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Guest: MultiMes, Part 1 · System Speak: Complex Trauma and Dissociation

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Over:
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the System Speak Podcast, a podcast about Dissociative Identity Disorder. If you are new to the podcast, we recommend starting at the beginning episodes and listen in order to hear our story and what we have learned through this endeavor. Current episodes may be more applicable to longtime listeners and are likely to contain more advanced topics, emotional or other triggering content, and or reference earlier episodes that provide more context to what we are currently learning and experiencing. As always, please care for yourself during and after listening to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:02
  Speaker 3: Hello. Can you hear me?
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: There you are, my friend.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: Hi, Emma. How are you? How do you get over your nerves when you do these things?
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: Oh, I don't. It just is.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: That's reassuring.
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: You're welcome. So I'm super excited to talk to you because we have a history of disagreeing, but not of nasty conflict. And what you have to share, I think, is really important, and that's why we're gonna talk together.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: How's that for an introduction?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: That's perfect.
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: And I'm not even sure if I can even It's already the podcast is pretty much already scheduled through 2021, actually. Like, through the end of next year, it's already done. And so Wow. I'm trying to put it in on a Thursday somewhere as an extra episode because I really do think it's that important, but it's it's tricksy to go back and be oriented in the past that's happening now for other people. So That was right.
• 2:04
  Yeah. And if you or any of you change your mind, that's totally fine. Just let me know as we go or after editing when you listen. Okay?
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: So okay. So how we wanna start this? So over the last year in 2020, '1 of the things that we've talked about on the podcast a lot is toxic positivity because we had all kinds of complaints about it, and we were fighting against it in a lot of personal levels, and it just kept coming out on the podcast because the podcast has become almost like a journal where we just puke out all sorts of things that are now in the public awareness. And so it it's come up a And on top of that, it was a very difficult year. It was a difficult year for everybody between pandemic and politics and protests, like the big three p's of twenty twenty.
• 2:58
  Right? So no matter what side of things you were on or what your experience of those things were like, it was just a lot in 2020. So going through those difficult things as like a community of the entire planet, and then personally, we were going through the transition from therapy to trying to find a therapist to that not working out over and over again and being in a very dark and difficult place for ourselves. I think that we were in the hospital four times in 2020 actually just trying to stay alive. And I don't mean that I'm, as as a triggering thing and and I don't I don't mean to go into detail of that, but it was just a very difficult and dark place.
• 3:46
  And one of the things we were very sensitive to in that place had to do with toxic positivity. And you and I sort of debated as friends off the podcast. You and I sort of debated that back and forth a little bit throughout the year, different aspects of it. But finally, it's just become so much, and I don't mean in a negative way. I mean in a important discussion that I think is helpful to lots of people.
• 4:12
  We decided to just talk about it on the podcast.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I what you're telling me is very valid, Emma. I have thought about this as well. And the toxic part in front of positivity, I think, was something that I couldn't wrap my thinking around. Because in my opinion, and again, this anything I say in this podcast is just from my personal experience.
• 4:35
  It's such a cynical, critical world we live in. And I think it's hard to grip and find anything positive out there. So when we do, I, personally, I wanna grab it and hold on to it. Thinking about what you have said, I can imagine how it feels really invalidating when someone maybe encourages you to turn the cheek towards the pain that you feel within. And I think I had to step back and put myself in your shoes and anybody else's shoes that feels like what they're hearing from others isn't being not only listened to, but understood.
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: And I I appreciate that because I think you have a point. And when we do that to people, any any of us, even my kids to each other or me to my kids, or my kids to me for that matter. Just when humans do that to other humans, it is like salt in the wound, and it's a very harmful thing. But at the same time, your perspective was also valid in that the world was especially, for some reason, especially difficult in every corner of 2020. And so anytime there was something good or positive to hang on to, it really was that much more valuable, really.
• 6:01
  Not just important to hold on to, but it was like a nugget of gold because there was so much that was not positive. And so being able to focus on things that are authentically good, sincerely safe, and really truly positive is so important and part of how we pull through the hard things. Which is different than when positivity becomes toxic. Which I think for me in clarifying what I meant and what we struggled at the time to find words to express has to do with when that positivity becomes a weapon against people instead of listening to them or instead of being present with them. Which then, which makes that like doubly bad because you've weaponized something good, right?
