[SPEAKER_02]: the lies we tell ourselves about ourselves.

[SPEAKER_02]: We all carry private stories about who we are, not because they're true, but because at some point they kept us safe.

[SPEAKER_02]: The quiet scripts running in the background shaping the way we see ourselves long before we even notice that they're there.

[SPEAKER_02]: These aren't random thoughts, they're survival narratives that end up writing for more of our lives than we realize.

[SPEAKER_02]: How we internalize them?

[SPEAKER_02]: The lies we care about ourselves often begin before we even have words for them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes they're spoken out right.

[SPEAKER_02]: You're too sensitive, you'll never get it right.

[SPEAKER_02]: But just as often, they're absorbed through settler channels, the size, the eye rolls, the silence when we reach for comfort.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're shaped by the roles we were cast into, the scapegoat, who learns I'm the problem, the golden child who learns.

[SPEAKER_02]: My worth is in performance.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're carved by inconsistency, where love and safety were unpredictable, leaving us to conclude [SPEAKER_02]: even what was missing, the hug that never came, the question never asked, can deliver a message as loud as any insult?

[SPEAKER_02]: How they show up in our lives.

[SPEAKER_02]: These early messages don't stay confined to childhood.

[SPEAKER_02]: They follow us like ghosts shaping how we move through the world.

[SPEAKER_02]: They echo in our self-talk in the jobs we take, in the way our shoulders hunch or our voice falters when we speak.

[SPEAKER_02]: They script our relationships.

[SPEAKER_02]: We chase partners who confirm our unworthiness.

[SPEAKER_02]: We fawn and overgave to avoid being a burden.

[SPEAKER_02]: We censor joy or anger because too much still feels dangerous.

[SPEAKER_02]: They sneak into work as perfectionism and posture syndrome or workaholism.

[SPEAKER_02]: They're not just thoughts in our heads, they become postures, patterns, and entire relational templates.

[SPEAKER_02]: How they protect us.

[SPEAKER_02]: As painful as these lies are, they began as brilliant forms of protection.

[SPEAKER_02]: Believe me, I'm stupid, might have been safer than asking questions and risking humiliation.

[SPEAKER_02]: Believe me, I'm unlovable, spirit ass from facing the unbearable grief that our caregivers couldn't give us what we needed.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm too much with a shield against attack.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm fine, a cloak of invisibility in a volatile home.

[SPEAKER_02]: Each lie is in nervous system's way of creating order out of chaos, giving us a sense of control in situations where we had none.

[SPEAKER_02]: They may sabotage us now, but at the time, they were the stories that kept us alive, confronting the lies.

[SPEAKER_02]: Facing these old beliefs isn't about wiping the slate clean, it's about shifting the relationship we have with them.

[SPEAKER_02]: Some will fall away completely once we see them for what they are.

[SPEAKER_02]: Others may never fully disappear but instead soften into background noise no longer running the show.

[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes life throws us a curveball, a breakup, a rejection, a failed project, and the old story roars back as if it's been confirmed.

[SPEAKER_02]: In those moments, it's crucial to remember the pain is real, but it doesn't mean the lie is true.

[SPEAKER_02]: The same event that feels like proof of I'm unlovable may actually be evidence of your capacity to risk love in the first place.

[SPEAKER_02]: Some questions?

[SPEAKER_02]: What is a lie about yourself that you still struggle with?

[SPEAKER_02]: How does it show up in your life today?

[SPEAKER_02]: And what do you think it's trying to protect you from?

[SPEAKER_02]: What's a lie you've been able to acquire it or even release completely?

[SPEAKER_02]: What helps you loosen its grip?

[SPEAKER_02]: When you think about the lies you carry, [SPEAKER_02]: where they give into directly in words or absorbed more subtly through tone, silence, or behavior.

[SPEAKER_02]: And are there any significant memories bigger, small that stand out as moments where one of these lies was planted or reinforced?

[SPEAKER_02]: So I thank for me the biggest lie that I've overcome.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I would say it's gone pretty much completely.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that is the lie that once you get to know me, you won't like me.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that haunted me for such a long time and just kind of lived in this, it either showed up as a constant hyper vigilance, [SPEAKER_02]: masking my personality like trying to to tone it down or trying to twist myself into who I thought I needed to be in order for that person to like me or by just not even giving you an opportunity to get to know me just pushing you away completely and I don't struggle.

