Family Disappeared

Unfolding In Recovery After Parental Alienation: Building Connection With Self And Others - Episode 83

• Lawrence Joss

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In this episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, Lawrence and Anna explore the themes of recovery, personal growth, and the impact of family dynamics on relationships. They discuss the importance of community support, the challenges of powerlessness in relationships, and the journey towards self-discovery through meditation and emotional awareness. The conversation highlights the significance of letting go of titles and embracing a more authentic self, as well as the role of chaos in shaping one's identity. Through their personal experiences, they emphasize the transformative power of recovery and the importance of vulnerability in healing.

Key Takeaways

  • Recovery is about community, not just individual experiences.
  • Letting go of titles can lead to a more authentic self.
  • Personal growth often comes from painful experiences.
  • Building a relationship with oneself is crucial in recovery.
  • Meditation can help regulate the nervous system and promote peace.
  • The journey of recovery involves learning to feel emotions.
  • Support groups provide a space for vulnerability and growth.
  • Chaos can become addictive, making peace feel uncomfortable.
  • It's important to give oneself permission to ask for help.
  • The work done in recovery can positively impact future generations.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Recovery and Flexibility

01:58 Personal Experiences in Recovery

03:48 Understanding Powerlessness in Relationships

08:11 The Impact of Family Dynamics

11:54 Addiction to Chaos and Finding Peace

16:03 Exploring Meditation and Self-Discovery

20:14 The Role of Titles in Relationships

 26:06 Community and Support in Recovery

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If you wish to connect with Lawrence Joss or any of the PA-A community members who have appeared as guests on the podcast:

Email-      familydisappeared@gmail.com

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(All links mentioned in the podcast are available in Linktree)

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This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves. In today's episode we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast.

Speaker 2:

Okay, glaze, something's going to happen. We're not sure quite what's happening, but me and Anna are going to try a different format and we have no idea what we're doing. So, hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Today, I have my co-host, anna, with me, and we don't know exactly what we're doing, but we're going to be talking about lessons in recovery and covering a wide array of topics. One of the ones that I have picked out that Anna doesn't know about yet is titles, the whole idea of title, like the title of parent, the title of kid, grandparent, whatever that looks like and how that affects maybe our behaviors and the family dynamics. Anyway, welcome.

Speaker 2:

If you're new to the community, it's great to have you here. We've got a bunch of great resources in the show notes for you. We have a free 12-step meeting. We have 15 or 16 meetings a week now for free and you can jump on anytime you want. It's Parental Alienation, anonymous, a wonderful, loving community. Hey, anna, just say something to everyone out there so they know that you aren't here too, and then we'll jump into the show.

Speaker 3:

Hi everybody. I and then we'll jump into the show Hi everybody. I'm just thinking. One of the lessons, one of the big lessons I've learned in recovery is how to be flexible, and Lawrence and I have had to be flexible and learn how to pivot this morning and in all seriousness, I couldn't do that before. My mindset was very narrow, so I'm grateful that it's broad and that I can smile about this this morning. This is how we show up as human beings.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and the funny part that none of you are seeing is we're supposed to have a third person on the panel and their technology is not quite working out. So we've been trying to get them on for about a half an hour and then me and Anna just said hey, let's try this and see what happens. So you're in for something super special today. You're super lucky, we're super lucky, and with that I think we should jump into the show.

Speaker 3:

Hi everyone. I'm Anna. I am in preparation for the recording for today, which is already it's got legs and it's gone in an entirely different direction. I was looking through the work that I've done, the step work that I do in the program and the things that I was working on at the beginning. I'm still working on now, but it's gone from a very narrow space to a much broader space and I'm much more relaxed and my nervous system is much more regulated. And I think that's one of yeah, I mean the biggest piece of recovery work for me has been building a relationship with myself and it's nice to look back and see what I'd written initially and then see my growth and the strength and I can see myself unfolding in recovery. So that's a huge and as I unfold, my relationships with everyone else in my life unfold, including my kids.

