Trust as a Practice: Lessons from the Experts, with Charles Feltman and Ila Edgar

What if trust wasn’t just a feeling, but a set of skills you could build, repair, and strengthen - on purpose? 

In this special episode of Practicing Connection, hosts Jessica Beckendorf and Coral Owen sit down with Charles Feltman, author of The Thin Book of Trust, and Ila Edgar, founder of Big Change Inc. and co-hosts of the Trust on Purpose podcast. Together, they explore what it really means to build, maintain, and repair trust - at work, at home, and in our communities.

Charles and Ila share the four domains of trust - Competence, Sincerity, Reliability, and Care - and explain how these domains transform trust from a fuzzy concept into something you can intentionally practice every day. 

Through real-world stories and practical advice, they reveal why trust is never binary, why conversations about trust matter, and how high-trust environments unlock resilience, collaboration, and innovation.

Whether you’re a leader, a team member, or simply someone who wants stronger relationships, this episode will give you actionable tools and mindsets to help you become a masterful trust-builder. 

Plus, discover personal practices for resilience and connection, and learn how to start flexing your trust “muscle” today.

Links and resources from this episode:

Trust on Purpose podcast

Ila Edgar, Big Change Inc.

Charles Feltman, Insight Coaching

The Thin Book of Trust (Third edition), by Charles Feltman

Transcript

JESSICA BECKENDORF: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the Practicing Connection Podcast. I'm Jessica Beckendorf.

CORAL OWEN: And I'm Coral Owen. In this episode, we'll be talking about trust with our guest, Ila Edgar of Big Change, Inc., and Charles Felman of Insight Coaching. Their podcast, Trust on Purpose, helps individuals become intentional about building, maintaining, and repairing trust in all areas of life, from the workplace to personal relationships.

Through insightful conversations and real world examples, they explore what strengthens or damages trust, offering practical tools to help listeners become masterful trust builders so that their relationships can truly flourish.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That is beautiful. I'm gonna start by just saying, Coral, that I am so excited for our guest today.

First, Charles Feltman serves people who seek to grow themselves into the best leaders they can be for themselves, their teams, and companies. And after over 25 years as an executive and leadership coach, he has had the privilege of working with many outstanding leaders and [00:01:00] leadership teams worldwide. Charles is also the author of The Thin Book of Trust, an Essential Primer for Building Trust at Work.

Now in its third edition, which is really one of my personal favorite resources, I have three copies here that I have lent out to people. I have told people to buy the book. It's really truly one of my personal favorite resources. He has a number of impressive sounding certifications related to his work, but what is really important to him is that he is a certified husband, father, and grandfather. 

Ila Ecker is the founder of Big Change Inc., where she helps leaders and teams build trust, strengthen connections, and do good work together. With over 25 years of experience, Ila focuses on developing trust, building skills, while understanding the crucial role distrust plays in relationships.

Guided by her values of generosity, connection, irreverence, and learning, Ila invites vulnerability, courage, and the human side of leadership into her [00:02:00] work. A sought after keynote speaker and experiential facilitator, she specializes in designing behavior change and creating lasting results. And on top of all of that, she's a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, and great aunt, as well as a friend, colleague, and proud mom to her son, who has been one of her greatest teachers. Ila and Charles, welcome to the Practicing Connection Podcast. Thanks so much for joining our conversation.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Thank you Jessica. That was a great introduction from both of you. Thank you very much. I feel like a better person than I thought I was when I started this. Looking forward to the conversation very much.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Me too. 

ILA EDGAR: Thank you for having us. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Excellent. Well, we're gonna get right to the heart of what you guys are great at. And I wanna know what first inspired each of you to focus on trust and has your perspective on trust changed over time.

CHARLES FELTMAN: I think I first encountered the power of trust when I was an undergraduate at university and got roped [00:03:00] into getting trained and being a community mediator in the town and the community where I lived, and learned very quickly that trust was absolutely essential for effective mediation.

Two or more parties that are very upset with each other and not communicating well and not trusting each other, the first thing I would have to do is build trust with each of them in the sense that they needed to trust that I was not going to be partial to one party or another, that I was gonna treat everyone the same.

Once that trust was built, then I had the job of helping them build trust with each other. So that they could at least have enough trust to create an agreement that would last, that they could all sign onto and and work with. So that was pretty early on. There were large gaps in my thinking about trust over the years after that.

