Latest / Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano / Silence the Shame Not the Survivor with Kath Essing

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Silence the Shame Not the Survivor with Kath Essing · Giving Pain Purpose with Lyndsay Soprano

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, guys and dolls.
0:01
Speaker 2: Before we jump into this episode, a note about our
0:03
Speaker 2: content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We
0:08
Speaker 2: advise listener discretion, so if you need a breather, take
0:11
Speaker 2: a break.
0:12
Speaker 1: And come back later.
0:17
Speaker 2: This is Your Pain Game podcast where we talk about
0:20
Speaker 2: the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
0:23
Speaker 2: getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
0:26
Speaker 2: your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
0:31
Speaker 2: discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
0:36
Speaker 2: and anybody that is interested in having their voice heard
0:40
Speaker 2: in the chronic pain and trauma world that we live in.
0:51
Speaker 2: One of the things doing this show every day of
0:55
Speaker 2: my life, because there's preparation every single day of your life,
0:57
Speaker 2: especially when you do a show like this, and especially when.
0:59
Speaker 1: You care enough about it like I do.
1:02
Speaker 2: As you guys know, is that every single day I
1:06
Speaker 2: am dumbfounded and like thrown in the drugs of my
1:09
Speaker 2: shower to like ugly cry for all of the stories
1:13
Speaker 2: that I hear about sexual abuse to women on this show,
1:17
Speaker 2: and not just that childhood sexual abuse and trauma, and
1:21
Speaker 2: we talk about it all the time here. Why is
1:22
Speaker 2: this even a topic we are talking about. Well, we're
1:27
Speaker 2: finally using our voices, and we're finally opening up our mouths,
1:30
Speaker 2: and we're finally getting out of our shame chairs wherever
1:33
Speaker 2: it is that we're sitting, you know, because I know,
1:35
Speaker 2: for me, as you guys know, I have been through
1:38
Speaker 2: my own fair share of things in my life and
1:41
Speaker 2: I'm no stranger to it. But now my eyes are
1:44
Speaker 2: far more open than they were before. You know, I
1:46
Speaker 2: always felt incredibly alone in this. I was riddled in
1:52
Speaker 2: like we mentioned, like riddled in the shame for like
1:54
Speaker 2: every waking moment of my life when I did nothing wrong.
1:57
Speaker 2: And that was really hard for socially because I was
2:00
Speaker 2: raised in a very strong Christian home and it was
2:03
Speaker 2: kind of like the thing of the Christians that you
2:04
Speaker 2: shame people. It's it's a jam, you know, that they've
2:07
Speaker 2: got going on something that doesn't work well for me,
2:10
Speaker 2: And the shame of it is is it doesn't have
2:13
Speaker 2: to be that way.
2:14
Speaker 1: Ooh, that was not bad, Lindsay. I did not even
2:16
Speaker 1: plan that, But being alone in this is lonely right.
2:21
Speaker 2: And I never spoke out honestly to anybody ever when
2:25
Speaker 2: I was putting together this episode and thinking about the
2:27
Speaker 2: things that I wanted to talk about the therapist. I've
2:29
Speaker 2: been to my friends, my family members, all of this legit.
2:33
Speaker 2: I don't think I was ever honest until about seven
2:35
Speaker 2: to eight years ago. I feel like my entire life
2:38
Speaker 2: before that was lies. I never was who I am,
2:42
Speaker 2: and that's a big thing, especially now that I'm coming
2:44
Speaker 2: into more of who I am and my why and why,
2:47
Speaker 2: not to speak cliche, but what I want to be
2:49
Speaker 2: and who I want to be for this world, and
2:51
Speaker 2: who I want to be for these young women that
2:53
Speaker 2: are in my life, any women that are listening to
2:55
Speaker 2: this show, and also men that are listening to the
2:57
Speaker 2: show too, because you're kind of part of this conversation.
3:00
Speaker 2: We are going to speak on fear, We're going to
3:01
Speaker 2: speak on shame, We're going to talk on impact. We're
3:04
Speaker 2: going to talk about our silence and bridging this gap
3:07
Speaker 2: of communication in the realm of sexual abuse, any abuse,
3:09
Speaker 2: quite frankly, how to advocate for ourselves and other girls
3:14
Speaker 2: and women, and also how writing will help you do
3:17
Speaker 2: that too. So, without further ado, I'd like to introduce
3:19
Speaker 2: you today to my guest Kathessing.
3:21
Speaker 1: Kath Hello, my darling, HI.
3:26
Speaker 2: Trained her laugh really hard before we started recording, and
3:29
Speaker 2: I will not tell you why. We were working on
3:33
Speaker 2: our vocal exercises, getting our laugh boxes ready to go.
3:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, so let me introduce you to this
3:38
Speaker 1: hot babe.
3:39
Speaker 2: Cath Essing is an author, speaker, and educator with over
3:43
Speaker 2: fifteen years of experience helping individuals share their untold stories.
3:48
Speaker 2: Also as an adult survivor of child sexual abuse by
3:51
Speaker 2: a male relative. Her work centers on empowering women to
3:55
Speaker 2: break silence around trauma, particularly that childhood sexual abuse that
3:58
Speaker 2: we're talking about here. Her latest memoir, The Courage to
4:01
Speaker 2: Speak Your Truth, follows her debut Journey to Self and
4:05
Speaker 2: blends poetry with personal narrative to explore healing through storytelling.
4:09
Speaker 2: Kath leads the workshop Shifting the Narrative and developed the
4:12
Speaker 2: Shift Framework, tools that guide participants from silence to self expression.
4:16
Speaker 2: Woo all right, I'd like to start shifting this narrative
4:20
Speaker 2: right now. Sta, thank you with what happened to you
4:24
Speaker 2: when you were a young girl, and let's take it
4:25
Speaker 2: from there.
4:26
Speaker 3: Okay. So complexity of my story, like with many adult survivors,
4:31
Speaker 3: is that I kind of feel like I need to
4:33
Speaker 3: start in the middle. If that's okay. So I had
4:36
Speaker 3: a great childhood. I had amazing friends, and you know,
4:41
Speaker 3: very lots of beautiful moments, and then it all kind
4:44
Speaker 3: of crumbling down in my mid twenties when I remembered
4:47
Speaker 3: the abuse that i'd completely blocked out. So I sort
4:50
Speaker 3: of relate my experience to having various traumas. The first
4:55
Speaker 3: were the events themselves that happened, second was remembering those,
4:59
Speaker 3: and the next was re from those remembories. My first
5:02
Speaker 3: incident that I remembered, when I was twenty three, happened
5:05
Speaker 3: at my fifth birthday party, and it was a male
5:08
Speaker 3: relative and my whole family was there, and I think,
5:11
Speaker 3: as a parent, that really haunts me because I get
5:16
Speaker 3: afraid of what I'm going to miss. And I remember
5:20
Speaker 3: that day vividly, and it's taken a long time to
5:25
Speaker 3: get those pieces of the puzzle back together, and then
5:27
Speaker 3: it took another ten years to remember that. There were
5:30
Speaker 3: two other incidents that follow when I was eight and
5:33
Speaker 3: one when I was eleven, and my daughter, who is
5:37
Speaker 3: now fourteen, became the mirror of myself at those ages,
5:41
Speaker 3: so there was a new crumbling and putting myself back
5:46
Speaker 3: together that had to happen each time she turned the
5:48
Speaker 3: age I was when I was abused, and that's really common, but.