Speaker 2:

This is super exciting just the two of us to be on the show today, anna, and I think let's just do like a qualification. And what a qualification means is if you come to a meeting, we all qualify at a meeting to keep the room safe and for everyone to get to know each other and build a relationship. So how I traditionally qualify at a meeting, I go hey, my name's Lawrence. I'm an alienated father. I have three daughters. I have a 30-year-old that I haven't had any contact with in about eight or nine years. I have a 27-year-old that I didn't have contact with for five or six years. In the last three months or so we started connecting a little bit through text. And I have a 23-year-old that I have regular contact with. I've also got a couple grandkids I'm yet to meet and that would be my qualification. And then we'd move on to the next person in the room. And, anna, if you could go ahead and qualify and just introduce yourself to everyone please.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, lawrence. Hi, my name is Anna. I'm an alienated mother. I have two adult sons, a 22-year-old and a 20-year-old. It's been eight years since I've had any significant contact with them, but actually what's happened in the last six months is that both of them have reached out to talk to me, which is something that I didn't expect, but also something I've been able to handle very differently because of the work I've been doing in the program. So that's awesome.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, anna. And in the introduction Anna shared a couple words and she was talking about the steps and what work she is doing and isn't doing, and I think let's just address that quickly for people that aren't familiar with a 12-step program. In a 12-step program there are 12 steps, numbered 1 through 12. The beginning, which would be step one, and you know, step one in the program says I'm powerless over alienation and my life is unmanageable. I'm powerless over people, places and things and my life is unmanageable. In different 12-step programs the wording will change a little bit, but it's really talking about powerlessness and unmanageability.

Speaker 2:

And a lot of people come in and they get really confused about the first step and they think, hey, I'm powerless, I can't do anything with my children, with my grandchildren, with any relationships, and it's not true, like I'm powerless over controlling other people's actions, but I'm not helpless, you know, and I'm not hopeless. I have agency over myself. So it's a really interesting thing when you first come in there and you're like hell, no, I ain't giving up power over my children. Like I'm it, I do have power. At least that's what impact the first step has on me. And what do you want to throw in there in the mix about the first step and your initial experience with the first step and the language and not having any 12-step program background when you first came in. I'm super curious if you can remember that or have anything to throw in there.

Speaker 3:

I do remember, lawrence. You know what I do remember, lawrence. You know what I didn't. I found it a bit insulting. I found it like an affront because I thought I'm this sweet, gentle person who's doing the right thing and I haven't done anything wrong. And yeah, it was hard to wrap my head around it. But as I've worked the steps with my sponsor, but also listen to other people sharing their experience, I've come to realize how I regulated my nervous system by trying to control the lives of everybody else in my life and that's hard to say that out loud, but it's my truth, right, it was my survival from quite an early age, before I was even married. So that first step unpacked a whole bunch of stuff for me that I needed to address before I could move on.

Speaker 3:

But I was not accepting of it to begin with. It took work, it took conversations. It taught me one of the things. Another thing I've learned in recovery is that I can say I don't understand the question. I don't like the question. When I started doing this work, I've always been the good little student, right. So I was trying to do an academic, intellectual answer and then I would talk to my sponsor about that and thought this is not me. I'm not in a classroom trying to get an A plus on my report. It needs to come from the heart, and I didn't know how to do that, and now I'm learning how to do that I want to step back to something you said in the first part of you sharing your experience.

Speaker 2:

You said, like it was in a personal front, like I'm powerless over my children. You know, like, how dare you tell me that? How can anyone ever tell me that and I think a lot of people experience with that when they first come in. There's no way I'm ever going to admit powerlessness over my children. It's just not possible. I'm the parent, I'm going to always be there, I'm super, super, super important. So that, I think, must probably strike a nerve with a lot of people.

