Latest / Harder Than Life / 129: Are You Apologizing for Who You Are? It’s Time to Stop w/ Annalie Howling

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129: Are You Apologizing for Who You Are? It’s Time to Stop w/ Annalie Howling · Harder Than Life

• 0:07
  I'm Kelly Siegel and this is Harder Than Life, a podcast about self-love, self-awareness, business and health. We tell outrageous stories and boil everything down to simple, practical advice you can start using today. Let's get living. Welcome back to the Harder Than Life podcast. Today, today's episode is going to be a doozy. We're going to discuss something that...
• 0:30
  is a quiet, kept secret shame. Today's guest, Annalie Howling, is a highly sought-after trauma specialist, performance coach, and speaker with over two decades of experience working with elite athletes, corporate leaders, and individuals seeking transformation. She specializes in overcoming shame, healing trauma, and breaking free from limiting beliefs. Annalie's work has
• 1:00
  reclaim their voices and live authentically. Welcome, Annalie. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
• 1:08
  I always start these. These are no coincidences. My life just keeps lining up and I love it. I got introduced to you by a mutual friend. It's like, hey, do you want Anna Leigh? And I'm like, oh yeah. And then I look you up and I'm like, oh my God, yes. She's, I love her. I've been following you forever. So I look you, a better version of Brene Brown. Oh, wow. I mean, that is praise indeed. Wow. Thank you. I have read all of her books.
• 1:35
  And I don't understand shame. So that's what we're going to talk about today. We're going to really deep dive into your new book, Unapologetic. And I'm going to start with two quotes that just talk to my heart. And it said, if you are constantly apologizing for who you are, it's time to stop. That's number one. And then number two is radical self-love is the antidote to shame is poison. Can you expand on those?
• 2:02
  Of course. Thank you for picking those two out. I actually was rereading part of the book this morning and the radical self-love was a piece that I stopped myself on. So you're right. The universe makes no mistakes. Let's start with that one. So the shame, which we will get into, I'm sure, in more detail, is this sort of soul eating emotion and shame.
• 2:22
  The great thing is there is a cure for shame, but it's self-compassion. And that being this radical act of self-love, I'm sure we're gonna talk more, I love your pages, when I look at the things that you do as a radical act of self-love. And often that means making big changes that suit up, you know, good for us. And sometimes people in our lives aren't gonna support us. So that's also where this apologizing piece comes in. The first quote that you pulled out is,
• 2:49
  We say sorry, I think, for our inherent nature a lot of the time. You know, we, oh, sorry, can I just, oh, sorry, do you mind if, oh, sorry, you know, I don't want to be too much. Or, oh, sorry, if my choice that I'm making to look after me better in some way is an imposition to you. We just assume that we...
• 3:08
  somehow like an inconvenience or with struggling to take up this space. And then there's this paradox, this line of, I want to claim, I want to be purposeful. I want to make a difference and help people and do all these things. And yet I'm feeling invisible. And this, yeah, we kind of end up just saying sorry all the time. And only the shame...
• 3:30
  I know it affects both men and females and females, but do you see it more prevalent in women? Is that, is that a misnomer or am I correct? Yeah. So it's really interesting. You asked me that question. So I would, I'm going to give you an example, a very real example of how I see it play out. I personally think it's endemic in everybody and to the same level. Shame doesn't discriminate at all, nor does trauma. Um,
• 3:55
  I put out a video a couple of months ago talking about how I used to self-harm. So trigger warning for people listening, I used to self-harm. I habitually and ritualistically used to pick up my face, used to scratch my face till it bled every day. And I am now healed from that. You have to heal your inside. I know you've done a lot of work healing your inside before you can heal the outside. So thankfully, it's something I've worked through, but I've worked through that now. And I put a video out about that to talk about it.
• 4:25
  And I had so many comments. Oh my goodness, that's me. I didn't know there was a name for it. Wow, I do this too. Now, I also had hundreds, and I mean hundreds of DMs about it. Women commented publicly, men DMed me privately. And that is, I think, what I've seen about shame. I had a client session this week with an ultra high net worth gentleman. Ultra, ultra, okay?
• 4:53
  we went through a session and he'd experienced some betrayals in his life. And at the end of the session, he said, do you think that other men feel like this? And I was like, of course, you know, of course. But, and I, again, I told him some examples. I said, but I think that perhaps there is still an element of toxic masculinity. Perhaps there's not a feeling that it can be talked about in quite the same way. So I do think men have as much shame as women. I think that if anything,
• 5:22
  Most of my private clients are male. And I think for that reason that perhaps there just aren't quite the systems in place yet to unpick that. I think it's changing, but I think that it's still in the shadows, shall we say. Wow. So if you guys are listening to this, Heart of Life Nation, if you're listening to this, turn on YouTube and look how beautiful this woman is and realize and think...
• 5:45
  her picking her face and how that led. So your biggest weakness, your biggest trauma is exactly what you need to lean into. And she did it. So let's, let's deep dive into the, how you're that journey of healing from shame led you down this trauma coach path and talking to these, working with these people that are extraordinary individuals. And by the way,
• 6:10
  Have that person call me and I'll tell him everything he wants to know because I feel the same way, even with doing all the work. So you are not alone. We are all in this together. Go down that path even further. But how leaning into that terrible, terrible affliction or whatever you want to call habit led you to where you are today.
• 6:30
  Thank you. Yeah. And thank you for saying everything you did then. I think it is really important because men do feel isolated in this. So shame thrives on you feeling isolated. That's it's like a fruit loops. You know, it's like, it's there going, Oh yeah, let's make him or her feel like they're the only one. And if you were to ever talk about this thing, you're going to be rejected and know, you know, you're going to be so,
• 6:55
  even more ashamed you are ashamed of your shame I write about that in the book and so what we do is we people please we mask we become chameleons we're trying to be perfect and that's what I was doing now my self-harming was particularly active shall we say it's a form of OCD it's a form of OCD
• 7:13
  So it was particularly active during the demise of my marriage. And effectively, it was a silent scream. You know, my perfect life, my perfect marriage, I was perfectly keeping together. The reality was quite different from that. And I now know that was me clawing, quite physically clawing this mask off my face that I had...
• 7:35
  been putting on, put a brave face on it, babe, you know, all of these sorts of things. And the irony with my therapist, so not plugging the book, I'm just going to say, I think it's kind of an exclusive, but in my book, because I'm really trying to not even debunk shame. I'm trying to just put so much out there to normalize that this is a thing. And if it is a thing, you're not isolated. You're not on your own. There are people like me out there who,
• 8:01
  So my therapist and I, I have waived my own right for confidentiality. My therapist has put her files in about me, about how she found me when I was doing that to myself. She calls it a varnish, like a varnish that I'd appear with, like this sort of perfectionism. And then obviously I was self-harming. I was pulling this sort of perfect kind of...
