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Transcript

The Wound Was Never The Destination: Finding Your Joy · Unlocking The Paradigm Portal

0:01
Good morning my friends. Welcome back to Unlock in the
0:04
Paradigm Portal. My name is Sarah.
0:06
Happy Sunday, happy deep dive day.
0:09
And before I even jump into everything, buckle up.
0:14
We're going on an adventure and it is a complete twist of what
0:17
we've been doing intentionally. And as always, remember the
0:21
ground rules. 0 judgement, 0 shame, zero blame.
0:24
Not allowed here at all. I will go full on Mama bear if
0:28
you do. And that is toward other people
0:30
or yourself, OK? And as I speak through this and
0:35
as I was mapping out what I wanted to talk about today, if I
0:39
switch into you language, I want to make it clear I am not
0:43
pointing the finger at you. It's just easier for me to
0:45
communicate it that way than always doing the we's because I
0:49
am up to my eyeballs in this with you.
0:52
So stay with me, OK? Grab your coffee, settle in
0:56
because today we are going to make an abrupt 90° turn.
1:00
So if you listen to my Friday episode, I wrote a letter to my
1:05
sweet little inner child and I have tapped into her this past
1:09
week in the most glorious way. She loved to write, and I mean
1:16
not just write, but creating these incredibly detailed worlds
1:21
and stories. It was magical.
1:24
And I came across a box of them when I was moving, and I'm so
1:28
thankful that I still have them. And I started doing that again
1:33
this week. I don't even remember exactly
1:35
what catalyzed it, but all the sudden I started seeing this
1:41
character in my head. And then I started seeing more
1:44
characters and more characters. And then all of a sudden, the
1:46
information, it was like someone turned the faucet on that has
1:50
been long dormant. I'm talking, I don't even know,
1:54
decades dormant. And I could not type fast
1:58
enough. And it felt like watching a
2:00
movie and watching this world unfold.
2:02
And I was just transcribing what I was seeing and feeling and
2:06
smelling and tasting. It was a it's a full sensory
2:08
experience. And the next thing you know, the
2:10
whole week has gone by and every spare minute has been me on my
2:14
laptop or on my phone, in my notes, in my Word docs or Google
2:19
Docs. And they're all scattered and
2:21
disjointed because organization is not my strong suit.
2:26
But what I realized last night is that I was falling into
2:30
accumulator mode. If you remember the accumulator
2:33
episode, I was accumulating all the data and I kept justifying
2:38
it with, I just need to see the whole map and where I'm going
2:42
and each character and what's going to happen, and then I can
2:45
write. And that hit me and I went, oh
2:48
shit, I'm doing it. OK, I got to stop building.
2:52
I need to sit down. I need to write.
2:53
So that's what I did last night. I sat down to write and it was
2:57
so God awful. Terrible.
2:59
Like embarrassingly bad. It was technically correct.
3:04
Let me get that straight. But it was completely lifeless.
3:08
I mean, like, imagine the kind of writing that hits the page
3:13
and then it just deflates like a balloon.
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Or hell, it hit the page as a deflated balloon.
3:18
So I'm sitting here thinking what is happening?
3:23
And then I immediately went into judgement, shame, blame zone.
3:28
That's one reason I'm so insistent on not doing that
3:31
because we all fall into it and that's not uncommon and it's
3:36
very natural and it's catching yourself.
3:37
So I immediately started being like, Oh my God, I can't do
3:41
this. What am I doing?
3:43
I can't have anybody read this. This is terrible.
3:45
How did I ever even get a degree?
3:47
And I graduated with honors too. So like, I did my degree.
3:50
Well, what, what is this? And then I was able to kind of
3:54
pace around my house and thank God I've had no children this
3:58
weekend. Everybody's off at their
4:00
respective other places and it has been quiet solitude and that
4:07
is exactly what I needed. So I'm pacing and pacing and I
4:10
definitely had a glass of wine while I was doing it and I
4:13
realized it was all fear based and it was all the perfectionism
4:18
rising back up and feeling like, what if I try to do this and
4:24
it's terrible. And then that confirms those
4:26
fears that I suck at it. And then I caught that I was so
4:32
happy and so proud of myself. I legitimately self high fived.
4:37
I was writing from my adult brain and that part of my brain
4:42
is organized and responsible and it knows how things are supposed
4:47
to go and it is very concerned with doing things correctly.
4:52
And it has absolutely nothing to do with why I actually love
4:55
writing. So you know what?