Speaker 2:

And you also said something where and I think this is a common experience like when I first come in, like, hey, I'm not powerless, I'm not, these are my children and we're so hyper-focused on our relationships with our children that we can't really see that this needs to get extrapolated out. And it's about every relationship in our lives. This affront, hey, no, I'm not powerless over my children Don't you know how sweet I am To this perspective shift in oh, this is every relationship, this is how I show up everywhere. Did that come on board pretty quickly for you? Did that take a while to get to that perspective?

Speaker 3:

That took a while for that to land because of the acceptance piece. And you know what, the more I do this work and I still feel it today that survival mechanism of living vicariously to other people and using other people to control how I showed up in the world is very, very strong in me. So, even as I've worked and gone a little bit deeper with it, my body hasn't always caught up with what my heart and my mind understands in terms of accepting that I have used control in my life. So it's something that's getting easier for me, but I still need to revisit it and I need to remind myself that I've been living in survival mode for much longer than I've been working on my recovery, so I can't expect myself to be able to leap from one to the other, and that's part of trying to be calm, trying to be present, trying to be compassionate with myself.

Speaker 2:

That makes a lot of sense. And I think as we dig deeper into even just like, the whole idea of step one and who knew this would be the topic we'd start with? But there's this thing you come into a support group and this happens to be a 12-step support group that we're talking about and there's a bunch of other resources out there. Find what you like, what fits you.

Speaker 2:

For me, my whole foundation is built on the 12 steps.

Speaker 2:

And as I dig into the 12 steps and I'm like I'm powerless over people, my life is unmanageable. I need to go back to the root and the root is my birth and in vitro, before I was born and when I was in my mom's belly, all these behaviors for me started there, this whole idea of having power over something else. I thought I could help my mother's nervous system, like I was trained and indoctrinated into soothing her nervous system because that's what she needed, you know, and she hadn't necessarily done a bunch of her own work at that time and I came into the world and then I reproduced this in my family of origin and a lot of people and I'm curious for you, anna like you couldn't see the connection between your family of origin and your behavior and you're saying, hey, whoa, this isn't an affront on me, I'm a really nice, great person. You couldn't see that you were just bringing the stuff from your family of origin, what you had learned, and, like you're saying, the programming is all in your body.

Speaker 3:

At least that's what I heard you say no, at the beginning I certainly couldn't, and the idea of examining it freaked me out big time. I didn't like it. I put up a lot of resistance to. It's interesting what you're sharing, lawrence. It's reminding me too, that I grew up taking care of other people's nervous systems as well and I was used to emotional chaos and I didn't actually even disconnect, detach from that feeling with my family of origin and I bought into the marriage and I tried to get what I couldn't get from my family of origin in the marriage showing up the same way, the same dysfunction. And I've come to realize in the work that I've been doing that my nervous system is addicted to chaos and that's part of the controlling thing too. Right, I don't want to let go of what my nervous system likes. This is how I roll in the world. If I let go of that, I don't know who I am. I don't know how I'm going to survive.

Speaker 3:

And there've been periods of time in recovery where I'm feeling peace. I remember when I first started feeling peaceful. I'm like this sucks, this is boring. Like I don't know what to do with myself. It's what in my head I wanted. Like I don't want to be living. It was. Alienation is horrible. I felt like I was being tortured. I still can sometimes feel like I'm being tortured emotionally, but my body's going hey, we want to be jacked up right now. I'm used to being in the thick of it, trying to be the fixer, trying to be the problem solver, and when you take that away again, my body's going yeah, what are you doing? What are you doing right now? It's interesting how those pieces come together, really nuanced.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, 100%. And when you said my body is addicted to chaos, I think this is something really cool and fun and important to talk about. Is this dopamine rush that we get from the chaos, or the self-doubt or the loathing or whatever it is? Whatever the chaos is providing us is just so familiar. Without it, we don't really feel like we're alive. And you mentioned something about.

Speaker 2:

I'm not sure what exact words you use, but what I heard is, as you're getting into recovery and your life is settling down a little bit and you're feeling more in a neutral space or a good space, you're like this is crappy, like I don't like this. And I remember early in recovery, every year I used to call my grandfather. His name was Freddy, just an incredible person. I used to call him right around New Year's and I'd get on the telephone and then I'd start crying to him. Super bizarre. And I was crying to him because my life was good, these wonderful things were happening in recovery and I was starting to learn about myself and getting contact with myself, and yet my nervous system was stranger danger, and the stranger was me.

