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Episode 6: Beyond Good and Bad: The Reality of Healing · the Unvarnished Edit

• 0:00
  Welcome to episode six of the Unvarnished Edit, where two friends talk about what it's actually like to live an adversity filled life.
• 0:07
  Be prepared to laugh, possibly cry, and swear along with us.
• 0:11
  This is Angie, and in today's episode, we discuss what we feel is missing in the conversations around healing.
• 0:18
  I hope you enjoy.
• 0:19
  Hi.
• 0:20
  Welcome.
• 0:21
  How are you today? Good.
• 0:22
  How are you? How are you? How was your weekend? So kid and I finally got to the movies.
• 0:30
  We used to go to the movies regularly when he was doing online school because we could go whenever.
• 0:36
  Yeah.
• 0:36
  And it has been, I mean, months and months we drive to Havasu even though it's an hour drive to the theater because it has.
• 0:46
  The comfy seat.
• 0:48
  Yes.
• 0:48
  So in Kingman, we just have like the old theater, right? Mm-hmm.
• 0:52
  Havasu has the nice theater and we went and we saw Project Hail Mary and I will tell you nothing about it except it is one of the best movies I've seen in years.
• 1:04
  Okay.
• 1:05
  I listened to the audio book.
• 1:08
  Have been obsessed with that book since I listened to it.
• 1:11
  And actually my friend and I found out we were listening to it at the same time and we were in the same spot and we kind of went through it together accidentally, and we would text each other constantly and we would just text each other, like in Rocky language, we would just be like amaze, amaze or like those little words, right? Yeah.
• 1:30
  Yeah.
• 1:30
  I want to see the movie, but I loved the book so much.
• 1:36
  What should I do? I have no clue.
• 1:39
  'cause I didn't even know it was a book.
• 1:41
  So good.
• 1:44
  And it was just, it was so good that I think that even if you read the book mm-hmm.
• 1:53
  You'll still enjoy this movie.
• 1:55
  Okay.
• 1:55
  That's what I think too.
• 1:56
  The audio book was fantastic.
• 1:59
  I mean, that was, I think one of the only books I gave five stars to last year.
• 2:04
  That, and, if you are a book person, the Dungeon Crawler Carls series, it's very hard to say.
• 2:11
  Fantastic.
• 2:12
  Those are all my five star books for last year.
• 2:14
  But Hail Mary is, and I had told Michael I wanted to go see that this weekend, but, instead of doing that we did nothing.
• 2:21
  We lounged.
• 2:21
  That actually sounds amazing.
• 2:23
  Yeah, we both had to work a little bit, yesterday and, I had my book club and we did little things like that.
• 2:30
  But yeah, I haven't been feeling great.
• 2:33
  My allergies are just, I can't go outside right now, so yeah, we're.
• 2:39
  Yeah.
• 2:39
  Yeah, just came off your honeymoon and being gone.
• 2:42
  So yeah, a downtime, a weekend downtime.
• 2:46
  Probably is not to quote our last episode, but showing up for yourself.
• 2:52
  Yeah, I definitely showed up for myself this weekend as a matter of fact.
• 2:55
  It was great because on Saturday, Michael makes corned beef hash, which is a smell.
• 3:02
  Yeah, that makes me want, like for breakfast.
• 3:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:05
  Like, he makes it out of the can for breakfast and the smell.
• 3:08
  Yeah.
• 3:08
  Todd loves it too.
• 3:10
  A gag.
• 3:11
  Yeah.
• 3:11
  I literally gag.
• 3:12
  Mm-hmm.
• 3:12
  And so, he really, he's always like, it's so good and I'm all.
• 3:18
  I can't even breathe.
• 3:19
  And so, mm-hmm.
• 3:20
  He said, you know, hey, I really would like to make this this morning.
• 3:24
  How can we work this out? And I said, I'll go back to bed.
• 3:27
  Took my computer and I went back to bed.
• 3:31
  I shut the door.
• 3:33
  And when he was done eating, he came in and he was like, I'm done now.
• 3:36
  And I was like, okay.
• 3:37
  Three hours later I'm still in bed.
• 3:41
  That sounds amazing.
• 3:42
  That was great.
• 3:44
  It was great.
• 3:44
  Yeah.
• 3:46
  that kind of starts into what we wanted to talk about today about like the things that we don't really talk about in healing or maybe what's not known as much and mm-hmm.
• 3:58
  First of all, when we talk about, healing or a healing journey, I hate that phrase.
• 4:03
  I hate it when people use the word journey.