4:57
I'm going to give you an example.
4:58
You know what it's like doing karaoke.
5:01
Some people love it, some people thrive on it.
5:03
I am not one of those. I enjoy watching people.
5:07
But every time I have tried to do it, and let me tell you, I
5:11
can sing. Not like exceptionally well by
5:13
any means, but I can sing like in the car and at home and
5:18
around my kids and around people that I care about that I feel
5:22
like emotionally safe with. I can just open up and do it.
5:26
But you hand me a microphone and it's like someone immediately
5:29
chokes off my throat. And I know all the words and I
5:32
know I can do it, but there's something about the mic in my
5:37
hand at my mouth. And suddenly my body is like,
5:40
Nope, not today, absolutely not. There is no way in hell we are
5:44
going to let you do this. And I squeak.
5:46
It's so bad. I just don't do it anymore.
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And that's exactly what was happening because the second
5:52
that it became real and I was actually getting out of building
5:56
mode and getting into writing mode, like the second that it
6:00
counted for me individually, not like to the world that the part
6:05
of me that actually knows how to write went completely offline.
6:09
Like not even just offline, it flatlined.
6:12
It felt like it just died and the part of me that is too
6:17
careful and too managed and performs, that one stepped in to
6:21
cover and that one can't write for shit.
6:26
So here's the thing. I know better.
6:29
I have done the work, I have done so much work.
6:34
I have dived into the depths of my internal world and like dug
6:40
in the muck and pulled it up to the sunshine and been like, Oh
6:43
my God, look at what I found. And I can tell you exactly what
6:48
wounds were rising up. And I know where it came from
6:52
and I know what generation handed it down and I know what
6:56
it looks like and feels like in the body.
6:59
And I was still doing it last night in my pyjamas on the
7:02
couch. By the way, this past week my
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couch has gotten more Sarah time and attention than anyone else
7:09
in my life in probably the last month.
7:12
And this is exactly why we need to talk about what happens after
7:16
you understand the wounds. That's what hit me as I was
7:20
trying to figure out what the hell to talk about today.
7:23
And that is what has been coming up.
7:26
So I'm going to say something, and I want you to hear it with
7:29
the grin that I have on my face as I'm delivering it.
7:32
Because I'm absolutely talking about myself here too.
7:35
OK, this might sting a little. If you need to scrunch your eyes
7:38
or cover your face with your hands, totally fine.
7:41
Nobody else is watching. And before we get started, grab
7:44
a sip of coffee or tea or whatever you have in the morning
7:48
just to prepare yourself. OK?
7:50
We're going to call it like caffeine steel.
7:53
Here we go. Some of you have moved into the
7:56
wound. That hurts, I know, but you've
8:00
moved in like full time. You've packed your bags, you've
8:03
brought your furniture, you've got your plants set up, you got
8:06
a cat running around somewhere. You are fully living in the
8:10
wound and you can explain your attachment style.
8:14
Definitely I can. You can explain your mother
8:17
wounds, your father wounds, maybe where they overlap.
8:20
You know your nervous system's response to threats or perceived
8:24
threats. You know your generational
8:27
inheritance going back, I don't know, 345 generations.
8:31
Maybe you listen to my full generational series and that
8:34
cracks something open for you. And you have done the reading
8:38
and the journaling and the therapy and the somatic work and
8:42
the breath work and the retreats and more retreats and whatever
8:46
the hell else you've managed to accumulate.
8:49
And you speak the language fluently.
8:51
And that is incredible because doing that degree of work is not
8:56
easy. And I have so much respect for
8:58
it. Hell, that is my entire career.
9:02
But you are still not moving, because here's what happened.
9:10
Somewhere along the way, the wound stopped being the thing
9:13
that you were working through, and it started being the most
9:17
interesting thing about you. It became the story.
9:21
It became your story, your identity, the thing you might
9:25
lead with. I am so guilty of doing this.
9:31
And you may start conversations or get into conversations and
9:34
talk about your defective wound or your unlovable wound.
9:37
Again, I did that a lot. And you may say my nervous
9:41
system is dysregulated because of what happened to my
9:44
childhood. And let me tell you about it.
9:47
And look, that awareness is real and it is profound and that work
9:52
matters so much. You couldn't be who you are and
9:56
where you are without having done that.
9:58
And I am not dismissing a single second of it, but understanding
10:03
your wound is not the same as being free of it.
