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A Year of Yes with Melissa Williams · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Favers podcast. My name is Guiming
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Ferson and I interview incredible people who share the story
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: of how trauma has shaped their lives. And a big
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to my guest
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: and our sponsors. So five four, three, two and one,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: our folks, welcome back to the podcast. Very excited to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: have as my guest today. Melissa Williams, Melissa, welcome.
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you, glad to be here.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Awesome. So Melissa is the creator of the YouTube channel
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Lost at fifty something and the originator of the backwards Confession,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: a powerful practice of entering a confessional not to seek absolution,
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  Speaker 1: but rather to name the harm caused by certain church
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  Speaker 1: doctrines and actions, and then to offer forgiveness as an
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  Speaker 1: act of reclaiming personal power and peace. This deeply personal
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  Speaker 1: ritual has become the foundation for a budding movement and
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  Speaker 1: online community where individuals are encouraged to engage similar acts
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  Speaker 1: of active forgiveness and liberation institutional harm. All right, Melissa,
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  Speaker 1: just a little bit about you before we go, and
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  Speaker 1: share with the listeners where you're from originally and where
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: you are currently.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, I am originally from Norfolk, Virginia area,
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  Speaker 2: actually specifically Newport News, Virginia, and I currently am in Phoenix, Arizona,
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: but I'm in a transitional stage. I'm getting ready to
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: move to Spain at the end of this month.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Holy moly. Wow, okay, very cool. Well let's dive in.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: How did all this start?
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: Oh? Wow? So April twenty sixth I had a spiritual awakening.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: I had a spa day at my home by myself.
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  Speaker 2: I decided to do.
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  Speaker 1: It April twenty six like this April.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Twin this here, Okay, yeah, yeah, I had a spa day.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: I was I was just doing my own thing, and I,
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: you know, I took a bath, was listening to Epoch
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Chopra's book Reinventing the Body, Reigniting the Soul, or maybe
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: the other way around, but in any case, I was
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: listening to him. And afterwards, I decided to meditate on
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: the love, just like pure love, like he mentioned. And
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: I started to do that, and all of a sudden,
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  Speaker 2: I had this crazy spiritual experience that unfolded all these
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: events that happened in my life from that day and
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: May second, I actually walked out on a thirty two
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  Speaker 2: year marriage.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, hang on all right. Wow. So in April,
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  Speaker 1: so a few months ago, you're having this.
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  Speaker 3: Self care day, a SPA day.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Specifically, what was happening to you? You had these realizations?
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  Speaker 3: I mean, when what form did they come to?
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  Speaker 2: Okay, it's crazy, so I have to tell you that
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: this isn't you know? I had become an atheist. I
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: left the church. I left the Catholic Church in twenty twenty,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: and I was pretty much an atheist. But then this happened.
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: So I was.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Meditating, right, and I started to think about I started
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: to you know, as we do when we're when we're meditating,
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: we oftentimes our brain takes us on a journey that
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: we don't that we're trying to know. I want to meditate, right,
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So I started thinking about Spain and moving to Spain,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: and I used to live there back in two thousand
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  Speaker 2: and nine to twenty thirteen, and I was brought back
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  Speaker 2: to this moment where we had just recently moved there.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: So it was two thousand and nine. I was sitting
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: in the car, windows rolled down, and there was this
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: breeze coming in from because we we we were near
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: the ocean. So this breeze was coming in. It was beautiful,
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: and my husband had gone inside to go pick up
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: our daughter from her friend's house, and the song used
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Somebody by Kings of Leon was on. And for anybody
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: who's inclined to music theory or any of that, it's
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: a very beautifully arranged piece of music. It's absolutely amazing.
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  Speaker 2: It was the first time I had ever heard it,
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  Speaker 2: and I remember the time just stood still. I was
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  Speaker 2: in complete bliss. I felt like, Wow, this is where
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  Speaker 2: I need to be right now. Spain is my happy place.