• 8:24
  I don't know, like call it sort of a wife role that wasn't serving me anymore. And I know it was a way of discharging stress as a form of OCD. I was trying to, it's fake control fundamentally, but that's what I was doing at the time, feeling out of control. So where do I find myself doing this trauma work? Was I was doing performance coaching for years. I worked with ex members of the UK special forces. I've worked with current Olympians.
• 8:47
  So very, very corporate athletes absolutely top of their game as well. Performance coaching is fantastic. And coaching, I think, is absolutely wonderful if you have a goal. So, you know, I want to get that promotion. I want to have a relationship. I want to improve a relationship. I want to have a fitness goal. It's great. Yeah.
• 9:05
  Where I think coaching doesn't quite scratch the surface is I keep repeating patterns of behavior that are destructive or I know what I want to achieve, but I'm getting in my own way all the time. And that's really your shadow that we maybe haven't dealt with here. And that's where this trauma piece is.
• 9:25
  is the biggest piece of work that helped me understand myself. I am a type A, I've got a master's degree, I've got an MBA, I've got all the stuff, I call it medals, collecting medals. Like any course I'm gonna go on, I'm gonna, can I swear on this? I'm quite a sweary. I'm gonna fucking smash the ass out of it. Like I'm just gonna, you know, I'm a type A, I'm gonna go there, I'm gonna own it. Like, that's why I like your page as well. I'm gonna do it. Like I show up, I do the hard stuff.
• 9:48
  But in turn, that is like, you know, again, you're like feeding the little monster inside going, be more perfect, do more, do more. And, you know, no one will ever find out that you're actually broken inside. You're this failing like a person to keep doing more. And so a lot of my own stuff, when I started uncovering work around the nervous system, which is related to trauma and how we're storing things. And I had a big burnout when I was coming up for 30 years.
• 10:13
  which I now understand was also linked to this perfectionism. I had a very violent childhood. My father was very violent. My mother colluded, incredibly violent, very terrifying. So I didn't have a safe person within my family system. And so for me, financial security made me safe in my head. So this pursuit of perfectionism and finance
• 10:34
  was the way of keeping me safe. But of course, I'm sprinting this fucking marathon. And at some point, you're going to collapse. So my ass got served back to me in burnout. I see this resonating deep. Yeah, my ass got served back to me and presented back to me in this huge, catastrophic burnout. But the biggest piece of work for me, and the biggest piece of work for my clients, which is
• 10:59
  But a really important part of this coaching work is this understanding of trauma and shame. And then when you can move through that, that's when you have freedom. Wow. You, I wouldn't say triggered me. It's not a trigger anymore because it's healed. But we are exactly alike. I...
• 11:21
  equated money with safety. That's why I'm a big guy because I was beat as a child and this is my protector. This is my varnish. And you know, and if anybody's ever tried to take varnish off of something, it is impossible. So all I'm thinking about is this beautiful little girl who did nothing wrong, but just try to survive. Yeah.
• 11:45
  Picking at that varnish. And guys, for me, it was alcohol. And Annalie, I'm going to share something with you that I've been unpacking with all the books that I read from Brene Brown. I could not figure it out. And I just, when listening to you, figured out where my... I would have said to you a couple minutes ago, I don't have any shame. Never did. But I drank...
• 12:07
  to bring myself down, to fit in with my friends, because I was shameful of where I am right now, because I knew I'm meant to lead, inspire, motivate, and lead from the top. And I'm going to bring everybody with me. That felt shameful to me because I was, even though I was in this horrific childhood, I had these big brains, this big aura, and this drive and will that's harder than life.
• 12:33
  And that's my shame. And now I step into it like you. And I want to say, doesn't it feel so good to be able to talk about it and not feel anything but love and positivity and abundance? I can't. You're more articulate. You have more medals than I do. What do you feel now that you can just talk about it and feel good?
• 12:58
  Yeah, I love what you've just said. And thank you for sharing that. I really appreciate you sharing that. And I know that people listening are going to be like, I always just want to say to people listening before I answer that, you don't have to just go all in like we are right now. Like we've been doing this for a while and it's kind of like we're supported. Just open up a little tiny bit to one person, even a bit that you trust and just start trying it out. And then you'll be amazed at, not only are you not being rejected, actually how connected you become when you're having these kinds of conversations.
• 13:27
  But yeah, I feel like I've lived two lives. Literally, I feel like two lives. And one was shameful. I was full of shame. And I acted from that place, obviously trying to hide it, desperately doing all these behaviors or things or acting in a certain way. Never Machiavelli, always really well intended. And again, to try and hide the trauma, hide the trauma, hide the shame. And then now I have a shameless life. And to your point, I...
• 13:55
  I know that I'm shameless because I don't think about things anymore. Like I'm a mum and, you know, a single mum and I'll go to the school wearing whatever the hell I want, you know, and I won't think about if I should be fitting in or if someone might say something about me or if that's mean or whatever it might be. Like, I just know that I'm shameless because my life, to your point, is filled with shame.
• 14:20
  purpose, love. It's this freedom. I am absolutely free to be myself. And that wasn't true of me before. What's the feeling? Because I want this is what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to give everybody the carrot. Yeah. What is the feeling? Because I can't explain it.
• 14:39
  For me, I call it freedom. I mean, I think authenticity is over you. So for me, it really is that freedom. You know the feeling when, if you're going on vacation, which you're going on soon, very excited for you, and you lay back in the ocean and it takes your weight. Do you know what I mean? You lay back in the ocean, it just carries you and you know you can let go. That's how it feels.
• 15:02
  I think you're my long lost sister. Everything you're saying, I completely understand. I've been there and done that. And I just want everybody to understand that if you're sitting, because I've dated most reason why the heart of the life brand exists. I dated a very shameful woman. And literally her, her favorite song was shameless by Garth Brooks. And she would cry every time I felt horrible for, and I don't know she would never open up about it. And we ended up breaking up.
• 15:31
  But everything happens for you when we broke up is what I went down this path of harder than life. And had we have stayed together, I would have tried to heal her and heal her and heal her. And as far as I know, I don't know that she's made any progress. And it's sad because I'm going to say this.
