Latest / Motivation Mindset Podcast / For Those Who Walk Alone: Your Journey, Your Strength

Transcript

For Those Who Walk Alone: Your Journey, Your Strength · Motivation Mindset Podcast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Let's say that someone listening who resonates with what you're
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: talking about. You know, they've been through trauma, they've been
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: through hard times, but they keep breaking promises to themselves
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: and that's struggling to get off the couch and then
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: having a pity party. How can they stop feeling sorry
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: for themselves.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: That's a difficult one because you have to want it.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: You have to want to be better, and it starts
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: off with you have to have.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Pride in yourself. You you have to have pride in yourself.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: You have to have there's something about you, whether it's
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: your last name, whether it's just the smallest thing, you
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: have to be proud of yourself. If you have no
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: pride of yourself, I can't give it to.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: You because you're always going to compromise, You're always going
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: to fold always.
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: I'm very proud of us.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: That's why when people said, you know, way you can
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: do better than it can't hurt me. Roger that well
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: can see. It's that pride that wakes you up talking.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: About bad pride.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: I'm the attention to detail for the human being.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: I wanted you.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: I call this thing like I want to be the standard.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: I want to be that guy. Like every place I
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: went in the military, there was this ethos about how
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: this place is, how we're going to live, how we're going.
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: To represent ourselves.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: And I walked around and I saw that most people
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: didn't live up to that ethos. Like if you go
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: to whatever, whatever company, they had this mission statement on
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: how we want to run our company.
• 1:38
  Speaker 3: I made one for myself on how I want to be.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And that is why. If people can make up a
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: mission statement and ethos in which they want to live by,
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: and every morning you wake up, you hold yourself accountable
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: to that mission, not a company as your own.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Make up your own mission statement, what do you want
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: to be in life? And once you do that, now
• 2:02
  Speaker 4: you can work with somebody to get better. You can
• 2:05
  Speaker 4: work with yourself to get better.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: But until you know what you want to.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Stand for, you always just be sitting down. You'll never
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: stand for anything.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: Although my childhood stuttering was alarming, I wasn't completely undone
• 2:18
  Speaker 4: by trauma.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: I was distracted by toxic stress.
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: My pain kept me from living a complete and happy
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: life in grade school, and it continued to haunt me
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: into young adulthood. Yet through it all I retained enough
• 2:32
  Speaker 4: self awareness to realize how bad things were and remember
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: each and every corner I cut.
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: Strange as it sounds, I was one of the lucky ones.
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: For some victims, their trauma is so devastating that they
• 2:49
  Speaker 4: lose all their self respect and self awareness. They are
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: torn down to the studs, foundational aspects of their character
• 2:58
  Speaker 4: pounded to dust. Part of what saved me from sliding
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: all the way to rock bottom was what I saw
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: in my mother. As much as she tried to hide it,
• 3:08
  Speaker 4: she was the portrait of devastation, which is why I've
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: been able to study the work of the prisoner's mind
• 3:14
  Speaker 4: all my life. She'd been a young woman when she
• 3:17
  Speaker 4: met Trunnis. He dazzled her until she was spellbound. Then,
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: with every slap to the face, every hateful, disrespectful comment,
• 3:28
  Speaker 4: each time he cheated on her, he siphoned more of
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: her life force away, until she lost contact with the attractive, intelligent, dignified,
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: strong woman she used to be.
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: It didn't happen overnight.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: It rarely does in abusive relationships. It's almost always gradual,
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: which is why it burns so deep until one day
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: you wake up owned by.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: The person who is destroying you.
• 3:59
  Speaker 4: In nature, destruction always gives way to creation, and my
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: mother didn't sit in her rubble for long once we
• 4:07
  Speaker 4: arrived in Indiana.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: And urge to.