5:51
Speaker 2: At all, Wow, it just got the chills. That's interesting.
5:55
Speaker 2: Why does that happen?
5:57
Speaker 3: Well, I think it's really easy to remember yourself as
5:59
Speaker 3: a child, But when you see what a five year
6:02
Speaker 3: old actually, the innocence of a five year old, and
6:05
Speaker 3: the and and the complexity of how on earth can somebody,
6:10
Speaker 3: how can somebody do this to a child? You know,
6:12
Speaker 3: it's that you're looking from another lens, and so I
6:16
Speaker 3: think that's what it was for me, and looking at
6:19
Speaker 3: her who's so much like me, and just having no
6:21
Speaker 3: concept of how an adult could do that to a child.
6:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then where were the adults that were around
6:26
Speaker 2: you in your life? Did anybody know what was going
6:29
Speaker 2: on or anything at all?
6:30
Speaker 1: No?
6:31
Speaker 3: No, not at all. And I you know, I think
6:33
Speaker 3: that's what It's so easy for us, isn't it, to
6:38
Speaker 3: think about the fact that we aren't protected when these
6:41
Speaker 3: things happened. But unfortunately, these predators are. They groomed the children,
6:46
Speaker 3: they groomed the family. In my case, I didn't need
6:48
Speaker 3: to be groomed because it was a relative. But it's
6:51
Speaker 3: you know, unplausible that these kind of things can happen,
6:54
Speaker 3: so why would we be looking for it? And I
6:56
Speaker 3: remember when I told my mum that this had happened,
7:00
Speaker 3: my first response was we just thought if we wander
7:02
Speaker 3: about strangers, that that would be enough. And you know,
7:06
Speaker 3: I think in our generation it did feel that way.
7:08
Speaker 3: And so the conversation we're not having with our children
7:11
Speaker 3: is different as a result of the learnings that we've
7:13
Speaker 3: had over the last couple of generations.
7:15
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I've got I've got nieces and nephews that
7:18
Speaker 2: are all you know, within the for six years old
7:22
Speaker 2: to almost eighteen, like this week. So there's this gamut
7:25
Speaker 2: of boys and girls that because I don't have any children,
7:28
Speaker 2: and you know, they're they're surrounded by we've got to
7:31
Speaker 2: give these men, these young boys that are growing up,
7:33
Speaker 2: like they need to know what's going on and what
7:36
Speaker 2: consent means and what these you know what.
7:38
Speaker 1: Look.
7:39
Speaker 2: I just my mind is just riddled with so many
7:41
Speaker 2: things about how these kids are. They're given so much
7:43
Speaker 2: information between social media and the things that they see
7:46
Speaker 2: and the violence that they see that's okay, Like we
7:49
Speaker 2: don't have that if we don't have that open communication
7:51
Speaker 2: where people are comfortable to share something that happened to them,
7:56
Speaker 2: and one of my nieces something did happen to her,
7:58
Speaker 2: and she finally.
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Speaker 1: Opened her mouth about it. And that's hard to do
8:01
Speaker 1: when you're that age.
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Speaker 3: And it's so hard to do. And as you said,
8:05
Speaker 3: you know, silence is so complicated, and I often talk
8:09
Speaker 3: about my silence that it wasn't until I really wrote
8:12
Speaker 3: the book and started talking publicly about this that I
8:14
Speaker 3: shared my entire story with people closest to me. And
8:19
Speaker 3: that wasn't because I didn't believe they could handle it.
8:22
Speaker 3: It was because I was playing the role of the
8:24
Speaker 3: good girl, curating my story for the comfort of other people,
8:28
Speaker 3: and that was at the detriment of my own healing.
8:31
Speaker 3: So I think that's really common for you know, for
8:35
Speaker 3: many of us, it's it's such an uncomfortable conversation that
8:37
Speaker 3: we don't I don't want to see the pain in
8:39
Speaker 3: my family and friends' eyes when I tell them the
8:43
Speaker 3: truth of what happened. And so when I finally went
8:46
Speaker 3: to the police, it was like this release of all
8:48
Speaker 3: of this bent up experience that I carried, and the
8:52
Speaker 3: weight of it just was released to somebody else, wasn't
8:54
Speaker 3: I wasn't then isolated in this story anymore.
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Speaker 2: Right, Well, yeah, that's a good way of putting it. Now,
9:00
Speaker 2: you went to the police, which is interesting, and this
9:03
Speaker 2: was a failed attempt at getting justice, I presume it was.
9:09
Speaker 3: And look that when I first went to the detective,
9:12
Speaker 3: he said he believes that only twenty three percent of
9:16
Speaker 3: all survivors come forward. And from that twenty three percent,
9:19
Speaker 3: only ten percent of us that go to police will
9:21
Speaker 3: ever end up in an investigation in court. If we
9:25
Speaker 3: are one of those ten percent, which I wasn't, only
9:28
Speaker 3: one percent will end in a conviction.
9:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, why do you think we don't open our mouths?
9:32
Speaker 1: That's right.
9:32
Speaker 2: Point wells Ran is to help heal ourselves. That's what
9:35
Speaker 2: the number was, absolutely exactly.
9:37
Speaker 3: And look, and I also think until we share our
9:40
Speaker 3: stories with the police, and that really is part of
9:43
Speaker 3: the driver for me to write this book is that
9:45
Speaker 3: it is a very personal story and I share all
9:48
Speaker 3: shades of my experience because I couldn't find a resource
9:52
Speaker 3: for myself as an adult survivor, and there are things
9:55
Speaker 3: that I wish I had known. I didn't know that
9:57
Speaker 3: I could go to the police and just tell them
10:00
Speaker 3: initially and then walk away for five years if I
10:02
Speaker 3: wasn't ready to go back. I didn't know that I
10:04
Speaker 3: could start an investigation and put it on pause at
10:06
Speaker 3: any time if it was too much. And if I
10:09
Speaker 3: had known those things, I might have gone earlier. And
10:13
Speaker 3: if I had gone earlier, with the outcome be different.
10:15
Speaker 3: I don't know, but you know it's important to, I guess,
10:18
Speaker 3: educate yourself on what options are out there for you.