But when I started being [00:04:00] a coach, when I started serving my clients in a capacity as a coach, that's when I began to really hear again this need for trust. My clients came to me and they were saying, you know, “I don't trust so and so,” or, “I don't trust this, or I don't trust that person, and it's a real problem for me.”

And so suddenly I was back in, oh my gosh, these people are struggling. They're suffering because they don't know how to build trust, and maintain it or repair it when it's broken. And I had learned a kind of a framework for doing that or helping people do that in the coach training program that I attended to become a certified coach.

So I started using that, probably around 2000 or so, started using it with my clients, and it was pretty effective since then. Actually not long after I started using it, I noticed that there was, for me anyway, a piece missing, so I added to it. And then I also created a definition for [00:05:00] trust that seemed to be really valuable and useful for my clients.

And perspective change. I don't think I've had a perspective changed so much as I've broadened my perspective of how dynamic trust can be and trust building can be. And I've gone from, you know, what's the value of having one-on-one trust with another person to, being someone who can create an environment where other people or various people in that environment, members of a team, or people in even an organization as a whole can more easily trust each other.

So creating a kind of a culture in which trust is something that people pay attention to. So I'll just stop there and let Ila jump in, because I'm sure she has some, well, I know she has an interesting story here to tell as well,

ILA EDGAR: I’m a little bit different, and I say this with so much love and kindness to my younger self, but I literally bumped around life naively not having a clue [00:06:00] or any intention or a purview about what trust was.

I knew the word linguistically, but I had no idea what it meant. I had no idea how to navigate it, and in the home that I grew up in, it certainly wasn't anything that was ever taught, spoke about, modeled at all. And so, yeah, I think I just, I bumped around in life and figured things out, “Oh, that works, and that doesn't work.”

And then when I took my coach training, which would've been 2010, I was introduced to the model that Charles is referring to and that he's now built on to. Within, I don't know, like minutes of understanding this framework, suddenly trust made so much sense to me. It was like the heavens opened, the angels saying, and it was like, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense now.

And I could understand where not only my own relationship with trust was, but it really helped me start to navigate this isn't how everyone trusts. [00:07:00] And how do I wanna be more intentional about it? How do I wanna live this in my life in a way that's practical skill-based, right? That just made such a big difference for me.

Huge. It's Charles's, it's Charles's fault.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Well, I'm actually envious of Ila and the angels singing and, and as heavens opening up 'cause you know, never quite had that experience. I certainly had the experience of bumbling around not understanding how to build trust. In my years in working in organizations in Silicon Valley, I had made plenty of errors along those lines.

So, yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: You know where the heavens open for me in this trust work, and I've seen it, maybe not the heavens open, but I've seen massive realizations occur on people's faces when I've done, and I believe I got this exercise from your book Charles, and that was asking people to think about somebody that they trust and describe them.

Right? “Let's throw out some adjectives. How would you describe this person [00:08:00] you really trust? And then think about somebody that you haven't trusted and throw out some words there,” which, there were some pretty colorful words that come out, right, when people described that, and then I mentioned to them, “Well, no wonder we don't talk about this.”

And their eyes just are like, oh. I'm like, okay, we gotta learn how to talk about this with each other.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Yes. And actually that's a huge piece of, I know what both Ila and I do in our work is help people have conversations about trust that allow them to build it and strengthen it and repair it. And the framework that we use really goes a long way in aiding and abetting that,

CORAL OWEN: Hmm.

That is so, so true that when you give folks a framework or language to talk about it, it becomes more tangible and can make some of these really kind of nebulous things. It brings them closer into our view and to be able to hold that and [00:09:00] then work with it, it's a lot more malleable like clay. And so I love what y'all do in, you know, giving folks this language and this framework, and I would love if we could just briefly name and define the domains of trust that y'all help folks dig into, just so our audience could better understand what we're gonna be talking about today. Ila, could you kick us off and help with that?

ILA EDGAR: For sure, for sure. So the four distinct domains are competency, sincerity, reliability, and my personal favorite, care. And the most important, yes. And the most important.

CHARLES FELTMAN: We should talk about what we mean by each of those four assessment domains. What are we talking about in each one of those?

You can get something from the word, but I think there's more to it than that.

ILA EDGAR: My description is a little, uh, rogue and a little - 

CHARLES FELTMAN: That's fine. That's great. That's, I love it. I love your [00:10:00] reverence. 

ILA EDGAR: So competence is, do you have the skills? Education, knowledge, resources, experience to do the task you've been given or the task you've accepted.