• 6:55
  And I don't mean you specifically, I mean people in general. But then also, it can be toxic when it is used to sort of collectively dissociate from what is hard and what people are experiencing and what people need tended to. Which I think is different from what you're saying about positivity and how it can be helpful in coping. Because I think that's an important distinction between coping and dismissing or distancing from. Like coping with it acknowledges that it's there and that's not toxic.
• 7:39
  That's helpful. Does that make sense?
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: It does. It does. It makes perfect sense. And I think I have difficulties absorbing that because I came into my system. The body was 15, basically.
• 7:54
  And I don't know how. I don't know how it worked. But from then on, my role as a host and who I am as a person is very important to me, Emma, because I feel like I'm the I'm the result of the collective selves prior to that point. This sounds narcissistic. I don't mean it to be, but it's up to me to help us as a system live our best life.
• 8:20
  And part of that process is maybe they don't want to share their experiences with me, so I won't have that connection. Maybe other survivors would where they can remember things more in detail whereas I can't. I wasn't there.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: Well, I I think that's a valid point because when we're talking about memory time issues, then that either is dissociated or acknowledged. And so it kind of depends on your frame of reference. If you don't have it, and you weren't there, and you don't know about it, then then that is a dissociated piece, and there is that detachment from it, which is not the same as dismissing, because you can't dismiss what you didn't have access to. Which is a very different experience from we are in a place of getting in touch with this and this and this and then it happened and I need someone to say yes it really was that bad.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Do you get that? Do you have individuals in your life that you feel provide that to you where your whole system can internalize that? Or does it feel like that part is still missing? And if I'm intrusive or anything, you can be really blunt with me and just say, not gonna talk about it. Not going there.
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: Oh, wow. No. That's like a million dollar question. And I think for us that was part of 2020 because in healthy relationships, have family or friends who do that. Right?
• 9:51
  Like that's what attunement is and relationships and connection and friendship and so much healing happens in that context. But in 2020, I lost all of those things as far as my experience of it in the ways that I could hold on is how it felt. That may not have been accurate, but that's how it felt because we lost the therapist. We had a couple of friends that knew about the DID, but we could not connect with them physically because of the pandemic. It became very hard internally to distinguish the difference between inside and outside.
• 10:35
  Something happened and I'm not I don't know that we've talked about this on the podcast yet. Something happened during quarantine and being locked down. And ours was super strict because of our daughter, which we did talk about on the podcast. But our quarantine experience was super strict because of our daughter. And that whole lockdown experience became very slippery between what is real inside and what is real outside.
• 11:03
  And if there is a difference and where that difference is and if it's both real knowing which is which and who is where and what goes with what. Like, I mean, really almost lost my mind and I mean that completely respectfully to others and to myself. I mean that as vulnerably and raw and honest. Not at all derogatory or condescending. The the other piece of your question was difficult because we were literally in the process of learning how to connect with others.
• 11:43
  And people had just come like for the birthday party really was the bookend experience for us of the last thing before quarantine started. The birthday party happened and one of those friends we basically never heard from again. And because of quarantine, there was no natural reconnection that helped that conversation continue or unfold in a way that would be a healthy developing relationship. And so we were left sort of on pause in limbo that whole time for months and months and months, a year of not knowing if we had done something wrong or not done something wrong or if we were just too crazy or just not what that person wanted in a friendship or like what happened. We didn't have those answers.
• 12:38
  And when we would finally get a therapist six months into that, we finally got a therapist who was of course like, just talk to them directly and ask. And we tried that and that person was like, oh, it's fine. I'm just dealing with a lot of this over here. And I was like, oh, okay. So this is just about us not being in her circle or her life or whatever, which is information that we were learning about friendships anyway, about what friendships are mutual and what friendships are just just more what do you say in English?
• 13:13
  Associated or associate what's the word?
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: I got it. I understand what you're saying. I think your listeners do too.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: So yeah. And so then the the only other friendships we really had were like, we had you and Megan come on and talk about the pandemic and transitioning to telehealth and what that has been like. And that was such a good conversation, but a lot was going on in Megan's life and I love and adore her. She's not here to defend herself, but I love and adore her. And so a lot was going on in her life.