Speaker 2:

I'm not used to you being like you're saying in the moment of chaos. You don't need that. How do you rest into, oh, it's okay, it's okay and I miss my children it's okay. And I had a car accident, it's okay. And I had an extra Snickers, you know, whatever it is. How do you rest into, oh, it's okay, because I know I wasn't raised that way and I'm hearing that you're not raised that way. And what do you do now, when it is okay or it does feel good, or you have a new exciting relationship or something in your life, how do you just be like, oh, I'm okay, it's okay, or can you? Can you even do that?

Speaker 3:

I'm learning how to do it with the mindfulness practices that I do. When I do meditation and I like being silent, I realize that I've trained my body to feel comfortable and feel safe in those spaces and then find that I have energy for myself and I want to use that energy to find joy and experience with other people and explore all of that. It's like giving myself permission to be a separate entity from this dysfunctional kind of mass that I used to be part of, and the more I can I mean, I just came back from a silent retreat too and I can really now I can really sink into co-regulating people that are around me, but they're in total silence. I crave it. Now. I've got to be doing something right now. This is just like holy.

Speaker 3:

I don't know when I have excess energy.

Speaker 3:

When I've had it in the past, I needed to burn it off and there was no way that, with my mindset that I would think that I could actually use that energy for myself, I needed to put myself first and foremost. I needed to put myself first and foremost, and that is what recovery has really largely done for me, has allowed me to build a relationship with myself and give myself permission to live and to enjoy life. I need to practice the meditation and the being still, and sometimes I have to if I'm feeling like, oh yeah, stop, I need to set a timer and I sit for 10 minutes and think I'm going to sit, I'm going to do 10 minutes and whatever comes, my physical body has become familiar with that peaceful state and actually enjoying it and realizing that it gives me energy. Oftentimes I can pull myself back at least into a more regulated state. My mind, my body, my spirit didn't want to do any of those things when I was in the chaos, because that's the absolute opposite of all of that.

Speaker 3:

I didn't know how to show up. That was my identity. It's been a real swing and it feels lovely now, but it was bumpy as heck and I was like I'm not doing this, Like.

Speaker 2:

I'm not doing it.

Speaker 3:

Very, very stubborn. I didn't realize how stubborn I was until but you know what I'm saying? That I have more compassion for the younger versions of myself that needed to be stubborn and didn't feel safe and didn't trust. I didn't feel safe and didn't trust. I get to unpack that in recovery and I get to reparent those versions of myself. But, yeah, very interesting process.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I'm getting a chuckle out of you talking about meditation and that you're going on silent meditation retreats, because I think your first one was about three or four months ago and you went and sat on a silent meditation retreat and I think you're nervous about going and what I hear from most people, including myself before I went, is like, how do you not talk? You don't talk for these three days or four days or five days, and my experience in silent meditation retreat is the not talking is the easy part being with myself and not having any disruptions or any other way to disperse my own energy or my own anxiety or maybe even for me to feed a little bit on helping someone else out in a crisis. Like those are the hard things. It's just really sitting quietly, but it sounds like you've really integrated your meditation and taking your 10 minutes and starting to go on silent meditation retreats into your nervous system in a really wonderful way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I love it. And you know what? I've realized too, that when I'm silent, when I'm really silent and I'm more able to be grounded now feelings come up. And I'm more able to be grounded now feelings come up. And again that was. I didn't want to feel my feelings.

