Latest / The Andrew Mychal Podcast / E3 | An Adult Longer Than I've Been a Child with Dean Hitsos

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E3 | An Adult Longer Than I've Been a Child with Dean Hitsos · The Andrew Mychal Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: A note before we begin.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: This episode includes a conversation about childhood trauma, bullying, sexuality, mental health, and drugs, as well as some explicit language.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some content may not be appropriate for children.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: The gratitude journal is helping immensely.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: My whole life I've been focused on the negative.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: People could say, you know, you're intelligent, you're strong, you're this, that, and the other thing.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: All I would say is, I wish I could see those things in myself.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: And now I feel like I'm starting to see those things.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: We all have stories that shape who we became.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Some we understand, some we still carry, and some we don't even recognize until another person helps us see them differently.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Andrew Michael, and this is the Andrew Michael Podcast.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Honest conversations about the experiences that shape us, the patterns we carry, and what becomes possible when we finally understand what's been driving us.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes hearing someone else's story is exactly what we need to better understand our own.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Dean and I have sung in the same chorus for two years, and for most of the time we barely knew each other.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Six weeks before this conversation, Dean hit a point where he felt like things couldn't get any worse.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: So we reached out.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: What followed was one lunch, one book, and a friendship that changed fast.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today, you'll hear what happens when someone finally decides to stop carrying all their pain alone.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Good morning and happy Friday.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: After a lot of technical difficulties, Dean and I are finally here.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Dean and I sing together in the gay men's chorus.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we met two years ago.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: We actually sat in separate sections.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And over the last six weeks, our relationship has changed a lot.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Dean, how are you feeling today?
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I am feeling good.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So we've known each other now for two years.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, we sat in different sections and didn't really communicate.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But six weeks ago you reached out to me, and our relationship has changed.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, can you share kind of what transpired?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot happened over the last year, but to kind of sum it up, uh I kind of hit a bottom uh where I felt like things could not get any worse on so many levels, you know, emotionally, financially, you name it.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and at that point, I I knew that you were helping other people.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I decided to reach out to you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we had lunch.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_01: I it was the very beginning of May, um, because I was ready to open up.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had carried these um, I guess, dark secrets uh for a very long time.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um it, you know, hitting that bottom gave me the courage to not only reach out to you, but to really open up.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And also the fact that you shared your life story with me helped me to do the same.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: Our life stories, there's a lot of parallels, a lot more than I thought.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And as I saw you over the last two years, the best way I can describe it is I always felt like there was a gentle soul there.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I always made it a point to come up and like hug you and say hi.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: But our relationship was very surface.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: So when you actually did decide to reach out to me, I was kind of excited.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: There was always a part of me that knew that we were connected, but I couldn't really figure it out.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: So you read the book, you got the book after we had lunch.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me how things changed for you after you read it or as you were reading it, what was happening?
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh number one, I identified completely.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: And um it, you know, I was like, wow, uh, you know, I'm not the only one that experienced childhood trauma and the effects that it had throughout my life in terms of you know, relationships and self-confidence and and just so many different things.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So um I think for me, the book was the awakening into okay, there are different sides of me.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: There's the inner child, there was the adoptive child, uh, adaptive.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, then there was the uh adult who needed to look after them.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, these were things I never really thought about before, but it made sense when I read the book.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted more.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted more knowledge, I wanted to work on myself.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, that led to the workbook.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can you speak at all to your childhood?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Give everybody a little bit of an idea of your background, like your parents and any siblings you might have?
