Latest / Adult Child of Dysfunction / Ep 3 NOW Is The Perfect Time To Start Your Healing Journey
Transcript
- 0:00Tammy Vincent: Hello, my special friends and welcome to episode three. I am super excited to have you here today. So today we're going to talk a little bit about when is the right time to start on your healing journey. If you're here, and you're listening to a podcast about dysfunctional families, and growing up as a childhood of dysfunction, there's a good chance that you've now come to the conclusion that the effects of growing up like that left a little bit of a toll on you on your body, on your mind on your soul. So when is the right time to get help? When is the right time to reach out and really, really, really take it seriously and really, really help yourself? Well, right now is the right time. And I can tell you why. Because I waited too long. I thought I could do it all on my own. I had survived some pretty horrendous stuff and gotten through on the other side, I had survived suicide attempts and being beaten and pimped out to drug dealers, and all kinds of horrendous things. I had a foster sister who, unfortunately committed suicide. I mean, I had so many different things go on my life. And I figured I'm 18 now I'm out of the house, I've dealt with it, I am good. But if you've heard my story before, you know that when I hit 26 years old, and was pregnant with my first child, I realized that I didn't even understand what unconditional love was. And that is what started me on the healing journey to figure out what else I didn't understand what else could possibly have gone wrong in this first 26 years of my life that was so dysfunctional. And so just backwards and off that I needed some help.
- 1:33So I know I remember, I always used to joke and say, there's a couple of reasons people don't walk into therapy, they're either too broke, too busy or too ashamed. Well, guys, I hate to tell it to you. And I hate to say it, but growing up in a dysfunctional family is now the norm, it is not the exception to the rule, it is the norm. So getting help should be the norm. It shouldn't be the stigma attached to Oh, my parents were alcoholics, or they were drug addicts, or we grew up in poverty or lived in cardboard boxes, my whole you know, half my life. None of that should matter. What should matter is that there was damage done to you to you, your internal psyche, there was reprogramming done to your subconscious mind, there was traits and characteristics and all these different things that you develop because of how you grew up. And you deserve to be free of that. You deserve to let it go. Like I said, I waited forever. But the day that I realized that there was other people out there like me that I was not alone, that there were people that understood and people I could talk to, and groups of people I could sit in with and just talk I mean, literally just talk like I had never talked before was the day that my life changed. I mean, it doesn't matter how old you are,
- 2:46I had a client who was 74 years old, we'd actually met at an Al Anon meeting. So I can't tell you her name or anything. But I remember her telling me, Timmy, thank you so much. This is the first time literally in 74 years that I feel like my life is mine. I can talk to my husband. And I can tell him that it's not nice to talk to me that way. And I can set boundaries. And if I want to go do something, Dave and I can go do it. I mean, she had finally taken back control of her life at 74 years old. So guys, it's never too late. I started late, but I have people that come to me that are just now 18 They just moved out of their house. And so they just feel now that it's a safe space, that it's okay to voice what's going on because their parents are not in the picture anymore. So it doesn't matter whether you're 18 or 75, or 78 or 100. Nate, none of that matters. A lot of people question Is it going to work for you? Well, it doesn't hurt to try, it can't hurt. Being with a group of people that are like a family that understand you and support you is is priceless. It is absolutely the most liberating feeling in the entire world just to know that you are not alone. I know people have said to me, well, it's I'm over it and my parents are out of the picture. Now both my parents were alcoholics and they passed away. And so now all of all of this stuff is gone. I just need to let it go. Well, I'm here to tell you that you don't just let things go.