So you can absolutely trust me to have a conversation about trust with you today. But don't trust me to cut your hair, pull your tooth, fix a car, fly a plane, cook a rack of lamb and a whole boatload of other things I don't know how to do. Why would you trust me? I love starting with that one in particular, because in that first domain we see that trust isn't an on or off.

It's not that I either do trust you or I don't trust you, but we start to understand, oh, there's different criteria, different ways to assess trust.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Which I'll just tag on and say, in the domain of competence, standards really are important because you can probably pick five, well, any, all four of us actually, and we could pick a particular competency or a skill and we'd each have a slightly different standard for what is competence in that [00:11:00] skill. So having a shared standard is where people begin to be able to talk about trust and create trust. 

ILA EDGAR: Mm-hmm. Thank you for adding that. So sincerity, the way I describe it is, does your external dialogue match your internal dialogue? So is there congruence between what you're thinking and what you're saying? 

And what I typically point to right away is a criminal, or a “dirty yes.” And we're all guilty of it where we're saying yes out loud, but we're already looking for an exit strategy that, “How the heck do I get out of what I just said yes to?”

And we think that we hide that. But honestly, in the relationship and whoever we're saying this dirty yes to is like, they may not be able to point to it or corral as you're saying. They may not have the language around it, but they sense something's adrift. Or we sense when individuals are like, “Yeah, sure, I [00:12:00] get that for you.”

So there's a felt sense, which is where I connect into our vagus nerve, right? All of that super juicy information that comes from our vagus nerve up to our brain and informs us. So I think that's where sincerity is really important to pay attention to. And if we tie in the topic of psychological safety in organizations, if all people are allowed to do is say, “yes,” you are a hundred percent getting criminal and dirty yeses because people don't feel they have any other space to say anything but yes.

And so how do we make space for people to have at least a conversation about. “I want to make a sincere commitment here, and here's why I'm hesitating.”

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Could I ask a question about this? I would imagine also then that someone who grew up in a certain environment where they also had to say “yes,” like that probably tends to stick with people, and it makes it harder [00:13:00] later, even if they are in a work environment where it's totally okay to say no.

They still feel like they're not doing enough and they have to say yes all the time. So I can imagine, I mean. I've been there.

ILA EDGAR: It's um, this is a really interesting exercise that I'll do in in-person workshops, is actually have two people stand and one person makes a request and the other person, their only job is to say “no.”

And the request is simple. It's just, “Could you get me a glass of water?” And the other person needs to say no. And it's fascinating. Sometimes they can't even get the word out. But you should see what their, like, their bodies are contorting because it's so wildly uncomfortable to say this word.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Oh, I love that activity so much.

I bring a lot of improv into my workshops and I feel like that's a great activity to make people start to learn what it feels like to say no and for it to be safe to say no.

ILA EDGAR: Right, and a low-risk [00:14:00] request, right? Like we're just seeing what happens here. 

CHARLES FELTMAN: So interestingly, I coached a guy some years ago, a leader, but he had a great deal of difficulty saying no.

And in fact, for him, the only way that he could get no out of his mouth was to really amp up the emotion of anger. So he had to be angry in order to say no.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Which obviously created problems for him. I mean, I shouldn't laugh. So he had to practice a lot saying no and not being angry or amping the anger down.

But yeah, how we access no and can formulate it and say it has a whole lot to do with our history. 

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Mm-hmm.

CHARLES FELTMAN: As you were saying, Jessica, if you were brought up in the family where you pretty much, it was dangerous to say no in some way or another, you're gonna have some kind of [00:15:00] somatic experience around saying no, that's challenging for you.

And so I love that you notice that for yourself.

CORAL OWEN: Ila, could we move forward with what is the third domain of trust that y'all work in? 

ILA EDGAR: Reliability. Oh, so the way I describe this is, how you keep your promises is just as important as how you break them. And I typically start work with groups asking for, “A show of hands, is everyone in the room or is everyone here a hundred percent human?” And that a hundred percent humanness is a reminder that we're gonna mess up. 

We're, “Did we make a mistake? I don't know, I just forgot to click send.” Or, you know, “That slipped my mind.” This normalizing our humanness, that we're not perfect and we're not supposed to be. And so the interesting thing about reliability is the closer to the deadline, we break the promise, the bigger the trust impact. 

Now the further space we [00:16:00] have, Charles may still be very disappointed, frustrated, and annoyed with me, very normal human emotions, and we have time and space to find a plan. B, C, D. 

Now it's interesting and I love spending a bit of time in this domain in particular because most people that have some trickies around being reliable, don't realize the impact to trust.