10:07
And a lot of us help. Most of us have confused the
10:10
two. And this popped into my head,
10:13
just this whole theme as I opened YouTube earlier and was
10:17
scrolling through a bunch of different coaches that I watch,
10:19
including the one that I did training with.
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And it's all about the wounds, the wounds, the wounds, which is
10:24
great, but at what point have you learned enough about them?
10:29
And then you attach to them. That's one reason in my
10:32
attachment coaching practice, I've actually like steered away
10:36
from even using the attachment style labels.
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Because what I've found is the vast majority of people, instead
10:44
of identifying that it is simply a set of traits and learned
10:49
behaviors and emotional patterns, they start attaching
10:52
to the attachment wound and identifying as an anxious
10:56
attachment, an avoidant, A fearful avoidant.
11:00
And that stops being productive. That immediately stalls out your
11:04
progress. So because of all this
11:08
confusion, what ends up happening is that that is our
11:11
map, our wounds. Everything you've excavated is
11:14
your map, but we start seeing the map as a destination.
11:18
And then once you've done that, you start setting up camp in the
11:22
middle of the map and you're saying that you've arrived
11:24
because you know it all and you do.
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But that's not the point and that's not the end goal.
11:30
You don't live in the map. You use the map to get
11:33
somewhere. That's what a map's for, right?
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And what the map has been pointing you toward the whole
11:38
time. What every single wound that we
11:42
have covered that you have learned about yourself that
11:45
you've ever heard of has been trying to lead you back to.
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That is the whole point. All of it has been working to
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get you to you not to sit in that.
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And that's what today's about. That's why we're going to make a
11:58
hard pivot because even I've been doing this in my in all of
12:02
my episodes and it's beautiful work and it's very insightful
12:07
and it's helpful to learn who you are at that level.
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So where do we go from here? And I decided I'm done wallowing
12:14
and everything, especially because I've managed to
12:17
reconnect with that sweet little girl inside of me.
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So here's what nobody tells you about the wounds.
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They didn't just create pain, OK?
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They took something specific from you.
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So we keep looking at the wounds as the pain that they've caused
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instead of what did they remove from you and how to get it back.
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And that thing that was removed, that thing was fully alive and
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fully operational before the wound needed to exist.
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It was already in you. And that thing is not gone and
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it didn't die. I got to see that this whole
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week it didn't leave and you didn't, you weren't like finding
12:56
it again or uncovering it or well, actually you are
12:59
uncovering it. You're not.
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It's not like you're going on some huge journey and making
13:03
some giant acquisition. It's already been there.
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It just went underground and it found the smallest, safest
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corner that it could and it's been sitting there waiting for
13:14
you. And it has the patience of an
13:18
absolute St. while you have been busy understanding the wound
13:22
that buried it. So to break them down a little
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bit, I went back through to look at what wounds that I had
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covered. So a few of them, the defective
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wound, that one pops up for everybody.
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That one is something is fundamentally wrong with me.
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And that buried your knowing. The part of you that just knew
13:41
things, that walked into a room and read it before anyone said a
13:45
word. And that part had an instinct,
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and it followed it without needing 345 other people to
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confirm it first. You didn't lose that.
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You got told that it was too much, or too weird or too out
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there, and you learn to hide it so well that now you can't even
14:04
find it half the time. And then the unlovable wound
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that buried your whole self. This was my big one.
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If you remember that episode, I kept getting choked up and I I
14:16
think I recorded it like 18 times or something.
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So the unlovable wound buried all of you who you are not this
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like perfect version that you hand people at parties or at
14:29
work or out and about. The actual you with the
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contradictions and the needs and the weird specific things that
14:37
you love that you don't tell most people about.
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You edited that version down so many times for so many people
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for so long, that you lost the thread back to the original.
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And then we've got the Unworthy Wound.
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Oh, this one hurts too. Ha, this one was rearing up last
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night as I was trying to write The unworthy wound that buried
15:01
your permission to exist without producing something.
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To spend an afternoon just doing something because you love it,
15:10
or hell, to spend an afternoon just laying on the freaking
15:13
couch because you're so tired. And to be valuable in a moment
15:18
where you are generating absolutely nothing for anybody.
15:21
It's a wild concept, I know. Kind of crazy, right?
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Might feel a little bit weird to even think about doing that.