• 4:05
  Like, listen, we're all on a journey.
• 4:09
  It's called being born and working towards dying.
• 4:13
  Okay? When you are born, you are put on a moving sidewalk.
• 4:19
  And you move towards being dead, right? Mm-hmm.
• 4:22
  And so we're all on a journey.
• 4:24
  It's called being alive.
• 4:25
  So.
• 4:26
  I get mad at myself when I use the phrase journey, but when someone sets out either intentionally or accidentally to actually work on healing.
• 4:36
  And when I say healing, I mean getting sober, working with trauma, learning more about yourself, changing your relationship with yourself.
• 4:46
  Mm-hmm.
• 4:46
  And those are all scalable things.
• 4:48
  Some of us do that on a very like mediocre low level where it's like, yeah, I wanna figure out more about myself.
• 4:55
  I wanna be better in my relationships, et cetera, et cetera.
• 4:58
  That is healing.
• 4:59
  Some of us have to do it at this really high level of like, I've got some baggage to unpack, right? Mm-hmm.
• 5:06
  Mm-hmm.
• 5:06
  But I think healing is incorporated in all of those different kinds of scenarios and situations.
• 5:12
  So I wanna use it in like a really general word, but I think particularly today when we talk about what do we not talk about in healing and what has been unexpected, and also what makes you feel hopeful.
• 5:28
  I'm personally referring to like a much bigger situation of like, I've got a lot of things to unpack here.
• 5:35
  I have Right.
• 5:38
  Sort of like a traumatic background that I've gotta figure out how to manage.
• 5:42
  And so I just kind of wanna be clear what I'm talking about when I talk about these things today.
• 5:47
  I'm not sure how that lands for you.
• 5:50
  Yeah.
• 5:50
  Yeah.
• 5:51
  And when I'm talking about it, I am talking about.
• 5:55
  Not as much, understanding the background of things, but understanding what the impacts of the background look like in my current life.
• 6:04
  Yeah.
• 6:05
  That are maybe holding me back or are affecting, my current space here.
• 6:13
  That makes sense.
• 6:14
  Because honestly I don't care to know.
• 6:16
  A lot of it.
• 6:17
  Yeah.
• 6:18
  So I have to level set.
• 6:20
  I have a handful of memories until eighth grade, and then I have a handful of memories for high school.
• 6:29
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:29
  I have less than a handful of memories for college.
• 6:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 6:34
  And then after that I have more than a handful, um, of those pieces.
• 6:39
  But there are still big gaps in years and pieces like that.
• 6:43
  Yeah.
• 6:43
  And so knowing what I know now, right, of how my system processes information and where it stores it and all of those kinds of pieces, I know that it has to be bad enough that it was stored away.
• 6:55
  So that.
• 6:57
  We don't know what it is.
• 6:59
  Yeah.
• 6:59
  I mean, so I don't care to actually know what Yeah.
• 7:01
  The brain is just braining.
• 7:02
  Yeah, yeah.
• 7:03
  What they are.
• 7:04
  But what I do care about is how does it still currently affect me? Mm-hmm.
• 7:08
  The things that have happened, where do they kind of show up in, my life and, and how do I, I think honestly make peace with it.
• 7:17
  Yeah.
• 7:18
  Yeah.
• 7:18
  So identify those kinds of pieces.
• 7:20
  And when I think about like.
• 7:21
  What do I wish I knew? I wish I knew how hard and how long of a journey it would be.
• 7:28
  I know you don't like that word.
• 7:29
  How long of a process, how long of a process it would be, and to understand that it will be a continual process, and that's okay.
• 7:37
  And that it's not like they're act, I don't think there actually is an end.
• 7:42
  I tell my kids, when we stop learning, we stop growing and we start dying.
• 7:47
  Yeah.
• 7:47
  And so life is just, life is just another, you know, learning opportunity.
• 7:54
  Yeah.
• 7:55
  And that, looking at it that way I wish, I didn't think it was a destination at the beginning.
• 8:00
  Yes.
• 8:00
  'cause I think I put a lot of shame and guilt that I was doing things the wrong way, that things would never get better because I, I always thought there was going to be a destination, an ending, an end point in it, like I'm cured.
• 8:16
  Yeah.
• 8:18
  And, um.
• 8:20
  Think it effed me up a bit.
• 8:22
  Yeah.
• 8:22
  For a while.
• 8:23
  Yeah, that makes sense.
• 8:24
  I mean, I think one of the things that I agree with you that I wish I would've known.
• 8:31
  That this is a very long process.