Speaker 3:

I've been suppressing my feelings for decades, so that initially that was really threatening. You know what? At the core of it, I didn't place any importance on my own feelings. My radar was around everybody else's feelings and that's been very well disruptive. It's added to the chaos. Right, it fit in. I was very good at living in a dysfunctional like. I perfected the art of stifling everything, of being the people pleaser, of showing up for everybody else, putting my needs last. So to sit in my feelings initially was really hard and now I really like. I want to be in touch with my feelings and I want that for the other people in my life, especially my kids, and for me. The only way that I can really do that, especially when I'm not in contact with them, is by exploring that work myself and then, spiritually and energetically, I feel like it transfers to them.

Speaker 2:

So I'm getting a little chuckle. I see in my head I see you sitting on a little meditation pillow trying to do it right and being really quiet, and this is just my projection too, or it might be something that's real, but I'm so curious. What is it like for you when you get there? Does it feel like it needs to be done a certain way and you're still trying to relax into whatever it is, or you're just like whatever when you get on the retreat?

Speaker 3:

it's easier now. The first time that I did it, it's funny I was nervous about doing something wrong. I don't how do you do something wrong in a silent retreat because you're not speaking. Like seriously, like seriously.

Speaker 2:

I love that you were nervous about doing something wrong, because that's the programming, that's the stuff that when we get to any kind of support group or any kind of help, we can't do it wrong.

Speaker 3:

It's messy and we're trying no, so I had enough recovery under my belt to think that I can show up and do it. It's close to where I live and so in the back I've got to always have the escape routes figured out right, because if this doesn't, I can head out the door and I can leave or whatever. But and I remember when I showed up maybe this is a higher power thing there was someone there who took me under her wing. I met her in the car park walking in and I I've learned in recovery to speak about what I'm feeling and I said this is my first time, I'm a little bit nervous. And she took me under her wing and she showed me the ropes and explained how it went. And I said to her, like how it's going to start on a Friday night and you finish Sunday lunchtime? And I said were you feeling like you were going to scream on Saturday afternoon?

Speaker 3:

Because all that time you're kind of like I've got all this stuff that I need to share with all these people, and we talked that through and so, yeah, a lesson from recovery for me me is that putting voice to it and being vulnerable and sort of sharing with her that this feel. I know I want to do this. I've never done anything like this before and I don't know how I'm gonna be able to show up. And then, underneath all that, there was this really big desire to sit in a peaceful space and to pick up on people's energy like that. So I'm proud of myself, because it was not easy to do it, but I felt very called to do it as well, and I wouldn't have been exploring if it hadn't been for doing recovery work Peaceful for me. I don't want that. I don't want to be still long enough to examine all of this and look inward and look at my part in all of these situations. Right, because that's new. We don't do that. Yeah, it's a very, very big turnaround and I love it.

Speaker 1:

They're doing a seven-day retreat but I don't know if that's going to happen.

Speaker 3:

I shared that with some friends. I said I don't think I could be quiet for seven days. I think I probably could, but I don't know if day five on it began, Throw me a bone. I'll be talking to the resident cat that they have because I'm so desperate for some verbal communication. I don't know.

Speaker 2:

I think that's super exciting and I just got back from a Sufi dance retreat was probably about two weeks ago and I've been on a lot of meditation retreats and then, like Sufi, is this next iteration of what I'm exploring. So it's really about heart opening and this retreat that I went on is you dance for 20 minutes and then you meditate for 20 minutes, and then you dance for 20 minutes and you meditate for 20 minutes and it's just opening up these different portals of me, really finding another access point to myself and the reason that I bring this up. I would never, ever, ever have been there unless I got in enough pain to get there. I never would have explored that part of myself. And I'm hearing the same thing with your meditation thing.

Speaker 2:

These portals open up in the strangest ways and in the most painful times in our lives, and I don't care if you're an alienated parent or you're a parent that's experiencing this, or you're a child experiencing that, or you're just out in life and losing jobs or losing relationships. Whatever it is. These portals open up in pain and in the original big book it says something to the degree like pain is a spiritual access point for all spiritual growth, something like that. I know I butchered that completely, but I'm just thinking neither of us would be in either of these positions without the pain and without this generational healing that we're doing. At least that's my perspective. The work that I'm doing is for me and it's also for healing the generational trauma within the family system. And yeah, it's kind of like wonky, like even you and I sitting on this podcast together having this conversation, like how did we get here? Do you think about that?