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  Speaker 2: And so whenever I'm often brought back to that time
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  Speaker 2: because it was so incredible for me. Well, that evening
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  Speaker 2: we got back to our place, and you know, this
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  Speaker 2: was before like modern texting and all that was completely mainstream,
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  Speaker 2: and so we got an email that night that my
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  Speaker 2: husband's grandmother had died, and so I feel like I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: had a shared death experience with her because because Time
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  Speaker 2: stood still, you know, it was just I knew that
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  Speaker 2: that was the moment that she had passed. And so
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  Speaker 2: every time I hear that song, I'm brought back to
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  Speaker 2: that moment and I think about my husband's grandma, who
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  Speaker 2: was totally sweet to me. Well, I was sitting there
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: and I wanted to comment on the well I got
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: on the I got on the YouTube. I was music,
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  Speaker 2: and I was like, okay, I have to hear the
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  Speaker 2: song again because I want to be taken back to
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  Speaker 2: that place. I was like, it's my spa day. I
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  Speaker 2: can do whatever I want. So so I skipped the
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: meditating and I went to listen to this song and
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  Speaker 2: I'm reading the comments and there's so many comments on
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  Speaker 2: there about how this song relates to somebody that had
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  Speaker 2: passed away. Yeah, and so I'm like, oh my gosh.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: So I'm thinking about it, and I'm like, okay, I
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: want to write something. I want to write. I want
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: to write a comment, but I need to get the
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: date right. So I looked up the exact date that
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  Speaker 2: she died, and then I was like, wait a minute,
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  Speaker 2: is that the same day my dad died? It was.
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  Speaker 2: I looked it up. My dad died twenty nine years
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  Speaker 2: to the day before my husband's grandmother. And at that moment,
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I felt these tingly sensations going from my head to
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  Speaker 2: my toes. And I was in that chair, sitting there
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  Speaker 2: like I was being held there, like I couldn't move,
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  Speaker 2: and I know this happened for a long time. I
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: was getting the tinglees for minutes because another song started
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  Speaker 2: to play before I even came out of it, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: so I was like, oh my gosh, what does this mean?
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  Speaker 2: What does this mean? So I called my friend, who
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: at the time I called my woo woo friend because
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: she was into spirituality and stuff but I wasn't. I
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: was like, what does this mean? And she says, well,
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  Speaker 2: I don't know. It's probably just your spirit guides. They
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: probably just want to talk to you. And I was like, well,
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  Speaker 2: what do they want? They want to tell me something.
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  Speaker 2: I know it's something, and she's like, well, maybe they
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  Speaker 2: just want you to know that they're there. And I
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: was like, yeah, okay, whatever. So I went on about
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: my business, you know, and went to work and I
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: had this thing on my whiteboard. I'm a teacher. I
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: was a teacher, and it was from these positive APPA
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: information things that I got from the podcast Wake Me
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  Speaker 2: Up I used to do every day, and one day
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: he said, start creating the life you're excited to wake
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: up to today, and so I wrote that on my
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: whiteboard and so I saw it every day for quite
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: a while, and going on about my day and my
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: week a couple weeks and May first, well really it was.
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  Speaker 2: It was the thirtieth of April because I was watching
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: a whole other thing. But I was watching a movie
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  Speaker 2: and this movie told me, Okay, I need to go.
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  Speaker 2: So the next day I'm in my therapist office. It
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: was the thursday, it was the first of May, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: I said, I really want to leave him and she said, well,
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  Speaker 2: you know, and I'm like, but I don't know, I
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: should just wait till Spain. It's a long story I
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: want to give that, but anyway, point is I went
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  Speaker 2: to see my therapist on May first, I said I
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  Speaker 2: want to leave him. The next day May second, I did.
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  Speaker 2: Thirty two years, thirty two years we've been married, and
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  Speaker 2: I walked out and that started a whole nother chain
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  Speaker 2: of events that just made me super s super happy,
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  Speaker 2: and I am happy and I am thrilled to be
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  Speaker 2: moving to Spain on my own and yeah, my life
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  Speaker 2: is completely different now. And so that led me to
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  Speaker 2: doing the backwards confession.
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  Speaker 1: How did that lead you to that?
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  Speaker 2: Because I was well, first of all, I needed to
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  Speaker 2: travel over the summer, which I manifested because I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to do that that was on my vision board this year,
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  Speaker 2: and my daughter and my grandson. I have six kids,
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: so my daughter and my grandson live in Arkansas. Hated Arkansas,
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  Speaker 2: did not want to go back there. Had to live
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: there for four years as part of my husband's military service.
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  Speaker 2: It was a terrible, terrible time. It was the worst
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  Speaker 2: five years my entire adult life. I say adult life
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  Speaker 2: because I was a foster child and I have my
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: own set of trauma from that era. But I went there.