[SPEAKER_02]: without anymore.

[SPEAKER_02]: I think my problem more so now is like am I going to like anybody?

[SPEAKER_02]: Am I going to like you?

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that feels really nice to not to not struggle with that.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think the biggest growth has been when relationships have [SPEAKER_02]: dissolved and did, I've been ghosted that I've been able to know that it's not about me.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I will say that I think that this will always come up for me like when I have anxious attachment, like in early stages of dating, I still do struggle with the, [SPEAKER_02]: just out of nowhere like for absolutely no reason that a guy is going to decide that they don't like me anymore.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so that does that definitely does still show up in romantic relationships.

[SPEAKER_02]: Some things that I struggled with and something that came up for me today in my IFS session was I have a belief that like I meant to struggle that I'll always struggle.

[SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of safety.

[SPEAKER_02]: In that, like, I felt safe at home when I was struggling.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like, when the attention in the focus was on me and when I was the problem, I felt a lot safer in the home.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I also realized too that it was a way for me to get my mom's love in a way because [SPEAKER_02]: When I was struggling, she always went to bat for me against my dad.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I think that there's a part of me that feels like it doesn't believe that I'm not capable of not struggling, but that I'll just...

[SPEAKER_02]: always default to that in a way, and I think another thing that comes up for me is that I'm just not meant to have what I would consider as like a normal life.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I think a lot of that two stems from having a very abnormal childhood of like getting sent to [SPEAKER_02]: rehabs and boarding schools and not doing the normal high school things and not having a normal college experience and there's just a part of me that believes that just things the life that most people have and the trajectory that most people follow that will never happen for me and I do struggle still with the belief of I'll never have the life that like I want exactly.

[SPEAKER_02]: But I just want to say to you that I had like a really bad dissociation day.

[SPEAKER_02]: I just got sucked into my phone.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just saying out loud that like that's okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's okay when we have those days where you don't get shit done.

[SPEAKER_02]: And so I'm not beating myself up for that.

[SPEAKER_02]: But it was just like one of those days where I just got sucked in.

[SPEAKER_02]: And then it's like three hours later.

[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like what the fuck am I doing?

[SPEAKER_02]: So I didn't get anything done today.

[SPEAKER_02]: And that's okay.

[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm just saying that out loud because in case [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I feel like I'm full of faulty beliefs.

[SPEAKER_01]: One of the biggest laws that was ingrained in me has a young age that I was never going to make it to I was 40 years old.

[SPEAKER_01]: I never believed I would make it this stage of my life from the headeric and all the craziness things I used to do when I was younger.

[SPEAKER_01]: more of the adrenaline junkie right and doing crazy things of jumping off things and bridges and stupid stuff.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't ever believe that I was going to make it to this age, so I've just never plain anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: And so there were no goals in my life.

[SPEAKER_01]: of what I wanted to do, of who I wanted to be, or where I wanted to take myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I always felt like wherever the wind took me.

[SPEAKER_01]: And in the end, I was lying to myself.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was that reactor.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was not an actor.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was not a, I'm not a, I was not a participant.

[SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't steering the ship.

[SPEAKER_01]: And this program in this group here has given me that path forward of seeing a future and seeing that, that I'm worthy of it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I should actually care about myself and actually, [SPEAKER_01]: Having a little bit of self-love will help those lives.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those masks and everything else that I've been carrying.

[SPEAKER_01]: Help these little bits of fucking loneliness journey.

[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you what, I've been here over three years and I'm like, wow, it's like I have been closed, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: I've been closed.

[SPEAKER_01]: And those lives that I do tell myself, it's not true.

[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: It takes a lot of people's stories to convince ourselves that we've been lying to ourselves a lot.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when we lie to ourselves, we lie to our friends, and we lie to our family, and we lie to everybody else.

[SPEAKER_01]: No matter who suffers, we suffer.

[SPEAKER_01]: I suffer.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's crazy how you don't think you're lying to yourself, but you're actually doing it.

[SPEAKER_01]: You know, always said, just tell the truth, it's a lot easier.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it is to use your tell the truth, but lying to yourself, but it's always easy to be deceitful to yourself.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's my share and thanks for letting me share.

