From Survival to Self-Discovery: Embracing Joy | with Megan Margherio

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Think Unbroken Podcast, and I'm your host, Michael and Broken.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an author, speaker, coach, and advocate for adult survivors of childhood trauma and abuse.

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[SPEAKER_00]: In this podcast, you will learn how to transform your trauma in the triumph, turn breakdowns into breakthroughs, and go from victim to being the hero of your own story.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You can learn more at Think UnbrokenPonCast.com, and of course, check us out on Apple Podcasts

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[SPEAKER_00]: Part of the healing journey also includes the what's next.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like you walk down this path, you do all this work, you go to the therapy in the podcast and the coaching and the seminars and the groups and read the books and you do all the things and then you're kind of in your life on the other side of it like, well what's next.

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[SPEAKER_00]: and I don't know about you, but I've certainly been here and been there.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's why I'm very excited for today's conversation with my great friend Megan, who's going to break down those steps in the journey and the process of like what it means to actually be on the backside of a healing journey.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Megan, my friend, thank you so much for being here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the show.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm very much looking forward to this, this is a topic I don't know that we've really dove into at the death that I think we're going to today, but before we do that, tell folks who are listening why they should listen to today's conversation with us.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so for me, I think this is a conversation.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I would have heard probably years ago because it is that conversation about what comes after.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And two often we hear about the stories of survival of people who have gone through things.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the fact that they survived is kind of where the story ends.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But there's a whole secondary story that I think is really important.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And some of that is about how to let good come back into your life after you've spent so long.

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[SPEAKER_01]: bracing for all the ways in which like the shit can hit the fan.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me that's really what I think I would want people to know is that this conversation is about when good can come back into the life after you know having survived the worst of the worst and seen the awfulness that life can offer how do you learn to accept the softness and the goodness that life can also offer as well.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, which I think is like one of the most difficult things that we do.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that that happens because you get trapped into this idealistic version of your life, based on your experiences.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then if you've never, like for me, have the experience of like there's more, the more can feel like a lie, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure we'll talk about self sabotaging behaviors and things of that nature.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But there is a point in time where you no longer have to be in survival mode.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess first, how do you get there?

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[SPEAKER_00]: What was your journey?

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[SPEAKER_00]: What did it look like for you?

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[SPEAKER_00]: What were your experiences?

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[SPEAKER_00]: What was the process to get to surviving?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then what was the pro obviously loaded question?

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[SPEAKER_00]: But on the back side, high level because we're going to get into a little bit more.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But what is the process been and look like for you on the back side of that?

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[SPEAKER_00]: To go from here's my experience and here's my life to these are some of the things I noticed.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so speaking about it from a high level, so I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and intimate partner violence that led to a long time of kind of self-loathing and just really not having any sense of self-worth and just kind of my worth was dependent on what everybody else wanted from me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So, I was a high achiever, I was a high functioner, so no one knew to even look at like me and think that there was something wrong, to even ask if something was wrong and I thought that that meant I was doing everything right.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was surviving the way that you're supposed to survive because no one was asking me questions, no red flags were going up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But what ended up happening is I hit tremendous burnout and as you do eventually you hit a wall where you can't carry the shit anymore and you have to figure out how to handle it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So then I went down that road of kind of healing and going to talk therapy and doing all sorts of other types of therapy.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like once you kind of go down the path, you try numerous, at least my experience has been you try every possible kind of option available to you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Just to see what's going to make me feel better because the idea is that it had to feel better than it did right now.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't know what better was, but I knew that where I was wasn't sustainable.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I knew that better had to exist and then what ends up happening is that at least again for me is that you have to rebuild self worth self trust all from like the basement up.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was a lot of trying different things, seeing what worked, seeing what didn't, I didn't even know who I was.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So my sense of identity was lost because it was wrapped up in what other people thought of me and never in knowing myself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so all of these things kind of compounded and it was just this endless array of trying and failing or trying and something working for a second and then not working

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[SPEAKER_01]: trying to figure out what what like basically throwing stuff up against the wall just to see what would stick and out of that became something right and so I get to this place of no longer numb but neutral and I think that there's that big distinction right between them in neutral and when you get to neutral.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You start to realize, oh wait, I've lived numb for most of my life, which meant that I lived expecting pain and never letting go it in, so I was really only half alive.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there was a whole other half of a lifeness that I wanted to explore, that scared the ever-living hell out of me.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And all of that is the goodness, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's the things that you stop allowing to come in because you are protecting yourself.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And now suddenly rest, ease, peace, comfort, support, all of these things that you've been avoiding your whole life are now open and available to you, but you don't know how to let them in and receive them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so that becomes like a whole different kind of ballgame.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, I resonate with all of that, you know, especially having childhood sexual abuse myself, you, your identity, I've thought this many times over the years, you can't have an identity if you've never even had the basis to build who you are.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think for myself and obviously for a lot of people who listen to this show, that's where we start.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We had abusive parents.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We had abusive siblings.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We had abusive teachers and community and some of us really violence experiences and very sexually abusive experiences and then of course that tends to play out in adulthood because we don't understand that those things that at one time were not right become our kind of no-manclature for navigating the

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[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that you said that really hit home for me, it was, I was trying to on the back side of so much of this work.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you didn't use this word particularly, but allow.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like I was like, I'm allowed to have success.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm allowed to have happiness.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm allowed to have joy.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm allowed to have all these things.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And that at times has been, even to this day, vastly more difficult been sitting into a room and talking about bad shit that happened.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And there's also, again, post-survivors guilt that pops up, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And my neighborhood, a lot of the kids didn't make it out.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my family for a long time, they weren't going in a direction like I was going.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I was, you know, or something crazy about living the life that I've had.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And then pausing and going, wait a second.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's okay that you have this.

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[SPEAKER_00]: in that rebuilding of self living numb like oh my god like I relate to that so much and that's not even necessary just numbing that's just not feeling so when you talked about all the things that you tried for for me I same the myriad you name it I tried it on the backside of it I tend to stick with what I felt worked I didn't want to force anything I don't want to make anything stick if it's stuck great if not fine

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[SPEAKER_00]: But the hardest thing for me was, and this is a huge thing that you talk about.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It was like getting to calm, getting to safety, allowing good things to happen, being in this space of, I mean, I don't know how you can call it other than activating happiness and joy, and getting away from this fear of failure in this fear of trauma, and that the next shoe was going to drop.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What does that look like?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because in the window, here's how I see it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're standing in front of a door, and on the other side of the door, that's this life that you have started to envision, but you're still in the house.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And the idea of walking outside is awfully terrifying.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you step into that life?

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[SPEAKER_00]: What is that process looking like?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so it's it's so hard.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I don't I don't want to share it because it is it's so hard because everything in you wants to not trust it to not believe that it can be real it's kind of the idea that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: in some ways it feels like it could be too good to be true.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it immediately feels suspicious.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But then also, you know, it's this idea of like, what's the catch?

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[SPEAKER_01]: What is this going to cost me, you know?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so there's this kind of logic that we use when we've survived grief loss trauma, those kinds of things where it's like,

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[SPEAKER_01]: There's a pendulum to the universe, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's going to, however far it swings into the light, it's going to swing that far back into the shadow.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when you've spent so long protecting yourself from the shadow, you don't want to go that far into the light, because the light feels dangerous, because the back swing is coming for you.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And you, you know that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like, well, how long is this going to stick around?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Because at some point, something awful is going to happen.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then I'm going to have to deal with that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And if I put my defenses down to let the good things in, how am I going to scoop them back up to protect me before I get hurt again?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's a really hard kind of process.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think about it a little bit like Plato's allegory of the cave, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like so looking at like the flames on the cave wall and thinking that that's life.

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[SPEAKER_01]: and like that's good enough and you're watching the shapes take place and you think that that's all life is and then turning around to see that the entrance to the cave is open.

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[SPEAKER_01]: You can walk outside but you're afraid that the sun is going to burn your skin because you've never stepped foot into the light.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And

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[SPEAKER_01]: So it's about finding, at least for me, it's been about finding these small kind of micro moments.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If I go for big joy as I call it, like the big things, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: That's too much too fast, and I'm gonna immediately shut down and kind of the internal defenses will not let that come in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: But if it's something small,

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[SPEAKER_01]: you know impact of it or the loss of it isn't that significant right so it's just like standing in nature and looking at a beautiful tree and breathing in for a moment and just letting that moment of presence of just being in stillness with yourself with nature, letting that land and stacking moments like that of

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[SPEAKER_01]: and allowing yourself to see that wait a minute.

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[SPEAKER_01]: This has been available to me the whole time.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like all of these little micro moments of joy and goodness have been here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I just haven't been present with them.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I haven't been letting them in.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So for me, mindfulness, meditation, breath work, yoga,

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[SPEAKER_01]: all have been really helpful in allowing me to stay embodied in myself without immediately retreating to my brain and trying to think my way out of something or think about how it can all go wrong, I can just stay present for a couple of breaths and allow whatever is there to just be.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And then the next few moments or whenever I can do it again do it again and again and again and then that just builds capacity without having to

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[SPEAKER_01]: worry about that pendulum swinging backwards.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, letting it land.