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  Speaker 2: I wasn't happy about it. The next morning, I woke
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: up after the day that I flew in, and my kids,
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  Speaker 2: you know, they sleep late, you know, even my daughter
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  Speaker 2: and my grandson, they sleep late. So I woke up
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  Speaker 2: and I was like, huh, it's Saturday. It's confession day.
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  Speaker 2: I said, oh, it's confession day. Yeah. So I decided
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  Speaker 2: to go to the church that I went to while
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: I was there, the church, the very parish that turned
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: its back on me when I was in severe depression,
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: severe postpartum depression, severe trauma from some things that had
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: happened in my marriage at the time. You can guess
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: it's these military Come on, we know, we all know
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  Speaker 2: what happens. Oh, well, what happens on deployment stays on deployment.
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  Speaker 2: So it's like Vegas, you know, they can sleep around
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: as much as they want. Well, it didn't stay on deployment.
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  Speaker 2: I ended up. It was a terrible, terrible, terrible time there.
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  Speaker 2: I was dealing with trying to get past his infidelity,
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: but also making him feel better because he didn't like
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  Speaker 2: that I was upset that he was upset, or that
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  Speaker 2: I was upset that he had done that to me.
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  Speaker 2: So I had to learn to stuff my feelings because
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  Speaker 2: if I got upset, then I had to take care
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  Speaker 2: of him. It was terrible, and I had six kids,
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  Speaker 2: and it was you know, he was deployed a lot,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: and I was there alone, and I was working on
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: my bachelor's and master's degrees at the time. It was crazy.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So I went to that church and as everybody else
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  Speaker 2: was lining up to go to confession, I sat in
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  Speaker 2: the pew and I wrote down every single line of
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: information that I could think of that they had done
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  Speaker 2: to me, or to my family or to the world.
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  Speaker 2: And I went into the confessional. I was very respectful.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I recorded the whole thing. It's on my YouTube channel.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: You recorded it on your phone, yes.
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  Speaker 2: I did. Yeah, verbal I didn't. I did not record
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: the priest. Obviously that would have been wrong, but but
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  Speaker 2: I recorded everything that happened in there, and I sat
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  Speaker 2: up front, I am not here to confess my sins.
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  Speaker 2: I am here to forgive those of the church. And
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  Speaker 2: I called it my litany of freedom. And I when you.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: Went into confession, did you say that to Is that
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  Speaker 1: what you said to the priest?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're in that that cubicle type thing.
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  Speaker 2: So you can choose nowadays, for the most part, if
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: you if you go to there's some churches that do
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  Speaker 2: it differently, but for the most part, you can choose
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: if you want to do face to face or if
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: you want to have a curtain between you. I did
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  Speaker 2: face to.
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  Speaker 1: Face to face, okay, and it was private.
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  Speaker 2: It was yeah, okay and.
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  Speaker 3: Okay, So so go on. And you said you want
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: to forgive them m.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and uh, And I asked, I told, I told
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  Speaker 2: the priest, please hold space for that. You don't need
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  Speaker 2: to respond, you don't need to give me advice, just
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  Speaker 2: please hold space. And he did, and he was clearly
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: moved by this whole. I named each of the of
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: the the things that I could think of that affected
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: me my family. So my daughter, my oldest, she fled
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: a severely domestic abuse of relationship and she wanted to
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: do the right thing and get the moment from the church,
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: and she she did all the paperwork and everything, and
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: then they said, okay, well now we need to send
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: this to your to your husband, and it had her
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: address on it, and she's like, no, this is not
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: I don't feel safe doing that. But that was the
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: only way that they would even consider her annulment. So
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: that was one of the things that I forgave the
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  Speaker 2: church for was making her feel like she was at
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: fault and making her feel like she had to jump
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: through hoops to get an annulment that she probably wouldn't
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: have even gotten anyway, because it goes before a bunch
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: of old men, most of whom are not even married.
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  Speaker 2: So that was one thing. Another thing was you know,
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: going in and recut culturalizing people and killing people, because
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: let's face that they did. They did, there's proof of it.
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  Speaker 2: And my two trans children, you know, I didn't know
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  Speaker 2: I was working for the church, I was volunteering for
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  Speaker 2: the church, and I had no idea that my kids
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  Speaker 2: were trans and I had no idea that it was
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: going to harm them in the way that it did
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: and the way that it still does harm trans people.
