Family Disappeared

“Grateful and Grieving”- A panel of alienated parents share their stories Part 2 - Episode 95

• Lawrence Joss

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In this episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, a panel of parents discusses their experiences with gratitude amidst the challenges of parental alienation. They explore how gratitude can transform pain into joy, the importance of community, and the role of vulnerability in healing. Through personal stories, they illustrate the journey from anger and resentment to a place of appreciation for life's experiences, emphasizing that gratitude can coexist with difficult emotions.

Key Takeaways

  • Gratitude can emerge from unexpected places.
  • Finding humor in pain can foster connection.
  • Shifting focus from personal suffering to joy in others' lives is transformative.
  • Gratitude is a practice that requires cultivation.
  • Alienation can lead to personal growth and deeper understanding.
  • Being present in life enhances relationships and gratitude.
  • Vulnerability is essential for authentic connections.
  • Pain and suffering can create capacity for gratitude.
  • Gratitude helps in coping with negative emotions.
  • Community support is vital in the journey of healing.

Chapters

00:00 - Introduction to Gratitude in Parenting
03:08 - Finding Humor and Connection in Pain
05:47 - Shifting Focus: From Pain to Gratitude
08:52 - The Journey of Gratitude: Personal Stories
12:09 - Transformative Power of Alienation
14:46 - Gratitude for Life's Experiences
18:05 - Navigating Relationships and Gratitude
20:56 - The Role of Vulnerability in Gratitude
23:57 - Coping with Anger and Bitterness through Gratitude
26:49 - Conclusion: Embracing Gratitude in Everyday Life

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

Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawrencejoss

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

Please donate to support PAA programs:

https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXS

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:

You just froze, steven. Oh, timing, that's funny, ay-yi-yi.

Speaker 3:

Am I freezing again?

Speaker 1:

No, you're back, but that's going to be super cool. I hope that doesn't get edited out. That was the funnest part of the show so far. There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast.

Speaker 1:

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.

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared podcast. And today we are going to be listening to the second part of the conversation around gratitude, and we have a panel of parents that are talking about their experience with gratitude, what it's like to be grateful, what they felt like in the beginning of parental alienation, if it was even possible to tap into gratitude, how they found the path to gratitude. And has gratitude changed their lives, has it enhanced their lives, and how does it support living with these challenging situations and how does it support living with these challenging situations and how does it support living in gratitude and in joy and in all the other relationships in our lives. And thank you for coming out to join us today. If you're new to the community, welcome. A bunch of great resources in the show notes We'd love to see you at a meeting if that feels appropriate.

Speaker 1:

There's a link for Parental Alienation Anonymous in the show notes. We're also a 501c3 nonprofit. We'd love your support. All our services are free and will remain free, and it's useful to have other people helping participate to keep it sustainable. Please like share. Let us know what you're grateful for today on the show or the previous show, and we'd love to hear your input. And sometimes I get emails from folks out there listening just expressing gratitude for what they liked about the show, or that the show even exists or that it's been super useful. And sometimes you know we get other opinions and those are welcome too. So everything's in the show notes familydisappearedatgmailcom if you want to contact me and let's listen to what happens today on the second part of the show.

Speaker 1:

So I remember early on and coming to support groups. I went to a meeting and I was just. I was in it, man, I was in the pain and I was in the suffering and I was struggling. And after the meeting I was hanging out with three people. I met in the back room and we're sitting around talking and this character comes in that had been around meetings for a long time and he talks about getting bit by a dog. And I know this is weird, that's a weird leading, but he talks about being bit by a dog and we're like, huh, what do you mean? So we're like, can we see? So he pulls down his pants and he got bit on the butt by the dog and we're all like laughing and laughing to the point where you're crying and everyone's really struggling with life at the same time.

Speaker 1:

And this is kind of like the infusion of gratitude, like gratitude comes in in different forms and fashion. And for me it started with being able to laugh, because I hated people that would laugh when I was struggling and in so much pain. I found it really triggering. And this poor man got bit. He was okay, you know, he wasn't bleeding or anything like that. It was just a super funny story that we all got to enjoy together and we got to laugh together and get into laugh together. It started to open up our friendship and our relationship and everything kind of transformed.