10:21
Speaker 2: You know, one of the things that I think you
10:23
Speaker 2: brought it up in regards to telling people right and like,
10:26
Speaker 2: how are you protecting them? I've always been the person
10:30
Speaker 2: to protect my mother from anything that has ever happened
10:33
Speaker 2: bad to me in my life to this moment, like
10:37
Speaker 2: I do not have a good, open, honest communication with
10:41
Speaker 2: my mom. She would beg to differ. That's because she
10:44
Speaker 2: does not know the truth. I always tell her, if
10:46
Speaker 2: you're going to listen to the show, you're going to
10:47
Speaker 2: have some questions, but she doesn't listen, so Hi, I
10:51
Speaker 2: would behoove her to do it every now and again.
10:53
Speaker 2: But anyways, it's so challenging me because I've protected her
10:56
Speaker 2: the whole time, when I was just this little girl
10:58
Speaker 2: like nine years old, and then twelve years old, and
11:01
Speaker 2: then you know, and you rattle off these numbers and
11:03
Speaker 2: you think, I'm afraid of not being believed.
11:07
Speaker 1: What's going to happen if they don't believe me? I
11:10
Speaker 1: made it up? I'm a girl. You know, you're just
11:12
Speaker 1: being you know, whatever it is, you're being a teenager whatever,
11:15
Speaker 1: whatever it might be.
11:16
Speaker 2: The excuse that they what would we have a reason
11:19
Speaker 2: in order to make something like this up when we're
11:22
Speaker 2: of that age too, like a red manibilative.
11:26
Speaker 1: I mean, there's got to be some crazy ass kids
11:28
Speaker 1: out there, but that was not you and me.
11:29
Speaker 3: No, no, And look, I think I had a hard
11:34
Speaker 3: time believing it myself, and so it was almost like,
11:37
Speaker 3: how can this possibly be true? Like can how can
11:41
Speaker 3: this be true? And because traumas so complicated that in
11:45
Speaker 3: my case, the memories I have are quite fragmented, and
11:47
Speaker 3: some of them are from literally out of my body
11:50
Speaker 3: because that's, you know, that was the response I disassociated
11:53
Speaker 3: to cope with what was happening. And so that makes
11:55
Speaker 3: it even more implausible to how can this really be true?
11:59
Speaker 3: Because surely a memory so profound like this is linear
12:03
Speaker 3: from start to finish, but it's really not like that,
12:07
Speaker 3: and so I think that makes it even harder. So
12:09
Speaker 3: for me, it wasn't will I be believed? It was
12:11
Speaker 3: how do I believe this myself? First? Before I can
12:14
Speaker 3: even talk about it.
12:15
Speaker 2: Wow, that's it's chilling because it's true because there is
12:20
Speaker 2: this like I can identify with that feeling. Not so
12:24
Speaker 2: much in relation to the sexual abuse stuff. That's a chord,
12:27
Speaker 2: but me is my pain because pain is my number
12:29
Speaker 2: one thing now now is it because of all of
12:31
Speaker 2: the trauma that I'm living in pain? I'm not on
12:34
Speaker 2: dred percent. We know that this is the case. But
12:36
Speaker 2: I sit here and I it is mind boggling that
12:40
Speaker 2: I can handle the amount of pain and that I
12:41
Speaker 2: am just sitting here talking to you with a smile
12:43
Speaker 2: on my face.
12:44
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't wrap my noodle around it.
12:46
Speaker 2: I'm always like, my brain can't process that I am
12:51
Speaker 2: in this kind of pain and still walking around with
12:54
Speaker 2: a smile on my face.
12:55
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
12:56
Speaker 2: And we show up where we need to, and we
12:59
Speaker 2: put on these masks, and we have these conversations with people,
13:02
Speaker 2: and we dress a certain way and we carry ourselves
13:04
Speaker 2: a certain way because we learn how to cult. At
13:06
Speaker 2: least from my personal experience, I knew I needed to
13:09
Speaker 2: be some kind of an actress in some way, shape
13:11
Speaker 2: or form, And that's kind of what I did. I
13:13
Speaker 2: went down the North thespian and musical theater route, and
13:15
Speaker 2: I was able to act out all these different characters.
13:17
Speaker 2: I was able to go into different voices, in different heads,
13:20
Speaker 2: in different spaces and kind of act out some scary
13:22
Speaker 2: stuff that happened when I was a kid, and I
13:24
Speaker 2: didn't even know that that's what I was doing until
13:26
Speaker 2: I look back how it was happening.
13:28
Speaker 1: It's nuts.
13:29
Speaker 3: Our brand is incredible, it's so and you know, the
13:32
Speaker 3: framework that I've created that I now teaching corporate settings
13:37
Speaker 3: because what I've realized is the numbers around sexual harassment
13:41
Speaker 3: in the workplace almost mirror the experiences that you see
13:45
Speaker 3: happen prior to entering that workplace. So many women and
13:48
Speaker 3: men are already primed to not have a voice when
13:51
Speaker 3: they enter an environment where something else is kind of
13:55
Speaker 3: you know, can occur. So for me, the first thing
13:57
Speaker 3: I do is start with helping it to be jewels,
14:00
Speaker 3: understand what the beliefs are that they're carrying, and then
14:04
Speaker 3: how they're curating those and sharing them in terms of
14:06
Speaker 3: their behavior. And when we can minimize that gap between
14:09
Speaker 3: what we're experiencing within ourselves and what we're sharing outside
14:13
Speaker 3: of ourselves, Like that's where peace happens. That's where that
14:16
Speaker 3: gap is smaller and smaller, and we are just congruent
14:19
Speaker 3: and honest. And I'm sitting here right now and sharing
14:22
Speaker 3: every part of me. I wouldn't have been able to
14:24
Speaker 3: do that years ago. So you know that there isn't
14:26
Speaker 3: a mask anymore, that this is my truth. If it's
14:29
Speaker 3: uncomfortable for people, then I'm sorry for them. But the
14:33
Speaker 3: easy is my truth, and I will share it and
14:36
Speaker 3: i will keep talking until the laws change, and I'll
14:39
Speaker 3: keep talking until other people feel empowered to speak. And
14:43
Speaker 3: the people that are closest to me, my husband, my kids,
14:45
Speaker 3: my parents and siblings, they're okay with it, so the
14:48
Speaker 3: rest of the world can deal with it.
14:50
Speaker 1: I love that because it is true.
14:52
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm not responsible for how you respond to
14:55
Speaker 2: anything in your life, whether it has anything to do
14:56
Speaker 2: with me, whether it's something to do with somebody else.
14:58
Speaker 1: I am not possible for your response.
15:01
Speaker 2: I'm not if you got to deal with that on
15:03
Speaker 2: your own, Like should happens to me every day?
15:06
Speaker 1: Something crazy happens to me that I have to deal with.
15:08
Speaker 1: Do I put that on other people?