- 4:19Having trauma and having bad experiences. Your brain is going to protect you it's going to put all of that stuff on the back burner and it's like carrying around a backpack. So you're carrying around this backpack and I'm just trying to sit up straight here but you're carrying around this backpack and every time something bad happens to you that your mind says I don't want to deal with that. Now it's it's not serving me well. It goes into this backpack will eventually after years and years and years of this. The backpack weighs 1000 pounds. So even though you can't see the things that are back there, they've been tucked away that have been back there for years. They are still wreaking havoc on your body, mind and soul I promise you I absolutely promise you. So how do you fix that? that you unload one thing at a time out of your backpack, you deal with it, you see if it serves you, and you either keep it or get rid of it. Okay? There's a lot of things that a lot of times people will come to me. And the thought of actually getting well scares them. And it seems like a funny reason. But it's because in order to get well they have to let go of the person that they became when things were so terrible. So you did you might have become someone different. I know I most certainly did. I became a people pleaser, I became a very insecure person, I became someone who was afraid of my own shadow and someone that was just out there not living my life, but just doing what everybody thought I what I thought everybody needed me to do. Or I was being who what everybody needed me to be. Just because I was so afraid of confrontation, I was so afraid of getting in trouble or having people not like me. I mean, there's these are all things that stem from it. But there's so many things. If you stopped right now, and thought about it thought about what are those things that are in your backpack? And how would it hurt you to deal with them one at a time? I think the answer may surprise you and and pleasantly pleasantly surprised you. Because yes, healing is a journey. It is it is not easy. Sometimes it's messy, and sticky and yucky. And you know, you're going to cry, you're going to feel guilty about some of the things that you did, all of this stuff is going to happen, it's all going to come up. But if you process it and you have a safe place to process it, and you have people to process it with you and to go through it and to, to lend a hand and to to let you know, they understand things get better things get more positive things. Things just get better. I don't know the best way to put it. I mean, I think that's the best way to put it. Things don't go away. Trauma doesn't go away. Childhood injuries don't go away. One of the biggest things that happen to us when we are a child or a younger person that is dealing with trauma and neglect and all that stuff is we develop these coping mechanisms. And I'm sure you can probably think about some of them that you have right now. So do we develop coping mechanisms that serve us at the time, they serve us to keep us safe, they serve us to keep alive. I mean, it's a primal instinct to keep yourself safe. It's what your brain wants to do. It wants to keep you safe. So it's going to do whatever it has to do, and make you the person that you have to become in order to save yourself. But now those things might not serve you now. I know people pleasing doesn't serve me now. It's okay. If people don't like me, it's okay. If I'm not the favorite person in the room, or I'm not, you know, the funniest person in the room, I don't, I no longer have to take the attention off someone else, I no longer have to be the clown to, to get people to pay attention to me so that they're not paying attention to the horror that was going on around me. There's so many different things. But you can't always do it on your own. And that's really what I learned. And the reason that I learned that is because I think I mentioned in one of my earlier podcasts that 95% of our thoughts, actions, reactions, and emotions come from our subconscious behaviors, or a subconscious mind. Sorry. So when these things pop up, and when these reactions happen, you have no control over them, because they're happening from your subconscious mind. They're happening in the background. It's it's an it's a quick instinct, and it is done by what has been programmed into your mind. And it's the external people in your life, the negative people and the negative circumstances that have reprogram these things. So what you need is you need a support system to help you deal with all those things to help you pull them out to help you reprogram some of that stuff. Because I would love to think that I could do it on my own. I remember when I heard about mantras, and I would sit there and say I am beautiful, I am safe. I am funny, I am happy, I am worthy. I am good. I
- 9:08am enough. I am enough. I am enough. And I would say that to myself. And that was supposed to work right? That's what the self help books said back in the late 80s. But what I found out is it doesn't work unless you truly, truly believe it. So what I had to do is I had to go to therapists, I had to join groups. I had to have coaches, I had to have people that walked me through and helped me through the process that had my back that were on my side no matter what. That didn't always just take what I said with a grain of salt but actually made me understand why I was saying what I was saying. That made me understand that you don't know what you don't know. And there's so much that I didn't know and so much that I'm still learning even 30 years later about why I am the way I am and what I need to help me get past it because Life is imperfect life is sometimes really rough. And you're going to run into those things 3540 years later that are going to trigger and bring these things back up, you have to have a support system to help you get over them. So if you're wondering if the coaching is for you, what I can tell you is that it can't hurt, it can never ever hurt to try to give it a try join a group join a group coaching, join a one on one session with any you know, somebody that you like somebody that you trust, and somebody you can resonate with. Because I spent many years in therapy, I still go to therapy actually. But what I found is who helped me are the coaches that live the life I lived are the coaches that got past what I got past not not by reading a book not by telling me what I should be feeling based on what is told to them. But having been there having done it and having gone through it, that's what you need. So you need someone you can resonate, you need someone that is going to walk the journey with you, that is going to help you that is going to feel your pain and have empathy and compassion. And yet also hold you some to some standards make you look at yourself, make you really, really look at yourself. And, and in that in that you will find healing you will find love again you will find emotions that you never knew you had you will find coping mechanisms that serve you right here right now. Not the you That was you 20 years ago or the you that was in survival mode. But you you is your genuine, authentic self. Because that's really what the goal is. The goal is to get back to that person, the goal is to learn to love that person again. The girl goal is to let go of all the baggage and know that it did make you a different person that it it did change the way you view the world. And and work on viewing that world in a more positive light. I mean, that's really what I want for you. Again, I could say you could do it on your own. I would love to think you can maybe just joining in here every week is all you need. That would be great. Get on as many podcasts as you can different things to different coaches, different styles, learn, learn, just learn and learn and learn. But at the end of the day, if you need a support coach, and you need a group of people, I am your people and I will be here for you. I promise you that. So thank you. I can't wait to see you back. I hope you tune in again and you have a wonderful and blessed day. Thank you