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: My earliest childhood memories revolved around feeling uh different, feeling afraid, and being extremely shy.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I grew up in a family where my father worked nights as an airplane mechanic for his whole life.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: He was the caregiver in the sense that, you know, he was the breadwinner of the family, but he also made sure, you know, that we had a house and we had food on the table and clothes and paid for my education and all those kinds of things.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, in a sense, he could be a very generous and nurturing individual, but that side was not always seen.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, again, working nights, he usually slept during the day, so he was not present.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or uh, if he was awake during the day, I never knew what type of mood he would be in.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, if he didn't get enough sleep, the tiniest little thing could set him off into a rage.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so my brother and I, actually, the whole family kind of tiptoed around him, you know, making sure we didn't upset him.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: My paternal grandmother lived with us uh for 25 years, which was the at the time the span of my whole life, uh, from when I was born up until I left uh New York.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And she was the domineering matriarch in the family in the sense that she laid down the rules.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, she had a lot of influence over my brother.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: My brother, if I talk about him, is the black sheep of the family.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: He was always in trouble.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: He would get punished, he'd get the strap.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and let's just say he was not my grandmother's favorite, uh, which added another layer of dysfunction to our family, because then, you know, my father felt like he had to make up for that.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then in the midst of all of this, uh, we had my mother, uh, who was very passive, uh, very quiet, very timid, and really didn't ultimately take the stand that she should have.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: And as a result, you know, I never felt safe.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: My brother uh never felt like he was loved or favored by either my grandmother or her, uh, my mother.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that set up, again, a lot of dynamics within the family.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: I think my brother, very early on, took out his frustrations, um, his anger, and directed it on me in the sense that he could be emotionally and physically abusive.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we talked about things changing over the years uh to be in a better place, but I think looking back now, that's you know what led him to be a bully in my mind.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So that those were the family dynamics.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it, you know, we didn't really know that it was not normal.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, we only knew that we were different from other families in the sense that we couldn't have any friends over because, you know, my father was always sleeping, can't disturb him.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we also were compared to my cousins, compared to the neighbors, you know, oh, why can't you be more like them?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: Um so again, it was it it was very dysfunctional, but to us, we thought this is normal.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So prior to reading the book, did you always perceive your childhood as normal, or was it after reading the book that that clicked?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I knew it was not normal.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've done therapy probably since I was in college.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I think the book made it much more real.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's one thing to just talk about yourself, but in reading like your life story, it it made it more identifiable, it made it more real, it made it like uh we weren't the only ones that uh had that kind of a dysfunctional family.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think it was it was definitely part of that awakening of okay, this is kind of what set me up for the issues that occurred later on in life.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: I have a similar story.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I was dating um my ex and we were at the airport, and these little kids were running around.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to him, thinking that it was funny, hey, if we have kids like that, that are bad like that, I'm gonna spank them.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And well, technically what I said was, I'm gonna beat their little ass, which again I thought was kind of like cute.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me and was like, You will never, we will never hit our children, we will never yell at them, we will never hit them.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, why?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And he was like, Because like that's not normal.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, It isn't?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And he's 40 years old, he goes, I've never been spanked or yelled at in my whole life.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: So it kind of took my breath away because I just thought that that's what was normal was.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we're on the plane, the plane lands, his parents pick us up, and within the first five minutes we get to the traffic light, I stop, I'm like, hey, I gotta ask you something.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I say this to his parents, and I said, Have you ever yelled or spanked your kid?
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they paused and turned around and like, no, why would we ever yell or spank our child?
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first time that I realized that what I thought was normal was very different from what other people had as normal.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a moment for me, kind of like you said with the book, that it kind of it shakes you.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of wakes a part of you up that you just didn't know.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: We both sing in the gay men's chorus, which has been a wonderful outlet for both of us.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I say for a lot of times people don't realize it's a bunch of little boys and girls who get to come together and be playful and happy and sing.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Can you speak at all to what your experience was coming up or uh how school was for you?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I knew that I was different, but I believe that I was in such denial and fear of being gay that um I just ran from it in every way, shape, or form that I could.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, in in middle school, junior high, I should say seventh grade, um obviously other kids saw something that, again, I denied.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I was a late bloomer in in the sense of I don't think I had gone through puberty yet, or if I did, I didn't even know it.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: I did I was so sheltered and naive.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know anything uh sexually.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just certainly didn't know what being gay was about in terms of physical intimacy.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_01: So I was bullied.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was definitely bullied.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And um, you know, my my mode of survival uh was to not only protect the bullies, but also befriend them so that I wouldn't get picked on.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so I survived that.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: I went on to high school, again, still in denial about my sexuality.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I think when I was 14, I had my first sexual fantasies about, you know, other boys.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and I thought I said, um, it's just a phase, uh, it'll pass.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: And I again pushed it out of my life.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't acknowledge it.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't deal with it.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_01: And then in high school, I basically developed this facade of external toughness or, you know, don't come near me.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, don't even try.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's how I got through high school.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: I made no new friends.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I had friends that, you know, from middle school or junior high, grammar school, and so forth, that we continued on that, you know, educational path, but uh no new friends.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I was in the um what they called the, I don't know what they called them, the in the gifted classes or whatever.