[SPEAKER_06]: So, I biggest negative core belief, negative false belief.

[SPEAKER_06]: In my family of origin, it was that I'm stupid.

[SPEAKER_06]: Both of my parents, my three brothers, there was a lot of that messaging, I was supposed to know how to do things without getting any guidance around how to actually do it and there was just a lot of [SPEAKER_06]: remarks made and then this brother, you know, that I have the biggest issue with, I came to realize this as an adult.

[SPEAKER_06]: Like, he just always had a lot of resentment towards me.

[SPEAKER_06]: He's the adopted brother.

[SPEAKER_06]: We're five and a half months apart.

[SPEAKER_06]: My parents had their second child to die at 18 months.

[SPEAKER_06]: Then they started adoption proceedings and she's pregnant with me and I don't know.

[SPEAKER_06]: This is just all kind of mixed up in that as far as I think the dynamics between [SPEAKER_06]: but he always had something to prove that he was smarter than me, better than me, new to how to do it, things, always wanted to show me that he was superior in some way.

[SPEAKER_06]: So his wife made some remarks to me things that he said to her when I was living there when we were taking care of our mother at the end of her life.

[SPEAKER_06]: That made me see that he actually he does have resentment towards my really believe he has a lot of resentment, but he also saw some things in me that he was maybe a little jealous of or admired in me, but couldn't admit to.

[SPEAKER_06]: And that was pretty revelatory when I heard those things because I never really saw that he had any.

[SPEAKER_06]: I think they were hearing me.

[SPEAKER_08]: Sorry, I just taking notes because this is just, I don't know, it's stirring up a lot of things and my chest is just, boom.

[SPEAKER_08]: It's so true about the fact that what you were saying earlier, the first, you know, that we, I've lined it myself.

[SPEAKER_08]: And this reading is helping me realize that.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I've been such a true seeker [SPEAKER_08]: always been so important to me.

[SPEAKER_08]: A don't like liars.

[SPEAKER_08]: I don't like to be lied to.

[SPEAKER_08]: I have a very hard time trusting people.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I strongly believe that that is because of the environment that I grew up on, you know, there was always a behind-the-scenes plans, manipulation, critiques, comments, stories.

[SPEAKER_08]: No one ever could come directly to me.

[SPEAKER_08]: It was like always kind of like, [SPEAKER_08]: behind, you know, my back.

[SPEAKER_08]: And it was always spun.

[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, it's in your best interest.

[SPEAKER_08]: But I've now learned that that is what narcissistic parents do.

[SPEAKER_08]: And they especially pit siblings against each other.

[SPEAKER_08]: And that definitely happened with my middle sister and I.

And there was always this narrative that I was [SPEAKER_08]: too much I was too successful, too this, too that, too intense, too passionate and I needed to tone it down because it was too much for my sister to handle and she was going through too much and I just needed to deal with whatever it was that I was dealing with or just a silent because just her having to talk to me about something or me offering help.

[SPEAKER_08]: was too much for her and, you know, it's told by my parents, especially my mom that, oh, you know how she has just not going to take this well, I'll just, I'll talk to her about it for you.

[SPEAKER_08]: And now that I've been no contact with them for three years, you know, and I gaslit myself for so long that, you know, if you've got your family, especially your parents, [SPEAKER_08]: your closest friends, your partners.

[SPEAKER_08]: They tell you the same thing that, yeah, you are a bad sister, you are this, you are that you do believe it.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I just was like, okay, well, all these people are telling me that's it's gotta be true.

[SPEAKER_08]: But I see now that that's not true.

[SPEAKER_08]: And that is one of the lies that I think that I now have debunked in my mind and accepted that I am not a bad sister.

[SPEAKER_08]: I was not a bad sister.

[SPEAKER_08]: Yes, I have toxic traits [SPEAKER_08]: But I'm not this evil two-faced person that was always told that I was.

[SPEAKER_08]: I really don't believe that.

[SPEAKER_08]: And my husband agrees now that he's seen her for who she is.

[SPEAKER_08]: And the other big lie I think also too is that I don't never ever believe that I would be without my mom that I could survive her function.

[SPEAKER_08]: Like I just couldn't imagine it.

[SPEAKER_08]: When all of this happened, I just could not.

[SPEAKER_08]: I told myself there's no way.