Speaker 1:

And that's what gratitude has done in my life in relationship to my daughters. I don't necessarily participate in their life or have access, but I have so much gratitude that they're out there living their life and enjoying a lot of things. You know what I mean, and it's not me needing it to be a certain way, I can just have joy in their joy, which is gratitude. So let's see what happens today, and that's super fun. At least I had a lot of fun. Hopefully you do too. Steven, what are you grateful for in your relationship with your kids that you might not have been able to experience or have seen when you first stepped into some kind of support group or recovery?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, well, I can tell you much like what Linda and Anna have shared. I was not in a place to be able to tap into that. When I first came to PA and even before that it just wasn't there I was angry, resentful, grief-stricken, stunned was a good word, all those things and very, as I look back on it, very more so focused on how the situation was affecting me, which I think is understandable initially in a sort of a traumatic experience. But thankfully it hasn't stayed there. And so I think for me, once I wrapped my head I remember I had my sponsor was like OK, I want you to start writing down every day five things you're grateful for. And this was early on and I was like I was just looking for something like kind of like magic trick or parlor trick here, like some recovery parlor trick where he's going to have me like get distracted by writing down five things I'm thankful for. So I'm not going to be focused on the trauma of this horrible situation that's going on. I was like you know, kind of like you know what's going on here, you know, and I didn't really understand then, but I do now because it shifts your focus right and my focus was completely in the wrong place when I came into the room. So what it looks like now and my history is a little bit different, in that my ex and I actually lost a child at 10 days old.

Speaker 3:

I've actually lost a child, and so for me, knowing that my children are alive, they are relatively well adjusted, minus some of the damage from the alienation situation but they're thriving in many areas of their life. My daughter's married she has a baby on the way thriving in many areas of their life. My daughter's married she has a baby on the way. My son's completing college and has a really neat opportunity to travel in Europe this summer, and I can feel grateful for the experiences that they're able to have and their successes and their joy.

Speaker 3:

And sometimes I have to imagine it a little bit because I really don't have all that feedback. But one of my mentors said we're belief-creating machines and so, as humans, we're belief-creating machines. And then his question in follow-up to that was since we're belief-creating machines, why not choose beliefs that serve us rather than those that don't? And so my gratitude has come from choosing beliefs about my kids and their experience, even though I may not even have that information, but I just choose to believe they're happy and they're doing well and things are going great, even without a lot of contact with me.

Speaker 1:

So that mentor sounds awesome and belief generating machines. I can't remember your exact language, but what a beautiful invitation to move away from the negative self-talk to these other thoughts we have that actually start programming everything around us into these dark, cloudy, crappy kind of spaces and just pick the positive, pick to stay in that intention that things are good, even though you aren't necessarily included. I love that and I want to give that person a hug is what comes up for me and I want to say this for anyone out there that's listening is all of us have shared that we didn't really tap into gratitude when we got here, and it wasn't really about our kids, it was about our survival. It was about what we're missing. It was about just getting back to some semblance of life and this took work and it doesn't matter if you're part of this 12-step community or you choose another support group or you have a mentor or you know other people and places and family and things that you can go Like. This is something you can cultivate anywhere.

Speaker 1:

The technology we're talking, without 12-step group, doesn't necessarily mean it's the same technology that everyone's going to use. So find what works for you and it's a practice and the positive intention and the generational practice and everything out like that. And it is a heart practice. It's a cultivation of working with your heart. It's not something that was in my family system is something that I had to learn and I'm going to share a little story here. So my middle daughter I just started connecting with five, six months ago, and it's just through text. That's the capacity that she has, and it was okay for a little while and then it started to feel a little challenging for me because I wasn't getting a lot back. So I'm like eh.

Speaker 1:

I'm not going to text for a while and it wasn't really like that. I was actually taking care of myself. It was a super healthy, loving thing that I did. But at the same time, in that inflection point where I'm making the decision, there was zero gratitude that I wasn't blocked. It was zero gratitude that I still was getting some kind of thank you or okay, even if it was a one word or two word answer.

Speaker 1:

So, like, gratitude is super fleeting If I'm not working on it and I'm not able to stay in the heart space if I'm back to. What am I getting? How am I getting it? When am I going to get more and how is that going to change? And I'm going down to Southern California where my daughter is, and I texted her. I'm like, hey, I'm going to be down there for a couple of days.

Speaker 1:

Is it cool that, like maybe we could meet? Like I haven't seen her in seven years in person? And she's like sorry, I have family coming into town. I'm going to be busy. And I'm like like this is in my head. I'm like this is in my head. I'm like you have family, I'm not family. I'm like what is wrong with this person?