15:29
But then the unsafe wound was underneath everybody, and that
15:33
buried your ease, your ability to be in a room without scanning
15:38
it and to be seen without it feeling like exposure, and to
15:43
actually rest. And I don't mean just stop
15:46
moving, but like actually rest inside of your own body.
15:52
So they're all different wounds. There's so many more.
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And all wounds have different things that were taken from you,
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and the same question is underneath every single one of
16:04
them. Who were you before the bullshit
16:07
built up on top of you? OK, that's where we're going.
16:13
That version of you is not some naive, underdeveloped, needs to
16:17
be protected younger self. That is not someone that you
16:21
outgrew. That is the version of you that
16:25
still knows, that is still in you.
16:28
When something lights you up, when something makes that
16:31
sparkle come out, or you grin, or you get giddy, or if you hear
16:35
yourself saying, oh, I'm acting like a dumb kid.
16:37
No, you're not. That's the kid coming up and out
16:40
of you. And that kid needs to be loved
16:43
because that kid hasn't forgotten what it feels like to
16:46
be fully alive in your own life. And that kid never agreed to
16:51
forget. They just got very, very quiet
16:54
because quiet was the only option available.
16:58
So that's not your wound. That is your superpower and it's
17:02
been buried under the thing you've been excavating this
17:05
whole time that you've been mapping out and planning.
17:08
Just like my world building got to get it right, right?
17:12
No, you got to just jump in. So when I caught myself doing
17:18
the karaoke throat version thing of writing, I stopped and I made
17:23
a decision. And it was so physically
17:26
uncomfortable. And it felt like a giant battle
17:31
of the Titans inside of me. And this tug of war, and the tug
17:36
of war was between 5 year old me and 46 year old me.
17:42
And I was I literally my whole body was tense.
17:45
My hands were in fists, my heart was not pounding, but it was
17:49
like uncomfortable. And I, I found myself sitting
17:54
here with like my knees pulled up to my chest, my arms wrapped
17:57
around. I'm literally like a little kid
17:59
and just rocking and being like, OK, I can do this.
18:01
I can do this. And if you know me, you know
18:04
that I do this thing when I'm trying to psych myself up and I
18:08
will like stand up and double over with my hands on my knees
18:11
and be like, OK, we got this. We got this.
18:14
And I kind of shift my shoulders back and forth and then I
18:16
stretch out, pop my neck a little bit.
18:19
I literally look like I'm heading into a boxing match.
18:21
It's kind of ridiculous, but it works for me.
18:24
And that was the moment last night when I realized, oh shit,
18:28
this is not my territory. I don't excel at this.
18:32
My child's side does. And I got to let her take over.
18:37
And it was so difficult, but I handed the reins to the five
18:41
year old who has been writing since before she knew what
18:44
writing really was. And she's the one who doesn't
18:48
write because she's supposed to. She's the one who writes because
18:51
the story is already alive inside of her and it physically
18:55
needs to, it needs to go somewhere.
18:58
It needs to be put somewhere. And it was different
19:01
immediately. I was not expecting that it it
19:07
did feel like a switch flipped. I mean, I had to sit here, close
19:10
my eyes and kind of meditate a little bit and like, felt like I
19:13
was coaxing her out of the dark. But it did feel different right
19:16
away. Like boom, switch flips, bam,
19:20
she's there. And that's how you know you
19:23
found it because it doesn't feel like a slightly improved version
19:28
of what you were doing before. It feels like the difference
19:31
between performing the thing and the thing actually moving
19:35
through you. And as soon as I started, it was
19:38
like, when I write and she comes up and starts writing, it's
19:43
literally like a movie screen opens before me and I'm just
19:46
watching it and it's all in my mind.
19:48
Obviously it's not. That would be so cool though,
19:50
wouldn't it, if I could like, tap on my shoulder and a screen
19:53
popped up. Wow, That's definitely out of
19:56
Jumanji, which I did watch this week.
19:59
But that's how you know you found it when it's so easy and
20:04
it just flows. And for me, it feels like the
20:08
world goes quiet. Because something so real and so
20:13
tangible is happening inside of me and it feels like losing
20:17
track of time. Not because I'm scrolling it or
20:21
through it, but like because I'm completely, totally, 100%
20:26
somewhere else. And my kids got to witness this
20:30
this week before they scattered off for the weekend.
20:33
They knew if they tried to talk to me and I was engrossed in my
20:36
lap time or laptop, I'm not hearing anything.
20:40
And they get it. And they know the fact that I've
20:43
wanted to get back into this for so long.