[SPEAKER_08]: And here I am three years later, financially independent.

[SPEAKER_08]: took a lot of sweat and tears and lots of sleepless nights but I did it and I know this is being recorded so anybody listening if you are struggling with just relationships with your parents or someone in general you know you can do it it is hard it is hard as fuck and I struggle every day but my god the reward is the freedom and I would not give that up for anything in the world [SPEAKER_08]: And just me realizing right now that I debunked that lie, that I can live without her.

[SPEAKER_08]: I can function without her.

[SPEAKER_08]: And I'm actually better without her is I think the greatest gift in all of this.

[SPEAKER_08]: So thank you for listening.

[SPEAKER_04]: Yes, do that too.

[SPEAKER_04]: So I wrote down like a list, a whole big list of them.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I think the one that has impacted me the most and stayed with me the longest [SPEAKER_04]: thought, and that really comes from no emotional safety as a child.

[SPEAKER_04]: My mother was alcoholic and berry.

[SPEAKER_04]: hot cold, very, very, very abusive with her words and physically too, but like she would consistently tell on the second of three daughters and she would consistently tell me and my younger sister that we were the reason she was unhappy.

[SPEAKER_04]: We were the reason she was an alcohol.

[SPEAKER_04]: She only wanted one daughter and [SPEAKER_04]: Why couldn't we be like our older sister and so many memories have things like that and just know physical closeness or intimacy were very few.

[SPEAKER_04]: I love using the house even among my siblings.

[SPEAKER_04]: There was very, very little of that.

[SPEAKER_04]: There was just no safe emotional space.

[SPEAKER_04]: And that has just caused me through my life to be fear of intimacy like ready to flee, that's kind of like the feeling that I have all the time, as soon as somebody gets too close for things get a little too, you know, too uncomfortable.

[SPEAKER_04]: I'll just, I'll just be ready to flee.

[SPEAKER_04]: I can leave before they leave me kind of thing.

[SPEAKER_04]: And it has really only been in and probably the last two years that I have started to understand that it's not necessarily a fear of closeness and connection.

[SPEAKER_04]: I have it's that I don't know what to do with it if I have it.

[SPEAKER_04]: So it's been [SPEAKER_04]: really difficult.

[SPEAKER_04]: It's been a couple of years since I got divorced.

[SPEAKER_04]: And as it would go, all of the things that I figured out about myself and how I function in relationships that could have helped that relationship now, you know, they're just me over here hanging out with my new skills.

[SPEAKER_04]: But I do think that there's.

[SPEAKER_04]: definitely a path out of that, even when they're super deeply ingrained, you just have to get away from those people.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, you know, my mother's been to 25 this year's now and it took me probably eight or nine years after her death to stop hearing her voice in my head all the time.

[SPEAKER_04]: And now I only hear her voice when I'm significantly triggered, and I think that is miraculous, but just a lot of, a lot of fear and sadness as a child.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I think when you grow up with those two emotions being prevalent, you'd really don't know how to accept or absorb safety and happiness.

[SPEAKER_04]: So, it's definitely been a journey.

[SPEAKER_04]: And I'm glad that I figured out how to get on.

[SPEAKER_04]: the journey.

[SPEAKER_04]: So appreciate you guys.

[SPEAKER_07]: Both my parents were alcoholics and their version of love is, you know, embarrassing you like ridiculing you just being down right mean, but oh, they love you.

[SPEAKER_07]: My dad's favorite line would be if I didn't pick on you, you wouldn't know that I love you.

[SPEAKER_07]: And I was like, oh, wonderful.

[SPEAKER_07]: Like that feels great.

[SPEAKER_07]: And that's still how they are to this day.

[SPEAKER_07]: And it's like, I want my whole life thinking all these bad things about me, you know, I was always told about my real father and how bad he was.

[SPEAKER_07]: And oh, guess what, guys, he's bucket off the rocker now.

[SPEAKER_07]: And he's called me four times in the last week, high office ass.

[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm his only person to call for support.

[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm like, trying to come him out and I'm like, oh my God, how have we come full circle?

[SPEAKER_07]: My father now is here at this point.

[SPEAKER_07]: In last year, I was entering hospital.

[SPEAKER_07]: Like, what, oh, how am I doing this?

[SPEAKER_07]: But I'm doing it.