And so think of, do we all have friends that you make plans and they jam at the last minute? You make plans again. They jam at the last minute. You make plans again. They jam at the last minute. How many times do you keep making plans until you just stop? But in the end, that friend doesn't likely know the impact of that low reliability in the relationship in the workplace.

We don't have that ability to just stop making plans with them, but we start to look for ways to work around them because we can't [00:17:00] rely on their performance, so we can't rely on them to deliver. 

CORAL OWEN: There is just so much to unpack here, and I'm actually getting very bummed that we don't have more time.

So, to round us out, Ila, this is, as you noted, your personal favorite. Why is care your favorite domain to work in and delve into?

ILA EDGAR: Well, are you as committed to my success as I am to yours? We can work with people in organizations that are not gonna become our bf’s. Like we don't completely love and adore them, but we still have to work with them.

And so even when there's, you know, maybe personality or things that we don't jive as smoothly as other relationships, can we still find something that we care about together? Is there a shared care? Do we care about the outcome of this project? Do we care about, you know, looking good in front of this vp?

Is there something that we can align on that's a shared care? And I think especially for me, it's the constant reminder, none of [00:18:00] us wake up in the morning and put our feet on the ground trying to be a jerk. None of us are like, “How can I be mediocre today?” You know, “How can I just, you know, bump along in life?”

All of us really are trying to just do the best we can every day. And so how can we have a little bit more care for each other, maybe a little bit more love, a little bit more compassion? And when we do that, even if it's just 1% more, what's possible?

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That was like a wonderful explanation with the four distinctions.

Charles, I wonder if you had anything you wanted to add to it? 

CHARLES FELTMAN: Not really, yeah, that was great. I think that was great. That was very clear and slightly different than my explanation or description of them, but plenty good.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Excellent. I'm wondering if one or both of you would like to speak at all to the difference some people might have in how they write.

Ila mentioned that care is her favorite. Care is also my favorite. Do some people put more weight on one [00:19:00] distinction over another and what happens when there's a mismatch between people who put more weight on one distinction?

CHARLES FELTMAN: I would say that yes, there are people who have, you know, put more weight on one or another of the trust domains, the assessment domains, for example. 

Often, not all the time, but often I'll work with groups of engineers. And if I ask them what domain is most important to them in building trust, it's competence, hands down. Whereas I may work with, you know, a group of people who are reporting to a particular level of executive, and one of the things that's really important to them is that that executive or those executives at that level actually care.

They can trust that those executives care about them and that their leaders are being honest within which falls in the domain of sincerity. So it depends, and it's also dependent on the situation. [00:20:00] Again, I'm gonna have a different concern with one individual sometimes than another. It really is dynamic in that respect.

So having conversations, especially in a team, but even just between two people in a work environment, it's great because people get to hear each other speak about what's important to me under what circumstances and what's maybe not so important to me under certain circumstances. So again, going back to that need for value in having conversations about trust and having this framework and language that allows those conversations: incredibly valuable.

CORAL OWEN: Taking that forward, Ila, I'd love to start with you for this one. Can you share an example of where applying a trust framework transformed a challenging situation or a relationship? And if anything, what did you learn from this experience about the complexity of trust in the [00:21:00] process?

ILA EDGAR: Oh that's a juicy one. That's a juicy one. I'll tell the story and condense it. It's relatively recent, but there's an organization that I have worked with for a number of years in the States and focusing on building the competency and the executive team in trust building behaviors. And we took weeks and weeks and weeks and rolled up our sleeves and practiced and what does the language sound like? 

Because often I, and I think probably you would all agree that what stops us from saying a lot of different things is we don't know how to start. Like, I'm never gonna say to you, “Coral, I don't trust you.” Those words would never come out of my mouth, but I'm gonna feel it.

Or I may say like, “I trust you completely, but I can't validate why.” And so we'd spent a lot of time working with the executive team, and then they took these skills and worked with their downline. We did a lot [00:22:00] of work over many, many, many months, and we could see how the organization's culture was starting to change.

A lot of it comes down to rewarding people's vulnerability, and so they're like, “I don't really know how to say this, but there is something I wanna talk to you about, and so just, you know, let me bump along into it.” Or, “I have said something and it didn't come out right, so could I have a do-over? Because I wanna take care of our relationship.” 

And so really rewarding people when they were vulnerable in their actions around intentionally building trust, meeting trust, and then repairing trust. 