• 15:46
  You said you lived two lives. I think I just started living. This is, I'm born, reborn into who I was meant to be, who I had masked for years. So if you lean into this shame and you read Unapologetic and you take some of the lessons from that. By the way, when does the book come out? 13th of May. I'll be in New York. I'll be at Barnes and Noble on 5th that day.
• 16:10
  We'll have to figure out a way when you're over here to connect. New York should hop, skip, and jump from me. So we'll connect. I'll do anything to promote this because the word has got to get out. This shame is fascinating. That's why a male read all these books, and I devoured yours, and it's electronic, and I hate electronic. I read actual books, and I can't wait for it to come out. So let's do some more when that comes out. But read that.
• 16:38
  and life gets incredibly better. And it's scary to lean into it, but you have amazing people like Annalie and like myself who will guide you right through it. We've been through it and watch our life. Watch her life on social media and you will see what an amazing life she lives. Watch my life. That's why I shoot the shirtless videos every morning. It's not the show off. I just want you to know that I'm selling the proof, not the promise.
• 17:08
  So I do the work, she does the work, and then we get all the benefits. So I'm going to take a funny question. If shame had a LinkedIn profile, what would its job title and skill set be? It would be the ultimate isolator. And its skill set would be that it can...
• 17:31
  make you feel alone no matter how many people are in a room with you, always feeling alone. I refer to it as, you know, if you're at a dinner party or something like that, and if you're full of shame, there's a subject or a couple of subjects you just wish to.
• 17:48
  will not come up, you know, because it's something that's just under the surface all the time for you. Like, I remember digging my nails into my palms, like, please don't mention that. Like, I'm just about holding this together, you know, masking whatever I'm asking. Like, please don't let the subject of, I don't know, like a marriage failing come up or something like that, because you're just sort of hanging on, trying to hold it together. And...
• 18:09
  you know, the last thing you want to do, you feel like you don't break open Pandora's box. But the reality is when you're being driven and ridden through life by shame, you're in Pandora's box. You just like you're already being controlled. Shame is at the wheel, my friends. And...
• 18:26
  until we acknowledge it, it loses all of its power. Every single last bit of its sticky, tar-like, gross existence on LinkedIn and all of its connections. Because by the way, the other thing on LinkedIn, it'd probably be the number one profile because everyone's got shame. So apart from like, well, I haven't anymore, and a few of us, and I'm not being elitist, oh, well done me. I just know, like you, how
• 18:50
  joyful my life is on the other side of this. And much like you, I'm 43. You know, I really feel like my life is beginning now. I got my book deal two years ago, you know, thank you. Like, but I got I got offered a big book deal at 41. A few years before that, I'm, you know, the most
• 19:08
  shame ridden individual I could have been. So I'm just saying that because I want, like you show me to your audience, you know, having like showing off your, like your body and stuff like that. There's no, it's not about woohoo, well done me. It's about this is possible and available. And I want people listening to this to know this is also possible and available to them. I would say 43 years young and you take such good care of your body and your mind. You will live well into your hundreds.
• 19:37
  and you are just getting warmed up by golly. I feel like I just met
• 19:43
  a new best friend and I want to help. So another point that I want to hammer home to the heart and life nation is this, you can be a room full of people and still feel lonely and alone. Then the reciprocal is true. And Annalie, you're going to, I'm going to ask you to jump in here on this one is I could be totally alone, truly physically alone by myself and feel so full and, and, and extremely lonely.
• 20:11
  with myself, but still feeling like I'm just full is the word. That's the best part. That's the freedom that we were talking about. Completely. And actually it's, I love that you mentioned that because that's also the biggest piece of resistance that I get from people who are maybe going through a transition of their life, right? Perhaps they're making some of these changes that you've talked about, I've talked about, maybe coming through a relationship, job transition, making healthy choices for themselves.
• 20:34
  And the thing, I get questions all the time like, but when? When will I be ready or when will this happen or when will, you know? And it's like you are resisting. You're resisting yourself. And by that, I mean there's a difference between being lonely, which is quite rare actually these days, just because of like being connected online. And, you know, you might not have your people, but generally speaking, we've got noise around us, right? Right.
• 20:59
  There's a big difference between that and being happy alone by yourself. Now, you and I sound like you are like my soul twin. I am so fucking happy alone by myself, but I wasn't always. I resisted it. And what was I doing when I was resisting it?
• 21:15
  OCD, self-harm, doom scrolling, basically anything, anything at all. And there's always something to do, put a wash on, do a list, do an email, anything, but just be alone with myself. My therapist helped me to realize that because of the trauma in my childhood, that relaxation wasn't safe for me. Because I had to be hyper aware all the time, the mood change, or what might happen. I see you nodding. So you grow up in an environment where actually it's
• 21:43
  it would be really unsafe of me to be totally off because I needed to know if this was going to escalate and what that meant for me and how to probably minimize myself. Hi, apologize. Oh, sorry, sorry, I didn't mean to. Sorry, sorry, shrink, shrink, shrink. So actually, when I realized that, I was like, oh, my goodness, and this was where I was probably more active in my OCD and my self-harming journey as well. But that had been my – I wasn't self-harming my whole life, but that feeling had been there my whole life. And masking with different behaviors or –
• 22:11
  There's always something, like I say, that is available to distract you, especially this little device that lives with us now 24 seven. And actually now I crave my own company. And by that I mean really just being happy alone with myself. But that piece of resistance that we fear, like we think we're not going to open Pandora's box, but in reality, you're sat inside it, my friends.
• 22:33
  allowing just allowing allow the thoughts allow the feelings just be with it do it safely if you need someone with you if you need to work with a professional if you just want to do it bit by bit it's absolutely fine but a bit like if you're going diving you know if you're going to go deep sea diving like scuba diving you don't go straight to the bottom because you get the bends you get ill you just take it a level and you decompress and you go oh
• 22:56
  that was maybe a bit uncomfortable, maybe a bit icky, but it was okay and I'm okay. And then you go again and again and again. And again, that's why in the book I've put, so in the book, there's lots of people's stories like survivor stories as well, all different areas and experts, because I want people
• 23:12
  So what I wouldn't do, I refused and had a few fights with my publishers, like classic unapologetic. I was like, look, I'm not prepared to write a how-to because that is inauthentic. I'm not going to say, oh, tap yourself three times, do a breath, turn around, click your fingers and you're free of shame. That just isn't true.
• 23:29
  But what I know of shame, like this conversation, things that you've shared, is if you hear something and you just go, oh, my God, that's me. And if that's me, that means I'm not alone. And if I'm not alone, that means there's hope.