15:09
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe my sweetie every now and again, But
15:11
Speaker 2: you know, like I can't. You can't decide, you can't
15:15
Speaker 2: make a decision for how I'm going to respond to
15:17
Speaker 2: something that I just heard you talking about. So why
15:20
Speaker 2: would we try to control that? You know, where does
15:22
Speaker 2: that control come from? Or that fear? I kind of
15:25
Speaker 2: feel like they're a little bit in the same, at
15:26
Speaker 2: least for me. I'm a control freak because I'm I'm
15:28
Speaker 2: afraid of everything. I'm a sissy.
15:32
Speaker 1: I'm really not.
15:34
Speaker 2: I am very very strong, but I also live in
15:35
Speaker 2: a lot of fear, mostly in the pain department, Like, Okay,
15:37
Speaker 2: this is it.
15:38
Speaker 1: I guess I'm gonna live till fifty and then I'm dead.
15:41
Speaker 2: Like it's just like I go from one side to
15:43
Speaker 2: the other side. But so much of that has been
15:46
Speaker 2: And I know my pain actually increased when starting this show,
15:49
Speaker 2: and the whole point was to decrease it. But the
15:53
Speaker 2: benefits that I've gotten out of having these conversations are
15:56
Speaker 2: far better for my soul and for my heart and
15:59
Speaker 2: for my future and for my purpose and for why
16:01
Speaker 2: I'm even here than not.
16:04
Speaker 1: So you know.
16:05
Speaker 3: So I'm curious, have you ever written a letter to
16:08
Speaker 3: your pain?
16:10
Speaker 1: No? Interesting?
16:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think for friends of pain and just
16:15
Speaker 3: have a you know, have a conversation with it and
16:18
Speaker 3: and find out its origins and its needs and it's
16:21
Speaker 3: what and what it is trying to tell you. So,
16:25
Speaker 3: you know, I've done a lot of journaling and my healing,
16:27
Speaker 3: and I guess the book was that ultimate experience of
16:31
Speaker 3: here is you know, here is it all? And as
16:33
Speaker 3: you said, it came out and be poured out of
16:35
Speaker 3: me in four and a half weeks about being ready, Yes,
16:39
Speaker 3: that's right, and my hands couldn't keep up, and you know,
16:42
Speaker 3: and then I was like, I came out, okay, I'm out,
16:45
Speaker 3: there is it? One month of that, I am a
16:49
Speaker 3: mother but wearing muhere's my daughter seen?
16:51
Speaker 1: Oh my god?
16:52
Speaker 3: How long was I in there? Very patient husband, very understanding,
16:58
Speaker 3: children and friends too were like are you okay? I'm like, yes,
17:03
Speaker 3: I'm still writing as I'm talking to people, you know.
17:06
Speaker 3: But I think it's just so we can tap into
17:09
Speaker 3: parts of ourselves that otherwise we can't. So it's just
17:12
Speaker 3: such a powerful experience to write and burn it and
17:15
Speaker 3: no one needs to read it. So you don't even
17:17
Speaker 3: need to read it, but it's just nice getting the
17:19
Speaker 3: words out.
17:19
Speaker 2: That's interesting, and I do I love the written word.
17:22
Speaker 2: I am a writer myself to a certain extent of
17:24
Speaker 2: probably three novels that I'm working on, sure, I am.
17:28
Speaker 2: But the letter to my Pain I've not heard, which
17:30
Speaker 2: is really interesting, So making the experience of living in
17:34
Speaker 2: pain a human one, but also understanding where it comes from,
17:38
Speaker 2: because I think that that's been the big thing that
17:40
Speaker 2: I've learned the most by doing the show and having
17:42
Speaker 2: conversations like this, is that so much of my pain
17:45
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with my health, almost nothing, And
17:48
Speaker 2: all we've done is spend gobs and gobs and gobs
17:50
Speaker 2: of money on my health when it really is my
17:53
Speaker 2: heart and my soul that has been hurt the most.
17:57
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Well, sending to that heart and.
18:00
Speaker 1: Soul that's what we do here.
18:04
Speaker 3: I actually have just thought about a story that I'd
18:06
Speaker 3: love to share with you about my experience with pain,
18:09
Speaker 3: if that would be okay.
18:10
Speaker 1: Oh my god, yes please.
18:12
Speaker 3: And I think that it's just an interesting concept because
18:15
Speaker 3: a week before my book was launched, I felt a
18:18
Speaker 3: bit of discomfort in my groin and I went to
18:22
Speaker 3: the GP and she said, okay, there's something you know,
18:25
Speaker 3: there's a cyst here. And I said, well, it doesn't hurt,
18:27
Speaker 3: there's no pain there, and she said that's really unusual.
18:31
Speaker 3: That's really confusing to me that you're not feeling any pain.
18:34
Speaker 3: But if anything gets worse, I need you to go
18:36
Speaker 3: to hospital because it's like you'll have to get this
18:38
Speaker 3: surgically removed. Within a couple of days, the rest of
18:41
Speaker 3: my body just started not feeling right. So I drove
18:43
Speaker 3: myself to hospital and there was a five centimeter cyst
18:48
Speaker 3: and that I said to the nurse, I don't understand
18:51
Speaker 3: how this is not hurting and she said that's okay,
18:54
Speaker 3: you know sometimes and the second nurse that came in,
18:57
Speaker 3: I burst into tears and said, I just need to
18:59
Speaker 3: have this operated on straight away. So I've got one
19:01
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty people come into my book launch on
19:03
Speaker 3: Thursday night, and I need to be okay to do this,
19:07
Speaker 3: like I've worked so hard to get to this point.
19:09
Speaker 3: And she said what's the book about and I said, oh,
19:11
Speaker 3: it's a memoir about my childhood sexual abuse. And she
19:14
Speaker 3: grabbed my hand and she said, okay, this makes sense now,
19:18
Speaker 3: and I said what makes sense, and she said, Han,
19:20
Speaker 3: You're not in your body. What is going on in
19:23
Speaker 3: your body right now is so extremely painful and you
19:27
Speaker 3: are not even in your body to feel it. This
19:29
Speaker 3: is disassociation. And so here I am. I've just finished
19:33
Speaker 3: publishing a book, I'm talking about this topic over and
19:36
Speaker 3: over again, and I still didn't see that this was
19:40
Speaker 3: what was happening in my experience. So my reaction was
19:43
Speaker 3: to completely exit my body. And once I was had
19:47
Speaker 3: it operated on, I woke up in recovery and all
19:50
Speaker 3: of a sudden, I felt everything and it was like
19:54
Speaker 3: a tsunami of pain. But what I feel like happen
19:57
Speaker 3: is because I was using my voice with so much
19:59
Speaker 3: author in command. It was like the cells in my
20:02
Speaker 3: body that just did not fit anymore had nowhere else
20:05
Speaker 3: to go. So I believe the only way that they could.
20:08
Speaker 3: You know, there was no medication, meditation, psychotherapy, there was
20:12
Speaker 3: nothing left to do, and this was just festy old
20:15
Speaker 3: cells that needed to be taken out. And so that's
20:19
Speaker 3: what happened. But it was still a reminder of you
20:21
Speaker 3: know that those defenses of how we respond to difficult
20:25
Speaker 3: situations are ingrained in us from this childhood trauma. And
20:30
Speaker 3: I didn't even see it in the moment, and I'd
20:33
Speaker 3: just written my entire book.