[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm getting through it without freaking out so much, just inside, I'm like swirling.

[SPEAKER_07]: I talked to my therapist the other day [SPEAKER_07]: how I move forward with this if he does not get a grip on his sobriety because [SPEAKER_07]: Part of me is, you know, he has nobody, and I want to be there if he needs me.

[SPEAKER_07]: So I am just dealing with so much with that, and it's just bringing the circle of being told I was bad like him and all this negative stuff, and you know what?

[SPEAKER_07]: The fuck I was like, no, no, no, no.

[SPEAKER_07]: I was born to already struggle with the addiction from both sides.

[SPEAKER_07]: with toxic, emotionally immature parents who are also abusive, can now be hollow.

[SPEAKER_07]: It's like, what the fuck do you think was gonna happen?

[SPEAKER_07]: You're lucky that I made that in their own life.

[SPEAKER_07]: And now, fuck yeah, I get to celebrate my year of sobriety tomorrow.

[SPEAKER_07]: Goddamn, I passed my license, I'm sober like, [SPEAKER_07]: Who would have thought I could do this?

[SPEAKER_07]: And you know what?

[SPEAKER_07]: I really owe a lot to this group because I was not doing well in my sobriety when I first started.

[SPEAKER_07]: I was kind of just getting by.

[SPEAKER_07]: And now I'm doing it with, you know, a smile on my face about it like I am.

[SPEAKER_07]: proud of it.

[SPEAKER_07]: It's finally something that I'm happy to tell people this.

[SPEAKER_07]: You know, I'm not, it's not something I'm embarrassed about saying like I did this and it's in an accomplishment.

[SPEAKER_07]: So thanks guys.

[SPEAKER_03]: One year is so huge.

[SPEAKER_03]: Hi everyone.

[SPEAKER_03]: It's been a while since I've been on our calls.

[SPEAKER_03]: A lot has happened a lot to update good things and bad things, but mostly good things which is good.

[SPEAKER_03]: Our reading today, I did like resonate with a lot of what everyone said, one of the things I wanted to bring up that had really kind of like held as something that I had like believed for a little bit, but I kind of like overcame it over the summer when I.

[SPEAKER_03]: What told myself that I didn't need my parents when they did reach out to me and I was like you're tripping myself and taking that I can't get through life without them when the past couple years when when I was estranged from them I actually was much better and mentally better place and I was able to do so many things for myself that [SPEAKER_03]: many others wouldn't at my age and I just know that the one thing that made me realized that I needed to call off or just like set my boundaries more clear and not to associate with my parents anymore is after like one when my stepdad told me that there was [SPEAKER_03]: and that I have to live it myself at the end of the day and the whole time it was just him like degrading me and I had nothing to do with me.

[SPEAKER_03]: It was just him bringing up the past and telling me how he had forgiven me for things because he had to but it didn't really.

[SPEAKER_03]: had to do with what it was.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it was like after I had given my brother, Drime Lessons, which he passed, he passed his driver's test after not feeling prepared for it.

[SPEAKER_03]: Because after a certain time, I believe.

[SPEAKER_03]: and middle of August, he didn't even have over 60 hours, which is like required for Marilyn, like new drivers, or something like that.

[SPEAKER_03]: And they basically like forge his hours, because now they need the parents for the guardians to put in that.

[SPEAKER_03]: he did his hours of driving so that he's ready for his driver's test but they decided that they didn't want me to continue giving him driving lessons because they were upset with me taking him out to like get food and stuff and being it's just really dumb things they just my sub that he doesn't like to see us [SPEAKER_03]: happy, like he's a pretty miserable person, but other than that, when my brother took the test and he did so prepared because he got under like 20 hours of driving, I just told him to like let me know when he starts driving and to remember to look at all his mirrors, pay attention to surroundings, just to prep him for his driver's test, and I was really worried because he [SPEAKER_03]: And my car's old, so I didn't really care.

[SPEAKER_03]: And it's still drivable.

[SPEAKER_03]: It had a lot of issues.

[SPEAKER_03]: I've had a lot of car issues in the past, but it's still running.

[SPEAKER_03]: So that's all that matters.

[SPEAKER_03]: But I was very patient with him.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm glad I was the calmest and most patient person that I could be in such a stressful situation of teaching him how to drive.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I was really happy to hear that he passed his driver's test, which is amazing.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm really proud of him.