• 8:35
  It is not linear.
• 8:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:38
  I also wish I would've known how much grief is involved.
• 8:44
  Hmm.
• 8:45
  That was not an emotion that I was expecting to have to handle as much as I have had to handle.
• 8:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 8:53
  And having to go through.
• 8:56
  This part of where I am in life, which is EMDR, which has been just transformative.
• 9:04
  There is so much grief involved and that is probably an emotion that I am, it's one of my like top three uncomfortable emotions.
• 9:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 9:19
  I would say grief and anger are the two emotions that I have the hardest time.
• 9:25
  Processing and handling, and allowing myself to feel.
• 9:29
  I really struggled with grief and anger and so I was not expecting to have to learn how to grieve.
• 9:39
  And go through that.
• 9:41
  That has been probably the biggest challenge that I've had, and I think that's probably why I very often say, when is this gonna be done? When am I going to be done? And I don't mean done working on myself or improving, I just mean this part of it, which is the EMDR I would love for that to be done.
• 10:02
  But it's a process, right? Of learning something, integrating something, learning something.
• 10:08
  Integrating something and mm-hmm.
• 10:11
  The integration, I think is where the grief comes in because I have to, let go of a lot of things and I have to work through the difference between what I wanted and what I got, or what I have and what I wish I had.
• 10:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:26
  That's hard.
• 10:26
  Mm-hmm.
• 10:27
  I don't like that.
• 10:28
  It's not enjoyable.
• 10:30
  Yeah.
• 10:31
  Yeah, I know.
• 10:32
  I remember the time that I had to grieve what I had thought everything was going to look like.
• 10:38
  Yes.
• 10:39
  Versus, versus what it did.
• 10:41
  And that was, that was a powerful moment.
• 10:45
  That's a powerful time.
• 10:46
  But, but yeah.
• 10:47
  Anger for me too.
• 10:48
  I can blow up.
• 10:50
  That's not a problem.
• 10:51
  That's not a problem.
• 10:52
  But feeling, yeah, feeling the anger in, I think a more healthy way.
• 10:59
  Yeah.
• 10:59
  And not having any judgment on that.
• 11:01
  Anger.
• 11:03
  Yeah.
• 11:03
  And allowing it to be like.
• 11:06
  You know, I know that it's coming out as anger, but almost always when I'm angry it's because I'm really hurt.
• 11:14
  It's, and so the hardest part for me is to say, I know that it looks like I'm angry, but what it is is I am really hurt.
• 11:21
  Yeah.
• 11:22
  You know what's interesting about anger is I think the analogy I'm about to give works for almost any emotion, especially a negative emotion.
• 11:29
  But this is specifically how I think about anger.
• 11:31
  I think about anger as like a hot potato, and when I hold it, it.
• 11:37
  Is, I don't enjoy it.
• 11:39
  It hurts and I know what's underneath it, and I don't want the hot to go away because I don't want to deal with under what's underneath it.
• 11:47
  So if I throw the hot potato at someone else.
• 11:51
  Then I don't have to deal with it anymore.
• 11:53
  And that's what happens when I blow up, right? It's just like I just chuck the hot potato with someone else.
• 11:58
  Yeah.
• 11:58
  And then it's like it gets hotter, right? Because it's got like more energy to it.
• 12:03
  Whereas if I could be patient and just like hold onto it for a minute, yes it hurts, but it also cools off.
• 12:09
  And once it cools off, then we can talk about why I am either afraid.
• 12:14
  Or in grief.
• 12:15
  Those are probably my two roots of anger, I'm afraid.
• 12:18
  Yeah.
• 12:19
  Or I'm really grieving something and I think when I can be, when I can kind of think about that.
• 12:27
  And usually the only time I realize it is when I've already like chucked the potato at someone else and I'm like, uh, there it goes.
• 12:35
  Right, right, right.
• 12:39
  Yes.
• 12:40
  No, absolutely.
• 12:41
  And I will counter that.
• 12:42
  I don't think that there are any negative emotions, that I do.
• 12:46
  Yeah, I I hear what you've mean there.
• 12:48
  Yeah.
• 12:48
  Yeah.
• 12:48
  An emotion is just an emotion.
• 12:50
  That is, that's been a hard thing for us to learn.
• 12:54
  And I think, you know, one of the things that we look at when it's healing in this conversation that, that I really do feel we get wrong is this binary look at things like, good, bad.
• 13:07
  Yeah, this behavior is bad, this behavior is good, this behavior is disordered, this behavior is, you know, kind of is what we want.