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  Speaker 1: So you have six kids I do, from the same father.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been married. We were married thirty two I
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: mean I'm not divorced yet. So yeah, we've been married
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: thirty two years. So you have two kids, two trans,
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: one gay one Bye?
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, do you.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: Mind if I ask how old the trans kids are?
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Seventeen and twenty.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Nine and when did you find out? How did you
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: find out?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: So my twenty nine year old came out to me
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: when she was twenty one, and then my seventeen year
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: old was able to come out earlier because she saw
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: her sister, So she came out at fourteen.
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: And what did the church say?
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: How did they reacton?
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: It's not really the church itself, it's their grandmother and
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: their father. So grandma refuses to use their names or pronouns,
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: and she thinks it's an abomination. Their father tries to
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: do everything that he possibly can to support them that
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: the church will allow, because he thinks he's going to
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: go to Hell if he doesn't so, or if he
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: disavows any of those regulations. So his only his thing is,
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: I won't use their preferred pronouns. I'll use their preferred names,
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: and I will support them and love them, but I
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: will not use their preferred pronouns because that's what the
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: church says. The church says, you can't you can't use
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: their because God made them boy or girl, and that's
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: the way it is. And so you have to you
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: have to respect God. So I did that. I said,
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I said, the doctrine that causes my husband and my
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: mother in law to think that they cannot give the
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: full amount of love to our children that they deserve.
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: So this is pretty intense. Why was this important for you?
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: I mean, has anyone ever done this before?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: No, not to my knowledge.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: School.
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: So when I left the church, I was never going
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: to go back there. Like I went a couple of
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: Christmases just for my husband, but I didn't even like.
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: I hated it. It just made me gross, It made
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: me like this horrible feeling in my stomach. I didn't
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: want anything to do with it. When I went in
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: there and flipped the script, literally that's what I did.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: I took back the power and control. I broke rules
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: that they that even today people think, even if they
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: don't belong to the church, they still have to follow
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: those rules. They have to go in and do the
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: Sign of the Cross and say bless me Father, for
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: I've sinned, and you know, the whole thing, because we've
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: been ingrained to do that, because we have to do that,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: Like why do we have to follow the rules? Like
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: we're not I'm not even in the church anymore, you
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: know what I mean?
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: Right, So it was this essentially, oh, kind of a
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: one time thing for you.
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: I don't know, because there I probably will go to
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: the local church here in Arizona that I went to
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: before I left, because the guy that priest was pretty
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: he's very misogynistic and uh, I don't know. He would
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: he would give sermons or homilies and he would talk
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: about how he obliterated people on Facebook like oh they
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: were saying this, And so I said that this guy
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: was a big part of my deconstruction, Like I was
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: just like, he just a little So I might I
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: might go and see him. I don't know, we'll see.
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: So what is so?
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: And then from that you started a YouTube channel. How
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: did that come about? What was the purpose of that?
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Actually the YouTube channel started before I did the backwards confession.
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: I started the YouTube channel as like, Hey, I'm reinventing
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: my life. I just left my husband in middle age,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I left my job. I'm going to Spain and starting over.
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: That's how it started.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Okay, so it's it's like you're starting anew, starting refresh.
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: And then so we're we're where does this backward confession
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: come into play?
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: What's what's what's again? What's I guess what's the purpose
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: of it for you?
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, so much, so much. First of all,
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: when I saw how moved that priest was, I knew
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: exactly how he felt, because because when we are working
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: for the church and we know in our hearts that
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: a lot of what we do and what we stand
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: for is wrong. I knew that when I worked for
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: the church. I was a director of religious education for
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: two different dioceses. When I worked for the church, I
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: knew that telling people they could not express their sexuality
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: was wrong. I knew that turning perfectly good godparents away
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: simply because they were divorced or shacked up or whatever
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: was wrong. Because I was forced to, people had to
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: go and find strangers to be their kids godparents for
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: their baptism. It was ridiculous. I knew these things were wrong,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: and I experienced that cognitive dissonance and I rationalized it. Now,
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: think about that. Now I have other job opportunities. I
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: can still teach, I can be a professor. I don't
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: need to work for the Catholic Church. But let's think
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: about what happens to priests when they become a priest.