• 23:45
  And that is what is murder shame in its tracks, is knowing you're not alone and then feeling the hope. And then move on to every utterly fantastic book like yours, like anyone else is going to help guide you through and, you know, above to really like rising. That's great. But mine is to kind of meet you wherever you may be and just go, hey, let's just be here for a while. Let's work through this. And on the other side of this, that's when you recapture and reclaim all of your power.
• 24:14
  I just want to reach through the computer and hug you. I cannot wait. I want it to be may. I want to just, I want to be in your energy. You are electric magnetic, and I'm going to share with you my how to, and actually I wrote, I'm finishing the how to book on, on, on,
• 24:33
  how to be happy. And it's literally happier than life is the name of the book. It'll be out in about a month. And it's just the, the rituals and habits that I do to cultivate happiness. Now it's, you still got to lean into the, to the issues. This is what I did. So I went through a heartbreak and I decided to make massive changes. And I just like you didn't, I would be in a room full of people and be completely alone.
• 25:00
  And so what I did is I did the three S's, solitude, stillness, and silence. And I sat alone for 16 straight days until I processed through it. And I sat there and I cried. And what I did is I named it. And I named shame my mother's maiden name.
• 25:28
  I don't know why I did that, but I just, I just named it. And when I named it, I go, there you are being, I don't know why I just don't, I don't ever say the guy's name because it's, it's disrespectful to my, to my mother. I don't know why I'm being respectful because she was awful to me, but still I got more class than that. So I would just name it and it would just, it seemed to take away its power. And then I leaned into it and every time,
• 25:53
  that I would get those butterflies where I would reach for a drink previously or call a woman or, you know, some sort of crutch. I just named it and sat in it and journaled about it and said to myself, oh, I'd meditate. I'd say, you're safe. You're okay. You were loved. And very recently, I literally figured out that all I wanted was,
• 26:19
  was food, besides food and safety, was to say I was a good boy. I wanted my parents to say I was a good boy. And now, I share this in my new book, is they're both on their last leg because they haven't taken care of themselves. And they're dying. My stepfather, who was very abusive, is in a hospice with his leg amputated, dying alone because he was so mean. And...
• 26:50
  I thought to go talk to him and I'm like, you know, I just don't, I don't need that anymore. I don't, when you heal, where I'm getting as when you heal and you do all this work, you don't need it. I don't need it, but I'd say it to myself and that's the, the freedom and the love. And you know, we're always seeking approval from our parents or, and we can give it to ourselves as adults. I just wanted them to say I was a good boy because I was,
• 27:17
  I got straight A's. I missed one day of school because it was an, I couldn't go to school because I was, I've never said this out loud. I was so brutally beat up and I had marks all over my face from my mother that I couldn't go to school. And, you know, when you're, I know you can relate because when that's supposed to be your safe haven, you build these freaking walls and you think, why, why is this happening? What did I do? That was so wrong. Right.
• 27:48
  And then you accentuate that for years and years and years. When did you start your journey? Firstly, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing that. And I feel so emotional listening to you and just, you are, you were that little beautiful boy that didn't deserve any of it. That was just absolutely doing his best, not, not just to do well at school, but just to
• 28:10
  avoid pain and just never got the love that he should have done. And it break as I'm a mother, I know you're a parent, like it just breaks my heart. And so I just want to send so much love to you now. And also to that version of you there. And I'll take it all. Thank you. I take it all in. Please do. So my, I mean, I'm very violent childhood, but I remember a particular incident where my, I was about, so my daughter's eight and a half and I keep a picture of her in my office when I have clients in, and,
• 28:37
  And I remember a meal on a holiday. My father punched me in the face and broke my nose. I was about seven years old, blood everywhere. And I remembered, and I knew it was the hand of his wedding ring. I could see it for years, like the PTSD of that happening. And...
• 28:54
  I was told that I, I'm sure you'll resonate, I made him do that because apparently I'd said something that made him do that and I was bad. And so you grow up thinking, God, well, I must be really fucking awful because these two people put on this earth to love me unconditionally,
• 29:11
  hate me and I'm so bad that I've made him do this and so I must be bad and that is shame that's an underlying limiting belief I am okay so this is good for the audience is guilt is like I could be like oh babe do you know what I wasn't a bit of a rush getting my daughter ready for school tomorrow like didn't think I was I was on the best form as a mom oh didn't do great like that's guilt okay if I said to you oh do you know what
• 29:35
  It wasn't the best morning. I'm feeling really awful. I'm not giving her the attention she needs. I am a bad mother. Like I feel sick saying that to you. And that's an example. And it's not true. But that is shame. Shame is I am. So I grow up, as I'm sure you do with this I am statement. And mine was I am bad, because I am so bad that I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm saying.
• 29:57
  I don't know. I'm just being me, but really I'm not because I'm God damn it. I'm trying so hard. I'm like walking on eggshells every day, trying to be so good to be such a good girl. Like you just be such a good girl that I don't get hurt and I don't get in trouble. And I'm trying to figure out every day, which, what it is because no one's given me the guidebook of exactly what being good is. I'm just trying my best. But as you probably know, some days it is okay and some days it's not.
• 30:18
  And you're really trying to figure it out on the job. And so that was the lens that I saw my life through. And then I think I'm bad. So guess what kind of relationships I'm picking? Because I'm bad. And guess what kind of jobs I'm going into or challenges I am or I'm not picking on? Because guess what? I think I am bad. And so my shame of being bad, you know, huge imposter syndrome that when I was doing really, really well at work, outrunning my trauma, I was like,
• 30:43
  You know, I did a master's degree without going to university because I had to get out of my house. So in the UK, it's like I didn't do an undergraduate degree. I didn't go to college. I did a master's degree. I had to go and do all these tests to prove that I was intelligent enough to do it because I was so unsafe. I did it working full time.
• 31:01
  as well as a job and everything else, because I had to get out of that house and make myself as safe as possible and then start the pursuit of perfection. I mean, it already started, but the make myself financially safe, make myself financially safe. So I never, ever, ever have to go back there ever. But I was out trying to outrun the trauma. And then obviously it's the point it did. I had to then unpick the shame. But.
• 31:24
  Yeah, I mean, my goodness, that really resonated with me very, very deeply because I tried my best to be good. And you don't realize when you're, you know, in inverted commas, being bad, but fuck me, you'll know about it. And then you'll just, you know, just go kind of this pinball machine of not knowing what to do to keep yourself safe.