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[SPEAKER_00]: That's real.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I think about that a lot because I've had these moments over the years where I just disappear and get caught up in all the things and never have a moment to be like,

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually on a walk.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, one of the things that I do, I will literally look at my fucking hand.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'll look at the palm of my hand and be like, I am inside of this vessel right now.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: My organism is present.

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[SPEAKER_00]: This is where I am and I'll do a body scan.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that has been incredibly beneficial for me in my journey because there's something about getting to being present, which, uh,

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[SPEAKER_00]: My therapist has said this to me so many times of my tenure with him over a decade where he is just like, you know, this is the moment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The past only exists in the present, and you can only exist in the present if you're pulling it in.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And we get in this space of rumination, we get in this space of constantly battling ourselves.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We get in this space of beating ourselves up and we forget like just be fucking human, it's fine.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And also, I think about this, you can't change it, like it's done.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I say this a lot, but there's always that, like, voice, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I wrote this note as you're talking, because I'm curious, even with all of this, and you're starting the backside, you've done the work, you're trying to navigate it.

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[SPEAKER_00]: You're sitting in this moment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What's the conversation you're having with yourself?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know that people are listening and they're like, I hear this, but they're like, that's not for me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I hear this, but you don't know what happened to me.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I hear this, but my circumstances, but this, but that.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And I think a huge part of this is how you talk to yourself.

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[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious, like, what is the internal dialogue been like for you as you've navigated the post-traumatic growth, the healing elements of this?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so my meditation teacher several years ago told me she made a statement be where your feet are and I'd love that and so I come back to it.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a mantra of mine is be where my feet are and it's the idea that you know like your feet your body obviously is in the present moment and so the conversation that I have with myself is it starts with that, right?

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[SPEAKER_01]: It's a recognition and awareness that wait a minute, I just left my body.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I went backward or I went

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[SPEAKER_01]: in time but time is here like right like as you said the only time that truly exists is the present and so it's like always this idea of constantly bringing myself back to the present moment where I recognize that the world isn't crashing down like things aren't falling down on me right now I'm envisioning a million worst case scenarios or I'm playing back a million regrets but in this moment those things aren't real and

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[SPEAKER_01]: I have spent a lot of time resisting the resistance.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that that may not make sense.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So let me explain.

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[SPEAKER_01]: So we oftentimes resist what's happening in the present moment.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it shouldn't be like this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: It would be easier if it was like this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: Why is it?

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[SPEAKER_01]: I wish it could be like this.

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[SPEAKER_01]: If it was like this, it would be easier.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I could manage it like whatever.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so we spend a lot of time trying to change.

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[SPEAKER_01]: what already is.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And there came a point where I recognized that I was doing that.

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[SPEAKER_01]: I was just cycling and spinning and spinning inside my head.

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[SPEAKER_01]: about I'm trying to constantly change the present moment to manipulate it into a way that it makes me feel the safest I can be and you know and that's obviously a strategy that someone who spent their life trying to be safe would utilize and so it totally makes sense I'm not going to shame myself for that but what I am going to recognize is that resisting what's already here.

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[SPEAKER_01]: does not change the fact that it's already here, all it does is just create more suffering for me in the moment because nothing about what is here is going to change because I'm wishing or willing or trying to change it and so when I can

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[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to add additional suffering to that?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to make this moment harder on myself?

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[SPEAKER_01]: And when I ask myself that, the answer is obviously, well, no, I mean, like who would want to make a moment harder for themselves?

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[SPEAKER_01]: Even if you don't think that you deserve the moment that's sitting in front of you, you don't want to make it harder on yourself because you have to pull so much more energy and effort to exist in a space where that resistance is present.

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[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, it's about laying down that resistance and saying, okay, what about this moment is okay?

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[SPEAKER_01]: If even though there are things that I sure want to change or that I would like to be different what about this name one thing find one thing in this moment that's okay focus on that instead focus on the okayness not on what I want to change and that keeps me present in the moment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's so powerful because you actually only have a limited amount of control in the day-to-day.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And what I'm always trying to navigate is how do I control the variables at my access, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: The news for like this morning at the gym is just because it's came to mind.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Every screen that have the news on was the most negative thing happening in the world at the moment.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And as communal species, I mean, we've only ever really been able to hold and understand enough knowledge and data for a tribe, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: 175 to 100 people, not things that are happening 100,000 miles away with a small village and a town we've never heard of or an accident.

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[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, of course there's worldwide news.

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[SPEAKER_00]: We hear about those things.

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[SPEAKER_00]: But in the day-to-day, in the micro, it's so incredibly negative to just walk into the world, especially if you're in the western states, or the west.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And more so, it's like, pull up your phone.

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[SPEAKER_00]: What is your algorithm look like?

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[SPEAKER_00]: When people are like, my algorithm is so negative.

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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, that's a u-thing.

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[SPEAKER_00]: The algorithm doesn't feed you information.

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[SPEAKER_00]: It only shows you what you're into, which I think is so fascinating because people don't understand that these social media platforms, they want your attention.

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[SPEAKER_00]: And so I don't know about what yours looks like, but mine's fitness, entrepreneurship, podcasts, really dirty joke cartoons that I share with my girlfriend, and like, that's about it, right?

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[SPEAKER_00]: Before because I started getting into the new cycle, I was like, oh man, this is this political thing and that turmoil thing over here and that and I reset my whole algorithm and that's how I start to look at life.

19:34.483 --> 19:39.715
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, okay, what can I reset when I'm looking at the world?

19:39.880 --> 19:42.765
[SPEAKER_00]: That is at my fingertips, my real reality.

19:42.845 --> 19:48.854
[SPEAKER_00]: Not the fiction reality that I want to pretend that I live in, but in this real reality, what can I control?

19:49.295 --> 19:57.868
[SPEAKER_00]: Control my efforts, my energy, my action, my time, the food I eat, what I listen to, what I watch, the people I talk to, I can control that.

19:58.269 --> 20:02.175
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's it, I can control my reactions, I can control my intention.

20:02.155 --> 20:07.187
[SPEAKER_00]: but there's also the side of it where, you know, you're like, cool, I get all that.

20:07.287 --> 20:20.097
[SPEAKER_00]: I understand I have way more control in my life than most people probably realize and yet we're playing this game or even this thing about feeling can feel threatening.

20:20.431 --> 20:25.018
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, man, but you're telling me I can control everything, but why when I feel joy do I feel scared?

20:25.339 --> 20:36.117
[SPEAKER_00]: You're telling me I can change my algorithm, but why is it that when I see people who are happy or ease or receiving or love or success, even after all this work, I still feel like it's not for me.

20:36.718 --> 20:36.878
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?

20:36.958 --> 20:42.507
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's dive into that and the logic behind the nervous system, because I know that

20:42.487 --> 20:48.476
[SPEAKER_00]: there's a par away somewhere in here that people are missing right between the brain and the body connection.

20:48.516 --> 20:50.980
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's break that down so we can get them into joy.

20:51.020 --> 20:55.647
[SPEAKER_00]: We can get them into ease and into receiving end into love.

20:55.668 --> 21:04.281
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so if you grew up kind of in a situation where goodness was associated with vulnerability or exposure.

21:04.321 --> 21:07.566
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe when you were younger and you were seen in your

21:07.833 --> 21:27.598
[SPEAKER_01]: Delight in your joy and your, you know, all wonder excitement, whatever people shun you they shut it down like calm down stop that you know too much like right and so you got these implicit messages as a child that you were too much or not enough or like a lot of people myself included you felt both messages.

21:27.658 --> 21:30.482
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm too much and not enough at the exact same time.

21:30.462 --> 21:48.009
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what ends up happening is that you start going, okay, well, my belonging, my sense of existing in this family, in this community, in this friend group, whatever the case might be, my belonging is contingent on me shrinking, my joy, my goodness.

21:48.590 --> 21:56.082
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe it was that people in your world didn't know how to hold the delight and goodness and joy of others.

21:56.062 --> 22:00.408
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it was that they didn't know how to hold their own, so they definitely didn't know how to make space for yours.

22:00.928 --> 22:06.095
[SPEAKER_01]: But the message was still the same, is that your delight in goodness is not welcome here.

22:06.475 --> 22:11.662
[SPEAKER_01]: So shrink it down, make it smaller, make everybody else around you more comfortable.

22:12.383 --> 22:18.511
[SPEAKER_01]: And so those messages over and over and over again are what the nervous system took in.

22:18.571 --> 22:22.356
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's how it started to go, okay, well, to be safe here.

22:22.336 --> 22:23.319
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to shrink down.

22:23.339 --> 22:24.361
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to be less.

22:24.562 --> 22:26.146
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to be smaller in this space.

22:26.206 --> 22:27.369
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to be quieter here.

22:27.429 --> 22:29.776
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't be excited when I'm, you know, like whatever.

22:30.718 --> 22:37.155
[SPEAKER_01]: And so all of those messages just at like repeatedly year after year after year, right, coming through.

22:37.743 --> 22:42.429
[SPEAKER_01]: reinforced a story that was not real, right?

22:42.569 --> 22:48.016
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, it was real in the time in which you were there, but it was not real for actual human life, right?

22:48.517 --> 22:55.426
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you learned how to survive in spaces where your joy wasn't maybe as welcome.

22:55.606 --> 23:00.953
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you go out into the world and you assume all spaces are like the one that you were in.

23:00.973 --> 23:07.682
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, and maybe you tried to be more joyful in other spaces in the same thing happened.