20:46
And they were wonderful enough to come over and sit quietly,
20:49
impatiently until I was ready to be available to them.
20:54
And I did have to consciously set aside my laptop and be like,
20:57
OK, my brain needs to is a little scattered.
20:58
I need to focus. And that went beautifully until
21:01
Brody decided to sit here with TikTok videos going and that
21:05
that just killed me. But anyways, back to what I'm
21:07
talking about. So when you hit that point where
21:12
that kid comes out and takes over, it feels like for me,
21:17
something in my chest that's been holding on at this low
21:22
level, sometimes high level of tension for as long as I can
21:25
remember. And it just let's go.
21:28
Like I felt soft and I felt peaceful and the world felt
21:36
brighter. Not like I was anywhere.
21:37
I was sitting in my living room, but my house is pretty colorful.
21:41
So all the colors just felt brighter And I just breathing
21:46
was easier and my mind cleared and it just it was ease.
21:52
It was literally complete ease. And it felt like coming home to
21:56
a house that I forgot I owned. So compare that to what the
22:02
wound state feels like. The wound state feels tight and
22:06
managed and performing and like you're watching yourself move
22:10
through your own life just far enough away that you can't quite
22:12
feel it. One of those is healing, and the
22:15
other one is what I'm calling wound tourism.
22:19
But it's got better vocabulary. And here's the part that's going
22:24
to mess with you a little bit. So that state, that fully alive
22:27
world going blissfully quiet, lost track of time state, that
22:32
is not the reward you get after you finish the healing work.
22:36
That is the healing work. Because every hour you spend
22:41
fully inhabited by your own life teaches your nervous system
22:45
something no amount of wound analysis ever can.
22:48
It teaches that it's safe to be all the way here.
22:55
So how do you actually get to it That's it's going to be
23:00
different for everybody? For me, it's through writing.
23:05
You don't get it by going back to the wound.
23:06
We're done with the wound. We've looked at it from every
23:09
angle. We know its name, the origin
23:11
story, the generational resume, the whole shebang, right?
23:13
We're good. You go back further than the
23:16
wound. It's like I'm picturing in my
23:18
head Minecraft. And you know how you keep
23:20
digging down and down and down and then you hit bedrock.
23:23
I think that they updated it. My kids are kind of, they don't
23:26
play Minecraft as much anymore, but I think that there's an
23:29
update where now you can get beneath the bedrock and that's
23:32
where you go. You go further back from the
23:35
wound down through the bedrock. You didn't know that was there,
23:38
right? There's a trapdoor, it's sneaky,
23:41
it's hidden, but you can find it.
23:43
So you go back to before it needed to exist, before that
23:46
wound came into existence. And you ask yourself, and this
23:50
might take some actual sitting with because the wound has been
23:53
very, very loud for very, very long.
23:56
And the other thing, the good thing, the the awesome, like
23:59
soft, easy thing has been very quiet.
24:02
What was I doing before I learned it was a problem?
24:07
Just ask yourself that. And what did I love before
24:11
loving it felt like too much. And then what did I know before
24:18
my knowing made people uncomfortable?
24:21
And this might be hard, especially if you've blocked out
24:23
a lot of your childhood, but this is where you get to Just
24:27
Dance around it and explore. So some of you already know.
24:30
It might have come up immediately right into your
24:33
mind, and you may have known for years and you've just had a very
24:39
long and very convincing list of reasons why it doesn't count.
24:43
It's too late, it's too impractical, I'm too old, it's
24:46
too self indulgent. Someone else does it better
24:49
anyway, so what's the point? That list, that's the wound.
24:52
That's not the truth. Did any of those resonate for
24:54
you? And for the rest of you, nothing
24:58
came up immediately. And that's OK.
25:00
That is not failure. That is just how thorough the
25:03
burial was. So it means you've been living
25:06
in your head about this for so very long that the thread back
25:09
is hard to find from up there. So here's the thing, and this is
25:13
going to be tricky. Stop looking in your head.
25:17
That's where the wound lives. The wound where the list is is
25:21
there. Excuse me, The list of the
25:23
wounds is stored in your head. So you gotta go into your body
25:27
and you ask what makes me forget what time is?
25:31
What makes time stop Not doom scrolling.
25:35
Forget not. I got distracted, Forget.
25:38
But the kind of forget where you look up and the light has
25:41
completely changed and you genuinely have no idea where the
25:45
last three hours went because you were so much, so much better
25:48
than in the room that was. What day is it?