• 31:43
  Blown away by you. Outrun the trauma, guys. When she says that, that's when we are doing the crutches and the masking and the avoiding. And if you turn around and run towards that trauma, it's the quicker way. I've talked to you guys about being the buffalo and running right into the storm. I'm telling you, you're hearing it from two people who run right into it who could sit back here and be the victim the rest of our lives.
• 32:05
  We sat and I can speak for me. I drank the poison. I expect my parents to die. And meanwhile, I was dying or I wasn't even living. So guilt to me is I did something bad. I did bad. And shame is I am bad. I am. Yeah. I would tell you that you are bad. You are a badass. And tell me about your daughter. What's her name? Amber.
• 32:30
  Did you overcorrect with her? Are you overcorrecting? I've overcorrected on my daughter. Like she has zero hardship. She just turned 16 and we made a deal for grades to get a car. She just barely missed it. And she thought I was going to give in. And I said, I looked at her like, I apologize. I've overcorrected with you. I give her so much love. This kid is going to be.
• 32:53
  She's learned emotional intelligence. My entire schedule revolves around her. And she's never known a hardship. I couldn't imagine ever laying a finger on her. And karma's a mother scratcher for your dad. And I'm sorry that that happened to you. But did you overcorrect?
• 33:14
  So I'm like you. I don't think you can love your kids too much. I really don't. I don't think that she's going to be spoiled because I love her. One thing that I do as well, if anyone's listening that's got young children in particular, is with shame, you have to be very careful that a child doesn't think that they are going to be without your love. So if she's done something, which, you know, let's go for running by the swimming pool, for example, like...
• 33:39
  Please don't do that. The only time she knows, the only time I'm ever going to raise my voice is if I'm worried that she's going to get hurt or hurt someone else. So, and he said, please stop, you know, running by the pool. But if I'm saying to her, trying to say something that she may have done, I separate out the behavior from her. And I always say, darling, there's not a second that I don't love you. I need you to know that. Not one second. Like she never has to worry about my love. There is never a second I don't love you before.
• 34:03
  But the thing you were doing, the thing, didn't like that because. So she is not the thing. The thing, the action, whatever it might have been. And my love is never in doubt. So when I went on the, like, one of my many courses for training, I just think this is quite an interesting example.
• 34:19
  So we're all adults. We all work in this field, right? We're all like working in trauma and stuff. And the amount of people that were talking about the trauma that they still have, this trauma and the shame, shame is the stains on your soul left behind by trauma, that came from go to your room, go to your room. Enough of you. Just go to your room. Get out of my sight. Go to your room.
• 34:42
  They're like, I didn't know if I could come back down. I didn't know if I was going to have another meal. I didn't know if it was safe. I didn't know what was going to happen to me. And you're going, oh, my God. You know, because that is, you don't know. Especially when we were younger, you know, there aren't,
• 34:59
  technology or ways of connecting and uh you know you are sent to your room you cannot meet any of your basic fundamental needs for survival and you don't know when you're allowed out or whatever it might be but the amount of people that have the shared trauma from that is extraordinary and then in answer to your question about ams what do i do i do i know and i can own this
• 35:22
  I'm probably a little bit overprotective in certain scenarios because of what I've heard. So I've heard some of the most wicked things you could imagine in client sessions, particularly, again, trigger warning this around sexual assault. I know that at times I won't let her do a sleepover. Tell you what, sleepovers, my God. So I wouldn't let her do a sleepover if there was going to be mixed, if it was going to be mixed sexes of any kind, including sort of someone's older cousin or something like that. Just no. Yeah.
• 35:50
  No, I've heard way too many of those stories, way too many. And then things like, I remember I was at a gym with her, with a friend of mine, we were on holiday, and she needed to go to the toilet. We were in like a personal training session. And this lady said, oh, I'll take her. We worked in the gym. The lady came back like two seconds, a minute later. I'm like, where's Amber? She said, oh, she's just up.
• 36:08
  up on the toilet. I couldn't see where the bathroom was. And there was some guys setting up for like a wedding. Some people were said, and I was just like, absolutely not. Absolutely not. Like, no, I'm not saying I thought they were going to do anything, but even for her, if she'd gone into the wrong cubicle, we're in a language, shouldn't speak the, like, you shouldn't speak that language in the country we're in. I was up those stairs quicker than, you know, because just there are some things that I probably have too much of an awareness of and I can own it that maybe
• 36:34
  I'm a little bit overprotective, but again, I don't think I can overlove that kid. And in some of those scenarios, if she doesn't ever have to witness anything like that, I'm okay with it.
• 36:44
  I wonder what our children, what traumas, you know, little tease that they're going to have when they grow up. It was so hard being Annalie and Kelly's daughter because they're always grinding. They're always working. They're always analyzing. And it's no coincidence that I tell my daughter, I can't love you.
• 37:05
  any less ever. And I tell her it's unconditional. And I, I, there's nothing you could do to ever make me not love you. I say that over and over. One of the things that I've done from the very beginning was have a big adult conversations with her. We talk about sex. We talk about drugs. We talk about what guys are going to do. When I divorced from her mother, I, she was two. And I said, Hey, it's you and me, kid. We're a team. And,
• 37:35
  And here we are, because I didn't know what I was going to do. What am I going to do with a little girl? I'm a big, burly guy and a little girl. So the beauty part about building this big armor is,
• 37:45
  is my daughter now, she's so beautiful, she will literally say, have you met my dad? And all the boys are afraid of her because they see me on social, or me, because they see me on social media, and I love it. So she's got this booming confidence and knows that dad's got her back. And I do, I don't have her back when she's wrong, but I do in public. But yeah, so the big armor comes in handy. Plus when I walk into rooms, people all want to get to know me.
• 38:13
  We're 40 minutes into this, and I want to talk about the heartbreak because that's what started harder than life. And I'm assuming that since you're my sister from another mister, that's probably similar to you. So if you could sit down with your biggest past heartbreak and tell them one thing, what would it be?
• 38:32
  So I actually had the chance, which was quite random. Yeah, very random. So my biggest, let's just lovingly call him the French bastard, because that's what me and my friends call him.
• 38:45
  Well, you know, there's where you went wrong right there. French. Come on. Well, yeah, exactly. So let's just lovingly call him that. And because it's true. And then I was on, so it was, I mean, it was horrendous. I remember a friend at the time when we broke up, she said, you made a noise like a wounded animal. Like I thought I would die. I thought I was going to die. It was, it was awful. And how it was handled was awful, like inhumane actually.
• 39:08
  But guess what, I managed to get myself through it. And when I talk on videos, I say, look, it was you that pulled yourself through it on your knees at times, you know, and it was so cruel and sudden and I won't go into too much detail of it. And anyway, I was on holiday in Saint-Tropez with one of my girlfriends.