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: They don't work in their hometown. They are sent far away,
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: oftentimes into a completely different country. Huh. I know cults
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: do that too, and they are you know, they are stuck.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: They're stuck. So if they do have that realization that
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: what I'm doing is wrong, they may feel like they're
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: in a dysfunctional relationship that they aren't allowed to leave.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: And I can't speak on behalf of this priest, but
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: I do know that at some level he was moved
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: by what I did. So what I think is that
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: if more people do it, if more people stand up
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: and they go and they talk to a priest or,
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: a pastor or someone who has done the who has
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: supported that, maybe they're not doing it themselves. Maybe they're
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: really progressive, but they're supporting this line of thinking. This dogma,
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Then maybe this will make a change. Because what we're
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: doing right now, going on YouTube and Instagram and the
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: other things, yelling and screaming about how the Catholic Church
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: and other churches have done certain groups of people wrong,
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: that's not doing anything. That's just creating more and more
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: division and more hatred.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: Let me just reintroduce you speaking with Melissa Williams. Her
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: YouTube channel is called lost at fifty something and she's
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: the originator of the backwards confession. Melissa, is the purpose
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: here to kind of not just to cry what the
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: church has done? But is it to do this backwards
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: confession and then to remove yourself from all affiliation or
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: association with the church or is it to work within
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: the church, Because they're kind of two different things, right
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: to if you approach this as a confession, backwards confession,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: and are you still like is one still working within
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the church or.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: What soft I officially left the church in twenty twenty.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: I stopped working for the church in twenty nineteen. The
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: answer to your question is, first of all, when I
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: did it, I just wanted the release. I just wanted
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: the freedom from that hatred and the anger. Which it worked.
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: I mean to tell you my life is so much better.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: I feel freer, I feel lighter. I used to like
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: the only person that I knew in my personal bubble
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: who was still Catholic was my husband, and I would
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: put a lot of that weight of my anger on
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: him because he was the representative for me, he was
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: the representative of the Catholic Church. And I don't do
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: that anymore. I mean, we're still not together for other reasons,
• 23:00
  Speaker 2: but I don't put all that on him anymore. And
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: I feel like now I'm able to spread so much
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: joy and happiness and love to other people because I
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: have lifted that off of my heart. And there's actually
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: something I've been doing that i'd like to share with
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: you that I think has been really good for the
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: universe and for people. Whenever I go. Yeah, so whenever
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: I go somewhere. I started doing this at the airport,
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: and because I've been traveling a lot this year, anytime
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: i go anywhere, like the airport, to coffee shops to wherever,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: I'll just stop somebody, some random person, maybe you know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: like a worker, somebody who is unrecognized, but oftentimes just
• 23:47
  Speaker 2: a random person on the street, and I'll say, hey,
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: I think somebody forgot to tell you something today and
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: they look at me like I'm like, what what did
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I do? Like you know, something wrong, and say you
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: are appreciated and loved. Oh my gosh, the responses I get,
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: it's incredible. Like I've even had conversations with people like
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: you know, one time I was in the airport and
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: there was a pilot and he was sitting by himself
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: and I told him that and he says, wow. He
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: goes thank you. He says, I'm really having a day
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: and I needed to hear that. And I said, well,
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: I got some time we want to talk, and he
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: did and we had a full on conversation. I have
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: noticed for my own self that doing that has put
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: you know, how we are when we when we are
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: in public. You know, we'll look at somebody and we'll think, oh, yeah,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: they're probably blah blah blah, so and so right. I
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: don't do that anymore.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: My thought is, so, first of all, that sounds incredible
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: and amazing and beautiful. Were you always like this? No, No,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: let's shift. Was it this Spa day of yours a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: chip to everything?
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: It was like this domino effect from the Spa Day
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: from the spiritual awakening that I had on April twenty
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: sixth and everything that has happened since i've I've actually
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: had this year of yes that has begun. And because
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: of my year of yes, I went to Hawaii a
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: week and a half ago on the like, I bought
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: the ticket the day before I left. I did not
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: have to pay for a place to stay. I did
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: not need a ride from there. They came and got
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: me from that. I mean, it was crazy like and
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: it wasn't like Tinder or anything like that, so don't
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: think it was. It was totally completely platonic. It was
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: just it was just an experience that I It was
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: an opportunity and I said yes to. And I've said
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: yes to so many opportunities. I have so many stories
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I could tell you that you don't have time to hear.