• 13:47
  So and we were moving away physically. And so it was hard to stay connected to that while we were both struggling. And then with you, that was not a negative experience at all as far as our end. Like we didn't experience any drama there or any pain there. But we knew we were not expressing ourselves in a way that you all felt comfortable agreeing with, which is totally okay.
• 14:13
  Like we're in a good place of how different understandings of the same thing is not necessarily a bad thing. Like that's not a disaster. But it, we really had no other place to connect with people or any other kind of support. The only other option that we had was the ISSTD because of how that's unfolded in our participation and our job there. But when we went to San Francisco, that got cancelled.
• 14:44
  And then coming out or being outed by getting the podcast award for the ISSTD sort of brought all of that to the surface in a new way where we could rely on that for support, but it's a professional setting where we're supposed to be able to do our work. Like we have a job and we have to do our job. And so it made it hard to rely on them as support even though we were so, so accepted and welcomed in ways I've never felt before. I really think, I'm sorry I'm having to literally step through your question to be able to answer it because it's so so raw. I think the really the piece that saved us was that two of the people that came to the birthday party literally messaged us almost every day.
• 15:39
  Nothing intrusive, nothing heavy, just, hey, I'm here. Hey, how are you? Hey, this is what we did today. Just a little bit, and it helped us have something to hold on to. And then also our friend Peter, who we met through the podcast, invited us to a consultation group.
• 15:58
  And that was every other Sunday through all of 2020. And meeting those people and having that connection helped with having some support with dealing with trying to figure out what our work was going to be, which completely changed because we had a change of host. Right? And so, like we lost our job, changed our job. Like everything changed.
• 16:25
  Everything changed. But we had that consistent thread to hold on to with that support as far as we could at least connect, tell someone on the outside, this is what the politics look like here. This is what the pandemic looks like here. This is what we're doing with the kids this week. And like sort of this, not like therapy, but this structured time and place of we go outside of ourselves to report to these people, connect with these people, and come back.
• 16:57
  And so it was the only really social interaction that we had at a regular basis through the whole year. So it was very difficult. And I'm grateful for all of those different connections and the efforts of them, but it was it was like right before the pandemic, we were deciding to take the leap of faith or jump take the jump, I don't know, to dive in or whatever of trying out friendship. But because of the pandemic, it was like the whole experience was obliterated, and we could not get recovered from that. It was so difficult.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry because I did see the progress you guys were attempting to make. And am I was my question intrusive? Because I have another one.
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: No. This is good. I think it's it's an example of we've struggled to find words to describe and explain some of this, but there's also been no no one to talk with about it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: I hear and I don't want to discount the struggles that individuals who dissociate, and it to me, it's very adaptive. My life experience has made it very adaptive where I'm maintaining employment. I'm maintaining, for the most part, pretty healthy relationships. I have a lot of people who are role models to me. I guess my question is for you.
• 18:24
  Do you feel like your ability to dissociate has actually helped you get where you are in your life? Do you think that your ability to do that and to kinda compartmentalize has helped in any way?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: I would say generally, absolutely. There's no way we would have gotten through what we've gotten through. But I think with quarantine, it was honestly one of the first times that it became a liability.
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to paint that picture, Emma. Sometimes, you have to be really detailed with me. So, it's just being on the outside experience with trying to accept who I was and my role within who we are as a system was YouTube. And I remember watching these videos, think honestly, I was scared to death because their process was not my process. And I told myself because of that, no, I'm not dissociative.
• 19:27
  That's no, you know, that's not me. That's not what I am. I was officially diagnosed, I think, fifteen years ago, maybe, and it was first DDNOS. And then when I got that official diagnosis, I ran away from treatment. I just, for seven, eight years, I was like, I I'm making this up.
• 19:49
  I'm intention seeking. I'm not proud of that. I I I went through all those experiences where I thought the worst thing about myself from this disorder. But the one thing that has brought me back around with your help too just asking me what I needed was I am and I'm proud of it. And without this adaptive way of existing, I don't know if we would have what we have right now in our lives.
• 20:18
  And I can't it's hard for me to look at this way of being as being anything else but a blessing. And I know that's not fair to anybody who struggles with it. And I'm trying to work on that. But I don't I don't know if I can get there. And when you share your story and the hard parts of what you guys go through, it's a safer experience for me.
