because what I was really saying was
I don’t need you to be more impressive.
I don’t need you to do more.
I don’t need you to hold everything perfectly together.
I actually feel closer to you when you don’t.
Kyle is someone who, in a lot of ways, has built his life on precision. Structure. Discipline. Excellence.
And to be clear, that has served him. It’s created success, opportunity, stability. There’s a reason those patterns exist.
But what we started to see, and this is where I think this applies to so many people, is that the same pattern that creates your success can also quietly start to erode the things you care about most if it goes unchecked.
Because at a certain point, it stops being about excellence and starts being about control. And control is almost always about safety.
If everything is done the “right” way, if nothing is out of place, if every variable is accounted for, then maybe nothing unexpected can happen. Maybe nothing can go wrong.
But as we all know, life doesn’t work like that.
It just doesn’t.
You can build the most structured, optimized, dialed-in life imaginable, and something will still come in sideways. Something will still disrupt it. Something will still ask you to respond in a way you didn’t plan for.
So then the question becomes: what happens to you in that moment?
Do you have the capacity to stay open?
Or do you tighten even more?
And then on the other side of that, you have people like me.
I don’t naturally default to that level of structure. I move faster. I trust my instincts. I’ll put something out before it’s perfect. I don’t sit and overanalyze every detail.
That’s been a superpower for me. It’s created momentum in my life. It’s opened doors.
But it also has its own edge.
Because what looks like freedom can also be avoidance. What looks like flow can sometimes be a lack of grounding. What looks like spontaneity can actually be a resistance to constraint.
So we’re not talking about “perfectionism is bad” and “messiness is good.”
We’re talking about two different strategies that both developed for the same reason.
To feel safe.
This is where the conversation got really real for both of us.
Because if you actually zoom out, so much of what we do on a daily basis is not about what we say it’s about.
It’s not really about productivity.
It’s not really about success.
It’s not really about getting things “right.”
It’s about regulating how we feel.
If I can control everything, I don’t have to feel uncertainty.
If I avoid everything, I don’t have to feel pressure.
Different pattern. Same function.
And the problem is, those patterns work… until they don’t.
They give you short-term relief. But long-term, they take you further away from the version of yourself you actually want to be.
They take you further away from connection, intimacy and presence.
One of the things Kyle said that really stuck with me was that he started to notice that his pursuit of building this incredible future—family, foundation, all of it—was actually coming at the cost of the very thing that would make that future meaningful.
Our connection.
And that’s the kind of thing that sneaks up on you.
Because it doesn’t look like failure.
It looks like success.
But it doesn’t feel like it.
So the work we’ve both been in, and honestly, we are very much in it, not on the other side of it, is learning how to expand our range.
Not abandon structure or abandon flow. But build the capacity to move between them.
To be precise when it serves you.
To be loose when life asks for it.
To stay when it’s uncomfortable instead of immediately reaching for the pattern that numbs it out.
I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the context of where the world is going, too.
Because everything is becoming more efficient. More optimized. More refined. And if we’re not careful, we’re going to start confusing polish with truth. We’ll start thinking that something is “better” just because it’s cleaner, faster, more perfect.
But the things that actually move us as humans… are almost never perfect.
They’re the stories where you can feel the person inside of it.
The moments where someone lets you see them in the middle of something.
The parts that aren’t resolved yet.
That’s what creates connection.
That’s what reminds you that you’re not alone.
So if you take anything from this, I don’t want it to be a concept.
I want it to be a question.
What is your pattern when things feel uncertain?
Do you grip tighter?
Or do you disappear?
And what is that pattern protecting you from feeling?
Because that’s where the real work is.
Not fixing the pattern.
Understanding it.
And then, slowly, gently, practicing something different.
If you’re someone who leans toward perfection, try not doing the thing you normally have to do.
Just once.
Let it sit.
See what comes up.
If you’re someone who avoids, try doing the thing you’ve been putting off.
Not perfectly.
Just enough to move it forward.
Notice how your system responds.
This is how we stay human.
By staying in relationship with ourselves while we figure it out, not necessarily by getting it right.
And if you’re in it right now too…good.
So are we.
— Tori
Connect with Me
Stay connected and continue the conversation:
• Instagram: @thetorigordon / @howtostayhumanpod / @kyleaherron
• Website: www.torigordon.com
• Book: ALTAR: Modern Psalms for a New Earth by Tori Gordon
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