And then it all came crashing down with a senior leadership change and someone who decided that those behaviors were no longer important. It was far more important to push through a massive reorg and change and not take care of the people, [00:23:00] not be reliable, not be sincere, not hold competence. It's quite devastating now, I look at the organization to see how much time and effort and care from these lovely humans put into building this beautifully strong, connected, caring, trusting environment.

And within three months because the leader, new leader didn't think it was valuable, and it's like a completely different organization. It's, “Where's my heart? It's lost this, oh, it's lost this.” Yeah.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: For those of you who can't see, Ila held up, “has lost heart.”

ILA EDGAR: Yeah, it's lost heart.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: That's a perfect segue, Ila, into something, a question I have in my mind and that is, and Charles, I'd love to start with you on this one. How do you help people or organizations move beyond the idea that trust is either present or absent, and instead see it as something as dynamic [00:24:00] and situational and something which deserves to be worked on. What kind of effect does that have? So how do you help them move beyond that idea?

CHARLES FELTMAN: I'll address the first one first, which is this idea of, you know, an on off switch. Either I trust you completely or I don't trust you at all, which as I was listening to somebody just, or talking with someone just recently, he said, “Oh my God, yeah, I've been writing off all these people and there's very few people left in the organization that I can trust because she was doing exactly that.”

And that's one of the things that the four assessment domains of trust can really help with, because you can immediately begin to see that, well, Ila’s example at the very beginning: “You can trust me, you know, to show up and be on your podcast, but you can't trust me to always say something intelligent.”

But joking aside, the four domains really help with that. I can trust someone in the domain [00:25:00] of reliability. They get their work done, they're reliable. I can trust them in the domain of competence. They're competent. However, I may have a concern about their trust in the domain of care. Do they actually have my interests and mind as well as their own. 

So when we begin to talk about that, using that language, people can begin to see that they can trust someone in some ways and not others. And the benefit of that is in the workplace in particular, you don't have to just write somebody off completely because you don't trust them in the domain of whatever, you know, one of those domains.

That their behavior is untrustworthy there, but it can still be trustworthy. And so you can continue to work with them and set boundaries for yourself such that the behaviors that they have or actions they take in that other domain, which you don't trust so much, are not gonna be potentially harmful for you.

So if, [00:26:00] if that makes sense, that's what I would say to that question.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: So what effect does that have once they, once they kind of move from the idea of the binary of, you know, there's trust or there isn't trust, and they start to see it as something dynamic and situational,

CHARLES FELTMAN: Oh yeah, it's huge for many people. Not everybody, A lot of people already kind of get that and it's just tipping them over the edge. But there's a lot of people that really, that changes their whole perspective on trust. 

The person I was mentioning earlier, the woman who had said to me, “Oh, you know, I've gotten to the point where there's only two or three people in this entire organization that I feel like I can trust.” And it was really hard for her. She was suffering in that situation and suddenly she saw a way clear to actually go back into the organization and build connections of trust in ways that worked for her and to be able to work with those people so that she could get stuff done and not [00:27:00] be hemmed into this tiny little square of trust with two or three other people. 

So that was a huge, you know, it was a huge a-ha and a huge opening for her. And I find that happens often with people when they get it, that it's not just an on/off switch.

CORAL OWEN: Charles, that's a wonderful segue actually into a question that I had in mind, which was, it seems like there's this spectrum that organizations, folks, relationships can be on the places where trust is lacking as they move from a place where there's that lack of trust, or it is very non kind of binary. 

As those relationships are foraged and strengthened and trust becomes more permeating in the relationships in an organization, Ila or Charles, what effects do you see? In an organization collectively or even individually, the impacts [00:28:00] as trust is more pervasive and more of a cultural norm in the ways that folks work, what are the benefits or the impacts from that?

CHARLES FELTMAN: I think for me, the biggest benefit is that when we distrust, we're operating out of a neural network, if you will, a biology that is built to protect and defend. And so our bodies are on the defense all the time. And when we trust, our bodies are open, our minds are open together. We're in that sense.

So if you can imagine a group of people who are closed, protective, defended, and trying to work together to get something done doesn't work very well. Flip that to even a little bit more trusting, and our bodies or their bodies start to [00:29:00] relax. Their minds start to open up. They're able to think better.

They're able to expand their perspectives on things better, differently. That for me is, as I see that happen with individuals and teams that I've worked with, it's been huge for them and for their productivity, for their creativity, for their innovation.

ILA EDGAR: I feel like distrust gets a bad rap, so we don't wanna diminish or ignore it or make distrust wrong or bad.