• 20:46
  Oh, this sounds awful. But to see somebody else experience that and either connect with it or not, and I'm finding I'm connecting with it, but at least I don't have to turn inward.
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: Well, that's interesting. I actually we just interviewed Cloughed, and I I don't think that will air until the end of twenty twenty one maybe. But, we've just interviewed him, and one of the things that he talks about is how therapy used to be a more intense experience and a more intentional experience. And I'm not, I don't wanna speak for him. So if I'm using the wrong words in English, please forgive me and give some grace there till you hear him speak his own words.
• 21:31
  But he talked about how it was, maybe more focused would be a better way of saying it. A more focused experience back in the day when people could not talk about it anywhere else. And now that now that we have online support groups and we have podcasts and we have books and we have other people who are professional and also have DID or other people who are professional and your friends. Like my friend Peter is not my therapist but he's a friend who understands DID, right? He gets it.
• 22:07
  My girlfriends that I now live very close to and yet still can't see because of the quarantine. And so there are so many sources of support and so therapy does not have to be or there has been a so there has been a change in therapy, in the clinical experience of therapy that it is not as focused as it used to be in the past because there is this diffused focus where there's lots of places where you can talk about these issues, experience these issues, get support for these issues. And so that that is what he says, that that is what has opened up the possibility for identifying more comfortably with the diagnosis because of that wider acceptance. But it also slows down the work that part of that is that it slows down the work in therapy. So it's interesting that you you mentioned that.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I wow. I would agree. I don't know if if the ISSTD are they and this is ignorance on my part, but it feels like sometimes where I'm at and where the therapy has been up to this point has been more unification, where I'm more of a, I'm just gonna try to function here. That's my goal. Let's just get through today.
• 23:36
  And I have most of my days are good. And and the times that I do have a flashback and I still don't sleep well, I get these horrific nightmares and I and I do know what that's about. But if I can't snap out of it quickly, then I don't know how to manage it. So the parts of me grab it and hold it and protect it for me. And I think unifying that or trying to bring the parts together.
• 24:06
  I I don't know how to navigate that yet. It seems like it causes more systemic distress than help at this point. And everybody tells us, you gotta talk about the past. You gotta bring that all forward. That could be true but my experience doesn't negate their experience.
• 24:24
  So, maybe they can go and speak in therapy what they need to talk about and then, I can be their saving grace where we can wipe ourselves off and go ahead and proceed with our day. My hope is in doing that, maybe there can be some unifying things. And we have had a lot of progress this year. But to completely absorb it as my own, I don't know if I can do that. So I end up feeling like a therapy failure.
• 24:53
  And that's terrible.
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: Well, think I think there's several things that that you've referenced. One One is that I don't think you have to do that. I don't think it's ever about it becoming your own. You weren't there before 15, so it's not going to be your own. I think it's more about ultimately sharing and helping each other so that we aren't alone in having to carry it all.
• 25:24
  But I don't think it's ever about having to just make it your own specifically in a way that it was not. I think it's more about just like we become more aware of like the classic joke on the podcast just to keep things neutral and safe. The classic joke on the podcast is about salsa, right? So becoming more aware of this body likes salsa without it having to be salsa is my favorite food. The the the other piece that is a classic cleft quote.
• 26:03
  Not that he not that that's the end all, but he was one of the first people, one of the first researchers. And his the classic quote from him is about the slower you go, the faster you get there. And so I think that it's perfectly okay that you're not feeling all of those things right now. I don't think you're supposed to feel them right now. That's kind of the whole point, right?
• 26:29
  It's okay that it takes time and that progress looks like what it does for you already right now.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Do you count on yourself the way that you just maybe told me that may help me? Do you experience that as well where I'm losing my words? I'm sorry.
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: It's okay.
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: Hi. Hello?
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Sorry. It's fine. My my thoughts are gone. I
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: That's okay.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: How's your how's your day? Sorry.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: That's okay.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Tongue tied. Sorry.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: Do you want to talk about something else?
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: No. No. I'm just trying to bring it around in my mind to try to remember what we were talking about. So my apologies. Disrespectful.
• 27:29
  I I don't.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: You've you've not done anything disrespectful?
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, that's a relief. So
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: Are you okay continuing, or do you need
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: to stop?