Speaker 3:

Yes, I do, and I would not have come willingly. My life had to become extremely unmanageable. I can see it and say it now. I was holding on to my dysfunctional ways because I thought if I don't have those, I don't exist. That's how desperate I was. And even when I changed things up and I wasn't in the family home anymore, I was still engaging in a way in that whole process that was still jacking my nervous system up and still providing that dopamine hit and that feels again. That feels gross to say that now, but it's part of it. That's the addiction to excitement, that's the unwillingness to let go, and when I keep visiting those spaces I stop myself from looking inward, and I spent my life stopping myself from looking inward because the idea of that scared the life out of me, but that's where I needed to go.

Speaker 3:

The essence, it feels like, of what you're saying is that I had to have my butt dragged along the gravel until I was bleeding before I would start to examine that stuff. And it's interesting thinking about my kids. They really helped lead me down that path because if I wasn't the one thing that interrupted that whole, I'm going to keep doing this until I fix it and make everything work. Because my marriage, my family, that was supposed to fix every emotional wound that I ever had. That's a huge ask, absolutely impossible.

Speaker 3:

If it hadn't been for my kids and me witnessing what was happening in their lives and thinking I can't stand watching this happen, with this whole dynamic that we had going on the family, I may not have even left and that's really interesting to think that I, on a spiritual level, I feel like they're part of my life because they've helped to interrupt this intergenerational thing, because in my family it's been going on for decades, for a long, long time. And since I do think about that, think if I hadn't had children which of course is I mean, it's, it is what it is I may have stayed because I thought that's all I knew how to do. I was going to fix, my mission was to fix, and I could be black and white thinking and I'd just stay in this narrow little space, and I needed everything to go explode like this before I actually started to build a relationship with myself.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and I would just like to add this on to anyone else there that's listening and thinking hey well, I'm really struggling, I'm in so much pain I don't know what to do. We didn't either. You know what I mean. We just followed our feet and we landed up at a meeting and we started to build community and we started to look at ourselves and life started to change. And then we started to bring in other spiritual practices and it's imperfect and messy and it's not easy. It didn't get easier at all. It gets very different. But I have different tools and I have friends like Anna, I have community and just super cool things that are happening. So, if you're struggling, get some help, get into a support code, come check out our stuff. It's all free, it's all accessible and you get into it. What you put out and I think I feel like I wanna pivot here a little bit put out, and I think I feel like I want to pivot here a little bit. I want to pivot into this idea of titles right, and that sounds weird.

Speaker 2:

So when I was going to Al-Anon before I started attending Parental Alienation Anonymous and Parental Alienation Anonymous is based on Al-Anon, which is about families, so I was at an Al-Anon meeting and people were sharing the idea of dropping the titles and what they were talking about.

Speaker 2:

They were talking about the title of parent, the title of child, the title of employee, lawyer, friend, brother, sister, whatever and it was super provocative at the beginning.

Speaker 2:

I'm like how do I and why would I ever drop the title of dad? And what I've come to learn is there's all these things that I see in the movies and I see on cards for seminal events and all these different things that give you these ideas of what this relationship looks like and it really simplifies a relationship down to very one-dimensional. And as I let go of this title of father, I can move outside of some of these constructs and I can actually show up in a fuller way. I still feel like a father. I still feel like a dad, but trying to get myself to fit into this little box that I saw in Little House on the Prairie or trying to get my kids to be that image that I saw on a card or in a picture, it's not realistic, like you were saying about your relationship, it's just not realistic. And as I bring this idea of titles up to you, what kind of comes up for you. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker 3:

It's an interesting thought. What comes up for you? Yeah, it's interesting. It's an interesting thought. What comes up for me is that I feel much stronger, more grounded, more present in my title as a mother than I did when I was with my kids, which is really interesting, because I wasn't connected with myself when I was raising them. I did the best that I could. I loved them in the way that I mean, I loved them then, I love them now. It feels very different.