23:07.662 --> 23:12.209
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you know, we just we couldn't handle it or whatever the case might be.

23:12.429 --> 23:18.337
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then it just becomes well goodness equals I'm going to be ostracized.

23:18.538 --> 23:19.719
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to be welcome.

23:19.860 --> 23:20.881
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to belong.

23:21.001 --> 23:27.831
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to get isolated if I'm if I'm authentic and I show up authentically in my in my goodness.

23:27.811 --> 23:35.884
[SPEAKER_01]: And so then when you try to do that on the other end of healing and you're like, no, I want to welcome these things back into my life.

23:35.985 --> 23:36.646
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to be good.

23:36.666 --> 23:37.587
[SPEAKER_01]: I want all of that.

23:37.607 --> 23:44.539
[SPEAKER_01]: It is terrifying because it isn't just about your nervous system being like, oh, okay, we're safe now.

23:45.100 --> 23:46.562
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, no, no, no, no.

23:46.542 --> 23:49.665
[SPEAKER_01]: every other time it hasn't been safe.

23:50.046 --> 24:02.579
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to show your nervous system that you are not who you are then that you can hold it a little bit more you have to show your nervous system that this part of your life is not like that part of your life.

24:03.320 --> 24:05.562
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that's oftentimes for me.

24:05.622 --> 24:12.229
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually talk to my nervous system so like when I feel myself getting activated and kind of panicky.

24:13.002 --> 24:24.793
[SPEAKER_01]: about being seen in my goodness, I remind myself very easily like this isn't that this is not what I'm experiencing now is not what I experienced before.

24:24.853 --> 24:39.567
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you kind of talked to your nervous system and repeatedly show it through these micro moments of joy through these conversations that you have with yourself, you show your nervous system, hey, we can do it a

24:39.901 --> 24:47.750
[SPEAKER_01]: And then your nervous system will lay down arms, not fully, but, you know, slowly and steadily.

24:47.770 --> 25:04.390
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you continue to build that safety within yourself, your nervous system will settle and allow more and more of that to come in because your capacity is there to hold it and the world isn't crashing down and you're belonging is no longer in question.

25:04.707 --> 25:24.319
[SPEAKER_01]: And so safety is built and so micro moments of joy build our capacity for safety and then our nervous system through self trust will start to slowly settle down and start to recognize that it can allow these things to come in without immediately raising all the alarms.

25:25.092 --> 25:26.956
[SPEAKER_00]: self-trust is where people get stuck though.

25:27.718 --> 25:34.232
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's the one area where most people will start doing this work.

25:34.693 --> 25:41.127
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they're on the path, they're on the journey, maybe they're deep into it, and then boom, identity crisis.

25:41.107 --> 25:42.771
[SPEAKER_00]: This is how I look at it, right?

25:42.791 --> 25:45.397
[SPEAKER_00]: You're like, wow, I'm having an identity crisis.

25:45.457 --> 25:57.985
[SPEAKER_00]: I have no I do who I am, because all I know and all I've ever experienced for the last 10, 15, 20, 30 years is pain and loss and suffering and hurt and shame and

25:57.965 --> 26:00.951
[SPEAKER_00]: all of the most negative experiences that a human could be.

26:01.432 --> 26:09.849
[SPEAKER_00]: And yet on the other side of this journey, I'm healing, but I am having an identity crisis because I actually don't trust myself.

26:10.149 --> 26:13.877
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm doing the things you're telling me to do, and I'm with you.

26:13.917 --> 26:18.927
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that little wind start to build the capacity to have confidence.

26:18.907 --> 26:25.624
[SPEAKER_00]: because the game that I think that we're ultimately playing is getting to the point that you're confident enough to be you.

26:26.266 --> 26:28.352
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how I figured this.

26:28.412 --> 26:29.394
[SPEAKER_00]: This has been my journey.

26:29.414 --> 26:34.227
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I've guided thousands of people through and coaching and millions in the podcast.

26:34.247 --> 26:34.688
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like,

26:34.668 --> 26:39.475
[SPEAKER_00]: Do whatever is required to get to the point that you believe in yourself.

26:40.136 --> 26:59.663
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's something, and I have to talk about this a lot, that people don't understand and that's that even though you're walking this path, there is this reality of ownership that is required in order for you to actually become you, to build confidence, to build self trust,

26:59.643 --> 27:04.871
[SPEAKER_00]: And in that process, you are still going to make mistakes, you are still going to screw up.

27:05.412 --> 27:16.428
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, can you get to the place of cultivating responsibility for your experience without shame, without game, without shame, without blame, I should say.

27:16.729 --> 27:20.735
[SPEAKER_00]: And without internalizing this thing, about the mistakes that you made.

27:21.235 --> 27:23.659
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's very interesting, you look at...

27:23.639 --> 27:49.140
[SPEAKER_00]: we will forgive people who get sentenced to death row for killing somebody in a crime of passion and they did their 30 years and they come out and they say they're reformed and they get pardoned by the state and they go out into the world maybe they start a business maybe they start a podcast maybe they do whatever the thing is that they do and we go wow what a story have come back and you spilled the milk yesterday and you're still beating yourself up.

27:49.120 --> 27:51.364
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'm like, how do you do that?

27:51.444 --> 28:00.019
[SPEAKER_00]: How do he take responsibility and leave the blame and shame to the side, but not be placating or culpable in our own shit?

28:00.239 --> 28:01.461
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what I see.

28:01.501 --> 28:06.690
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's the thing where what I love to do as a coach is get to sit in that moment with people and say,

28:06.670 --> 28:13.520
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what you're doing here, you're actually beating yourself up, you're not taking responsibility, you're just saying, well this is how I am.

28:13.560 --> 28:23.816
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do we give them more permission to like sit in the ownership and let the other pieces that don't serve them wash away so that they can move into self-trust?

28:25.358 --> 28:28.423
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a really hard kind of space to navigate, right?

28:28.463 --> 28:29.725
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you are

28:30.295 --> 28:32.520
[SPEAKER_01]: You're kind of building the plane as you're flying it.

28:32.600 --> 28:37.832
[SPEAKER_01]: So to speak, when it comes to identity, and I think that we all have a misconception about our identity.

28:37.953 --> 28:40.940
[SPEAKER_01]: We think that we're supposed to have something fully formed.

28:41.100 --> 28:43.826
[SPEAKER_01]: About, oh, I'm supposed to know who I am.

28:43.886 --> 28:48.557
[SPEAKER_01]: Know, like your whole life is an exploration.

28:48.537 --> 28:49.979
[SPEAKER_01]: into who you are.

28:50.320 --> 28:55.487
[SPEAKER_01]: You are an evolving human and we forget that we're humans.

28:55.508 --> 29:09.769
[SPEAKER_01]: And like our humanity is in the fact that we grow and we learn and we change and we, you know, we presented with new information or new beliefs or new way of doing things and then eventually maybe those become our beliefs and

29:10.019 --> 29:21.565
[SPEAKER_01]: new ways of doing things and we adopted and then suddenly you like wake up and you're like oh my god like 10 years ago I was a totally different person it doesn't happen overnight and I think that when people

29:21.781 --> 29:43.857
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially when you are going through like when you've gone through trauma, you think that like in your healing process like that's when you're supposed to find out who you are and it's like no, no, no, that's when you find out who exists underneath all of the stuff that people put on top of you and all of the stuff you put on top of yourself as protection.

29:44.157 --> 29:50.488
[SPEAKER_01]: And so the healing journey itself is just peeling back those layers and seeing what still stays.

29:50.688 --> 30:02.048
[SPEAKER_01]: And what stays are your values, your morals, your, you know, just kind of inherent beliefs that when we walk through the world like I'm going to be a good person or I don't think it's right to steal or whatever the things might be.

30:02.467 --> 30:05.852
[SPEAKER_01]: But we don't, that's not our full identity.

30:06.252 --> 30:11.159
[SPEAKER_01]: Our identity is something that continues to grow and evolve over time.

30:11.279 --> 30:21.933
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that we get lost a lot of times, trying to think that they're supposed to be some fully formed answer, that we are already supposed to know and that we're supposed to just live that.

30:22.674 --> 30:24.497
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's not really it.

30:24.757 --> 30:28.802
[SPEAKER_01]: It is about we are constantly learning and expressing ourselves.

30:28.903 --> 30:32.187
[SPEAKER_01]: And sometimes we try on something

30:32.167 --> 30:47.830
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that was going to be me, but that is not me and you know, and then you try on something else and you keep going and it's okay to stumble and I think that that's the other part of it is that people think that like as we're learning that every single thing we try.

30:47.810 --> 30:50.853
[SPEAKER_01]: is something that we're supposed to be like, yep, I nailed that.

30:50.973 --> 30:59.582
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, even if it's not something that you'd want to kind of carry forward, is that you're supposed to kind of like nail that aspect of like kind of living your life, right?

30:59.862 --> 31:01.924
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe that's like being seen, right?

31:02.024 --> 31:15.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And allowing yourself out into the world and maybe it's just taking up a little bit more space without apologizing and you know, and so not immediately like I used to do rushing in and immediately wanting to apologize,

31:15.738 --> 31:25.412
[SPEAKER_01]: For the fact that, you know, I took up a little bit of verbal space or I don't know if this is the right answer, but it's like, no, stand behind that, like, right, but that's hard to do.