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: But yeah, like so many wonderful things have happened. But
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: I do want to get back to what your question was,
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: because this is the interesting part. I didn't have any
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: intention of working with the che I was gonna be like,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: I'm whatever, because I'm not you know, organized religion. No,
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: thank you, not for me, not for me, but because
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: of my year of yes. I went to San Francisco
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: a few weeks ago. I have a good friend that
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: lives there, so I didn't have to pay for a
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: place to stay there either, and we went. I went
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: to a conference and at this conference, we were having
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: dinner a bunch of us, and this guy says, Hey,
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: you should come to my church tomorrow. And I was
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: like church, no, no, thank you, and he's like he's like, no, no, no, no,
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: you don't understand. This church is different. It changed my life.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: It was Glide Memorial, so you know GLDE Memorial. Yeah. Yeah,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: So that's when he said that it was filmed. It
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: was used in the movie Pursuit of Happiness. I was
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: I'm a film buff. I love movies, and I was like, well,
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: it is my year of Yes, I guess i'll go.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: So I had to convince my friend that I was
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: staying with Hey, let's go to church tomorrow, and he's like,
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: I going to church. And then I was like, look,
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: if you take me to church tomorrow, I'll eat sushi.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: I'll try sushi for the first time, so which I
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: absolutely loved. Of course, So we go there and I
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: end up talking to the pastor, well, the cecil has
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: passed away. He passed away recently. But the new pastor
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: there I ended up talking to and he's like I
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: was telling him about the backwards confession and how it
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: would really suit their situation there, and he said, oh, yeah,
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: this is great. So he said, do you have a
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: worksheet or something, and I said, yes, I do. It's
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: linked on my YouTube, the YouTube video. It's right there
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: for anybody to use if you want to use it. It's
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: a template and you can make your confession however you want,
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: your backwards confession. And so he took that and he
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: said he's going to make a workshop at that church,
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: which I don't even like calling it a church because
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: it is so everything opposite of what I've ever seen
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: a church to be.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: Just to reiterate and to clarify the backwards confession is
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: to tell the church how they have harmed you, hurts you,
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: negatively impacted you, to basically stand up for yourself.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: When I was in there doing that, I felt like
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: I was going to my parents and saying, this is me,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: this is who I am. However that is defined for
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: a person deal with it, and however you want to
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: respond is your business. But I forgive you, not for you,
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: but for me, And I'm telling you what it. You know,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: there's a lot of stuff going around nowadays where they're like, no,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: forgiveness is overrated. Forgiveness is a tool that they use
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: to control you, not if you do it right, not
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: if you do it right. I didn't go in there
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: to re join the church. I didn't go in there
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: to do anything except release myself, release all that anger
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: and hate from my soul, which did nothing but make
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: me a better person. And now I'm out there spreading
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: love and joy in everything that I do.
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Wow, all right, Melissa, damn inspiring. I'm gonna have myself
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: a spat day pretty soon. Jesus. All right, Look, how
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: do people learn more about you and what you're doing
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: and everything?
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So really, I just have the YouTube channel right now.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: That's all I have, you know. I try to stay
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: off with the other thing.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: And that's five o something. Ye okay. We'll have that
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: linked up here at the show notes page at the
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Trauma Theaverist podcast dot com. And so you were traveling
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: or moving to Spain.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I'm moving for I have a year visa for studying Spanish.
• 30:18
  Speaker 2: I'm going to study Spanish for a year. In the meantime,
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: I'm going to work on making this a retreat and
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: I'm going to possibly be working with the Navy chaplaincy,
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: which is interesting because you said, will I be working
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: with the church because I'll be close, fairly close to
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: the naval base where we used to live. Wow, when
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: I'm there. So yeah, So I'll be in I'll be
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: based in Katie, Spain, which is also pronounced Kaddish, and
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: that's where I'm going to hopefully be having these No,
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: not hopefully these retreats are going to happen. I'm going
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: to have these religious trauma retreats and I'm going to
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: have anything from a day retreat to a whole ten
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: day retreat.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Wow from Melissa, Awesome. Awesome, We'll be in touch. Thank
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: you so much for being here.
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: Thank you, appreciate you too.
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: M