• 39:27
  And he was there. And then he was like, oh, my God, I can't believe it. This is amazing. It's such a coincidence. And I was like, I knew he had a house there. I was like, well, surely if I wanted to see you, I would have been in touch. Like, I didn't actually. It was like the arrogance. It's like, if I wanted to see you, I probably would have dropped you a message. But he was like, I can't believe it. I haven't slept all night. I knew you were here. He'd seen it on social media. I knew you were here. It's just meant to be. I was like, well, not really. Because to the point, I wouldn't.
• 39:53
  probably try to meet up with you, like, which I didn't. And he's like, oh my God, anyways, can we meet? And I was like, well, go out as a group. I was with a girlfriend and I said, look, we can go out for a group for dinner. And he said to me, he was like, you've really changed. Cause he basically realized that I wasn't interested. And I said,
• 40:09
  you left me at the side of the road to die. You literally, like you left me like a piece of roadkill and you left me at the side of the road to die. I was like, and I fucking didn't. So yes, I wasn't angry. I was like, yes, I've changed. Yeah, of course I have. I was like, because you just left me there and I had to get my own way up.
• 40:28
  And the other thing I'd like to say to all your listeners is when the rose tinted specs had come off and I had, you know, healed myself and gone through all the stuff, he wasn't as I had not only remembered, but how I'd projected him, you know, because my goodness, you know, my, how I'd previously seen him, I actually found it to be quite irritating. I was going to say, I bet you you were turned off because he hadn't grown. You had outpaced him and you're like, no way, Jose. Yeah.
• 40:56
  No, and it was actually great that my girlfriend was there as well. You know, we were both a bit like, do you want to come on? I was like, no, we're good. We're not going to go into a club with you. Me and her like went home, sat in bed laughing about stuff. It was brilliant. Brilliant. Never looked back. But yeah, so it's not often we don't always get those opportunities, but that was very helpful, I would say. But at the time, I don't want to sort of gloss over it because truly it was such a
• 41:19
  devastation like I really believed that to be my entire future and when as you know it's taken from you and it was so I'm gonna call use it violent the way it ended was just the the feeling the wrench and you and I have experienced violence was so uh acute it was agonizing and
• 41:40
  But again, you have two choices. You go into it and you're like, right, okay, we're going to do this. We're just going to do it. Like we're going to be with the pain. I know it doesn't last forever. I always think it's like a rung on a ladder. And I know I can't race to the top. I'm going to have to do these one by one. But I might as well just start. Let's just start by even if just today I get one toe on the bottom rung. I don't know how long it's going to take.
• 42:05
  But I know I'm beginning the journey, you know, and yeah. And now I have, I met the love of my life. I have my soulmate, nearly two years down the line who my book ends on meeting my amazing boyfriend, who's just incredible. And I had to go through this process as well of working through shame and everything else. The French bastard led me to that place. And, you know, as part of my journey of healing myself.
• 42:29
  Yeah, and I wouldn't be able to have the relationship I have now if I hadn't gone through all of those things. I think I would have sabotaged it. He's such a good man. He's amazing. And I think if I still had that shame, I would have found a way to sabotage it because I wouldn't have felt deserving of it.
• 42:44
  Uh, and now I'm able to be in this relationship fully. I see you nodding. Like I'm able to maintain my autonomy and really give love fully, not block it in any way. I would have been at arm's length as well. So as not to allow the hurt in to really show up. And he is, I said to him last night, I just said, you were the person that I was always meant to love. And I know that he is absolutely who I was always meant to love.
• 43:09
  I am extremely proud of you and I'm very happy for you. And I knew how this story ends because that's how mine ends. And you know what? Here's a new one. It's going to be happily ever after and it's going to grow, grow, grow, grow. This is just the beginning. I want everybody to go back and listen to this. Horrific childhood, both of us. All battled right through it. It's the people...
• 43:36
  I'm going to get serious here for a second. It's the people that keep that stay on that merry-go-round and go back to that person or go back to another person. That's just like, that's the people I want to talk to you right now, guys. If you don't lean into that trauma, if you don't lean into that hurt, you're going to repeat what we don't repair. We repeat. You take it from there with all your metals.
• 44:02
  There is this amazing comedian, actually, on Netflix. His name's Daniel Schloss. And I'm sure it's called The Relationship Jigsaw. It's a Netflix show. Now, I'm going to say that some of it's very inappropriate. It's comedians. You know, they go out there. But anyway, he then gets a little bit serious, like you just did. And he talks about...
• 44:22
  why we accept less in relationships. And it's just the most beautiful kind of summation of everything you just said as well, Kelly. If you only have 10% love for yourself, right? If someone turns up with like 20%, you feel incredible because you've got such low self-worth and you've got such low self-love. Now, 20%, if I said to you, is it acceptable for you to be in relationship with someone that only loves you 20% of the time? You'd be like, well, no, that sounds terrible. Yeah.
• 44:47
  but people do. People do go back to that horrible ex or they're not leaving a relationship because of shame. Shame is weaponized in relationships as well. And people are not leaving because they think, well, who will have me or I better stay in this because this is better than nothing or whatever. Now, if you loved yourself 80%, 90%, 100%, when you look at this person offering you scraps 20%, what are you going to think then? You're going to be like, fuck that. That's the reason to do...
• 45:16
  harder than life and harder than love and happier than love. You know, all of those things that you're urging people towards and the work, which, by the way, it's not that scary. Like, it is to start with. I'm not going to deny it. When you first go there, you're like, oh, God, and you're going to hear the inner critic and it's going to be screaming at you to do anything but this and to stop it. Actually, when you surrender, you're like, oh, okay.
• 45:40
  Right, okay, this is it. Like it's really, I'm sure you had the same moment. You're like, oh, okay, I thought this was going to be worse. You're like, no, no, it's actually fine here. It's the resistance. The bit that you're resisting all the time, the pinball machine of resistance every time you resist it, that's the exhaustion, that's the burnout, that's the constant cycle. The bit when you let go, you're like, oh, actually, this is all right. Being with me is actually okay. So please, people listening, get Kelly's books and,
• 46:06
  You know, get mine, unravel it, allow yourself to settle into who you are, learn how to be with yourself. And then when you do that, that's when you're just going to notice that people turning up with scraps for you or people that have maybe been in your life that are giving you scraps. It just simply isn't going to fit, not going to be part of your jigsaw anymore.