31:25.472 --> 31:39.973
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think that what people kind of like wrap their head around is that like before I can try something I have to know I'm good at it and there's no way you're going to know you're good at it until you try and life is just about.

31:39.953 --> 32:07.682
[SPEAKER_01]: trying on different aspects of things and saying well maybe this is part of who I am and then recognizing no it's not and then you know I'm gonna try this and see if it's me and maybe it is and maybe that's something that you're like yeah okay I'm gonna keep this for a while and then at some point maybe you shut it down the line and it becomes something that was part of you and isn't anymore and that is life it's about letting experiences flow through you and letting yourself kind of

32:07.662 --> 32:10.527
[SPEAKER_01]: in whatever way and whatever capacity that you have.

32:10.627 --> 32:18.801
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in some ways saying, well, this is just how I am is saying, I'm closed off to letting life flow through me.

32:19.523 --> 32:21.706
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's where we run into problems.

32:21.867 --> 32:25.032
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not that, you know, who you are now is the problem.

32:25.112 --> 32:28.438
[SPEAKER_01]: It's that you're thinking that who you are now is who you will always be.

32:29.937 --> 32:46.005
[SPEAKER_00]: I've always not always, I've said for the better part of a decade, the statement, this is just who I am, is the most dangerous statement in the human lexicon, because that leaves you zero room for anything.

32:45.985 --> 33:07.892
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I look at it, go, well, I was a child who was brutally abused, a score of 10, learning disability, no high school diploma, been in over a hundred fights, like, been in just all of the worst things that could happen, death, and murder, and pain, and suffering, and that was the leverage for me for a long time.

33:07.872 --> 33:31.551
[SPEAKER_00]: in relationships and friendships with family pretty much all of my teens and most of my 20s was not the so I am and that's so dangerous right because that leaves you nothing to bend and without flexibility in this journey you're not going to be able to move into the other parts of this which is really about the embodiment and the integration.

33:31.531 --> 33:45.012
[SPEAKER_00]: because if you have no frame to move anything to hold something new, the second you try to bring it in, again, we're going to be right back into that thing about having an identity crisis.

33:45.293 --> 33:50.842
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no way around it, because the second you're like, oh yeah, I decided I'm going to be healthy and do all these things.

33:50.862 --> 33:54.788
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, blah, you're going to fall off really, really fast.

33:54.768 --> 34:07.925
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that, and my journey, I don't know if this is true for you, but when when I started on the other side of this, there was a part of me that every single day I was like, I'm gonna go figure this shit out.

34:08.346 --> 34:09.127
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't care.

34:09.487 --> 34:11.810
[SPEAKER_00]: I will do whatever I have to do, and I literally did.

34:11.830 --> 34:21.062
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I moved across the country with $500 in my pocket, not a place to live, no vehicle, don't know a soul, because I was like, I'm gonna do whatever it takes.

34:21.042 --> 34:41.445
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in that process I started to be able to have awareness about who I was and the choices that I have and the embodiment started to happen and the integration started to take place and then something would happen and I feel like I'd have to recycle the whole fucking process again and then something would happen to recycle the whole process and that was it.

34:41.525 --> 34:50.155
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the ebb and flow of it for a really long time until two things happened that radically transformed my experience.

34:50.135 --> 34:58.245
[SPEAKER_00]: One is I actually started to understand from a scientific standpoint, the impact of trauma.

34:58.265 --> 35:00.187
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, actually understand what it is.

35:00.287 --> 35:06.275
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how, you know, it's the Bessel Vander Coke books and the Pete Walker books and the Gabor Mate books.

35:06.335 --> 35:07.796
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, all these guys.

35:07.837 --> 35:18.910
[SPEAKER_00]: And then all of the amazing women of the industry, the Mario Bukes, the Caroline Leafs, the this podcast, right, interviewing the greatest minds in the world for almost a decade now.

35:18.890 --> 35:20.672
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's still a process.

35:21.273 --> 35:24.217
[SPEAKER_00]: It's so fucking crazy that it is still a process.

35:24.257 --> 35:29.084
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the reason I was bringing this up, I'm just curious for you, is it still a process?

35:29.384 --> 35:44.745
[SPEAKER_00]: Because this is what I said and constantly, I try to explain this to people when you walk into this, whether you're doing coaching with me or you're listening the podcast or you're reading the book or you're working with Megan or whatever it is, it's like, yo, there's no, this should don't end.

35:44.725 --> 35:50.802
[SPEAKER_00]: Like for a lot of people who maybe they didn't have a bad fucked up childhood and they got a therapy four or five times they're good.

35:50.862 --> 35:55.956
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm unraveling fucking darkness constantly.

35:56.378 --> 35:59.747
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm just curious for you if that's what that experience is like.

36:00.672 --> 36:02.675
[SPEAKER_01]: a million percent, absolutely.

36:02.695 --> 36:07.824
[SPEAKER_01]: I had it described to me once and I thought that this was a beautiful way to kind of describe it.

36:08.044 --> 36:10.929
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that like healing is a spiral, right?

36:10.989 --> 36:22.909
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're coming back around to like all of the things that have happened to you, the ways in which you've reoriented your life as a result of what's happened to you, all in an effort to keep yourself safe.

36:23.309 --> 36:25.633
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you

36:25.613 --> 36:45.411
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like the same things and you're looking at it every time from a slightly higher vantage point you're going up the spiral so you keep circling back around and looking back at it, but you're looking at it with a little bit more height a little bit fresher eyes a little bit fresher hands and so you can see things as that perspective.

36:45.695 --> 36:48.060
[SPEAKER_01]: continues to grow and grow and grow.

36:48.080 --> 36:52.950
[SPEAKER_01]: And then as a true spiral does, it widens as you go higher.

36:53.010 --> 36:57.279
[SPEAKER_01]: And so maybe you get a little bit longer before it comes back around again.

36:57.319 --> 37:03.332
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's always going to come back around because it's just the idea that, um,

37:03.312 --> 37:08.961
[SPEAKER_01]: We have to look at these things and see them and because there's still things to learn.

37:09.221 --> 37:10.924
[SPEAKER_01]: There's things to learn about ourselves.

37:10.964 --> 37:13.147
[SPEAKER_01]: There's things to learn about the people who hurt us.

37:13.407 --> 37:18.455
[SPEAKER_01]: There's things to learn about just what it means to be a human living in this world.

37:18.816 --> 37:25.325
[SPEAKER_01]: And as you get higher and higher, you can do things like maybe look at yourself with more compassion.

37:25.446 --> 37:31.615
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe you can look at the people who hurt you a little bit differently.

37:31.848 --> 37:37.203
[SPEAKER_01]: There are things that happen in our lives that are unforgivable, but they can be understandable.

37:37.363 --> 37:39.870
[SPEAKER_01]: Both things can be true at the exact same time.

37:40.411 --> 37:45.385
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I can look at the things that I went through and the ways in which

37:45.635 --> 38:08.571
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to handle all of that as a child on my own because no one wanted to support me and I can say that's unforgivable to put on the on the back of a child and that that had changed everything about the direction in which I live my life, but I can also look at people and I can say I can understand.

38:09.091 --> 38:14.400
[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit about how they got where they got to, but it's not for me to understand it.

38:15.021 --> 38:18.246
[SPEAKER_01]: It's for me to understand how I am where I am.

38:18.727 --> 38:25.699
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I keep myself centered on my spiral so to speak, but as we get higher and higher, we can have that.

38:26.135 --> 38:27.377
[SPEAKER_01]: different perspective.

38:27.558 --> 38:36.977
[SPEAKER_01]: And that perspective can teach us more about who we are, um, underneath it all, who we want to be and how we want to be better.

38:37.157 --> 38:42.568
[SPEAKER_01]: So I know that like for me, I am the person now that I needed when I was 11 years old.

38:43.049 --> 38:44.472
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't have that person.

38:44.632 --> 38:46.135
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it took me

38:46.115 --> 38:47.337
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm 44 now.

38:47.417 --> 38:50.281
[SPEAKER_01]: So it took me 33 years to become her.

38:50.762 --> 39:01.437
[SPEAKER_01]: But I am the person that I needed when I was little and now I can be that person, um, walking into the world and I get to be that person for that 11 year old me for the rest of my life.

39:01.738 --> 39:10.350
[SPEAKER_01]: But that 11 year old that's inside me that does not understand what happened to them and why it happened and is trying to still make sense of the senseless.

39:10.330 --> 39:14.936
[SPEAKER_01]: I can now hold her and be like, hey, it was awful.

39:15.116 --> 39:17.099
[SPEAKER_01]: It was completely fucked up what you went through.

39:17.139 --> 39:20.564
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is, you're not gonna go through it alone.

39:20.584 --> 39:29.115
[SPEAKER_01]: I am here now, I am gonna be the person that is going to tell you that none of it was your fault because there was no one back then to tell you that.

39:30.327 --> 39:41.940
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we have to be that for ourselves, and my, there is an immense reality of vulnerability in that experience.

39:42.821 --> 39:47.206
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the most uncomfortable I've ever been ever of anything I've ever done.

39:47.246 --> 39:54.394
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, my entire existence was sitting in this moment and realizing what you just said for myself.