• 13:16
  And you know, healing is really being able to.
• 13:21
  To be with all of it.
• 13:22
  Yeah, no.
• 13:23
  So I should clarify what I meant when I said that was in the analogy of a hot potato if, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 13:30
  If your hot potato is happiness and you toss that at someone else that's probably okay.
• 13:34
  You're sharing it, right.
• 13:36
  But when you're.
• 13:38
  If you're thinking about an emotion that you wanna get rid of that in a maladaptive way.
• 13:43
  That's kind of what I meant by that.
• 13:45
  But that also makes me think about something that I say all the time to other people, but tend to ignore for myself, which is that emotions are just data points.
• 13:53
  It's just data, right? Yes.
• 13:56
  This thing made me feel this way.
• 13:58
  And that is a valuable data point.
• 14:02
  And if I can get into my really analytical brain, which I love to be there, because you don't have to have feelings when you're in your analytical brain.
• 14:10
  Yeah.
• 14:10
  And I can plot all of my data points with all of the things that have happened.
• 14:16
  I learn a lot.
• 14:17
  I learn a lot.
• 14:18
  Right.
• 14:19
  Yeah.
• 14:19
  Over space and time and relationship and things like that.
• 14:23
  And so when I can remind myself this feeling is not good, it's not bad, it's a piece of data.
• 14:30
  It helps me learn something, right? Yeah.
• 14:33
  Yeah.
• 14:34
  Absolutely.
• 14:35
  Absolutely.
• 14:35
  Yeah.
• 14:36
  And I look at that the same way as we use the word maladaptive, right? Is it really maladaptive or is it neurobiologically appropriate for.
• 14:46
  The experiences that we have been through.
• 14:49
  Right? Yeah.
• 14:50
  Yeah.
• 14:50
  We tend to, in healing, take this whole entire laundry list of things that are bad.
• 14:58
  Yeah.
• 14:59
  That we, they see 'em as bad, and so then what happens is when we feel them, we label ourselves as bad for having a feeling.
• 15:09
  So for having a thing that you're not supposed to, I'm not supposed to be angry anymore.
• 15:14
  Yeah.
• 15:14
  I'm not supposed to feel this way anymore.
• 15:17
  This is not what I want, to be, this is doing healing wrong.
• 15:21
  No they're all appropriate responses when we look into the greater, bigger picture of it.
• 15:28
  Yeah.
• 15:28
  And it's not something that is ever really talked about because when we talk about healing and we talk about those things, it, it automatically goes to bad and good.
• 15:41
  Yeah.
• 15:42
  This is how I was, this is how I wanna be.
• 15:45
  This is bad.
• 15:46
  This is good.
• 15:48
  I love that you use it as data points because that's all anything in life is, yeah.
• 15:55
  Is it not a point? We as humans are the ones who put judgment on it.
• 16:00
  Yeah.
• 16:02
  There's no judgment in anger.
• 16:05
  There's no judgment in blowing up.
• 16:08
  There's no judgment in having substance use disorder.
• 16:13
  We're the ones who put the judgment on it.
• 16:16
  Yeah.
• 16:16
  We have decided as humans that that is bad.
• 16:19
  When if we actually come out and we look at the neuroscience of it, if we look at the way that our bodies respond, if we understand the stress response system, if we look at things, we can see why it was a neurobiologically appropriate behavior.
• 16:35
  Now, it doesn't mean that.
• 16:37
  There aren't consequences to those things, right? Mm-hmm.
• 16:40
  That can feel that, that really make it harder in life, but the judgment.
• 16:47
  Of it is something that we're doing.
• 16:49
  Right.
• 16:50
  Yeah, that's a really good point.
• 16:51
  And when you were talking about like the good and bad of like before I made bad decisions and now I make good decisions or whatever, right.
• 16:59
  How we look at the healing in like a binary way.
• 17:01
  I do that to myself sometimes in the sense that I deeply want to know when I will just be able to live my life.
• 17:11
  Right? Yes.
• 17:12
  When do I get to stop working on this and just apply the things I have learned? Mm-hmm.
• 17:20
  And just go through life living, growing.
• 17:24
  Integrating.
• 17:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:25
  Applying, right? Mm-hmm.
• 17:27
  Mm-hmm.
• 17:28
  And I think that goes along with my desire to want to find the end, right? Mm-hmm.
• 17:34
  Like, but what I have, yeah.
• 17:35
  Like it's the destination of something.
• 17:37
  Yes, yes.
• 17:38
  Yeah.