20:34
Speaker 1: Wow, that's crazy. But yeah, they see.
20:38
Speaker 2: I mean, there are so many things that you know,
20:39
Speaker 2: they talk about how and I know you and I
20:41
Speaker 2: briefly talked about reincarnation and greet but how how our
20:45
Speaker 2: body in our response to past lives and how it
20:48
Speaker 2: also responds to current life and like all the things
20:50
Speaker 2: like what happened to you will so much of our
20:53
Speaker 2: infertility issues and our women issues and cancer issues and
20:56
Speaker 2: all of that stem from that's what childhood sexual trauma.
21:01
Speaker 2: Here you are in with your pulvis hurting and you're
21:04
Speaker 2: growing hurting. I mean that's the first thing that popped
21:06
Speaker 2: into my head was like.
21:07
Speaker 3: Five centimeters like five centimeters of like pass that appeared overnight,
21:12
Speaker 3: and you know, like it.
21:14
Speaker 2: Was like the last of the Mohicans, like totally get
21:17
Speaker 2: that out of it, get it out of there.
21:20
Speaker 1: You serve me anymore? Not the yeahad And.
21:24
Speaker 3: So you know, to go back to your point that
21:26
Speaker 3: my body carried that my mind. I had done all
21:29
Speaker 3: the work on my mind and my energy even but
21:31
Speaker 3: my body and my cell still carried the pain of
21:34
Speaker 3: what had occurred because I disassociated from the rape, so
21:37
Speaker 3: I didn't have to be in the room. My body
21:39
Speaker 3: couldn't disassociate, so it carried the pain of what I
21:44
Speaker 3: was going through and continued to. So I think that
21:48
Speaker 3: the way that I survived that as a teenager, it
21:51
Speaker 3: was I swam five ks every day, as you know,
21:54
Speaker 3: in a squad, and I didn't know that was probably
21:56
Speaker 3: saving my life at the time. But I was moving
21:59
Speaker 3: energy constantly and it felt important to be strong. It
22:02
Speaker 3: felt important to have you know, agency over my body,
22:06
Speaker 3: and so to be an athlete was the way that
22:08
Speaker 3: I chose to do that.
22:09
Speaker 1: What were your relationships like as a child, teenager, early
22:13
Speaker 1: college years, Like your relation your romantic relationships like.
22:18
Speaker 3: Well, I think I didn't have a lot. I was
22:21
Speaker 3: really confident, if you know, I had a champagne in
22:24
Speaker 3: my belly, you know, very and had a lot of
22:29
Speaker 3: male friends, like I was in a swimming squad with
22:31
Speaker 3: all males, and so I was but I was quite
22:34
Speaker 3: prutish in the sense that I didn't lose my you know,
22:37
Speaker 3: in my own mind, I didn't lose my virginity until
22:39
Speaker 3: I was in my twenties, and so it was really
22:42
Speaker 3: much about holding something back from because I'd never really
22:46
Speaker 3: felt like I felt so much shame about what had
22:48
Speaker 3: happened that it wasn't a free experience for me. Having
22:53
Speaker 3: a sexual life, like you felt always loaded with emotion
22:58
Speaker 3: and yeah, yeah, that's why I think that's the case
23:00
Speaker 3: for many of us, Like it's you know, it's not
23:04
Speaker 3: and that's a really hard that's hard damage to undo.
23:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I went the opposite direction.
23:11
Speaker 3: Yeah, and some people do. Yeah.
23:13
Speaker 1: And and it sucks looking back at that.
23:15
Speaker 2: You talk about shame, you know, you're like, oh my god,
23:17
Speaker 2: that's how I was acting out what happened. And I
23:19
Speaker 2: didn't really realize that that's what was going on at
23:22
Speaker 2: the time. I was just like, you know, a rebellious
23:23
Speaker 2: you know, teenager in college girl or whatever. You And
23:26
Speaker 2: then you circle back and you look, as I've been
23:28
Speaker 2: going through this show and through therapy and writing and
23:31
Speaker 2: bla all the things that I do looking back, and I'm like,
23:34
Speaker 2: don I was a little slut, But it's true that's
23:40
Speaker 2: how I was acting out. But I was also very
23:42
Speaker 2: relationship Ye. I was in relationships for a very long time,
23:45
Speaker 2: four year six. Yes, I did want that safety, that
23:48
Speaker 2: that feeling of safety, which then I would go completely
23:50
Speaker 2: crazy and be put myself in an incredibly unsafe situation.
23:54
Speaker 1: So riddle me that, would you, Cath?
23:57
Speaker 3: Well, I look, I do too. I think you know,
24:00
Speaker 3: I had I remember being at UNI and having a
24:02
Speaker 3: friend say, you know, you've got to be careful, and
24:04
Speaker 3: so I didn't really have the boundaries. I think that,
24:09
Speaker 3: And yeah, and I wasn't aware of what was driving
24:12
Speaker 3: a lot of the behavior and and you know it's yeah,
24:16
Speaker 3: it's really complicent. And as a parent now it's like scary.
24:19
Speaker 3: How do you have those conversations with your children? And
24:22
Speaker 3: I want my son to be compassionate and kind and
24:26
Speaker 3: understand consent, and I want my daughter to be a fierce,
24:29
Speaker 3: you know, strong, Like how do we do all of that?
24:32
Speaker 3: How can they both be fierce and strong and kind?
24:35
Speaker 3: And you know, I don't know. I'm still figuring that out.
24:37
Speaker 1: Well, I feel like you as a mom, as a
24:39
Speaker 1: pretty good start to that. So thank you. All right,
24:43
Speaker 1: So I'm going to stickle back.
24:44
Speaker 2: I want to find out what are we doing and
24:45
Speaker 2: cause you mentioned the whole corporate working way, Yes, how
24:48
Speaker 2: are you working in that regard advocating for change?
24:50
Speaker 1: Because I think it's a real powerful thing. Of what
24:52
Speaker 1: you are doing.
24:54
Speaker 3: One marine organizations that allow individuals to advocate for themselves
24:59
Speaker 3: and for others, then we are given an opportunity to
25:03
Speaker 3: have psychological safety, you know. And this isn't about walking
25:06
Speaker 3: in and sharing the last stories necessarily with our peers.
25:09
Speaker 3: But if something happened so I talk about I worked
25:13
Speaker 3: in the mining sector in Australia, so very remote Western Australia,
25:18
Speaker 3: pretty much the only female under thirty in the whole town.
25:21
Speaker 3: So you know, I got attention I did not want,
25:23
Speaker 3: and you know, and by older men, which was my trigger.
25:27
Speaker 3: And so I'm carrying this like fear of everyone around
25:31
Speaker 3: me constantly. But I also had this, well it's my fault.