39:54.374 --> 40:02.588
[SPEAKER_00]: was being like because there's a kid for me it felt too full between the physical and sexual abuse, all the things that I went through.

40:02.608 --> 40:15.690
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a side of it where it was a feel weak and then you tack on while I'm a man and all these things and then there's the other side of it where you go, well I couldn't do anything about it because I was

40:15.670 --> 40:29.333
[SPEAKER_00]: The people that did, they were so much bigger than me, and they were the adults, and then you're kind of in this, like, weird tango with yourself about getting into this place of grace for you in your own journey.

40:29.774 --> 40:35.824
[SPEAKER_00]: And then in that space, additionally, being like, I know that that happened.

40:36.706 --> 40:37.808
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't change it.

40:37.828 --> 40:40.412
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the worst fucking thing imaginable.

40:40.898 --> 40:51.996
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's awful, and it shouldn't have happened, and I can't change that, but I can definitely change how I allow that to affect me today.

40:52.056 --> 40:57.945
[SPEAKER_00]: That was the thing that changed my life was being able to sit in that and go, wow,

40:57.925 --> 40:59.286
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually in control.

40:59.306 --> 41:01.949
[SPEAKER_00]: I have agency in this moment.

41:01.969 --> 41:02.690
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't then.

41:03.130 --> 41:08.916
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is the biggest crime that I think gets committed against children is their agency a strip from them.

41:09.357 --> 41:11.279
[SPEAKER_00]: And then worse, you talk about them.

41:11.319 --> 41:15.703
[SPEAKER_00]: People don't believe you or whatever the thing is, which we don't need to go down that path right now.

41:16.124 --> 41:17.545
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's what I always think about.

41:17.585 --> 41:27.055
[SPEAKER_00]: You come out the other

41:27.035 --> 41:45.921
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean this, if you cannot get to the fucking place in your life where you can say, I am going to hold space to treat the inner child version of me like they are love and cared for and respected and additionally have boundaries because let me tell you what, I'd have that for a long time and get to that, that will change your life forever.

41:46.492 --> 41:59.609
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for me, it was the moment, so I spent God so long of my life, just decades hating myself because I would think back to those moments and I would think I should have done more.

41:59.750 --> 42:00.591
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have fought.

42:00.751 --> 42:01.832
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have ran.

42:01.852 --> 42:05.197
[SPEAKER_01]: I should have done something and I didn't.

42:05.858 --> 42:08.461
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead, I froze, right?

42:08.521 --> 42:14.649
[SPEAKER_01]: And the thing is, is that like, you know, so like, and I know all about like nervous system responses, right?

42:14.689 --> 42:15.891
[SPEAKER_01]: Fight, flight, freeze, fun.

42:16.124 --> 42:17.466
[SPEAKER_01]: They all make sense to me.

42:17.486 --> 42:20.611
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we all, we do all of them at different times.

42:20.651 --> 42:26.100
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that in those moments when I was experiencing the worst of the worst, I froze.

42:26.861 --> 42:29.485
[SPEAKER_01]: And I blamed myself for that, right?

42:29.625 --> 42:36.035
[SPEAKER_01]: As so many people who experience awfulness do, they blamed themselves and you're like, I should have done more.

42:36.556 --> 42:39.921
[SPEAKER_01]: But the thing is, is that I also, what got me,

42:40.154 --> 42:52.254
[SPEAKER_01]: to the place that I could hold that 11-year-old me a little differently and not blame her, which is what I was doing as an adult, was blaming a child for what they endured.

42:52.835 --> 43:03.071
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead, what happened for me is that I recognized that that little 11-year-old made the most intelligent choice she could make in the moment.

43:03.392 --> 43:05.976
[SPEAKER_01]: She was too small to fight back.

43:05.956 --> 43:09.361
[SPEAKER_01]: And she was incapable of running.

43:09.662 --> 43:11.905
[SPEAKER_01]: I was literally blocked away from me.

43:12.266 --> 43:17.153
[SPEAKER_01]: So the only choice she had to have in that moment was to endure.

43:17.213 --> 43:30.293
[SPEAKER_01]: And that is incredible that an 11-year-old had to make that choice in that moment to endure the worst things that were happening to her.

43:30.728 --> 43:45.717
[SPEAKER_01]: And to do that, because all the other options weren't available, and when I could see myself that way and go, oh my god, she had to just literally lay there and take it like

43:45.950 --> 43:55.619
[SPEAKER_01]: holy shit, like the gravity of that, how could you blame somebody in that moment when you think about it that way?

43:55.959 --> 44:09.271
[SPEAKER_01]: You see, at least for me, I saw myself so differently because all she was trying to do was just get through the moment when the scary thing was going to end and all the other options were not available.

44:09.291 --> 44:15.957
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that changed everything about how I look at her and how I look

44:15.937 --> 44:29.052
[SPEAKER_01]: the ways in which I navigated as an 11-year-old, like the awfulness, and you know, and that was my nervous systems preferred method for everything was to just freeze.

44:29.234 --> 44:34.000
[SPEAKER_01]: was to just endure, to just take it and then go, well, it's gonna end eventually.

44:34.541 --> 44:38.246
[SPEAKER_01]: And as an adult, I still to this day will do that.

44:38.747 --> 44:54.728
[SPEAKER_01]: And I can see and feel what it feels like now as an adult to like have to just be like frozen, want to go and do something and my entire body just not cooperate, not let me move, right?

44:55.309 --> 44:56.170
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's because

44:56.352 --> 45:02.961
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a system that worked that kept 11-year-old me safe and has been going on forever.

45:03.562 --> 45:08.308
[SPEAKER_01]: And I, I don't know, I can look at myself with so much more compassion because of it.

45:09.089 --> 45:17.060
[SPEAKER_01]: And that inner healing work with that little version of me has that has it just accelerated.

45:17.100 --> 45:20.925
[SPEAKER_01]: Getting me to this point in my healing journey where I can now,

45:21.226 --> 45:22.868
[SPEAKER_01]: talk about it without collapsing.

45:22.888 --> 45:29.277
[SPEAKER_01]: I can, you know, I can breathe as I talk about it, which before I would never be able to do.

45:29.297 --> 45:45.360
[SPEAKER_01]: I can understand myself so much more and have so much respect and reverence for a tiny human who was left alone to navigate something that was so scary that she didn't know what to do.

45:45.813 --> 46:03.739
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, that's so, I mean, I resonate with all of that and the respect piece is such a big part of it and I don't know about you, but because of the things I went to and my late teens and twenties, you know, if you are alive and breathe in, I'm like, let's have sex.

46:03.860 --> 46:05.742
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's build a connection.

46:05.762 --> 46:15.617
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's let me feel love from you for a micro moment and tell an orgasm and then on the backside of it, I'm sitting there like, I can't believe I've done this again.

46:15.597 --> 46:19.444
[SPEAKER_00]: and so much of the work has been moving towards respect.

46:19.924 --> 46:24.612
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, for myself, because if you don't respect yourself, you will not respect other people.

46:25.213 --> 46:30.082
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think people always have that backwards, where they're like, respect is given.

46:30.142 --> 46:31.063
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, no, no, no.

46:31.284 --> 46:32.466
[SPEAKER_00]: Respect is earned.

46:32.986 --> 46:33.467
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sorry.

46:33.487 --> 46:34.429
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to break it to you.

46:34.449 --> 46:36.272
[SPEAKER_00]: You got to earn your own respect.

46:36.252 --> 46:44.664
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, people by nature may a lot you respect because that's how we are as humans, but what happens the first time that you break that?

46:44.984 --> 46:46.186
[SPEAKER_00]: It's gone, right?

46:46.226 --> 46:50.752
[SPEAKER_00]: And for you, if you're always earning your respect, I mean, it's dumb shit, too.

46:50.792 --> 46:52.655
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, did I brush my teeth today?

46:53.036 --> 46:55.118
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I write the blog post I said I was going to write?

46:55.179 --> 46:57.362
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I go to the gym when I said I was going to go to the gym?

46:57.622 --> 46:58.723
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I show up to therapy?

46:59.384 --> 47:05.533
[SPEAKER_00]: Did I do the things I said I was going to do?

47:05.513 --> 47:06.795
[SPEAKER_00]: on the show over the years.

47:07.517 --> 47:07.897
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing.

47:08.058 --> 47:11.203
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, nothing on planet earth brings me more joy.

47:11.243 --> 47:26.070
[SPEAKER_00]: Then ordering pizza, playing video games, eating gummy bears, watching porn, hooking up with some stranger, getting shit-faced drunk, hanging out with people that bring no value to my life, driving too fast on the highway, and rinsing repeating it again every single day.

47:27.502 --> 47:27.782
[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

47:27.842 --> 47:33.910
[SPEAKER_00]: Because just like everyone who has experience trauma, like there's something great about numbing reality.

47:34.691 --> 47:40.058
[SPEAKER_00]: But when you sit in that, you show me that or show you the outcome of your life.

47:40.678 --> 47:44.243
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is an experience that you're going to die with regret.

47:44.844 --> 47:49.529
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just think if you can step into respect, whatever that means for you, because it's going to be different.

47:49.549 --> 47:50.771
[SPEAKER_00]: We all have a different journey.

47:51.232 --> 47:54.015
[SPEAKER_00]: Respect for you might be like taking a day off.