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, most of those people had skipped a grade, which I had the opportunity to do.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: I did not do it.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and they were new people, they were from a different community, and again, made no contact or friends uh whatsoever in high school.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_01: I did not go to my prom.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: What did happen to me when I was a junior uh was that I developed a crush on someone in my physics class who was a year ahead, he was a senior, and there was a little bit of flirtation and so forth.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_01: And it could have led to something, but I completely like when he approached me, I completely denied, you know, didn't do anything.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, oh, you must have the wrong idea, whatever.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so that went nowhere.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, college was much better.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_01: I made friends because I worked in the in the campus library, uh, made some good friends.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, nobody really knew anything about me in terms of, you know, was I gay, straight, whatever.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think I had allowed myself for the very first time to think about someone sexually when I was probably 20 years old or 21.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: But I just said, well, you know what, uh, this is against my religion, this is against everything I believe in.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I certainly didn't have any gay role models uh growing up in the community that I did.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it was not safe.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: It started, you know, the start of the AIDS um mystery uh happened probably when I was a junior in college, uh, which just further reinforced, you know, this is not something you should do.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I decided I was going to be celibate for the next seven years of my life, which I was.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I didn't ultimately come out until I was 28 years old.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: After, you know, all of these like crushes and emotional uh devastation, I finally decided, okay, well, maybe I should be in my own element.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: And I went to my first gay bar.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and of course, I had to drink in order to get the courage to even get up and and mingle with anybody.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that's that's that was my coming out story.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: It was not um, I I, you know, not something I would have done on my own when people say, oh, you chose this.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: No, it wasn't.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I had to accept myself.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: The one thing that kept me going, because I could tell you at 17, I, I was, I wanted to die.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: You know, this was a a just a horrible existence.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: Um, it felt totally alone, depressed.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: And the only thing that got me through it was my faith in God.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: I I call my higher power God.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that little voice, whenever I would pray, right, to be different, to be changed, to be healed, that little voice would say, accept yourself.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so finally I accepted myself.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: And when I did, that is when I found internal peace.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: Not to say that it was easy after that, but at least I stopped fighting myself over my sexuality.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I can very much relate.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, there are people that think being gay is a choice where you're choosing this, or it's actually the opposite.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: You feel tortured inside, you do everything that you can to not listen to that voice, you do everything you can to try to change it, and in that comes immense suffering.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: And in that, then we look for coping mechanisms, whether that's food, drugs, alcohol, sex, anything to numb that voice, but that voice keeps coming up.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: And to your point, there were moments too where I had wanted to end it, but there's something inside of me with a whisper that just said no.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like, no, you can't quit.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: Please don't quit.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: But that pain is real, and I I think that there's a lot of people, especially in our community, that live with that pain, but don't want to acknowledge it.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um shame doesn't like to be seen or heard, and you're filled with so much guilt and shame from our religious backgrounds, to our parents, to our teachers.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: But again, intuitively, as a child, like we we don't think there's anything wrong with us, but everybody tells us that there is.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: I want to kind of go back, you had talked about there was a moment where you adapted and tried to become something that you weren't for me, and I write about it in the book, like I became the wolf.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be louder, stronger, meaner than everybody else, which is just not who I really am, but I had to adapt to survive in my environment.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: Were you conscious of that adaptation before reading the book?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: Did you know that you had done it?
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Were you aware of that part of yourself that you had kind of split from your true self?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um back when when that was happening, I I knew it was my only means of survival.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I did not really understand the dynamics of, like you say, splitting off, uh, of suppressing the little boy, right?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then developing this person, what I believed was my adaptive child, um, that protected him from the world.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, I did not realize any of that until I read the book, but when I read it, it made complete sense because I always felt like there was this, you know, inner being that I had suppressed, that I had uh, you know, protected in some way for so long that nobody could reach that inner child.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I myself was not in tune with the inner child.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I just kept him buried.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: So again, I think in reading the book and doing the work after that, I began to realize, yeah, there's this little boy that's very loving and very carefree and wants to have fun and has a really good sense of humor, which in the last year I don't think I've exhibited that at all.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, no, none of that really became apparent until I read the book.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: As you described yourself, I kind of smiled because intuitively I knew that's who you were the whole time.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: I could feel it.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I knew that, because again, I think a lot of people don't realize we mirror other people.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: Other people are mirrors to show us stuff about ourselves.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: And because I had done that work, you know, a lot of people come up to me and are like, you know, you're so happy and you're so positive and all of that.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes I have to take a breath because my adaptive child goes, No, we're not.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: And my wise adult goes, Yes, we are.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like that is the True essence of who we really are.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Being in the chorus, I feel like for me and you both has given us a safe outlet to let that little boy come out.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: I will say again over the last six weeks, every time I see you, you're smiling.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Every time I see you, you're happy.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You read the book, I want to say, in like a week.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: And then we went Oh, oh, one weekend.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: One weekend, Memorial Day weekend.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And then we went right into the workbook, which I created a workbook to go with the book.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I realized was is once you are aware of these three carts of self, now what do you do with them?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you navigate that?