• 4:10
  Speaker 4: Build again is in each of us, and she had
• 4:13
  Speaker 4: it too. However, when you are rebuilding the self, it
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: must be done consciously. She'd lost all confidence and emotional
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: coherence because she never completely liberated herself from my father.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: As a result, she didn't know what she was building,
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: and the bricks she laid became her prison cell. Subconsciously,
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: she built a tower of mental and emotional isolation, and
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: by the time I was eight.
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: Years old, she was an empty shell.
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: She hustled and strived, but very little registered with her Emotionally.
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: We live parallel lives. I couldn't even reach her.
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: The irony is you build the walls to protect yourself.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: You think they will make you hard and less vulnerable,
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: but they isolate you in solitary confinement with your darkest
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: thoughts and ugliest memories. You convince yourself that somehow you
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: deserve to be there due to the bad life decisions
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: you made. You believe that you are not worthy of
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: more or something better, and that the damage can't be undone.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: You are filled with endless shame. When you look in
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: the mirror, you don't see yourself for who you are,
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: and what keeps you locked up in your prison is
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: that false narrative that you continually feed yourself, and the
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: false reflection you can't escape.
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: Because it is part of you.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: By the time I was in high school, my mom
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: was an independent, successful woman who had survived domestic violence
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: and landed a six figure job at a top tier
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: liberal arts university.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: Those were the great facts.
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: Everyone around us saw the same thing, but in the mirror,
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: she saw a worthless.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: And undeserving person.
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: While working as a college dean during my junior year
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: of high school, she volunteered as a teacher in a prison.
• 6:18
  Speaker 4: It wasn't enough for her to be in her own
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: mental prison. She wanted to experience a real one, especially
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: if it meant she'd have less time to sit with
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: herself and consider her life in any meaningful way.
• 6:32
  Speaker 3: After just a.
• 6:33
  Speaker 4: Few weeks of work at the penitentiary, her daily routine,
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: which had been amnar sacred since we arrived in Indiana,
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: was all over the place, and I sensed something was off.
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: How could I not with the phone ringing every fifteen minutes,
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: weeks before I was to leave her Air Force boot camp,
• 6:54
  Speaker 4: she finally.
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: Explained what the hell was going on.
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: She was engaged to a man who'd been in a
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: maximum surety prison for the last ten years. It took
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: more than a few minutes for that statement to register
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: before I asked what was.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: He in prison for. She didn't answer right away.
• 7:12
  Speaker 4: She had to collect her thoughts because there is no
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: easy way of telling your son that your future husband
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: is in prison.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: For murdering a woman over drugs. He didn't shoot her.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: This wasn't an attempted robbery gone wrong.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: This man straight up choked the life out of a
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: woman over drugs. She went on to say that he
• 7:33
  Speaker 4: was due to be released from prison the week after
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: I left for boot camp and would be moving.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Into our house.
• 7:40
  Speaker 4: It is truly amazing what the mind can do when
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: you fail to rebuild yourself consciously.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: My dad was a gangster and a crook.
• 7:49
  Speaker 4: Her previous fiance had been murdered in his own garage,
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: and for an encore, she would marry a convicted murderer
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: less than a week after his release from prison. My
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: mom was looking for someone she could save because she
• 8:01
  Speaker 4: did not have the strength to save herself, but the
• 8:04
  Speaker 4: marriage did not go well.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: They would divorce within two years. He would relapse and eventually.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: Die of an overdose many years later. To put it
• 8:13
  Speaker 4: into plain text, when your self worth goes away and
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: you don't deal with or accept your demons, they will
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: continue to own you and you will become.
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: A bottom feeder.
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: I'm aware that most of the advice I give and
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: stories I tell are built to help you push.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: Through impossible situations.
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: However, sometimes what you need is a hard stop. If
• 8:41
  Speaker 4: you ever find yourself in an abusive scenario like my mother's,
• 8:45
  Speaker 4: or any sort of battle where you are losing your
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: sense of self and verging on erasure, your best hope
• 8:53
  Speaker 4: is to arrest the slide before you hit rock bottom.