47:53.995 --> 47:54.295
[SPEAKER_00]: right?

47:54.355 --> 47:56.677
[SPEAKER_00]: Respect for you might be a myriad of things.

47:56.697 --> 47:57.678
[SPEAKER_00]: I've no idea.

47:58.199 --> 48:01.722
[SPEAKER_00]: But I do know it's like moving into that place in your adulthood.

48:02.002 --> 48:04.204
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like, these things don't serve me.

48:04.284 --> 48:13.473
[SPEAKER_00]: That is for me eight years old that was eight year old me needing to numb the deepest sense of suffering imaginable.

48:13.973 --> 48:23.682
[SPEAKER_00]: Being homeless at eight dealing with the things I did with in Stranger's houses, all the

48:23.662 --> 48:32.461
[SPEAKER_00]: but numbing doesn't serve you, it does not change your life, it does not make your life better, only respect us and only respect for yourself.

48:32.481 --> 48:38.413
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious for you, I'll add this one last piece for asked the question because I think it context matters.

48:39.760 --> 48:41.843
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know how to respect myself in the beginning.

48:42.404 --> 48:48.512
[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to hire people to teach me, because I didn't have parents who respected themselves.

48:48.612 --> 48:50.354
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't have a community that respected themselves.

48:50.394 --> 48:51.616
[SPEAKER_00]: I had no one around me.

48:51.996 --> 49:01.769
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this journey of getting to that was sitting in spaces with coaches, with therapists, with groups, with men's groups, with you name and I did it.

49:02.130 --> 49:08.198
[SPEAKER_00]: Just so I could get an ideal understanding about what it means to give a shit about yourself.

49:08.178 --> 49:11.450
[SPEAKER_00]: and some curious for you, what did that look like for you?

49:11.490 --> 49:17.833
[SPEAKER_00]: Because I think before you can even get to all the things we just talked about, you gotta get here first.

49:18.522 --> 49:28.816
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think, so I tried to build my sense of self and self-respect through achievement, through output, right?

49:29.117 --> 49:36.407
[SPEAKER_01]: So the more that, I mean, like, so my kind of philosophy was, you're not going to know why exist unless I'm achieving.

49:37.028 --> 49:40.293
[SPEAKER_01]: And then, and then other than that, like, I'm going to disappear.

49:40.453 --> 49:42.956
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to fade into the wallpaper, so to speak.

49:43.397 --> 49:45.660
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was,

49:45.860 --> 49:51.269
[SPEAKER_01]: constantly looking for different things that I could do that could, you know, you name the certifications.

49:51.289 --> 49:56.377
[SPEAKER_01]: I probably got them because like it was just like constantly because it was a distraction for my mind.

49:56.437 --> 50:06.113
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a way to focus all of this anxious energy that was existing in me into something that had clear walls, clear parameters.

50:06.093 --> 50:16.729
[SPEAKER_01]: So allow me to overachieve if you give me the rules for how to get an A, I'm going to get an A. I mean, I'm going to, and you want it on Tuesday, I'm going to have it to you the Friday before kind of situation.

50:16.749 --> 50:27.504
[SPEAKER_01]: I was always everything was urgent, everything was, if it wasn't an emergency, like kind of urgency kind of situation happening inside me, it didn't get done.

50:27.544 --> 50:32.151
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just

50:33.667 --> 50:53.835
[SPEAKER_01]: And also achievement became the shield that kept people from asking, hey, are you okay, because no one's going to ask that to the person who's always getting, you know, gold stars and doing the shit that she needed to be doing right and so the highest achievement, I could get I did so, you know, I was the first person in my family to get it to agree to go to college and get it agreed.

50:54.372 --> 50:55.453
[SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't stop there.

50:55.594 --> 50:59.058
[SPEAKER_01]: I went ahead and I got to undergraduate degrees a master's degree.

50:59.839 --> 51:05.726
[SPEAKER_01]: I went on toward my doctorate did everything except the dissertation because by that point, I'd started to burn myself out.

51:06.307 --> 51:11.233
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I added in all of these, you know, certifications and everything that you could imagine.

51:11.334 --> 51:16.380
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just like keep busy, keep busy because idle hands are the devil's playground, so to speak.

51:16.360 --> 51:21.165
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I never wanted to take an opportunity to look inward.

51:21.286 --> 51:30.876
[SPEAKER_01]: And so as long as I kept looking outward and as long as I kept getting rewarded for that, I never had to do the internal work until it all came crashing down on me.

51:30.916 --> 51:45.793
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when it crashed down on me and I had to like kind of go inward, the first thing that I realized is that I don't want to do this anymore.

51:46.432 --> 51:55.546
[SPEAKER_01]: pushing myself to always be more to always be better, because yes, there is, it is good to have goals, but I along the way never learned how to rest.

51:55.706 --> 51:57.289
[SPEAKER_01]: I never learned how to breathe.

51:57.449 --> 52:00.534
[SPEAKER_01]: I never learned how to be with myself.

52:01.135 --> 52:02.817
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I had to learn how to do that.

52:02.897 --> 52:05.942
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to learn how to just sit with myself.

52:06.209 --> 52:10.934
[SPEAKER_01]: which meant meditation, for example, was an absolute fucking nightmare.

52:11.274 --> 52:13.076
[SPEAKER_01]: I hated meditation.

52:13.216 --> 52:19.302
[SPEAKER_01]: I hated it because my mind would just spin and I would think, oh my God, I'm supposed to be doing this a certain way, I'm not doing it right, what am I supposed to do?

52:19.322 --> 52:19.802
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God.

52:20.383 --> 52:24.987
[SPEAKER_01]: And then the 30 minutes or the 15 minutes or whatever would be up and I would be like, well, I don't feel any better.

52:25.067 --> 52:26.829
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't understand what's going on here.

52:27.370 --> 52:36.098
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just had people like you said, being in spaces, saying, no, no, that's normal.

52:36.348 --> 52:37.270
[SPEAKER_01]: keep going.

52:37.310 --> 52:56.128
[SPEAKER_01]: And when someone normalizes that your experience of like whatever it is, like that energy, that chaos that's happening in you, when someone normalizes that for you for the first time ever, it is the most incredible breath of relief to be like,

52:56.429 --> 52:58.172
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my God, I'm not broken.

52:58.212 --> 53:03.760
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not so fucked up that I am too far gone and that this is as good as it's gonna get.

53:04.221 --> 53:12.914
[SPEAKER_01]: And people would tell me their stories and so listening to the stories of people who had done the work, who had gone on ahead and said, no, all of this is normal.

53:12.994 --> 53:13.996
[SPEAKER_01]: What you're going through?

53:14.036 --> 53:17.801
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been there or I resonate with that or that feels familiar.

53:18.743 --> 53:24.732
[SPEAKER_01]: You see the through line and then you suddenly start to go, oh, oh, I'm not an anomaly.

53:24.998 --> 53:26.921
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not natures mistake.

53:27.622 --> 53:31.107
[SPEAKER_01]: I am just like every other human that's gone through all of this.

53:31.308 --> 53:42.445
[SPEAKER_01]: And that means that if all of these other people who have gone before me and have done this work are now showing that they can get to the other side, so can I.

53:43.747 --> 53:45.049
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the most.

53:45.670 --> 53:48.537
[SPEAKER_01]: unbelievably relieving feeling.

53:48.677 --> 54:02.008
[SPEAKER_01]: And so just like you said, being in those spaces and being surrounded by people who have done this work and can tell you how normal it is is just so so relieving.

54:03.440 --> 54:20.248
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm so curious, this is kind of a very me kind of question because as the prototypical overachiever being on billboards in Times Square, writing for books, this podcast, coaching thousands of people, all the things.

54:21.270 --> 54:26.258
[SPEAKER_00]: Finding that space for rest was always my Achilles Hill.

54:26.238 --> 54:33.584
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I burned myself out three times, put myself in the hospital twice in the last 12-ish years, right?

54:33.664 --> 54:37.067
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just like, I've got to go next stage, next city, next thing.

54:37.468 --> 54:46.636
[SPEAKER_00]: And as many people know of listening to this show, we sparingly released for the last 18 months, because I was like, you know, I got to reset this bad.

54:46.936 --> 54:49.098
[SPEAKER_00]: So I went, did my thing.

54:49.658 --> 54:55.283
[SPEAKER_00]: And now that I'm back, I have implemented systems into my life that forced the break.

54:55.263 --> 55:01.015
[SPEAKER_00]: like they because I have to because I'm gonna fucking die if I keep doing what I was doing like literally.

55:01.055 --> 55:12.638
[SPEAKER_00]: And I realized that I had to, there was a sense of shame and guilt about taking time off because in the home that I grew up in, rest is not allowed.

55:13.139 --> 55:14.081
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not allowed.

55:14.122 --> 55:15.364
[SPEAKER_00]: That is not a thing.

55:15.344 --> 55:27.100
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I realized like the simple things that bring me joy, I had to go and find them and allow them to exist and not make them something that was a parallel to the success.

55:27.500 --> 55:31.686
[SPEAKER_00]: Because my brain is like, I'm gonna go pick up this hobby then I'm gonna be the best in the world, right?

55:31.766 --> 55:34.029
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, that doesn't fucking serve you.

55:34.590 --> 55:40.137
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'm curious, what did you, what did you personally replace a accomplishment with?