25:34
Speaker 3: I've chosen to come here and it's my story, and I,
25:37
Speaker 3: you know, and just carry this kind of armor around me.
25:41
Speaker 3: So I let bad behavior happen, like men approaching me
25:44
Speaker 3: at breakfast at five point thirty when they were drunk,
25:47
Speaker 3: And it never occurred to me that I could speak
25:49
Speaker 3: up about that because in my mind, I had chosen
25:52
Speaker 3: to be there, so I needed to suck it up,
25:54
Speaker 3: you know. That was That's just the way it was.
25:56
Speaker 3: And a lot of those environments I've just riddled with
26:00
Speaker 3: bad behavior, and sometimes if we don't speak up about
26:04
Speaker 3: the small things, they escalate to bigger things, and then
26:06
Speaker 3: it costs organizations money and reputation and good talent. So
26:10
Speaker 3: the approach I have is to come into organizations and
26:13
Speaker 3: talk about the uncomfortable, so people are really safe to
26:18
Speaker 3: advocate for their themselves, and if they see bad behavior
26:21
Speaker 3: for others who aren't ready to advocate that they can
26:23
Speaker 3: stand up and do that too.
26:25
Speaker 2: That's wonderful. I definitely I've only worked in the corporate.
26:29
Speaker 2: It's corporate America. It's just like a barf bag corporate America.
26:34
Speaker 1: It's true, it's terrible. I had one job.
26:37
Speaker 2: In corporate America for a very very short span of time,
26:40
Speaker 2: and it was like I learned a lot about how
26:43
Speaker 2: I didn't want to work, who I didn't want to
26:44
Speaker 2: work around, how I didn't want to mountage, how I
26:47
Speaker 2: didn't want to be mounted Like every single thing that
26:49
Speaker 2: I could take away as how I didn't want to
26:51
Speaker 2: work and how I didn't want my life to be
26:53
Speaker 2: was in that structure. One of the reasons why as
26:56
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by provy guys and I worked in
26:59
Speaker 2: a medical based company for a very short span of
27:01
Speaker 2: time and it was gross, and I didn't say anything
27:06
Speaker 2: about any of it. You know, nothing happened, but it
27:09
Speaker 2: was just like you know, a week from me, you know,
27:11
Speaker 2: like nothing physically happened where I needed to report anything
27:14
Speaker 2: outside of you know, making me uncomfortable. But even that,
27:17
Speaker 2: why should we be walking at see look at me?
27:19
Speaker 2: I just made an excuse for a great See we do.
27:22
Speaker 1: We are programmed?
27:23
Speaker 3: Oh my god, a program No, I've not really made.
27:26
Speaker 1: An excuse for it.
27:27
Speaker 3: Oh, I know, but this is what we do. This
27:30
Speaker 3: is this is what we do. And we're already programmed.
27:33
Speaker 3: So we're walking into these workplaces and we're playing out
27:37
Speaker 3: all the values, all of the experiences and the education
27:40
Speaker 3: we've had prior to that moment. And then you know,
27:42
Speaker 3: the organizations are like a playground for for us to
27:46
Speaker 3: all experience an experience of broader world. So we don't
27:51
Speaker 3: put our stories at the front door next to our
27:53
Speaker 3: umbrella when we walk in and leave it there. Like
27:55
Speaker 3: they are driving our relationships and our experience. And so
28:00
Speaker 3: we need to start being more aware self aware first,
28:02
Speaker 3: you know, like that's that's where it has to begin.
28:05
Speaker 3: We have to understand our own narrative before we can
28:07
Speaker 3: start shifting the broader context of our organizations.
28:11
Speaker 2: And I mean, if we could only get everybody to
28:15
Speaker 2: open up their mouth and share just a little bit,
28:17
Speaker 2: what is the percentage of women that are harassed in
28:20
Speaker 2: the workplace ends up in actually something happening to them?
28:24
Speaker 3: So I can tell you that specifically in mining, which
28:29
Speaker 3: is what I've done some research around recently, thirty three
28:32
Speaker 3: percent of women have experienced harassment, but only sixty percent
28:36
Speaker 3: have come forward and made a claim. So again, as
28:40
Speaker 3: I said, there's statistics are mirroring a lot of what
28:43
Speaker 3: I see in domestic violent situations, in intimate violent relationships,
28:49
Speaker 3: all of the statistics are the same. So when you
28:52
Speaker 3: start playing with the one in three, one in five boys,
28:55
Speaker 3: like all of it is almost I think this big
28:58
Speaker 3: boiling pot of what's happening outside the workplace is starting
29:02
Speaker 3: to infiltrate. Yeah, and you know, we can't be responsible,
29:06
Speaker 3: as you said, for the response of another person. And
29:10
Speaker 3: that's what makes it so complicated, Like we all have
29:13
Speaker 3: different experiences and education and exposure to things like where
29:17
Speaker 3: is someone getting their news? And you know, how are
29:20
Speaker 3: we educating our boys about like I saw as statistic
29:24
Speaker 3: the other day to say, in the UK they've just
29:26
Speaker 3: made strangulation illegal in pornography because the statistics of I
29:31
Speaker 3: think was awful, like that people who between eighteen and
29:34
Speaker 3: thirty five had been strangled in an intimate relationship was insane,
29:39
Speaker 3: like seventy five percent or something ridiculous. So they're you know,
29:42
Speaker 3: starting to now just say, well, there's this exposure to
29:46
Speaker 3: things over and over again is what's infiltrating our behavior
29:50
Speaker 3: in the broader society and then in our workplaces. So
29:53
Speaker 3: we need to start looking at what that exposure is
29:56
Speaker 3: and dealing with it from a high level.
30:00
Speaker 2: How do you feel that were our culture and other
30:03
Speaker 2: generations that follow are going to respond to this kind
30:05
Speaker 2: of work.