25:51
That was yesterday for me. I spent the entire day in my PJS
25:57
Hell, I think I spent two days doing that in my PJS, on my
26:02
couch, just fully immersed in my computer, in my world.
26:07
And next thing you know, it's 9:30 at night.
26:10
And I went oh shit I don't even know what day it is.
26:13
Hell that happened to me Tuesday evening too.
26:16
I'd share that in the that episode on Friday.
26:19
I woke up at 5:00 AM Wednesday and I didn't even realize it was
26:22
Wednesday. And right now I don't even know
26:25
what day. It feels like my whole sense of
26:27
time is scattered. So you got to go back and feel
26:32
into that. What makes it feel like time
26:34
just stops? And also check in with what have
26:39
I stopped doing because I decided I wasn't good enough at
26:43
it anymore? That's me in the writing.
26:46
And if I'm honest with myself, does something in my chest still
26:51
move when I think about it? What does your body say?
26:56
What is the thing? I want to hear it, man.
26:59
What is the thing that you feel like you're no good at anymore?
27:03
And do you still feel like that? Like, does your body tell you
27:06
that's truth? So the movement in your body,
27:11
that involuntary physical, I didn't plan that response to the
27:15
thought of the thing. That is not nostalgia.
27:18
That's not you being sentimental.
27:20
That is the buried thing that's trying to get your attention,
27:24
hearing its name called and going, oh, you came back and
27:29
then, and this is where the wound is going to throw
27:31
everything it has at you. You don't evaluate whether
27:34
you're good enough to go back to it.
27:36
That one is tricky. Super tricky.
27:39
Notice it though. Let it be like a ticker running
27:42
through your mind. So you don't make it a project,
27:45
you don't announce it, you don't wait until you're ready because
27:48
spoiler alert, the wound will make sure you're never ready.
27:52
You just go back. Go back and do it.
27:55
Try it out quietly without making it a whole thing.
27:59
And you can tiptoe into this. If you can't fully remember
28:04
things that you enjoyed or you're really unsure, just think
28:07
back to things in your childhood that brought you joy.
28:12
So I'll share two things that I did and one of them is silly and
28:15
the other one makes me so happy. I had a set of sheets on my
28:20
little twin size bunk bed when I was a kid and they were white
28:23
with these little blue flowers. They really weren't anything
28:25
fancy, but there was something about them that was like simple
28:30
and pretty and crisp. And I just, they felt really
28:33
good against my skin. And I looked forward to climbing
28:38
into bed every night that those were the sheets on my bed.
28:41
And I remembered that maybe last summer, I think.
28:46
And all the sudden I was on a quest like, OK, inner child
28:50
healing. I need to find those sheets.
28:52
And I found a set at Target. They're not exactly the same,
28:55
but they are white with pretty blue flowers.
28:58
And Oh my gosh, as soon as I, it's like clean sheet day.
29:02
That's my favorite day. As soon as it's clean sheet day
29:04
and I put those on, I am diving into bed like a little kid
29:08
again. So it doesn't have to be
29:10
something that you enjoy doing. It can be just one little
29:13
memory. And the other thing that I did,
29:15
and this one is a little ridiculous.
29:18
I when I was young, I had, there's a family that I spent a
29:23
lot of time with and the oldest daughter loved to read romance
29:26
novels like old school Harlequin Silhouette novels and
29:29
everything. I was way too young to be
29:31
reading these. Let me just point that out.
29:34
But I knew that she had a box of them in her closet.
29:36
So when she wasn't home, I would be very stealthy and I would
29:40
sneak in and I would nab one of them out and then I would
29:43
smuggle it back to the house. Yes, I was totally stealing.
29:47
And yes, her mother, who was my godmother, is probably looking
29:50
down at me from wherever she is since she passed away when I was
29:53
17. And she is definitely frowning
29:56
at me about this, but she already knows, I'm sure.
29:59
So one of the books stuck in my head because it was this
30:04
fabulous story of this young woman who gets jetted off to
30:09
Paris. Maybe I can't, I don't remember
30:11
where. No, Italy with her wonderful
30:15
aunt who's, you know, got all the money in the world and they
30:18
have this fantastic trip with clothes and jewels.
30:21
And I am not someone who, like, loves that stuff.
30:23
But it was really exciting and totally different than being a
30:28
kid on a farm in the middle of nowhere.