55:41.332 --> 55:44.175
[SPEAKER_01]: So for me it's still an ongoing thing.

55:44.255 --> 56:04.099
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to lie because I very much have I very much have that same idea of like oh if I'm going to do something I'm going to fucking go all in and now I'm going to be the best there is at it and that's just how it's going to be and I in some ways I love that about myself right I don't want to lose that I don't want to lose that drive to be the best.

56:04.349 --> 56:09.994
[SPEAKER_01]: but it's about orienting yourself and realizing you can be, you can't be the best in everything.

56:10.014 --> 56:14.598
[SPEAKER_01]: You just can't, like we can all talk about like that and like that sounds great, you know, and all of that.

56:14.838 --> 56:17.801
[SPEAKER_01]: But we can't be, it's just not physically sustainable.

56:17.821 --> 56:20.484
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you said, you're going to burn yourself out if you do.

56:21.044 --> 56:24.327
[SPEAKER_01]: And so an I grew up in a place where rest was associated with lazy.

56:24.487 --> 56:26.649
[SPEAKER_01]: If you were just chilling out, you were lazy.

56:26.709 --> 56:27.550
[SPEAKER_01]: What the fuck are you doing?

56:27.590 --> 56:28.611
[SPEAKER_01]: You get to work.

56:28.671 --> 56:33.175
[SPEAKER_01]: There's something that you need to go do to make yourself better.

56:33.458 --> 56:37.086
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that healing can also fall into that trap too, right?

56:37.126 --> 56:45.545
[SPEAKER_01]: Like where we're constantly trying to heal ourselves, make ourselves better, always, always, always, that we don't actually just stop and breathe.

56:45.926 --> 56:50.196
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is where mindfulness for me has really been the key, right?

56:50.256 --> 56:51.940
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that that present moment?

56:52.240 --> 56:59.209
[SPEAKER_01]: And I resisted the present moment with everything in me because it was like, well, what am I supposed to be doing in this moment?

56:59.309 --> 57:00.771
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't I need to be doing something?

57:00.891 --> 57:02.413
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, no, you already are.

57:02.974 --> 57:04.135
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you exist.

57:04.516 --> 57:05.257
[SPEAKER_01]: You're breathing.

57:05.617 --> 57:07.279
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, in mindfulness.

57:07.399 --> 57:10.864
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, when you are being mindful, you can work and be mindful.

57:10.944 --> 57:13.507
[SPEAKER_01]: You can have conversations and be mindful.

57:13.627 --> 57:14.248
[SPEAKER_01]: You can,

57:14.228 --> 57:16.331
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, take a walk and be mindful.

57:16.391 --> 57:17.753
[SPEAKER_01]: You can eat and be mindful.

57:17.773 --> 57:18.614
[SPEAKER_01]: All of the things, right?

57:18.694 --> 57:30.290
[SPEAKER_01]: We can exist in our life and that's what I realized achievement was doing was taking me out of my life because I was constantly focused on this in goal.

57:30.370 --> 57:31.592
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it take to get the A?

57:31.632 --> 57:34.075
[SPEAKER_01]: What is it take to be the best at something?

57:34.095 --> 57:42.767
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was always looking at the finish line and never looking at where

57:43.068 --> 57:54.285
[SPEAKER_01]: stepping back and sitting in that stillness as hard as that was was the absolute best thing I could have done for myself because I learned how to rest.

57:54.405 --> 58:00.094
[SPEAKER_01]: I learned that rest isn't just a reward that we get when we get to the end of the race.

58:00.314 --> 58:08.907
[SPEAKER_01]: Rest is what makes the race manageable because our nervous system needs to come down from continuous states of activation.

58:09.157 --> 58:12.521
[SPEAKER_01]: in order to be able to find that activation again.

58:12.561 --> 58:24.336
[SPEAKER_01]: And so after experiencing my own level of burnout where I just, I was crashing and everything felt like it was falling apart and I didn't know who I was when I wasn't achieving.

58:24.356 --> 58:29.082
[SPEAKER_01]: I had to ask myself, well, who do I want to be if I'm not achieving?

58:29.462 --> 58:38.353
[SPEAKER_01]: And that question changed things for me because when I stopped saying like, well, who, like, I'm the achiever and I started to say, well, who am I if I'm not that?

58:38.333 --> 58:48.095
[SPEAKER_01]: And I started to make room for possibility and that allowed other options that maybe I never would have seen because I was so focused on achievement.

58:48.576 --> 58:56.815
[SPEAKER_01]: It allowed me to see all the other possibilities that exist and that I can be someone who can just sit on the floor and play with their dog and that's not.

58:57.284 --> 58:58.246
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's okay.

58:58.546 --> 58:59.528
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's not wrong.

59:00.189 --> 59:09.525
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guess I just, I always come back to achievement is beautiful until it is everything that you are hinging your entire life on.

59:10.166 --> 59:13.352
[SPEAKER_01]: And when you are saying, I am nothing if I don't achieve.

59:13.720 --> 59:16.304
[SPEAKER_01]: you've missed the boat somewhere, right?

59:16.424 --> 59:20.589
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like, that's the point in which you step back and you look at it and you go wait a minute.

59:20.890 --> 59:23.053
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I still achieve and rest?

59:23.373 --> 59:34.929
[SPEAKER_01]: Can I still achieve and be kind to myself and be gentle with myself and be present in the moment and exist where my life is happening and be where my feet are and achievement still happen.

59:35.490 --> 59:43.120
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's one thing in this present moment I can do to move me forward without that sense of urgency behind it.

59:43.403 --> 59:44.504
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and guess what?

59:44.524 --> 59:46.466
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't take your achievements with you to the grave.

59:47.086 --> 59:50.690
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is not a me as a hard Alex from Aussie say that.

59:50.750 --> 59:55.134
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure he's not the first person ever to say it, but he was like, name your great, great grandfather.

59:55.154 --> 59:56.435
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you can't.

59:57.096 --> 01:00:00.219
[SPEAKER_00]: Almost anyone I ever asked that question to, they cannot.

01:00:00.879 --> 01:00:02.020
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you think about it.

01:00:02.040 --> 01:00:03.742
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you have your outliers sure.

01:00:03.802 --> 01:00:07.445
[SPEAKER_00]: People remember the Rockefellers, they'll remember Elon Musk great.

01:00:07.966 --> 01:00:10.508
[SPEAKER_00]: Those are one single lifetime people.

01:00:10.488 --> 01:00:13.933
[SPEAKER_00]: and it's not that you can't be that much probably ain't going to and that's fine.

01:00:13.993 --> 01:00:30.838
[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm certainly not I have no inclination or mental fortitude to do whatever it is that those people have done and that's cool and so it's like I'm going to work really hard now and do the best that I can but this I did just always trying to accomplish the next thing I feel so much free letting that go.

01:00:30.878 --> 01:00:32.240
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean I'm not driven.

01:00:32.480 --> 01:00:36.546
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean we're going to go to do amazing world changing things because we are

01:00:36.526 --> 01:00:40.650
[SPEAKER_00]: It just means that in between that, like you said, you know, can you play with the dog?

01:00:40.690 --> 01:00:41.751
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you go out on date?

01:00:41.811 --> 01:00:43.572
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you have dinner with friends?

01:00:43.652 --> 01:00:47.516
[SPEAKER_00]: Can you whatever that thing is that you used to say no to all the time?

01:00:47.676 --> 01:00:48.697
[SPEAKER_00]: Like be a human.

01:00:49.558 --> 01:00:51.860
[SPEAKER_00]: Megan, this has been just a wonderful conversation.

01:00:51.900 --> 01:00:55.523
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that people, I know I certainly have got a lot out of this.

01:00:56.304 --> 01:01:00.408
[SPEAKER_00]: But before I ask you the last question, I want to dive in and talk about the new book you've written.

01:01:00.488 --> 01:01:03.030
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to talk about the experience in writing that.

01:01:03.150 --> 01:01:04.491
[SPEAKER_00]: Why you've brought this out?

01:01:04.631 --> 01:01:06.533
[SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, who it's for?

01:01:06.513 --> 01:01:16.731
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, so my book is called Everwoven, a memoir and a reckoning, and it was originally, I mean, I'll be honest, it was for me, right?

01:01:16.791 --> 01:01:31.677
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was sat down and I wrote this book because it is a conversation between present me and the past versions of me who live through like, you know, the shit show that was my life for the first, you know, 28 years.

01:01:31.994 --> 01:01:38.643
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted them to be able to have the opportunity to say their story in their words, right?

01:01:38.783 --> 01:01:50.758
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I really wanted to have that dialogue with myself, where I could offer the patience and the compassion with myself that I had never been able to offer before.

01:01:50.838 --> 01:01:58.508
[SPEAKER_01]: But really also, I wanted to channel those versions of me to say this is your chance to say what you never said before.

01:01:58.707 --> 01:02:02.672
[SPEAKER_01]: because you didn't think somebody would listen to you because it didn't think it would matter because whatever.

01:02:03.353 --> 01:02:05.976
[SPEAKER_01]: And so to give to honor them, right?

01:02:06.136 --> 01:02:09.820
[SPEAKER_01]: As a way of saying, okay, I've got you, I'm gonna set you down.