• 8:58
  Speaker 3: Hard stops allow military, youuth and individual soldiers to reorg.
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: That includes reloading.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: Your empty magazines, taking inventory of your ammunition, and rearranging
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: your gear so you have access to loaded weapons and
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: anything else you may need in the hours ahead. You
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: also must take a hard look at your battle plan
• 9:19
  Speaker 4: and get a clear sense of what it is you're facing.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: And where it will lead.
• 9:26
  Speaker 4: I know firsthand how tortuous it is to be continually
• 9:30
  Speaker 4: stalked by a predator, you lose all sense of normalcy.
• 9:35
  Speaker 4: Reality becomes distorted. But I also know that moments of
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: clarity do exist. My mom should have reorged after trying
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: to smack her in the face the first time, or
• 9:47
  Speaker 4: the twelfth time, or even the fiftieth time. While I
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: know this is hard to do, it is something that
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: we must do for ourselves.
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: It is non negotiable. If she had, she might have.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: Noticed she was on a slippery slope that would lead
• 10:04
  Speaker 4: to her utter destruction. She may have seen that it
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: was not normal or tolerable to watch your kids work
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: all night, skates day after day, and then get beaten
• 10:16
  Speaker 4: at home. In a toxic situation, you cannot keep moving
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: blindly forward hoping it will end.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: It won't, but you might.
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: When you arrest the slide, you will be damaged but
• 10:29
  Speaker 4: not completely broken. Your wound will likely become a distraction,
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: But with intention and effort, you can heal and take
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: control of your life. When you come to at rock bottom,
• 10:42
  Speaker 4: that's a different situation, and it won't be a clean
• 10:46
  Speaker 4: or easy fix. When inmates are released, they generally aren't
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: rehabilitated in a sustainable way.
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: Most leave prison, messed.
• 10:57
  Speaker 4: Up and often need more help if they are to
• 11:00
  Speaker 4: piece their lives back together.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: You'll need help too.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: You'll need to find people who have survived or at
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: least relate to what you've been through and can help
• 11:10
  Speaker 4: you heal.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Of course, it takes self.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: Esteem and self awareness to seek help and share.
• 11:18
  Speaker 3: Your brutal story.
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: And when you are confined by the walls you built,
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: awareness and confidence are non existent. At that point, your
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: only choice is to get angry. We are too often
• 11:32
  Speaker 4: told that anger is an unhealthy emotion, but when someone
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: or something has stolen your soul and destroyed your life,
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: anger is a natural response.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: I am not talking.
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: About irrational rage, which can be disastrous and lead you
• 11:48
  Speaker 4: down an even darker hole. I am talking about controlled anger,
• 11:55
  Speaker 4: which is a natural source of energy that can wake
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: you up and help you realize that what you went
• 12:01
  Speaker 4: through wasn't right. I have cracked open anger several times.
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: It has warmed me when I was freezing. It has
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: turned my fear into bravery, and it has given me
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: fight when I had none, and it.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Can do the same for you.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: Anger will snap you out of the spell you're in
• 12:23
  Speaker 4: until you are no longer willing to remain confined in
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: your mental prison.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: You'll be scratching and clawing at.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: The walls, looking for cracks where the light leaks in.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: Your fingernails will be broken, the tips of your fingers
• 12:39
  Speaker 4: bloody and raw, and you will continue to fight to
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: expand those cracks because your anger will be purifying and
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: the human mind loves progress. Keep at it, and eventually
• 12:54
  Speaker 4: those walls will tumble until you are free standing in
• 12:58
  Speaker 4: a debris field. One more time with your eyes wide open.
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: That'll work, because destruction always breeds creation. Have the courage
• 13:08
  Speaker 4: and mental endurance to do whatever it takes to start
• 13:13
  Speaker 4: knocking down those walls.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: You are the warden of your life. Don't forget. You
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: hold the keys