30:07
Speaker 3: Look, I think we're now dealing with a new beast,
30:10
Speaker 3: which is the online world. And you know, so as
30:13
Speaker 3: I said, like, if I look at my mum, who
30:15
Speaker 3: was you know, an advocate of self and worked for
30:18
Speaker 3: equal opportunity, we were having conversations about transgender individuals being
30:23
Speaker 3: able to use toilets beyond the disabled ones, you know,
30:27
Speaker 3: thirty five years ago at our dinner table. So I
30:29
Speaker 3: was very primed to already understand that I was privileged
30:34
Speaker 3: and that we needed to look out for those who
30:36
Speaker 3: didn't have a voice. I guess my new the conversation
30:39
Speaker 3: I'm having with my kids is about you trust your gut,
30:42
Speaker 3: you touch the touch the butterflies within you. But that's
30:46
Speaker 3: really complicated when we're looking at online grooming, and so
30:49
Speaker 3: it's like, you know, I'm not necessary. I'm educating myself
30:52
Speaker 3: as much as I can about how to keep them
30:54
Speaker 3: safe and truly, at the moment, it's I open conversation
30:59
Speaker 3: with them and knowing that I am a safe place
31:00
Speaker 3: to talk to if anything happens. But I do believe
31:04
Speaker 3: that there is opportunities for change. I think that there's
31:09
Speaker 3: beautiful men in this world that are being sucked up
31:12
Speaker 3: by the same toxic masculinity that has impacted many of
31:17
Speaker 3: us as survivors, and so I think once we give
31:21
Speaker 3: voice to those good men. I actually listen to the
31:25
Speaker 3: radio on the weekend. It was talking about how when
31:28
Speaker 3: we look at intimate violence in relationships that one of
31:31
Speaker 3: the deciding factors of whether a man will ever perpetrate
31:35
Speaker 3: against his partner or not is whether he had a
31:37
Speaker 3: strong relationship as a teenager with ale, a good male
31:42
Speaker 3: figure in their teenage years, and so men have to
31:46
Speaker 3: be a part of this conversation because the good men
31:50
Speaker 3: are what we need to help the strong women, you know,
31:53
Speaker 3: shift the whole entire narrative about it all. So I
31:57
Speaker 3: think you know that we need to be doing this together.
32:00
Speaker 3: You know, someone recently said to me, I'm a feminist,
32:02
Speaker 3: and I said, I'm not. I'm all about equality. I'm
32:05
Speaker 3: all about everyone having a voice and about the good
32:07
Speaker 3: voices being heard, not just the noisy ones.
32:10
Speaker 2: Not well said. And there's a lot of noisy ones.
32:13
Speaker 2: I am one of them, but a different kind of noise.
32:16
Speaker 2: And I feel like I've got a good man. I
32:19
Speaker 2: feel I do have a good man. And man is
32:22
Speaker 2: he an advocate of what you are talking about and
32:24
Speaker 2: what I'm talking about here, and he's my number one
32:26
Speaker 2: champion every single day of my life with everything I've
32:29
Speaker 2: been through, and he knows it all.
32:31
Speaker 1: I mean, he doesn't know it. It's going to be surprising.
32:35
Speaker 2: And he still loves me, of course absolutely, because it's
32:40
Speaker 2: the fabric of who I am. And he's done his
32:42
Speaker 2: fair share of crazy shit and also has been through
32:44
Speaker 2: a lot as well. And so the two of us together,
32:48
Speaker 2: I mean, we all have our moments and marriages. But
32:50
Speaker 2: it is pretty amazing how affirmed I feel, and how
32:55
Speaker 2: non fearful I am, and how an non judged and
32:58
Speaker 2: all of it that I get from that relationship with him.
33:01
Speaker 2: And it's one that I hope that you know, we'll
33:03
Speaker 2: be able to model and continue to model, and that
33:05
Speaker 2: we continue to see these good men stepping up and
33:08
Speaker 2: helping us use our voices, because sometimes we need a
33:11
Speaker 2: little bit of We need somebody there behind us, you know,
33:13
Speaker 2: sticking up for us in the background or are in
33:15
Speaker 2: the front ground, whatever it is. You know, be an
33:17
Speaker 2: advocate for yourself and for those around you that you
33:19
Speaker 2: know love you most. And that's that's what we're here
33:21
Speaker 2: doing today. So I'm glad that you're here doing it.
33:24
Speaker 3: Thank you, and you know, and sometimes adacy can be
33:27
Speaker 3: silence and holding space and you know, I know for me,
33:30
Speaker 3: when I did I told my story at my book
33:33
Speaker 3: launch publicly, I had my ten year old son sitting there,
33:36
Speaker 3: like and friends of mine just say it was they
33:38
Speaker 3: just couldn't stop watching his face that he was so
33:41
Speaker 3: proud of me. And my daughter, who was fourteen, introduced
33:45
Speaker 3: me and did a welcome to country, and you know,
33:48
Speaker 3: and I'm just so proud of that that I can
33:50
Speaker 3: tell this story and have my husband there smiling with pride,
33:53
Speaker 3: and my mom and you know, like, I'm very lucky.
33:56
Speaker 3: And I understand that that is rare because there's a
33:59
Speaker 3: lot of people that don't speak up because there's too
34:02
Speaker 3: much to lose, and so I really want to acknowledge
34:04
Speaker 3: that that it's it's a very difficult thing to talk about.
34:09
Speaker 3: And by no means am I saying that everyone should
34:11
Speaker 3: scream from the rafters. But you don't need to go everybody, no, no, no,
34:18
Speaker 3: But look, but start with a letter to yourself. Start
34:21
Speaker 3: with writing to the parts of you that are in pain.
34:24
Speaker 3: And you know, for me, that five year old self
34:27
Speaker 3: she needed different things than my eight year old self needed.
34:30
Speaker 3: So it was like I had to heal each experience
34:34
Speaker 3: in its own right. And you know there were crossovers,
34:36
Speaker 3: but but I made all of it mean different things.
34:39
Speaker 3: So I think that starting with writing out what happened
34:42
Speaker 3: and how you feel and even burning it. But that
34:45
Speaker 3: is about what I when I'm saying, speak your truth.
34:47
Speaker 3: That's that's where you need to begin. And wherever it
34:49
Speaker 3: goes from there is okay. And if it goes no
34:51
Speaker 3: one from there and you're okay, then that's perfect, But
34:54
Speaker 3: just get it out of you.
34:56
Speaker 1: Get it out of you.
34:56
Speaker 2: I think that would be the one thing that we
34:58
Speaker 2: were listeners with for sure, is getting it out of you,
35:01
Speaker 2: because there is something to be said with you know,
35:04
Speaker 2: every kind of purging that we do, whichever way that is.
35:07
Speaker 2: You know, we do our spring cleaning around our home.
35:09
Speaker 2: We get rid of stuff and it feels so good
35:11
Speaker 2: to just like onload and get rid of the things
35:14
Speaker 2: and you clean everything again. You're like, oh my god,
35:16
Speaker 2: I don't know how it's made the cut for the
35:17
Speaker 2: past ten years and it's still in my closet like
35:20
Speaker 2: all of that, Like trim the fat and give it
35:22
Speaker 2: to people that will love it and appreciate it instead
35:24
Speaker 2: of a closet getting all dusty. But you know what
35:26
Speaker 2: I'm saying, it's cleaning out all the spider webs and
35:29
Speaker 2: the cobbins and cleaning it out and getting it ready
35:31
Speaker 2: to move and sell and move on because I'm tired
35:35
Speaker 2: of living the way that I do. Now I'm talking
35:37
Speaker 2: about it like crazy, and my pain has gotten worse.
35:40
Speaker 2: So I don't necessarily know that I'm the best advocate
35:42
Speaker 2: for saying that it'll get better in the pain department.
35:45
Speaker 2: But I also feel like to your your story and
35:47
Speaker 2: I'm glad that you shared it about that cyst that
35:49
Speaker 2: you had. I almost feel like I'm I'm really really
35:53
Speaker 2: getting close and my body is just like in almost
35:56
Speaker 2: its worst pain that it's been lately.