01:02:10.241 --> 01:02:11.683
[SPEAKER_01]: But I had to face myself.

01:02:11.903 --> 01:02:20.233
[SPEAKER_01]: And so so much of the book is like kind of the questions that like that 11-year-old version of me wants to ask me, right?

01:02:20.353 --> 01:02:22.115
[SPEAKER_01]: Like why the fuck didn't you believe me?

01:02:22.255 --> 01:02:25.339
[SPEAKER_01]: Why the fuck did you blame me when, you know, it was

01:02:25.319 --> 01:02:26.821
[SPEAKER_01]: when all of this was going on.

01:02:27.361 --> 01:02:29.404
[SPEAKER_01]: Or, yeah, I have holes in my memory.

01:02:29.444 --> 01:02:31.706
[SPEAKER_01]: That doesn't mean that something's wrong with me, right?

01:02:32.207 --> 01:02:36.952
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, those kinds of questions that sit inside your head and just stew.

01:02:37.052 --> 01:02:39.815
[SPEAKER_01]: So I put them all on paper, initially, just for me.

01:02:40.476 --> 01:02:42.278
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I thought about it.

01:02:42.318 --> 01:02:50.888
[SPEAKER_01]: And I thought this is a story that is not so much about what I went through, but about what life is like after you go through it.

01:02:51.205 --> 01:03:00.051
[SPEAKER_01]: and so it's about that picking up the pieces right so it's not the survival story it's what comes after and about picking up the pieces of a life that

01:03:00.233 --> 01:03:24.891
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't really fully understand that somebody like that doesn't even necessarily always feel like it's yours because it's been defined by the external validation and opinions and actions of others and so this was also an essence away to reclaim my own life, my own stories, my own memories and say this is the truth as I know it.

01:03:24.871 --> 01:03:37.113
[SPEAKER_01]: And to put it out there in the world because what we so often see in books about survival is that people go through bad shit and then they live through it, they made it the end.

01:03:37.774 --> 01:03:40.198
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's like not the end.

01:03:40.499 --> 01:03:49.174
[SPEAKER_01]: For most people going through the bad thing is the beginning and everything that comes after it and the ways in which we reorient our lives,

01:03:49.272 --> 01:03:51.700
[SPEAKER_01]: around what happened to us.

01:03:52.322 --> 01:04:00.548
[SPEAKER_01]: And the stories that we tell ourselves and how those become limiting beliefs and defining characteristics of who we think we are.

01:04:00.899 --> 01:04:04.385
[SPEAKER_01]: all of that gets left out of a traditional trauma story.

01:04:04.505 --> 01:04:08.932
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that at least for me, I needed that book in the world.

01:04:09.212 --> 01:04:17.466
[SPEAKER_01]: I needed a book that said, hey, here's all of the things that kind of as as someone who's going through survival mode, this is what I'm experiencing.

01:04:17.526 --> 01:04:22.654
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can see the chaos in the ways in which I've kind of wrestle with myself back and forth.

01:04:22.634 --> 01:04:30.727
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted that story when I was going through it and it didn't exist and so I was like well, I'm not the only person who wants this story.

01:04:30.767 --> 01:04:42.366
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is for anyone who wants to know that what they're going through and the ways in which they are feeling this internal battle in tension within themselves, that that's normal.

01:04:42.486 --> 01:04:47.815
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's about creating that space where someone normalizes what

01:04:47.795 --> 01:04:57.198
[SPEAKER_01]: we all kind of go through but we don't ever really seem to talk about that much or that we talk about it too high of a level that we don't get to hear it in a way that feels personal and real.

01:04:57.679 --> 01:05:02.010
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for me, that's really kind of what the book is about and why I wrote it.

01:05:02.030 --> 01:05:02.952
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, amazing.

01:05:02.932 --> 01:05:14.775
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of those things that as I was skimming through it and I unfortunately did not have time to read the entire book, but there were bits and pieces I'd read, and it would just make me think about when I wrote Think and Broken.

01:05:14.875 --> 01:05:19.725
[SPEAKER_00]: When I wrote my first book now seven, eight years ago, I don't know whenever it was a long time ago.

01:05:19.705 --> 01:05:25.594
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was like, I wrote this because I had this feeling of like, I don't have this book in the world.

01:05:25.694 --> 01:05:27.237
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not accessible to me.

01:05:27.257 --> 01:05:28.679
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to go and do it.

01:05:29.080 --> 01:05:32.505
[SPEAKER_00]: And I actually did get that vibe reading because I never thought about that.

01:05:32.525 --> 01:05:35.249
[SPEAKER_00]: But constantly, I'd be having these conversations with myself.

01:05:35.810 --> 01:05:37.553
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's just so potent.

01:05:38.054 --> 01:05:39.756
[SPEAKER_00]: And I hope that people will go out and get it.

01:05:39.917 --> 01:05:46.607
[SPEAKER_00]: And just quickly, if you can tell everyone where they can meet up with you, connect with you, get the book, tell everybody where you're at.

01:05:46.790 --> 01:05:49.635
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so the book is available on Amazon.

01:05:49.695 --> 01:06:00.073
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called Everwoven, and then it's also available on IndieBound, which so if you like to buy from a local independent bookstore, you can get it through IndieBound and then pick it up at your bookstore.

01:06:00.093 --> 01:06:01.615
[SPEAKER_01]: It's also available at Barnes and Noble.

01:06:01.695 --> 01:06:04.460
[SPEAKER_01]: So kind of all the big major retailers here in the US.

01:06:04.480 --> 01:06:05.001
[SPEAKER_01]: You can,

01:06:04.981 --> 01:06:06.483
[SPEAKER_01]: you can find it and get it ordered.

01:06:06.623 --> 01:06:10.008
[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's an audio book and candle version as well.

01:06:10.509 --> 01:06:14.895
[SPEAKER_01]: And then to find me, my website is MeganMargario.com.

01:06:14.935 --> 01:06:17.759
[SPEAKER_01]: You can find me on Instagram and on TikTok as well.

01:06:17.839 --> 01:06:34.262
[SPEAKER_01]: I do a lot of conversations about just like these little nuggets about letting joy in and the ways in which we can just soften ourselves a little bit to allow more good to come in and why letting that come in even in moments when it feels like the entire world is crashing down.

01:06:34.546 --> 01:06:38.695
[SPEAKER_01]: why letting joy in is an act of resistance and an act of self love.

01:06:39.557 --> 01:06:40.138
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, love it.

01:06:40.158 --> 01:06:46.111
[SPEAKER_00]: And guys, remember, if you go to think unbroken podcast.com, there will be that and more in the show notes for you.

01:06:46.953 --> 01:06:48.697
[SPEAKER_00]: My last question for you, my friend.

01:06:48.757 --> 01:06:51.643
[SPEAKER_00]: What does it mean to you to be unbroken?

01:06:53.429 --> 01:06:54.430
[SPEAKER_01]: it's possibility.

01:06:54.771 --> 01:07:03.423
[SPEAKER_01]: I think is the single most important way to think about it is that you have an endless array of options available to you.

01:07:03.503 --> 01:07:10.492
[SPEAKER_01]: When you are on broken, you are not, you are like kind of to use an image like the Phoenix, right?

01:07:10.552 --> 01:07:17.302
[SPEAKER_01]: Rising out of the ashes, you have the ability to control your life on broken means sovereign.

01:07:18.123 --> 01:07:22.609
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a recognition within you that wholeness is

01:07:22.943 --> 01:07:36.615
[SPEAKER_01]: But also just a belief that where you go and who you are and who you become all of it is exactly perfect and wonderful and needed in this world.

01:07:37.388 --> 01:07:38.670
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that.

01:07:39.170 --> 01:07:40.813
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for being here.

01:07:40.873 --> 01:07:42.074
[SPEAKER_00]: Unbroken nation my friends.

01:07:42.115 --> 01:07:43.577
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you guys so much for listening.

01:07:44.017 --> 01:07:52.709
[SPEAKER_00]: If today's episode brought any value or hope for joy into your life and the post traumatic healing growth journey that you're on share this with someone.

01:07:52.889 --> 01:07:57.376
[SPEAKER_00]: I guarantee you someone in your circle someone in your life in your community maybe in your group.

01:07:57.896 --> 01:08:04.105
[SPEAKER_00]: They could use today's conversation and so you're making a huge impact in their lives as well when you do that.

01:08:05.857 --> 01:08:07.380
[SPEAKER_00]: and we appreciate you listening.

01:08:07.501 --> 01:08:12.752
[SPEAKER_00]: So until next time my friends, take care of yourself, take care of each other, and be unbroken.

01:08:13.554 --> 01:08:16.039
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for listening to Think and Broken.

01:08:16.560 --> 01:08:24.237
[SPEAKER_00]: Please share this episode with someone who can use it and help us move forward in our mission of ending generational trauma in our lifetime.

01:08:24.217 --> 01:08:36.173
[SPEAKER_00]: If you would please take five seconds to pop on iTunes or Spotify, hit that five star leave a review and you can also reach out to us on social at Michael Unbroken or at Think Unbroken.

01:08:36.574 --> 01:08:40.466
[SPEAKER_00]: And of course you can check out our YouTube channel at Think Unbroken.

01:08:40.807 --> 01:08:46.765
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for being a part of Unbroken Nation, my friends, and until next time, be Unbroken.