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: And every day or every other day, you were sending me a page of it, and I was kind of learning about you, but in some ways, as someone reading it, it felt like you were writing your own book for you and for me.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Can you speak to how the workbook helped you?
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it was self-discovery and expression.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Not only was I starting to learn about myself, you know, writing things down, like you said, um, there's some there's some kind of healing uh involved in doing that.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: Seeing it in black and white made it real.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, because a lot of those things were just inside, and maybe at some level I I knew that.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but expressing it really changed things uh for me.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: It it forced me not only to think, and I don't want to use the word force because I wanted to do it, but it it led me to think really deeply reflect on things, and at the same time make them real, give them a voice.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that was the most important thing for me uh was to make the thoughts, the feelings, the the memories, all of it real, uh, no longer keeping them inside.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: And also in sharing that with you, um dispelled some of the the shame, a lot of shame, actually, and that isolation of of of being you know kept inside uh in a world of secrets.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it it just took all of that away.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: It took away the power of being isolated and being ashamed.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: When I wrote the book, I had to be careful of what I said because most of my life was seen through the prism of my 12-year-old mind, of my adapted child, of the things that happened to me and very much through a victim mentality.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to be clear, I was a victim, but not because I wanted to, because I didn't have anybody there to protect me, and I did the best that I could with what I had.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I heard a quote that I just is one of my favorites.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I have been an adult longer than I have been a child.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now it does not negate what I went through as a child, but at some point I have to, I have the opportunity to kind of overcome some of that.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: So when I was writing, I contacted my parents and I said, Hey, I've written this book.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: And some of the things I put in there about my childhood might be hard for you to hear, but I need you to understand that those are coming from my 12-year-old prism.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel that way now as an adult.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I have talked about it, I have written about it, I have cried about it, I have screamed about it, but it's important.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm not writing this to hurt you because I don't, but I need you to realize that some of the things that happened to me were on your watch and they were really painful, and I didn't have anybody to make me feel safe.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: So part of that process of the workbook, which was really great for me to read your writing, was that you were able to talk about it from that inner child and that adaptive child, but then you and I had conversations as a wise adult of me being able to sit there with you and say, Hey, I know you see it like this, but have you ever thought about it like that?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything in particular that you can think of now as a wise adult about any of your stories that might be different?
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: And an example that I would use is a lot of times there's a voice in our head, but it's not ours.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: So somebody called you dumb or someone called you whatever name, and that repeats.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's imprinted until you become aware that I don't believe that anymore.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I need to stop saying it.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: Can you speak to that at all?
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, absolutely.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and a big part of dealing with all of that, uh, I know we've moved on to the gratitude journal.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um but that is helping immensely because my whole life I've been focused on the negative.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yes, I was a victim, but I also lived as a victim, a powerless victim.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_01: And now, you know, trying to focus on positive things, um, and and again, the the daily practice is what makes me do that, it it changes my perspective.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_01: It makes me feel um not only happier, uh, but more confident.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'm able to start taking in compliments from other people, which I've always been uncomfortable with.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: I've always minimized if somebody gave me a compliment, I'm like, oh yeah, but you know, that's just because I would never, you know, just acknowledge it.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So I had such low self-esteem, so little faith and confidence in myself that other people could see these things, but I couldn't.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, you know, um people could say, you know, you're you're you're intelligent, you're you're um, you're strong, you're this, that, and the other thing.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I was uh all I would say is I wish I could see those things in myself.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: And now I feel like I'm starting to see those things.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I I it's still early in my journey, but that's a first for me.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I could never, you know, connect uh to what people saw in me, which is sad, but that's changing.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't mind sharing, how old are you at this moment?
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be 64 on June 30th.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: So my question to you is is this the first time in your life that you actually believe that you're allowed to have a happy, positive life?