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: No. I'm I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm good.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: Do you need to change topics or or you all switched yourselves?
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: No. No. We're I'm I'm I'm doing well. My apologies. Let's lead the way.
• 28:03
  You're very wise. You're very knowledgeable. I enjoy hearing what you have to say, and, continue. I mean, please. I
• 28:13
  Speaker 3: So so that's actually an important example, I think, because one of the triggers that we learned about in talking about toxic positivity and exploring it in therapy is that those kinds of comments that are just good mannered comments, like you didn't say anything wrong, you didn't say anything bad. But I think sometimes that can become triggering in itself because I don't know we don't know how to tell what is the difference between those words are your words because you're a good decent person with good manners and really mad skills at being polite or what is authentic about us. And I think people who have been through any kind of domestic violence regardless of childhood trauma understand how compliments can be a trigger like because of love bombing in the past or different kinds of grooming behaviors or things. And so even in a conversation about toxic positivity hearing that for me is like the red flags go up of okay, what is that about? What does someone else think?
• 29:33
  What is that countering in your dissociative process with what someone else is not pleased about. And so the goodness is what you bring out because that's your job. Does that make sense?
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: It does. It does. But it also doesn't discount the respect that I put out towards you.
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're very good at being respectful.
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: It's true. You know, I I didn't have anybody to remember that monochromatic world and polka dotted person. Do you remember that?
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: That's when you spend years what feels like in a monochromatic world and you see in the distance a polka dotted person, you're like, odd. And I I don't I it's been so long and it's been I don't wanna say a hard road, but a complicated road. I have lost a lot in my life because I refuse to acknowledge what was going on within. I lost a marriage. I lost a relationship with my daughter.
• 30:43
  There are things that I have done in my past, not horrible, not illegal, but I'm just, I'm not proud of because I I didn't turn towards. And and I don't think I had anything to turn towards, really. You feel alone. You feel alone with this. You know, you feel isolated and so when you see somebody who theoretically, again, I apologize.
• 31:15
  Please don't send MS Central a lot of hate mail. When you see the struggles that people with dissociative disorders go through and you don't, you feel like a fake. For years, I felt like I I I couldn't even explain what it felt like. And then when you see somebody who has a PhD, who's adopted all these special needs kids, and not only is do is doing it efficiently, they're doing it very well. I don't know.
• 31:47
  It just it's reassuring to me that maybe maybe I wasn't all those things I thought I was.
• 31:57
  Speaker 3: Well, then also, you can't compare we, we, any of us, we can't compare content and process. Right? When you look at someone else's life or see them on social media or hear them on a podcast or something, you're hearing one piece of one moment and that's the content that is presented. But that's not the same as enduring that experience and which is process. And your own experience, even of the same content is process.
• 32:32
  So someone could say the same thing about you that, like I could could say the same thing about you. I cannot work at an agency anymore. I cannot function on a day to day basis anymore. I am not in a good enough place, in a stable enough place, in a safe enough place that I can care for other people well right now. And it scares me and I also feel alone.
• 32:57
  And so we could compare like different parts of our lives and say, I'm not real because I'm not that. Or I'm not good enough because I'm not this. But we can't compare content and process because it's not actually, it's like apples and oranges. They're completely different things. And feeling alone is exactly really the root of what was so hard about 2020.
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's true. How have you been able to navigate yourself the year? I I know you say it's been struggles, but how how have you been able to bounce back? What have you relied on?
• 33:42
  Is it your job? Is it your family? Is it a little bit of everything? I mean
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: There's so many layers to it. I think that our work although our job had to change, our work had to happen because either other lives or our own children's lives depended on it. So when they talk about what it's like to be a survivor, having work during the pandemic, whatever that looked like, was everything. Because we have literally had to feed the children with almost nothing for over a year with no respite or time away from them. Like I love them so much, but they do have all these special needs.
• 34:29
  And usually we have help in all kinds of different therapies and school support. And even when they're homeschooling, the teachers would still come to the house part of the day. And so we've had to do that all entirely on our own and all these different things. But our children would not survive if we did not keep a job. So functioning at work became part of survival.
• 35:00
  Not not having enough food to eat ourselves, but making sure they ate enough became part of survival. Having having I don't know. I'm trying to think of what I relied on. It was literally moment to moment. I feel like it was one long moment.