[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm really happy.

[SPEAKER_03]: And the things that my parents say about me aren't true.

[SPEAKER_03]: Like I'm still trying to remind myself of those things.

[SPEAKER_03]: And my mom, she would tell me how she doesn't want my siblings to end up like me as if I'm a terrible person when she doesn't really know me.

[SPEAKER_03]: She's just now [SPEAKER_03]: getting somewhat back into my life, but she doesn't really want to put in the effort to get to know me.

[SPEAKER_03]: So I've just been noticing that and I'm learning more every day about myself, like how can you tell me you know me when I'm still learning about myself to this day, but I'm grateful to be here and I thank you for everyone for listening.

[SPEAKER_05]: All right, you know, at the beginning of this, [SPEAKER_05]: I'm always working on.

[SPEAKER_05]: But now, listening to everybody, oh my god, I think I need to do some writing.

[SPEAKER_05]: And that's okay because my diglias, you know, there's something wrong with me.

[SPEAKER_05]: There was not, I don't belong.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not as good as I'm not equal to everybody.

[SPEAKER_05]: And my whole life, people have taken to me.

[SPEAKER_05]: They're the ones who see me, and I don't.

[SPEAKER_05]: And this program has really helped me kind of trust the fucking process.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I really feel for people whose parents are still alive.

[SPEAKER_05]: My, come in and say it earlier today.

[SPEAKER_05]: There was no, I love you in my house.

[SPEAKER_05]: There was no attention.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so many wrote in the chat about their mother doesn't love you.

[SPEAKER_05]: How couldn't you think anybody else can?

[SPEAKER_05]: And my dad, I know he loved us, but he was so fucking critical.

[SPEAKER_05]: He wanted us to have everything he did to have.

[SPEAKER_05]: And so we were never good enough.

[SPEAKER_05]: We always needed to practice this a little bit more.

[SPEAKER_05]: You know, and no attention.

[SPEAKER_05]: And by the time I was 13, I was pretty much on my own.

[SPEAKER_05]: My dad let the house at 14 and, you know, they my parents split and my mom was a pain essential.

[SPEAKER_05]: And then I had friends and they raised me.

[SPEAKER_05]: And a couple of teachers, camp counselors.

[SPEAKER_05]: And on some level, I felt the love.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I've even had [SPEAKER_05]: pretty recent experiences of noticing how much I don't love it in myself, with my family.

[SPEAKER_05]: And initially when we were talking, I was going to say, I'm really, really glass half full and I love that saying don't quit five minutes before the miracle.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you know, if you wrote a list of all your dreams and everything you want, [SPEAKER_05]: And you look back out of it many years later, you would have short changed yourself and I still think that about you too Andrea I really do because that's what I've learned in this program and I have evidence it gets better and better and I think I'm going to end it at that I have like two plus weeks now working and an area I think it's going to be a good thing.

[SPEAKER_05]: But one place I was at the skilled nursing facility, and nothing, again, I love Filipino people.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I think they thought I was a little bit nuts.

[SPEAKER_05]: Like, you know, that I was telling them certain things.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I decided, I might be wrong.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I know they like me and I know they appreciate the help I'm giving to this person.

[SPEAKER_05]: But I'm still, no, I'm crazy what they think.

[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's a good place to end.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really glad to be here and I'm glad I hung in there with this definitely poked it a lot of my stuff and I love you guys.

[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, fam is a been a great meeting.

[SPEAKER_00]: I just really love you all a whole lot and I'm really grateful for this group because I don't know what I do without it's shadow to go any for one year that's fucking amazing and I'm really.

[SPEAKER_00]: glad it reminds me of like the spirit of AA that like we help each other when we share wherever it's because I had a different experience this weekend.

[SPEAKER_00]: I went to beautiful palisade, Colorado, which is Bumfuck, nowhere.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's on the western slope and it's known for its peaches.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a shit ton of peach orchards and it was like cute and stuff and we went in like south of like thingyards and there's like lavender fields.

[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like cute super small town.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like we're on Main Street and it was like a block by a block [SPEAKER_00]: and a really funny story went to this barbecue place.