• 17:38
  But what I have to realize and what I, remind myself all the time is I am living my life right now, until I die, everything is life.
• 17:51
  Yeah.
• 17:51
  There is not a point in the future where I will start just living my life.
• 17:56
  I am just living my life right now in this way, and maybe in the future it will look different and it will look less intense in a therapeutic sense.
• 18:07
  But in like a, I mean in a client relationship therapeutic sense.
• 18:11
  Yeah.
• 18:11
  But.
• 18:12
  I'm living my life right now.
• 18:14
  There is no work towards the future.
• 18:17
  And then being able to live, and I have to remind myself of that very, very often.
• 18:22
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  Yeah.
• 18:24
  Absolutely.
• 18:25
  And our society just tends to run that way.
• 18:28
  Yeah.
• 18:28
  Right? Yeah.
• 18:28
  Like, oh, you wanna lose some weight? Here's a quick fix.
• 18:33
  Here's this.
• 18:34
  Here's all of these different products.
• 18:37
  All of these different pieces.
• 18:38
  Everything is always a destination.
• 18:41
  Yeah.
• 18:41
  And so we tend to, right.
• 18:45
  Hold, hold things back.
• 18:48
  Yes.
• 18:48
  I think part of me coming to the point of being able to not place judgment on myself for the way that I'm responding, and just looking at it as data points is when I did realize.
• 19:06
  How heavily we dissociated.
• 19:08
  And then when I got the diagnosis of the dissociative disorder, first of all, just even calling it a disorder, when it is actually an appropriate way for the brain to respond and the way that it was, I had to come to a point knowing that, one, there's no cure to it.
• 19:24
  Two, there's no pills you can take for it.
• 19:27
  Three, it is literally just the way that my brain is structured and the way that we respond.
• 19:32
  And this was all like decided for me as a child, that I had to get to a point where I could just look at everything as data because that was how.
• 19:46
  That was the only next step.
• 19:48
  Right.
• 19:48
  That was like the only next step.
• 19:50
  And if I looked at it as anything other than data, I, it would just take me out.
• 19:55
  Yeah.
• 19:55
  Right.
• 19:56
  And then in doing the work that we, that I've been doing for the last, you know, seven years and really understanding the impacts of adversity and trauma on our brains and on our bodies.
• 20:08
  And the the knowledge that I had before that of what it actually looks like in our body with the energy work and those kinds of pieces, It has just further, what's the word, kind of solidified, right? Yes.
• 20:21
  That this really is data.
• 20:24
  And we all just do respond.
• 20:27
  And, it actually makes me sad, you know, like, oh, we'll do this program or do this or do that.
• 20:33
  Like there is this destination, this magical place that we're gonna get that all of a sudden we don't hurt anymore.
• 20:43
  That's not realistic.
• 20:44
  Yeah, no.
• 20:45
  Right.
• 20:47
  That we somehow think that healing means that we will never blow up again, or that we're never gonna fall back into old patterns.
• 20:55
  Healing just means, and I think we discussed that in one of our first episodes, is that it just means that we recognize it sooner.
• 21:03
  Yeah, yeah.
• 21:06
  Right.
• 21:07
  It's like a shrinking of the timeline between incident and repair.
• 21:12
  Yes, absolutely That.
• 21:14
  Absolutely.
• 21:15
  And being able to have the capacity to hold onto things that are uncomfortable, whether that be grief and anger, or whether that be joy and fun.
• 21:25
  Yeah.
• 21:26
  Because being joyful, being happy for people who've experienced a lot of adversity and trauma.
• 21:33
  I remember hearing something that, we don't heal so that way we can handle trauma.
• 21:37
  We already have that down pat.
• 21:40
  We heal so that way we can handle being happy and joyful.
• 21:44
  Yeah.
• 21:45
  Because those are very uncomfortable.
• 21:48
  Yeah.
• 21:49
  You know what I mean? And so I think that healing to me looks like that capacity to hold uncomfortable feelings and to be able to hold them for longer.
• 21:58
  Then when we aren't able to hold them right, or we kind of fall back into patterns that we recognize them sooner and we're able to repair.
• 22:10
  Yeah, that's just life.
• 22:12
  I wanna add something onto that because I think for me, healing is being able to hold onto an emotion and also keep it separate from my identity.
• 22:23
  Yes.
• 22:24
  Like who I am.
• 22:25
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:26
  So I can, and this is new for me, I am now able, very recently, actually, I have learned this about myself.
• 22:34
  So I am in a new era.