• 46:25
  So I apologize. We have not talked about your book much. I promise you that if you want to come back and run it back in person in May or we do it, it's this conversation is just tremendous for everybody. And so.
• 46:41
  I'm sure all this is in the book and I know it is because I read it, but it's just, I apologize ahead of time, but I didn't want to offer that to you because I just love this topic. No, look, it's all good. It's going to come around. I mean, this book is a movement. I mean, Unapologetic is a movement about shame. Like my editor said...
• 46:59
  She's like, I think you've started a new genre because no one's ever given shame a voice before. I have translated shame into words. I mean, shame is a felt sense, as we both know, it's the I am. And what I've done is I've translated it through story, through my own story, through expert interviews. So I'm so happy that you and I are having this conversation because this is real. And both of us have just had like deepest connection and shared some really deep stuff that I know is gonna impact people listening. And guess what? If a couple of people hear this,
• 47:27
  And they go, oh, my God, that's me. And they are able in some way to release some of their shame. You and I have done a great job today. And I'm proud of us. I'm going to remind everybody, if you're watching your content right now, you're talking a lot about luck. I used to say prior to living when I was in my funk or fog, I would say if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have no luck at all.
• 47:52
  But you make your own luck in this world. And you know how you make it? And I call myself, I just realized this yesterday, I call myself the chosen one. You want to know why I'm the chosen one? It isn't somebody chose. I chose me. I choose me every time.
• 48:06
  And by doing that, that's the ultimate form of love, self-love. So I want to talk about how can we've dusted all around this. So how can the listeners begin to identify and dismantle these shame beliefs? What's the top three things? Because we talked about it all over and kind of sprinkled in. Give them a couple of things right now.
• 48:30
  So I'm going to tell you something that one of the people in the book said, because I think it's such beautiful advice. And she was a victim of the most appalling, not that anything's ever OK, but you would have read it like the sexual assault from a teacher when she was really young. And I asked her, what would you say to people? And she said, the first step is just admitting it to yourself. Stand in front of a mirror.
• 48:51
  We all, here's the thing with shame. You fucking know what it is. You don't need me or you to help you find it. It's the thing, like I say, you're fearing will come up in conversation. It's bubbling right below the surface all the time. Like we're doing anything to like swallow it back down. Like we know what it is. Stand in front of a mirror alone, be in your car, be somewhere privately and just say it out loud. Just say the thing to yourself.
• 49:20
  And then when you have, and like you said, let the feelings flow, let the emotions go, let, you know, whatever you need to do with it, then as and when find someone you trust. And she also said as well, use forums, go, go, you know, use a forum where you don't use your real name. And by all means, just, just look then for people that are sharing in similar areas that you may be. If you don't feel you've got either a friend that you can trust or professional, um,
• 49:44
  But as soon as you start to name shame, it loses all of its power. It can literally only survive for as long as you're keeping it in and trying to hide it and believing you're alone. So those would be my steps. Start with you alone in a place you feel safe.
• 50:00
  Use message boards. They are really helpful, you know, to just even have a look at like, oh, okay, that's interesting. Or other people feel like this too. You know, there's a name for this certain thing. And then as and when either a trusted professional or a friend, like I said, you don't need to come on and do what you and I've done and just gone blah, blah. Like here's all of our, you know, we're okay with it. We're shameless and we're free now. But just crack open a little bit to a friend. When someone says, hey, how are you doing?
• 50:25
  Answer them honestly. Don't say I'm good. I'm fine. I'm okay. Tell them honestly how you're really feeling. I know you're not surprised to know that I did lots of mirror work. And one of the ones I did, and I can't remember the book I read this in, but I did this every day, twice a day for five minutes. I would look in the mirror and I would make sure and look right at my left eye because that made me focus.
• 50:48
  And I would say I love myself. I love myself. I love for five straight minutes. And something about it, after a few months, I started to believe it. So I didn't have this question there. Did you do anything? So I did obviously talk therapy. I did hypnotherapy. I did EMDR therapy. I did plant medicine. And then all the while meditating, journaling, podcasting.
• 51:18
  And just going in, I declared war on myself. What was your journey? Oh, so female sexual empowerment courses was a big one, because I think that's a very shameful area for women in particular. Being able to express needs, just being able to talk about that subject and experiences maybe that had happened. That was a huge space of work.
• 51:40
  For me, I am an EMDR therapist. And so EMDR was the biggest unlock for me. That was the, and then the knowledge around what's happening. That was the biggest part in my journey of freeing myself from the limiting beliefs, from being a bad kid. You know, that was the biggest part for me. And that's what I do with my clients as well. Wait, hold on. Do you actually, can people, that's not what you do anymore. Yeah, yeah.
• 52:05
  So guys, I'm going to give you a huge shout out because EMDR, so again, we'll be vulnerable. I'll be transparent. So the breakthrough that I had was I was sitting in a room or the EMDR therapist. So if you know anything about EMDR, you try to explain logic to an emotion, which is hard to do. And my logic or my emotion was why did my mom beat me that so bad when she's supposed to love me?
• 52:35
  And it was that particular one where I missed school the next day because my eye was black and blue. And I said, so I had to assign. How do you assign logic to that? Like you said, you can remember vividly your father punching you in the nose. I remember her gouging out my eyeball and then literally pulling back and hitting me. She was drunk and it was one after. I've never been hit that hard in my life.
• 53:01
  And I remember my sister who happened to been staying there. She'd moved out because she used to get beat all the time, pushing and punching my mom in the face and grabbing my lifeless body, pulling me out of there. And I had to assign logic to that. And I'm sitting in this EMDR session. It took two sessions. And the one session had to stop because I was going to break the computer. The lady's like, we have to take a break. I'm like, why? She's like, you're so tense. You're going to break your table.
• 53:29
  And then she's like, just take it. I don't want you to do any work this week. I want you to think about it. So once I released that, it was like all my childhood. And here's the logic that I assigned to this. And it sounds stupid, but who gives a shit as long as it works? Because it did work. It freed me. And it was my mom was making me tough for a tough world. Because now when shit gets tough,
• 53:55
  You said earlier, someone knocked you down. Whoever knocks me down had better start running because when I get back up and it's, it's, that's not only, you know, that's, that's also, it's metaphor to whatever I am coming forward, no matter what.
• 54:12
  I might pause for a second to regroup and pivot, but I will not stop coming. I will not stop growing. So I wanted to say EMDR for me was where the massive breakthrough come. And once I broke that, kind of all the other ancillary emotions started coming out. And I was able to actually work on and begin to really, truly love myself.