• 35:23
  I don't know. It's all it was it's all blurry. It's hard to stay in touch with how difficult that year was. And even There were times even when being told I had to go to the hospital because I wasn't safe and yet then the hospital would close because of the pandemic, like even that was complicated. There was no there was nothing that was easy or simple about 2020.
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Do you think there's anything positive that could come of it?
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Of 2020?
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I have ability to adapt within me that I didn't think existed. My organization, in a very short amount of time, was able to redirect resources, get their workers safe, and still meet to the best of their ability client need. And I think there's growth in that. I think there's learning experience in that.
• 36:17
  And it's a awful way to have to go through it. But just to watch that happen is amazing.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: That's
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: That reinforces me what when humans can set their mind to do something for good, they really can do something for good. And again, that's where I that's my role in life, Emma? It's where I just look at the positive, look at the other way. But it truly feels like, if anything, it's brought me I don't think that if I was not in telehealth, I don't know if I would have made as much progress as I would have in face to face because face to face is still not comfortable. Something about eye contact when you're being vulnerable or something like that.
• 37:01
  But fact, I'm almost fearful of what 's going to happen when we end up. When I end up going back face to face, is everything going to be forgotten? I hope I can retain everything that we've had up to this point. But one thing I do know is with us, we're an evolving system. And where we are today probably isn't going to be where we're going to be six months, a year from now.
• 37:27
  And so I hope that what the progress I've made up to this point, it can be remembered. Not only remembered, but just really internalized and used moving forward.
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And that's one thing that you and Megan and I talked about on the podcast early in the summer or late in the spring whenever you all were on before, we talked about wanting to do this well enough this whole pandemic experience well enough that we would make it through the other side without having to relive it the same as we had to relive some other traumas. And so it's frustrating that I'm losing ground on that. Having access to the kinds of experience you had is a very privileged kind of access. I had therapists that, did not make any adaptions.
• 38:20
  And so I couldn't keep going because they weren't safe for me physically to go there. I had therapists that, were themselves so anxious that they could no longer function as therapists. I had therapists that, went on to telehealth but then struggled to do their schedules or technology in a way that was functional with where I was at and it didn't work. Having masks is a difficult thing for the deaf community and Oh. And and all of these kinds of things that made it very, hard.
• 38:59
  And I'm not saying that nothing good came out of 2020. There were some powerful things that we learned. I I I learned how to say how bad things are instead of only dissociating from them. I learned how to sit and how awful and terrible I felt instead of avoiding it. I learned how to advocate for myself and those around me by saying, hey, you are dismissing this piece of the experience and standing up for people who were being oppressed in different ways or or dismissed in different ways or not calling out privilege.
• 39:45
  Like I learned how to do those things and those are beautiful gifts from 2020, but it was hell to live through. And so I'm not saying that there was no good in 2020. I'm saying there's an and. 2020 was terrible and difficult and raw and hard and I almost did not survive it. And I also learned how to sit in that uncomfortable feeling.
• 40:17
  I learned how to sit in unpleasant feelings. I learned how to sit in painful feelings. I learned how to feel feelings that before I would have avoided or not known how to tolerate. I, to survive, I had to finally learn how to tolerate my own feelings. 2020 was hard and So it's it's I think for me, it's about the conjunction.
• 40:42
  It's about the and specifically. Because the positivity that is authentic and real is good in the presence of what is so hard. It's and, it's at the same time as. Which is different from positivity that's toxic and tries to be there instead of what is difficult or painful. But when you can do both, when you can feel what is painful and difficult and acknowledge that, even if it's not your own.
• 41:18
  And I don't even mean as a system, it could be your neighbor or the person across the street. Or someone you're working with or someone you're trying to help or someone you care about. But when you can be present with that and also see what is good and healing or right in the world, then I think there's something powerful in that. But I, because of my experiences and my traumas and my past, I did not know how to get to that place, could not get to that place without also going through the valley, so to speak.
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: That makes sense. And that's so far from where I'm at. So good for you because that's that's gross. It's something to reach for.
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: Thank you for listening. Your support of the podcast, the workbooks, and the community means so much to us as we try to create something together that's never been done before, not like this. Connection brings healing, and you can join us on the community at www.systemsspeak.com. We'll see you there.