And Charles is pointing to, it happens, distrust happens in our amygdalas or our fight/flight/freeze. And our amygdala doesn't know the difference between a real threat and a perceived threat. And so very easily, in a work environment in particular, someone might say a comment about, you know, “Oh, Ila's first draft of that proposal was garbage,” and I'm gonna go, “Hmm,” because I feel like [00:30:00] my competency is threatened, right? 

And so I wanna know that, be aware of it, and then go, “Oh, but it's Charles. Charles would never be a jerk to me.” Like, it's okay, system exhale, but it's also important because sometimes there is a threat and it is a real threat, and so we wanna pay attention to that.

And so I think there's this juicy little nanosecond of self-awareness where we have the opportunity to go, hang on, is this something I need to pay attention to? Or is it my body's system thinking that there's a grizzly bear coming after me when actually it's, you know, Bob from accounting and it's okay.

So I don't wanna give distrust a bad rap. I wanna highlight that it's important to pay attention to and build awareness around. And again, so we can point to what's actually happening and is there something here I need to take care of? Or can I help my nervous system reregulate and go, “Hey, thanks for alerting me, but I got this. We're okay.” [00:31:00]

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Yeah. Thank you so much for that insight. I feel like I've learned ten new things and I, like I said, I've already, you know, I've been teaching off of your trust materials, Charles, for quite a while, and I feel like today during this conversation I've learned a whole bunch of new things that I am very excited to dig into a little bit more.

We love to end our podcast with one quick question of, do you have a personal practice that you could use to help build your own resilience and connection? And Ila, I'd love to start with you on this one and then Charles after,

ILA EDGAR: This is gonna sound really weird, um: I pay attention to my feet. And so when I get caught in my head or I'm swirling in something, I literally lose connection with my feet, and then I know I'm no longer grounded.

And so for me, being able to come back into my body and the present moment happens through my feet, so I'm [00:32:00] often barefoot even when it's -30C, I wanna feel texture and connection because it's like, oh yeah, you're off there somewhere, or you're spinning about something that is taking you away from connection or causing disconnection or withdrawal or a barrier.

So for me, coming back to present and being in my body is a really important practice for me.

JESSICA BECKENDORF: Thank you. And not weird. It is the first time we've had one on feet though. Charles, how about you? 

CHARLES FELTMAN: Uh my feet, I can't be in barefoot in the snow. It just doesn't work for me. But a similar practice in the sense that I observe my breathing and practice observing my breathing, even when I'm not necessarily in a challenging situation, but it allows me to kind of gauge where I am in a situation. 

Am I breathing high and shallow? That means for me that my amygdala has potentially been engaged. And in that [00:33:00] moment, can I like, you know, we talked about a little bit ago, can I stop and go, “Wait a minute, what's really going on here? Is there a real threat or is there something I really need to pay attention to? And even if it is something I really need to pay attention to, wouldn't it be better to do so?” 

From a place of center and groundedness than from, you know, flying off into who knows where. So intentionally bringing my breath back down into my belly, which actually changes my physiology and my brain state.

So that's for me, my practice and how I manage that.

CORAL OWEN: Those are two wonderful touch points, and what I love most about both of them is that they are so, so simple. So thank you for wrapping that up with us on such a lovely note. And that's a wrap for today's conversation. I just wanted to thank you both so much again for your time, for the very valuable work that you're doing, and we just really [00:34:00] appreciate it.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Thank you. It's been a great conversation. I've really appreciated it.

ILA EDGAR: Mm-hmm. Me too.

CHARLES FELTMAN: Your questions were good ones.

ILA EDGAR: Great conversation.

CHARLES FELTMAN: And it's been really funny Ila doing this with you and kind of trading off answers and hearing what you have to say to these questions. It's great! We've never done this before.

ILA EDGAR: You’re like, “Oh gosh! She's way too far off script. I've gotta get her back online.”

CHARLES FELTMAN: No, not at all. So yes, no Ila and I have never been guests together on someone's podcast.

CORAL OWEN: Well, what a pleasure it is to host both of you for your first ever together podcast episode. If y'all are enjoying this beautiful conversation between Charles and Ila, you can find more of their conversations together: please check out the Trust on Purpose Podcast to learn more about their wonderful work and all of the great conversations that they're having in this space. 

So thanks again. Until next time, keep practicing. [00:35:00]

CREDITS: The Practicing Connection podcast is a production of OneOp and is supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U. S. Department of Agriculture, and the Office of Military Family Readiness Policy, U. S. Department of Defense, under award number 2023-48770-41333.