Speaker 3:

And also, what's coming up is that, because I was disconnected with them too, they didn't. Yeah, I don't feel like they got to. I mean, I was their mum. They called me mum, but it's curious for me to think about what they actually felt about that, because I know that I what now? I know that I wasn't really fully present, I wasn't emotionally present, so it's interesting to think that I feel more like a mum now than I did when I was more involved, which maybe to the audience as well, sounds really weird, but for me it's part of the process. The titles thing is interesting, lawrence, because I probably would have identified as a sister, a daughter, a granddaughter, a mother, but not as me. They're things that I did, but it's not necessarily who I. I'm finding out who I am in recovery, which actually feels really cool. I am a mum, but I feel like I'm doing a very different, a deeper, more resonant job of that, now that I'm actually unpacking my emotional history, connecting with myself. It's interesting.

Speaker 2:

I love that. You say that you feel more of a mom now than ever. I totally relate. I feel like the best version of myself and as a father that I ever have. And, like you're saying, it's all about me doing my own work, and the more work that I do for myself and get to learn about myself, the more integrated and embodied I am. So then I show up as a different father, as a different friend, as a different brother and I'm resourcing myself and I'm using community and other folks to resource myself. I'm not trying to get my sister to resource me, my mother to resource me or my child to resource me, and it's super powerful and counterintuitive to say, hey, I feel more of a parent now than ever, even though I have the least amount of contact. But it's powerful stuff. Like I feel emotion in my eyes. I feel, yeah, like when you said that my body went ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. You know, like you just did the wheel and the price is right and hit the hundred.

Speaker 3:

I never would have expected to be sharing this kind of conversation at the beginning of the journey. I came into the program and into the community thinking I don't want to die. I'm feeling so depressed right now. I'm going to hang out at the meetings and I'm just going to be able to keep ticking along in survival. This will keep me from sinking. I didn't think I'd be doing any work and when I realized the work was about me, this is no. This is not what I do. It's what I've learned to do. It's what I needed to do and I'm so grateful for the community.

Speaker 3:

Another one of the things I help because one of my survival strategies is that I don't need anyone. I don't trust anyone. I've been on my own for so long. Everyone can get lost and I'm grateful that people in community didn't. I could have those conversations and they would still be present for me and I would watch how other people were showing up in community and thinking. I can feel them softening. I can see their shoulders dropping. I can feel what feels like they're into a little bit more of acceptance of what's going on for them and they're trying to find a way forward in order to do that. When people offer me help, I need to say yes, I need help. I need to be vulnerable and say I don't know what I'm doing. This is really painful.

Speaker 3:

And that was like getting blood out of a stone initially for me, because that's not what I do. I've been surviving on my own for decades and that was a huge breakthrough for me to feel that support, but also for me to give myself permission. I'm allowed to be helped and that's what I want for my kids. A lot of the times when I have these epiphanies about recovery, what I'm giving to myself, I want my kids to be able to access that too.

Speaker 2:

And, as I'm thinking here and I just want to wrap up this direction and then move the conversation along a little bit but I'm having this conversation with you. You're incredibly lively and articulate and you're talking about your feelings and all these different things that are happening in your life and when you first got to your first support group meeting, I'm picturing you as a lot more composed, a lot less articulate not articulate is the wrong word, because you're very articulate, but a lot less vulnerable yeah, reserved, very reserved yeah, what was that like for your first couple meetings?

Speaker 2:

did you talk at the meetings? Did you not talk? What was that?

Speaker 3:

let's just yeah, just a quick overview of that I didn't talk, or, and if I did, I felt like I had to have everything perfectly figured out in my head before I would talk. I did a lot of observing and listening to what other people were saying, so I really liked it, and this is part of my personality too I do a lot of listening before I become a bit more vocal. Yeah, it was interesting. It feels very different now. There was a big fear around making a mistake, doing things wrong, like how can you? This is my story. People are being vulnerable and sharing their stories.