[SPEAKER_00]: This guy outside like is looking at us and you come outside again and he's like, hey, hey, are you guys brothers to me and my boyfriend and we're looking each other and we're like, no, lovers and you like didn't know what to do and you're just like, oh, and turned around the girls at this table were laughing their heads off and it was really funny and I should have but I didn't like kiss them on the mouth out of really fun and be like, yeah, we have brothers, but I didn't do that, but it would have been really funny.

[SPEAKER_00]: We were there for his best friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: She was a bride, made an wedding, so we were like taking around and stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we went to this aftercardi, like 10 o'clock at this saloon called the library, which had like, their animals on the wall, on like a rock band, just really annoying, you know, like everyone's drunk or higher or whatever.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then there's me stone cold sober.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you know those times you're like, we're just like, fuck, [SPEAKER_00]: This I don't want to be sober like why can't I just have a few drinks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why can't I just fucking take an out of one get high for one night like why can't I I know why I'm a region alcoholic.

[SPEAKER_00]: I can't do that shit, but sometimes it's really annoying and the lesson of it was to just accept that that was a lie and I know better and in my head.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know that I'm not on the verge of a relapse or anything.

[SPEAKER_00]: but it's okay to express the feeling that like I'm annoyed by this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm annoyed and I did better at advocating for myself.

[SPEAKER_00]: We there for like half hour, 45 minutes and I was like, all right, I'm good and we left and it was good.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was talking about therapists.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got like 35% weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: I got a little bit more quiet and wasn't really talking, but it wasn't the time to bring it up to my boyfriend.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't the right time.

[SPEAKER_00]: So that was my lesson of like it's okay to bring this up later.

[SPEAKER_00]: I still haven't, but I'm working on that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And at two months ago, the same situation happened similar and it was like 100% weird and then the month ago it happened and I was like 60% weird so it's showing that we get better and we progress and we don't have to be fucking perfect like we get to feel better and we get to understand our emotions and respect them and understand just to verbalize them.

[SPEAKER_00]: And when we verbalize them, it gets them out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I made this like six paragraph text in my sponsor.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was outrageous.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was a way too much.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I just needed to like get it out to just vomit it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And like say, hey, I just needed someone to listen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Can you do that for me?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, absolutely, yes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for reaching out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, said, another one of my best friends.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was the lesson of, okay, just to get it out sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because I know I'm not gonna act on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm not gonna risk my sporadium, [SPEAKER_00]: in December, a lot of six years, which is crazy, like fucking absolutely crazy.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't understand, and I'm blown away, that like, I did that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like that's one of the lies I tell myself is that like I don't deserve this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I fucking do, I've done the hard work.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've been there.

[SPEAKER_00]: I've showed up to thousands of meetings and show up authentically as myself, and I've done the work, and I've been there for people and people have been there for me.

[SPEAKER_00]: And they showed me how to love myself [SPEAKER_00]: and it fucking works.

[SPEAKER_00]: If you're new, if you're struggling, this program is really hard.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's shit sometimes.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a shit show.

[SPEAKER_00]: Kat, see what I did there.

[SPEAKER_00]: Better damn the join because this place really wasn't the next step in my sobriety.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like I need to get sober from drugs and alcohol.

[SPEAKER_00]: I need to get sober from sex and love.

[SPEAKER_00]: I needed to deal with my family shit.

[SPEAKER_00]: And without doing that, like that wound is still there untreated.

[SPEAKER_00]: And today I can say I've had so much healing.

[SPEAKER_00]: positive, healthy relationships, and we say it all the time, but we heal these traumas in relationship in healthy relationships.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm getting to experience that today.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I do deserve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like all of us deserve it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Because we're showing up for ourselves and we get to show up for each other.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's fucking beautiful.

[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I'm so grateful here tonight, even if you aren't, I'm grateful that I'm here.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm grateful this community.

[SPEAKER_00]: keep showing up for yourself because it fucking works if you work.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a work because you're fucking worth that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks, y'all.

[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sorry.

[SPEAKER_05]: It was all about me.

[SPEAKER_05]: I really want to take note it, Courtney, Courtney, I love you too, Mike.

[SPEAKER_05]: But Courtney, I remember you and your first mom.

[SPEAKER_05]: And here you are.

[SPEAKER_05]: And you're so strong.

[SPEAKER_05]: And I just really, really needed to say that