Speaker 1:

And then the gratitude comes in. Oh my God, she has people that she loves that are coming into town, that she gets to spend time with. She considers them family. Maybe they're blood family through her husband, whatever, which is none of my business. But the thing that is super cool is family is important to her. She has people coming into her house and into her home to share space with, and it took me like three or four days to find any kind of gratitude because I was super hurt and I'd pick up the phone. I go, you know, like one of those things. You go like the Charlie Brown and you're just expressing what's going on but you're not really letting it from your head to your body and you're not really experiencing it in your body. So this podcast is bringing that up, like that gratitude.

Speaker 1:

Like huh, she has family and if I could wish for anything for my kids, I wish that they have family and community and they have that and I'm not part of it. And my gratitude that I'm able to appreciate now is stuff like that, like when I hear a little tidbit about something and my that she can rely on. Wonderful, and my other daughter has this. My oldest daughter has this pot of friends that she runs around with and sounds like she's having a lot of fun, and they've created community, which is the ultimate. Most important thing to me is community and family, and they found their own path towards that and the initial thought is include me, include me, don't you know who I am? I'm your dad, you know, and it's so. It's so funny, like, and can I just be happy that they have community, because, yeah, I would wish that they have community more than than the most things.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I don't know what I just said. I hope it made sense and if it didn't, you know what? Fast forward to the next part and here we go and it kind of ties into what we're talking about anyway, like what's something you never thought you'd be grateful for, but now that you have a little bit of time, a little bit of perspective, a little bit of distance and maybe some emotional resources or whatever, like you're like huh, huh, yeah, steven. So what was it? How long ago, roughly, was it, you had the experience and what does it look like? Or what did it look like and what does it look like?

Speaker 3:

I'm going to say this and as I'm saying it I realized that I don't know that it needs a trigger warning, but it just I realized that when I first heard it I couldn't wrap my head around it. I remember I was in a meeting and I heard somebody this was probably maybe a year in, maybe a year and a half and I heard somebody say I'm grateful for what alienation has brought into my life. And I remember hearing it and I was mystified and bewildered and I didn't. I don't think I really could wrap my head around that statement. It felt like the feeling that I had when I was praying for my son to live and he did not live beyond 10 days. And I remember thinking why would a loving God or higher power allow a child to be born into the world and live a very difficult 10 days and pass? And I remember that it took me a long time to wrap my head around that, and not necessarily even having the answer, but just knowing that there was a purpose, a greater purpose there, and since that loss I have seen that purpose play out in my life. I've lived my life differently because of those 10 days.

Speaker 3:

So the trigger warning is I'm going to say this, and I know it's going to be really difficult to hear, depending on where people are in their journey, but I see now that alienation and what it has created in me and what I think someday will create in my alienated children is a blessing. I know that's going to sound radical and it could push buttons and whatever, but I know that without alienation in my life, some of the changes that I've made as far as being present and being nonjudgmental and being more compassionate and listening more carefully and being more patient both with myself and others, I don't know that it would have happened any other way, and so for that I can be grateful, even in the midst of the pain of the situation. So that's how I would answer that one.

Speaker 1:

That's super beautiful and real and transparent and I can see confusing for someone new that's just kind of popping in and a lot of recovery takes time and it takes time to get time. You know what I mean and what day one might only translate at your one. You know, as someone at the meetings shared one time that the, the years, reveal what the days cannot, and I heard this person share that I'm like get out of here, you knucklehead, and then, and then, like a year and a half later, I'm like huh, smart guy Linda, what are you grateful for today that you might not have been grateful in the past? And again, a little bit of a trajectory or maybe what kind of time that took for you.

Speaker 4:

Yeah, sure, I do want to revisit when you were talking about and I was talking about how it felt like when this first happened. It was like being stunned with a stun gun. The way I felt it was that I woke up from an accident, I had amnesia and someone was telling me about my life and I didn't know, I had no idea how this could be my life Like, I just didn't know and people were telling me and it took me probably about at least a month to come out of the shock, to come out of. This is actually happening. This is my new reality. And you know, to start from that starting point because it took a while to even have a starting point, that's how it presented with me.

Speaker 4:

But as far as you know what I never thought I'd be grateful for and similar to what Stephen said, I think I'll make the distinction that I'm grateful for the experience.