Speaker 3:

But there was a big message in my head Don't speak unless you know what you're talking about and unless it's going to be received well or an upset. I felt very constricted, but I kept coming back. There was a part of me, I think and maybe this is higher power too was I needed to be exposed to that in order to relax enough? And when I started really opening into that space and doing work as a leader, a secretary, whatever, as a leader, I would write everything down. I would have a script up on the side of my computer and I was reading as if I was doing an audition for a show, and then I started to realize that this is not. It was coming from my heart, but I needed to speak it from my heart and not just read it. And once I started doing that, my recovery started opening up and I could feel people responding in kind. And so when I give myself permission to do that, this is what happens for me in community, too.

Speaker 3:

You see people being vulnerable. It's like it's okay to be vulnerable and I can say something and say, oops, I didn't mean to say that. Or I start coughing in the middle. I'm being a human being. I wasn't good at making mistakes and I'm learning to make a lot of mistakes in recovery and pick myself up and laugh about it and be gentle with myself. Again, I want that for my kids. I want that for the people in my life that I care about. I put so much energy into being correct, being precise, not upsetting them, not having a presence. Now that I let go of that, I have energy to do other things and I can laugh about my mistakes and I'm much more my authentic self. It's very liberating, but hard at the beginning, for sure.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, that's all very beautiful and if you're listening to the show and you've never been to a support group meeting whether it's 12 Step or anything else or you have what is happening right now on the show is the magic of the 12 Steps, is where we get to bear witness to each other's growth and changing and I can track Anna from when I first met her to the person that she is today and the gifts and the love and the joy and just watching another person expand and their life's change and stuff is bizarre. And I was at a meeting and I was relatively new to 12-step programming. I wasn't a PAA meeting and we had a break between the meeting and there was this old timer standing off to the side just with a big goofy grin on his face and you know, I thought he might need some help. That's just my sarcasm. But I walked over to him and I'm like what's going on? He's like do you hear that? And I'm like what? And he's like do you hear the laughter? Do you hear the joy? Do you hear the people having conversations? Do you see the smile on the faces? And there's people all over the room just hanging out in different stages of whatever engagement he's like. That is the magic of recovery.

Speaker 2:

Recovery is not recovering your child. Recovery is not recovering your relationship. Recovery is recovering community the ability to listen, to laugh, to grow together, to cry together, to support each other. He said everything's happening right here, right now. It's a super cool part of recovery that we don't talk about enough because we think recovery is about me, about my experience, about my child, about my grandchild, about my parent, whatever it is. And recovery is really. It's a community event where we move along together at different paces at different times. So I'm just loving hanging out with you here and a huh and a wow. I'm gonna give you a huh, a wow, I'm giving myself a huh and a wow and a two. Like that was super fun.

Speaker 2:

First half of the show where we didn't know what we were going to be talking about and we got to talk a lot about step one and what it was like to be new and who we are and how we're discovering ourselves and community and super powerful, super, super powerful part of the conversation. And again, if you're new to the community, welcome. There's a link in the show notes to parental alienation anonymous. If you want to check out the 12-step community that we're talking about and super loving, kind community. There's a bunch of other resources in the show notes.

Speaker 2:

We are a 501c3 nonprofit. Love your support if that feels useful to you and whatever. Yes, no, we do what feels good and please like and share the content with your friends and family and make sure to let us know if there's anything else you'd like us to talk about. More panels you can always reach us at familydisappeared at gmailcom. Again, love to hear from you. More community-based conversations, the better. I really think that's great. So, in case no one's told you yet today I love you. I hope you have a wonderful day, Anna, I think loves you too. Is that true? I hope you have a wonderful day, Anna. I think loves you too. Is that true?

Speaker 3:

yes, I do.

Speaker 2:

Anna loves you too. We'll get her to commit a little bit more on the next show, but anyway, have a beautiful day and we will see you around the neighborhood.

Speaker 1:

Bye for now thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of family disappeared podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.