• 22:36
  Yeah.
• 22:36
  Where I have, I am now able to get in, have conflict show up, let's just say.
• 22:44
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:45
  And.
• 22:45
  Hear how someone has viewed me or thinks about me.
• 22:50
  Mm-hmm.
• 22:51
  And I can actually hold onto that and examine it.
• 22:55
  I've been able to say this part.
• 22:58
  Yes, I probably did do that, but this part, that's not me.
• 23:02
  And I don't automat.
• 23:04
  I used to automatically just take it in.
• 23:07
  Oh my God, you're right.
• 23:07
  I did that.
• 23:08
  I'm so bad.
• 23:09
  Right.
• 23:09
  And now I can hold onto an emotion.
• 23:13
  And I can decide if this is actually part of what I wanna take in or not.
• 23:21
  And that has been hugely different behavior.
• 23:25
  And so I think adding in that piece of like separating the person from the behavior, I can now do that for myself and I've never been able to do that before.
• 23:36
  That's huge.
• 23:37
  Mm-hmm.
• 23:38
  Yeah.
• 23:39
  That's huge.
• 23:40
  Yeah.
• 23:41
  Yeah.
• 23:42
  And I think, you know, for me it has actually helped, not only myself, but it's helped me to see that everyone else is just seeing out of their own perceptions as well.
• 23:54
  Right? Yes.
• 23:54
  That they're seeing out of their experiences, their past, their understanding of it.
• 24:00
  Mm-hmm.
• 24:01
  And we all do have a different understanding of life.
• 24:04
  Even if we've gone, even if we've gone through the exact same thing, we all have, we all have a different experience in it because of our lives.
• 24:17
  One, it's helped me have compassion for others, but it actually gives me more capacity.
• 24:22
  Now, the hard part about that, and I think a part that we also don't talk about.
• 24:29
  You can have compassion for others and their behaviors still not be okay.
• 24:34
  Yes, not be acceptable.
• 24:37
  And just because you understand where they come from, you understand that it may be pain that is causing them to act that way or be that way.
• 24:50
  Abuse and bad behavior, and those pieces that actually hurt.
• 24:56
  Someone is not okay.
• 25:00
  End of story.
• 25:01
  I don't care what their life story is.
• 25:03
  Yeah, yeah.
• 25:05
  That's been not okay.
• 25:06
  That's been a really big part of what we've had to work on in therapy is, I'll just give you the analogy my therapist gave me, which was, has been extremely helpful for me.
• 25:17
  She said, you know, if we went out to the parking lot right now and I got in my car and I didn't see you standing there and I ran over your foot.
• 25:28
  I got out and your foot hurt and you would be able to say to your friends, she didn't mean it.
• 25:34
  She's a good person, but your foot still hurts and we still have to work on it.
• 25:40
  She was like, mm-hmm.
• 25:41
  So you can have people in your life that do not intentionally mean harm, do not know what they're doing, are actually really good people and also.
• 25:52
  They still hurt you and you still can work on that and learning to have the, and also, yes, instead of, but 'cause I was constantly like, but they don't know that they're doing that or, but they didn't mean that or, but they're really nice.
• 26:07
  Like I was constantly saying that.
• 26:09
  Right? Yes.
• 26:10
  And we had to spend so much time and also not, but, and also like the amount of time she has said that to me.
• 26:22
  And that has been a really important lesson of I can have compassion for this person and I can see why their life story and where they were coming from caused them to behave this way.
• 26:37
  And also, I didn't get what I needed and I'm allowed to fix that.
• 26:41
  I'm allowed to get better from that and take care of myself.
• 26:45
  Yeah.
• 26:46
  And I'm allowed to set a boundary.
• 26:47
  Mm-hmm.
• 26:48
  And not interact.
• 26:50
  It's not my responsibility for somebody else's healing.
• 26:53
  Yeah.
• 26:54
  It's not right.
• 26:54
  My responsibility is for myself.
• 26:58
  So, you know, being in the trauma informed movement as a we are.
• 27:01
  Mm-hmm.
• 27:02
  Right.
• 27:02
  And I have been doing this, for a long time at this point in this, and it has gotten to the point in this probably going to be very unpopular, but we've weaponized it.
• 27:15
  Yeah.
• 27:16
  And we have used it to allow abusive behavior.
• 27:22
  As far as kind of like a free pass.
• 27:25
  And, and that is not what, that is not where you and I come from in, in any way, shape or form in this.
• 27:33
  And so, when we have those conversations on, you know, even what kind of healing looks like and having that understanding of what brought us to this point.