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: I I just felt like prior to this, I just had to accept the fact that I was never gonna be happy, because I never had been, uh, that I would just exist.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I mean, I I'm I'm not a quitter.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: I, you know, I would never hurt myself or commit suicide.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, part of it was because people were dependent on me, but also because that's I don't believe in that and I'm I'm not a quitter.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but that's still not any way to live your life, to just exist.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: Where now I feel like I have hope for the future.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I can be happy.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: I haven't um complete, well, I haven't really visualized what that life will be.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of discovering or still just starting to discover what that would be.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that is so different than existing.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for sharing that.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I just I want you to know that you're not alone, that I felt that way for most of my life also.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: The practice of gratitude has changed my life.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, anything that you want to do in life and be successful, you have to practice.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: And for most of my life, when things got hard, I would quit.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, they say it takes 30 days to make a habit.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can give you countless examples.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: If I would get to day 29 and that voice in my head would say, quit.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I would.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was tired of being a quitter.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems so cliche, but if you want a happy, positive life, you have to practice.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I do that every day.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: One of my goals and my wishes is that I can get that gratitude journal in as many people's hands as possible, even if that means I have to pay for them all, because I know what it can do.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for trusting me and thank you for going through that exercise with me.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_00: You've only been doing it a couple of weeks, but how has that pro how have you integrated that process in your life?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's how I start my day.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I make sure that when I get up in the morning that I put down what I'm grateful for, uh, what would make me happy, because it kind of sets the stage for the rest of the day, if you will.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it it makes a huge difference.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: It makes a huge difference because I would wake up like, oh, you know, another day of problems, another day of, you know, worry, another day of stress, um, which is so defeating and again sets you up for the rest of the day.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I am extremely grateful for that gratitude journal and and you know, incorporating that into my life.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: As we start to wrap this up, if there's anybody out there who's listening who might be contemplating reading the book, what would you tell them?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: I would encourage them wholeheartedly to read the book.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: I in in in dealing with various people, whether it be through friendships or even at work or wherever, when I talk to them and I get the sense that they're gonna relate to this book, and especially if they start opening up a little bit about you know their childhood or whatever, um I I I definitely tell them you have to read this book.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you don't have to do anything beyond that.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_01: But if you identify with what is described there and somebody's ability to overcome that or or or you know, lead a much better life afterwards, um, then this is something you should really pursue and go on.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_01: You know, go on with the workbook, go on with uh whatever else is needed, therapy, meditation, um, you know, physically taking care of yourself, it all starts to happen once you realize what brought you here, you know, and where do I go from here going forward?
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: How do I build um a future of happiness?
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I never thought that was possible, but now I know that it is.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: How has your delivery and your energy to the world been received?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_01: Very positively.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, first of all, I think you yourself had said at the beginning of this um, you know, recording that you've seen a difference in me over the last six weeks.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you know me better than most, uh, but I can tell you just yesterday, my boss said, You look, you look amazing.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you you you you have this glow about you.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_01: And it was first thing in the morning, I said, funny, I don't feel like I'm glowing.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_01: And and he didn't mean in a physical sense, he said, it's your aura.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like so taken back by that.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it it was one of those moments like that we put in our journal, what were the best moments of the day?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_01: That was one of the moments because obviously he saw something change in me.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I'm I'm trying to exhibit that to the world.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: You know, with certain people, I feel like I can be myself, but my goal is to let everybody see that happiness, that inner peace, um, that sense of strength by just being me.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm trying to do the same.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_00: One of the lines that I like to use is the energy you put out is the energy you get back.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: So to be able to be that light, to be that beautiful vessel, it's one thing for me to tell you, it's another thing for you just to be it and for other people to experience it.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: So you telling me that makes me really happy for you because you're the one doing the work.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you and I both know it's difficult and it's draining and it's hard, but it's worth it.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we have been locked in the prison of our own mind for most of our life.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: And now you know the door is open, and you're every day, you're one step closer to being free, to being your true self.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_00: I just really want to thank you for today for showing up and being here.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as much as I'm teaching you, you're teaching me.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's nice for both of our inner childs to have a safe space to come out and play.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you for trusting me.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for showing up and doing the work.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for shining your light on the world.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for doing your part to make it a better place.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_00: We sang a song in the chorus last session called Ripple, and that's what this is.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: My book and the journal and this interview series is a ripple.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's my way to use my voice and our faces to be seen and heard to spread a message of positivity.
• 36:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't know about you, but like I'm tired of hearing all the negative.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, thank you.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: And thank you for doing this.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for helping people.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: So until next time, I'm Andrew Michael and this is Dean, and we're signing off.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: If something in today's conversation made you recognize the piece of your own story, stay curious about it.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have to have all the answers.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes awareness is where change begins.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you've enjoyed this episode, make sure to follow the show.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_00: And if someone came to your mind while you were listening, share this episode with them.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Andrew Michael.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, thank you for being here, and thank you for listening.