35:59
Speaker 1: In particular, I think it's because I've been doing so.
36:01
Speaker 2: Much work that maybe just maybe this is my big
36:04
Speaker 2: glob of gunk that wants to come out of me
36:07
Speaker 2: once and for all here, and it's all coming out
36:09
Speaker 2: kind of simultaneously, like with some yeah, something to be
36:13
Speaker 2: reckoned with here.
36:15
Speaker 3: Well, you know, when I remember a midwife saying to
36:19
Speaker 3: me when I was in labor with my kids that
36:21
Speaker 3: when you hit transition, which is the phase just before
36:24
Speaker 3: the babies were birthed, it is when you want to
36:27
Speaker 3: give up. It's when you are in so much pain
36:30
Speaker 3: and you just have nothing left. And so sometimes in life,
36:33
Speaker 3: when I hit that point, I celebrate it. So I'm like, oh,
36:36
Speaker 3: this is really hard. That means a breakthrough it's about
36:38
Speaker 3: to come. So, you know, I whether that's true or not,
36:42
Speaker 3: it's a belief that serves me well.
36:44
Speaker 2: I like it, and I believe in that because things
36:46
Speaker 2: that have happened really amazing in my life have absolutely
36:50
Speaker 2: come from a police where I'm like, I'm not going
36:52
Speaker 2: to be able to push through this. I'm not, I'm not,
36:54
Speaker 2: I'm not, And then I do and I was like,
36:56
Speaker 2: oh my god, that was amazing. I'm so glad that
36:58
Speaker 2: I pushed through that. So you're so close, that's wise advice.
37:01
Speaker 1: Yes I am. I'm close. I'm at the first office
37:03
Speaker 1: of amazing here.
37:04
Speaker 2: Yes, well, thank you today, my sweet love for being here.
37:09
Speaker 2: Being a survivor, I know that word is sometimes like,
37:13
Speaker 2: oh great, here's another survivor. Yeah, guess what we are,
37:17
Speaker 2: So keep on rucking and keep on surviving. I also
37:20
Speaker 2: like to use the word thriving instead, because I'm you know,
37:25
Speaker 2: we sit here during the day, and there are days
37:27
Speaker 2: and there are moments where I'm like, I am basically
37:30
Speaker 2: just hanging on and barely surviving. But that is part
37:33
Speaker 2: of what you go through when you're healing, is you're
37:36
Speaker 2: like more harpstring to place the music from damn it,
37:40
Speaker 2: And I'm going to play a song. I'm gonna play
37:43
Speaker 2: a ditty, but it's just one note. Okay, all right,
37:47
Speaker 2: where can we find you? I mean, she's all over
37:49
Speaker 2: the place. She's got her new book that just came out,
37:52
Speaker 2: Courage to Speak Your Truth, which is incredible, And you
37:55
Speaker 2: guys have to pick this up and puts all in
37:57
Speaker 2: show notes and social media and all that. She's on Amazon,
37:59
Speaker 2: her book, in her second book. I'll put this all
38:01
Speaker 2: out there, no worries. You can find her. You're all
38:03
Speaker 2: over the place with your name differently, by the way,
38:05
Speaker 2: my love so.
38:07
Speaker 1: In social media. I will put that everywhere.
38:09
Speaker 2: But you can go to her website which is B
38:11
Speaker 2: speak b E S P E a K, which I love,
38:14
Speaker 2: by the way.
38:15
Speaker 1: Dot au.
38:16
Speaker 2: Anyways, is there anything else you'd like to leave our
38:18
Speaker 2: listeners with before we hit the dusty trail here, because
38:20
Speaker 2: I know we're getting closer on time.
38:22
Speaker 3: I just be kind to yourself, you know. And there's
38:24
Speaker 3: many days where I judge myself for not getting it right,
38:27
Speaker 3: and I think each of those days we're just a
38:30
Speaker 3: stepping stone to where we are today. And I know
38:33
Speaker 3: I'll probably fall off that path at some point, but
38:36
Speaker 3: be kind. It's not an easy journey, and there is
38:40
Speaker 3: no linear path to healing. It's your path is your path.
38:43
Speaker 3: And I think that as long as we acknowledge that
38:46
Speaker 3: it's one step at a time, then we'll all be okay.
38:49
Speaker 2: I love that quote so very much. It's it's beautifully sad.
38:53
Speaker 2: Thank you so much again for being here with us
38:55
Speaker 2: and for sharing a story and being the survivor that
38:58
Speaker 2: you are. Keep on truck in and I can't wait
39:00
Speaker 2: for your next book to come out and hopefully it's
39:02
Speaker 2: fashion or something.
39:06
Speaker 3: Anyway, I love it. It's much fun a topic than
39:11
Speaker 3: seal it is.
39:12
Speaker 1: I mean, sweaters and jackets and going to the Met.
39:16
Speaker 2: Yes, totally, even though I feel like the met is
39:18
Speaker 2: kind of a traumatic experience for everybody, certainly us that
39:20
Speaker 2: are watching these outfits.
39:22
Speaker 1: Imagine what these women do to get into these dresses.
39:24
Speaker 2: It must take an enclave of people, like twenty people
39:27
Speaker 2: to get you in these dresses.
39:28
Speaker 1: They're painted like, come on, just stop.
39:30
Speaker 2: With this anyways, all right, guys, before we jam here,
39:33
Speaker 2: we do have that new little bite sized extension of
39:35
Speaker 2: the Pain Game podcast called Pain Bites.
39:38
Speaker 1: What crack do you open this week? What stitchs you
39:40
Speaker 1: back together?
39:40
Speaker 2: What moment made you unravel or reminded you why you
39:44
Speaker 2: need to keep fighting? Talk to me about your chaos,
39:47
Speaker 2: your aches, your pains, all of your things. All you
39:49
Speaker 2: need to go is go to our Instagram or go
39:51
Speaker 2: to our easy link. It's in our bio at Insta
39:53
Speaker 2: and in there there's a quick little link that will
39:55
Speaker 2: send you to submit your pain bite, quick little recording
39:58
Speaker 2: of what's going on with you, and then do a.
40:00
Speaker 1: Special little mini episode just about you.
40:02
Speaker 2: So hop on down to Instagram and go to our
40:04
Speaker 2: bio and click on that.
40:06
Speaker 1: Link for the pain bites.
40:07
Speaker 2: You are exclusively invited to share this courage to speak
40:10
Speaker 2: your truth VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the
40:14
Speaker 2: heart of how to heal with you by my side.
40:17
Speaker 2: Please follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your
40:20
Speaker 2: podcast content, we will be there. Visit us at the
40:23
Speaker 2: Pain gamepodcast dot com and follow us on all the socials.
40:26
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to my little VIPs. Catch you on
40:29
Speaker 2: the other side.