30:32
And it was total escapist fantasy.
30:34
And the name of the book always stuck with me.
30:37
So when I remembered those sheets, I also remembered that
30:40
book and I spent weeks, I'm not kidding, weeks scouring every
30:46
single website I could find, Amazon, random like eBay
30:51
booksellers and everything. And I found it.
30:55
And I paid way too much money for a freaking silhouette novel
31:00
that was printed in 1988. And or maybe it was earlier
31:04
than, I think it was 81 and I got it sent to me.
31:08
I think I literally spent like $36 getting this beat to hell
31:13
old paperback, but that book stays next to my bed with my
31:17
white sheets, with my little blue flowers.
31:19
And I haven't even, I haven't read it much.
31:21
I've read a few chapters of it, but it's not even about that.
31:25
It's the the remembrance of being a kid.
31:29
And granted, not the best way to be a kid reading a Silhouette
31:32
novel, but whatever will give it a pass.
31:35
So any little thing that you can think of that sparks that little
31:40
bit of light and brings that kid up, don't dismiss yourself.
31:44
You probably have felt dismissed by people your whole life.
31:47
So please, for the love of God, stop dismissing yourself.
31:50
What is that little spark for you?
31:52
And go do it. Find it, track it down.
31:55
Find the random obscure bookseller.
31:58
Track down the sheets, the stuffed animal, whatever it is.
32:01
Oh, that's next on my list. I'm going to find the stuffed
32:04
animal that I lost a very, very long time ago.
32:08
Anyways, that is how you get started.
32:10
You just go back, you remember what sparked you, and then you
32:15
go and do it without making a big deal of it, and you let it
32:20
be the couch or the blanket because nobody's watching you
32:25
and there's no mic in your hand. If you loved singing as a kid
32:29
but going to do karaoke chokes your throat off, sing your ass
32:33
off at home or in the car, whatever it is, you just do the
32:39
thing instead of planning to do the thing and understanding why
32:43
you know the wound is there in the 1st place and see what
32:47
happens when you stop standing in the wound and you start
32:49
walking toward the light on the other side of it.
32:53
I'm curious because I'm living it right now and it feels, it
32:59
feels like joy and joy to me. Feels like the sun radiating out
33:03
of my chest. So, OK, back on track.
33:09
So this week's episodes that are coming up are not about the
33:12
wounds. We know the wounds.
33:14
We've named them, we've traced them.
33:16
We've watched them travel through time, through all the
33:18
generations, and then land in our lap uninvited.
33:23
We've already done that work, and it was real and it mattered,
33:28
and it was necessary to be totally honest.
33:31
Now we're going to look at all of that work as the map, and we
33:35
are using that map. So this week we go back not to
33:38
the wound, but to what it buried, to the version of you
33:42
that was fully alive before any of this needed to exist.
33:46
OK, This is going to be all flipping the woundwork on its
33:52
ass and saying thank you, Marie Kondo, thank you for your
33:55
service. You do not spark joy.
33:58
Goodbye and then go find what does spark joy.
34:01
We're going to go back to the one who still knows who's inside
34:04
of you, the one who has been keeping everything warm, tending
34:08
to that little inner fire inside of you while you were busy
34:13
digging up all the shit. And I want to say this very
34:16
clearly before I let you go. That version of you is not
34:21
small, and that version is not naive, and it is not something
34:26
that needs to be handled carefully or protected from the
34:30
real world. That version is the most
34:33
connected, most alive, most capable version of you that
34:38
exists. The part that writes before it
34:41
thinks, the part that knows before it explains that love
34:45
something so completely that the whole world disappears.
34:50
And honestly, good riddance to the rest of it.
34:54
It is your actual superpower and it has been sitting under the
34:58
wound this entire time. Patient is all get out, waiting
35:02
for you to remember that it was there.
35:05
So this week we're taking the covering off, all right?
35:08
We're going to dig through the bedrock and we're going to find
35:12
the freaking joy because God damn it, we all deserve the joy,
35:16
all right? And I will tell you as I am
35:18
saying all of that, my entire body is heating up because I
35:22
can't stop grinning. I'm so excited about this.
35:24
So I will be back Monday morning, Wednesday, Friday, and
35:30
we'll see where we go. Leave me some comments.
35:32
Tell me the things that you remember, the little things that
35:36
you're going to start tapping into.
35:37
I shared mine, you share yours. All right, buckle up.
35:40
I'll see you Monday.