• 27:44
  I just want it super clear to everybody that we are not that you can have compassion and you and also a boundary.
• 27:54
  Yeah.
• 27:55
  And this also comes in showing up for yourself, right? Is understanding what does that look like? What is the impact here in my life? And I think.
• 28:07
  I saw some of the detriment in it with, my daughter and her relationship of seven years.
• 28:13
  Right.
• 28:14
  Because he did have a rough start, right? He did have rough things in life, and I could see her repeating the exact same things that I repeated.
• 28:22
  Right.
• 28:23
  Well, of course, like this is, you know, but it's abusive.
• 28:27
  She still has the impacts, right? Of all of that compassion she gave.
• 28:33
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:35
  Those long lasting, impacts of it.
• 28:37
  I just don't ever want it to come across that, we're saying it's okay.
• 28:43
  Yeah.
• 28:44
  I think I wanna say that like in a different way to like really? Mm-hmm.
• 28:51
  Put a fine point on it.
• 28:53
  Mm-hmm.
• 28:53
  If you are an adult that allows people to engage in harmful behavior because you're extending compassion for where they're coming from, you are not actually a safe adult.
• 29:11
  And the way I think about that is, in friendships, if I have a friend who has, and we have a mutual friend, and they constantly allow this mutual friend to gossip back stab cross boundaries, and the excuse they give is, well, she's just going through a difficult time.
• 29:34
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:34
  Neither one of those people are safe friendships for me to be in.
• 29:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 29:39
  We owe it to ourselves and I would argue we owe it to that person to let them feel the boundary and the effect of their behavior so that they can decide whether or not that is data for them to take and make a change or not.
• 29:59
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:00
  But if we continue to allow people to.
• 30:03
  Engage in harmful behavior and never draw that boundary.
• 30:07
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:08
  We are not helping them at all.
• 30:10
  We are being a bad friend.
• 30:13
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:14
  In my opinion.
• 30:15
  Yeah.
• 30:16
  Yeah.
• 30:16
  And just hurting ourselves.
• 30:19
  Yeah.
• 30:19
  And just hurting ourselves.
• 30:20
  Agreed.
• 30:21
  What makes you feel hopeful? What makes me feel hopeful is I think I see more people having these conversations.
• 30:30
  Mm-hmm.
• 30:31
  Right.
• 30:32
  Of that abuse is not Okay.
• 30:36
  One, two, that, healing does look different for everybody and it isn't right.
• 30:43
  That endpoint and even just understanding where the, the beginning of it is.
• 30:49
  Right.
• 30:50
  It makes me feel hopeful that there are more discussions and I think it probably helps that we have, more science behind some of these things, right? Mm-hmm.
• 30:59
  Like brain science, although the brain is the one thing that runs our entire system, it's the last thing that has been studied medically.
• 31:05
  And so in, medical years, it is relatively new.
• 31:11
  Yeah.
• 31:11
  And, there's always new research coming out and so it really does make me feel hopeful that.
• 31:21
  Because of the new studies and because of the research that is there, that more people are gonna actually understand all of these pieces, right? That we're going to have more, compassion and understanding for ourselves and seeing that, oh, well, of course my body responds that way when I have experienced.
• 31:41
  These things like that just makes sense, right? And knowing that healing's not a ending point, it's not a destination that it does ebb and flow and there are gonna be fun things during that journey.
• 31:57
  And there are going to be things that absolutely are horrible, right? And it is that kind of, um, you know.
• 32:05
  They'll see that kind of line, that it's not healing's, not that linear thing that it looks like this like Exactly.
• 32:12
  And all around.
• 32:13
  I think that, brings me some hope.
• 32:15
  Yeah, in this space.
• 32:16
  What about you? I have two answers.
• 32:18
  I think a more micro answer is one of the things that gives me hope is when my life changes, when I find myself in a situation where I am behaving very differently.
• 32:33
  And I feel good about it and the outcome is better.
• 32:37
  I'm like, oh shit, man.
• 32:39
  This is working.
• 32:40
  Like, mm-hmm.
• 32:41
  I feel so hopeful about that, and that makes me extend that hope to other people, right? Mm-hmm.
• 32:48
  Where I'm like, if I can do this and I can impact my life in a significant way, I know you can too, right? Mm-hmm.
• 32:57
  You just have to find the right.
• 32:59
  Pathway for you that works for you.
• 33:02
  And that leads to sort of the macro thing of like there's so many different pathways available now.
• 33:09
  Mm-hmm.