• 54:36
  And she says it over and over and over. We didn't even get into it. The radical self-love is the key to healing. And it's the hardest thing because everybody thinks, if you ask somebody, do you love yourself? They're going to say, of course I love myself. But do you? Look at the choices you're making. Are you choosing you? Are you choosing what's good for you? And guys, I'm going to take 10 seconds to give you disclaimer. The Kelly Siegel disclaimer. Any physical violence is just a freaking no-no.
• 55:06
  physical, sexual, and even verbal of violence. It's just a freaking no, dog. Absolutely no. You deserve better. You are a human. You are better than that. Stand up for yourself. And all you got to do is walk away.
• 55:23
  So for me, it was exactly the same thing. It was sort of my dad punched me in the face. I actually struggled to recall that now because the memory that haunted me daily, the vision of the wedding ring going into my nose, which I saw every day. It's a flashback. It's PTSD. You could talk about it without feeling anything. That's what that, that's the MDR. It allows you to release it like it never happened. And I have to remind myself because I have to share it with people so they understand.
• 55:50
  So I'll tell the audience of how it works really. So from a professional standpoint, so when something happens to you, you would have had a shame-based belief about that violent episode. So that some way you would have had an, I am, I am a bad boy or I am, you know, you know, it's wrong inherently what she did, but you would have had an, I am, I am out of control. I am terrified. I am helpless, hopeless, and weak was mine. I am helpless, hopeless, and weak was my underlying limited belief. So then I'm living my life thinking these things.
• 56:16
  Now, when you have EMDR, or rather when you've experienced trauma, that is your prefrontal cortex and your prefrontal cortex is gone. Prefrontal cortex is like the lists, times, dates, your broker's area is language lives just behind it. Because we're under threat, right? We're going into our fight, flight, freeze, flop situation.
• 56:34
  and form. Those are the five trauma responses. So prefrontal cortex is off. I don't need to know what I buy from the shops later. I don't need to know my diary. I don't need to remember words. So a lot of the time people say what happened. They're like, I can't remember what they said, but I remember what they were wearing or remember the car or something like that. Right. That's why, because this section of your brain is offline at the time. Now,
• 56:57
  with something else going on. All the blood has been re-routed to your amygdala, your limbic system, animal brain, prehistoric, because it's acting fast to keep us safe. I really need people to know this. The trauma response that is selected, you do not choose. Now this part of your brain acts, fires really, really quick, much quicker than cognitive thought. And as we know, cognitive thought is not available right now. There's no blood.
• 57:21
  So people often have a huge amount of shame about why they behaved in a certain way. Sexual assault. Why did I kiss him afterwards? Why would I respond to a message two months later? Because you're in a fawn trauma response, because fighting them wouldn't have worked. You couldn't run away. Freezing was going to be bad. Flop, pass out, really terrible. The only thing left in your armory was to fawn and act like, in inverted commas, you were up for it. I hear that so often from people that have been a victim of sexual assault. It's a gray area. It's not.
• 57:50
  Never. To anyone listening, it's never a grey area, ever. Put a friend of yours in that exact situation and you tell me if they were up for it. Okay. So anyway, we've gone through the event. It's happened. We've come away and we have this horrible sense of shame of like, why did I freeze?
• 58:06
  And that's what will happen to me again if something scary happens. Why did I act like I was really up for it? I must be, there must be something wrong with me. I must have this, maybe that is a fantasy of mine or something else. Or, you know, any of the things that happened, it informs us that we're going to do the same again in any kind of challenging situation. Now, although your prefrontal cortex was unavailable at the time, clever, clever system is tagging, always tagging. So, you know, when you smell the perfume of an ex? Yeah.
• 58:33
  and you're transported back straight away, that's your system tagging. So smell is a tag, but so is like a color. So again, let's just say I was attacked by a guy in a red jumper. I could do some work and think I'm healing and I was okay. And I'm lucky in inverted commas. And then I'm walking along the street and a red car goes past me eight months later and I could be completely re-triggered, have a panic attack, not know why. Then I start developing anxieties even more. Oh my God, what's wrong with me? Why now? Yeah.
• 59:00
  So that is what trauma is. EMDR, when you're doing reprocessing, you're doing a bilateral eye movement or tapping a stimulation. What it's doing is you're revisiting the memory, but it's keeping, because it's a bilateral stimulation, a bit like when people ask you to do breath counting when you're feeling panicked, it's keeping your prefrontal cortex online the whole time. So you have all of your systems available online. So you're able to completely reprocess
• 59:28
  with your cognitive function available and discharge the memory. So for me, after having EMDR, like you said, you know that that was preparing you to be a hard man in a hard world. That's what she was preparing you for, because you have your rationality available rather than just living this emotion. And every single time I do a session, it's the most amazing thing because you see someone sit there and they go...
• 59:49
  there was nothing else I could have done. Or I didn't deserve it. It was never my fault. I was just a child. Like you see this shift. I mean, I physically see it. It should be prescribed for anti-aging that I literally see the weight coming off people as well they've been carrying.
• 1:00:04
  And that is just so incredible because this emotional charge that we have all the time is finally fully released. You and I have experienced it, but also you're just gifted back in its place. This is a full circle moment at the start of this podcast. When shame is gone, what takes its place? Self-compassion. All right, we've reached the end. Let's bring it home. What's some final thoughts? What's the last thing you want the audience to know?
• 1:00:29
  You can live a shameless life. It's available no matter your age or where you find yourself right now. And once you do, life gets really good. And I will ask you this. How good can you handle life? Because it keeps getting better and better. I want to remind you that I actually officiate weddings. So when you go to get married, I would love to officiate your wedding. I'll go over to potty and do it. I want to leave you with you are helpful.
• 1:00:58
  You are hopeful and you are strong. And I love you. Thank you for coming on the Heart of the Life podcast. Guys.
• 1:01:06
  This is an instant classic. You're going to want to share this. There's a lot of people battling with shame and it's quiet. Share this with somebody that you know might be in a situation over and over and over again. Follow Anna Lee. Get her book Unapologetic when it comes out. It is a page turner. I will have her on some sort of medium when it comes out. And we will run this back and deep dive into that. I love you. Thank you. Thank you. I love you too. This is amazing.
• 1:01:35
  Please rate and share this podcast. I'm active on all social platforms and love to hear from my Segal supporters. Each and every episode is sponsored by my company, National Technology Management, the easiest and best IT company to do business with, delivering peace of mind with technology every day, even simplifying cybersecurity. Visit TrustNTM.com for more info. Until next week, be harder than life.