Speaker 4:

I am not grateful for the resulting relationship that I don't have, but I am grateful for the experience. You never know what you have until it's taken away. And I now, in reflection, I see that I was kind of asleep at the wheel. I was in cruise control, I was just getting from day to day, trying to meet my obligations, going to the store and making sure that there was lunches made, and going through the grind, and I could not be that present person and parent to my children if I didn't have the perspective that I have today. I show up for every single part of my life. Now I'm probably one of the healthiest I've ever been physically, you know, with my eating, my physical exercise. I'm showing up the best at my job, in my performance, in how I do my duties and interact with other team members. And then as a parent, I mean I am enjoying and taking every moment I can to genuinely belly laugh with my children and either do something or not do something and appreciate that I have a 14-year-old that likes to talk to me.

Speaker 4:

He wants to tell me about his day he wants to talk to me about the NFL draft picks, even though I, you know, it just boggles me. But, okay, great, let's, let's have that interaction. And so going through this process, like I said, it translates to every single aspect of my life and previously I didn't have the bandwidth to even. I mean, my sister would tell me about her dog, and you know how her dog was getting a tooth extract. I can't. I'm like, do you know what I'm going through? How can I even care about your dog? And so, and now I do ask her about those things and ask her about what's going on with her, and those were just questions that I never even had the opportunity to ask because I couldn't even think to ask them outside of what I was going through. And so that's where it ties into the gratitude that I have for the experience and the process, because I wouldn't have gone through this process had the alienation not occurred. It just it wouldn't have happened or some you know it would have taken.

Speaker 4:

It takes some devastating situation and occurrence to get you to really have this life change. And it is what I needed, because I was just going day to day and I was passing through life, and so I'm grateful for the experience, not the resulting several relationships. I mean. I call parental alienation an equal opportunity assassin of familial bonds. It doesn't matter your socioeconomic status, it doesn't matter your culture, it doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter who you are. It can impact you know the best parents, because I think a lot of us are not just okay parents but great parents but it can still make you better. This process can make you better. It's just you know it's. It's. It's a trajectory, though it's a trajectory and a lot of internal reflection and work.

Speaker 1:

You were talking a lot about being present in your life and being present for moments that you would have completely missed. So it seems like when we have parental alienation or some major event happened in our lives, we think that stuff's getting taken away, but it really sounds like stuff's getting added back, that that you had lost, that you couldn't find your way back to. So I really found that to be very powerful, and as I'm listening to everyone talk, I hear that constant theme where, yeah, this is, this is crappy. And then I hear people adding all these different nuances and shifts that have been added back. And now I got a super challenging question for you, linda. At least I think it's super challenging. In my head. It's super challenging.

Speaker 1:

You're talking about your 14-year-old in the NFL draft, which sounds beautiful to be able to have that conversation, even though the subject matter is challenging At least it would be for me, and it sounds like it would be for you too and you don't have any communication with your daughter. So here's the question it sounds like your relationship with the boys is deepening and you're more present. You're able to barely laugh. You're talking about the NFL draft and you don't have any relationship with your daughter. So this thing has been taken away and this other thing has been supercharged. Is there gratitude for this having to be put on hold, but all this other stuff gets really, really full. Can you even call it gratitude? Like having these two completely different experiences?

Speaker 4:

I mean and I'm hopefully answering your question here is I can be grateful without the contact and connection with my daughter. It's now looking at it through the lens of oh my gosh, you're running late for Taekwondo, you know? Oh, we didn't get your bag. We got to go back for your bag. Where's your belt, you know? And now that because previously I had 5% visitation with my children, actually with my boys I had no contact with my daughter. So now that I have 50, 50, it's a oh my gosh, I get to take my son to Taekwondo. Oh my gosh, I get to. You know, be there and see him, and I'm going to take him there, I'm going to take him back, I'm going to. You know, I have this opportunity to be there to know that, hey, it's in my oh, it was in the dryer, my dryer because he was at my house. You know, such an experience, welcoming them back into my home after seven months where they weren't with me, I mean it was just the most incredible experience where they weren't just visiting anymore, they were going to live at my house and our house, I mean it became.

Speaker 4:

I remember a situation where we had fires here I live in California we had fires and my son, my youngest, the one that has autism, my 12 year old he said I heard about the fires. I'm so glad that your house is okay. And I said, well, it's our house. And he goes no, I don't live there anymore. So you know, I was visually I think visually hurt. I mean he's always like are you okay?