• 33:09
  As opposed to when we were younger because there is so much new science, because there are more practitioners, because the conversation is more open and on social media and people talk about it more, the pathways to being able to.
• 33:25
  Learn and have those moments of change that give that propel individual hope becomes a movement of unified hope, right? Mm-hmm.
• 33:36
  I really have come to understand that putting myself in a position where I am growing and learning and joyful and hopeful is so important.
• 33:51
  So that I can join with other people and become a group of hopeful, joyful, healing people and move that forward, if that makes sense.
• 34:05
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 34:08
  I also see hope in the new generations Oh yeah.
• 34:12
  Like oh, so much in, yeah.
• 34:15
  Um, in.
• 34:18
  In that piece.
• 34:19
  Right.
• 34:20
  In just self-awareness.
• 34:22
  I know that, when I worked with teens, especially those that, self-harmed, I would tell them, you're so lucky that you're going through this right now.
• 34:29
  And they would look at me like I had three heads and like, what are you to, like, why, how could this possibly be lucky? Right? Yeah.
• 34:39
  We all learn it at some point in our life, and I would much rather learn it as a teenager and have that way more solid foundation throughout my life than learning it now in my, you know, in my forties and yes, and, and 50.
• 34:55
  And so seeing the generations, coming out, just one, being willing.
• 35:01
  To look at their own behavior.
• 35:05
  Mm-hmm.
• 35:06
  Being willing to look at how, what they do and what they say, how it impacts people.
• 35:12
  That gives me a lot of hope.
• 35:13
  Right.
• 35:13
  Yeah.
• 35:13
  That maybe we won't have, maybe we're further along in the journey.
• 35:17
  Then I know.
• 35:19
  I realize how many times I say it after you so that you can, I know I can't help it.
• 35:23
  I mean, it's a word that fits, right? It's a word that fits.
• 35:27
  It's just like, ugh.
• 35:29
  Really? You're on a journey.
• 35:30
  And it's so funny because every time, every time we say, say the word journey, I literally, the Lord of the Rings hobbit, visual pops in my head every time.
• 35:39
  Every time.
• 35:40
  So know that when that word comes outta my mouth, Jaelene, we are that in my brain.
• 35:46
  I am in Hobbit land, whatever.
• 35:48
  We are trekking through middle earth to get to Mordor and it will take us hours to get to Mordor and then it will take us centuries to actually drop the ring.
• 36:01
  Yes.
• 36:02
  If you have seen the movies, you know what I'm talking about.
• 36:06
  I do believe when we talk about like younger people and new pathways and so many opportunities, I know that this is pithy what I'm about to say, but I truly believe it.
• 36:16
  When the student is ready, the teacher appears.
• 36:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 36:20
  When you are ready and open to something and you put that energy out there that I am ready for this experience of whether it's healing, learning joy, learning a skill, whatever it is, that opportunity shows up in some way.
• 36:37
  Yeah, and I think we'll close it up with, what the caveat that I let everyone know is whenever we are learning a new skill, the universe likes to give us time to practice.
• 36:50
  And so typically what I call them are, life's lessons in life will show up and be like, oh, you, you know, want more capacity and patience? Well.
• 37:03
  Here is prove it, the situation, right? That requires you to have extreme amounts of patience.
• 37:10
  How did you do? And those pieces, those are just data points.
• 37:17
  Data.
• 37:17
  Again, no shame, no judgment in it, data points.
• 37:22
  But know that when we do learn things new and as we are on this, this path, that those lessons will.
• 37:30
  Show up just for us to practice and integrate them in our day.
• 37:37
  Yeah.
• 37:37
  So yeah, and if you can't remember that, just remember the joy is in the journey through middle earth, through middle earth to Mordor Seems to, I actually kind of seems appropriate right now.
• 37:50
  It does.
• 37:51
  It does.
• 37:51
  Actually.
• 37:52
  You're right.
• 37:52
  We might be in Middle Earth right now.
• 37:54
  Aw, that's always so nice chatting with you.
• 37:57
  Yes.
• 37:57
  That was fantastic conversation.
• 37:59
  I love that this time together.
• 38:00
  So thank you for sharing everything and your thoughts and wisdom.
• 38:04
  Yeah.
• 38:04
  Have a good afternoon.
• 38:05
  You too.
• 38:06
  Thank you for joining us today.
• 38:08
  It has been great to share this conversation with you.
• 38:10
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• 38:13
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• 38:18
  Join us next week while we will have conversations about relationships and finally finding a healthy relationship.