Speaker 4:

And, and my son I mean, for you know, autism is to have like sensory challenges and you know, social challenges with interpreting social cues, and he is one of the most emotionally intelligent individuals that I know and very perceptive, and he could see how that visually impacted me. He said are you okay? And I said yeah, no, I'm good. He's like, no, you're not. And I said no, I've just, you know, would look forward to you know, know, having back it is, it is our home, it is our home and I left it at that. So that's that's where the gratitude really stems from. It's that foundation of looking at things instead of the grind of, oh my gosh, I have to do this. It's oh my gosh, I get to. I have this opportunity to do this because I didn't have it before and it is something I should enjoy and something that I do enjoy. I just couldn't stop and appreciate it at the time.

Speaker 1:

I loved when you said the laundry machine, and you know that you get to put stuff in the laundry machine and get stuff out of a laundry machine and I just see you running around the house saying, laundry, laundry. I'm doing the laundry. You know what I mean Like. And it's so cool and so bizarre at the same time that you could get so much joy and gratitude in doing the laundry when you have something so simple taken away. So I love that. I got that. That's what I, whenever I see you in future, linda, it's going to be. I'm picturing you running around the house yelling about laundry. You know, wow, that's super cool, makes me super happy, anna, anything that you thought you'd be never grateful for, but you are now yeah, you know what's coming into my head.

Speaker 2:

You were talking earlier about where you feel in your body. This is in my belly a little bit. But also my heart is that I've been in program three and a half years and when I first came in, the sense of isolation was reduced right away. I felt like I'd found my people. I started doing the work. I fairly early on found a sponsor, which I'm grateful for, and once that glow kind of changed a little bit and I started getting into the work. I started wanting to leave because it felt too painful and I thought, okay, so I've felt good for a little bit and I started getting into the work. I started wanting to leave because it felt too painful and I thought, okay, so I've felt good for a little bit. But now I'm feeling as if I'm feeling worse than when I came in. Do I want to do this? And it was my old dysfunction and survival kick. I can see that now and what I'm grateful for is that I was surrounded by a group of people that I was in contact with that were holding space for me to allow to put voice to that. They weren't judging, they weren't telling me off, they weren't telling me to leave, but I was also getting the message that I had a choice. I don't have to stay in program. But if I'm going to stay and it wasn't verbally spelt out like this I need to ask for help, and man do. I hate asking for help and being vulnerable. It scared the life out of me and so I did a little bit of a dance around it and I had some conversations with people where I probably sounded like a teenager that was having a hissy fit and I was arguing about things that I was doing everything I could to avoid the vulnerability piece and I went over a lot of little bumps with that and I can't remember the the exact circumstances, but that was fairly early on and it's really only now that I'm starting. I'm so grateful that I was put in a position where I was made to put out my hand. I feel like I'm good at offering that to other people, but to do it myself because it feels like weakness. I'm a survivor. You can't touch me. I won't be hurt by any of this and I'm not going to.

Speaker 2:

As painful as this process has been, and it's the most painful thing I think I've ever been through. I felt like I was losing part of my identity if I admitted that I needed help and I'm so grateful there are people in community that could resonate and I could have conversations where their teenager would come out with my teenager, but it was then. It allowed me to express it and get it out of my system and think okay, the way I get to move forward, I'm in charge of the ship. Now I need to be vulnerable and the people that I'm seeing in community that are inspiring me and being vulnerable themselves. That's the path forward and that's going to look like different things, but it was like a piece of armor that, the last piece of armor that I had to remove because it felt like it was the only thing that I had left. But I remember it being so difficult and having group of conversations or the smaller conversations of watching people's body languages.

Speaker 2:

I went through all this thing and thinking they've heard this story before and they've been in 12 step before and they've been in recovery before and thank goodness that they could hold space for me and for me also it's a spiritual thing I still could have left.

Speaker 2:

I'm stubborn enough to think, okay, I know this little bit and I've got what I'm going to get from program and then there's the exit sign and I'm going to go Because this is touching spaces that I do not want to touch and this feels like it's got nothing to do with my kids.

Speaker 2:

Of course it has everything to with connection and being able to be heart centered and be able to show up being vulnerable. I want my children to be able to do that. In order for that to happen, I have to do it myself. Like wow, that's a huge ask and I'm so grateful that I've been able to practice that. I practice this on a daily basis and now I can. I hope that I'm in a position where I can hold space for other people to do the same thing and watch that pushback happen and think, yeah, this is part of the process and I'll have pushback again myself as it gets deeper. It's like if I'm not vulnerable, then I can't get any more hurt than I already am. And of course, that's black and white thinking. It doesn't work like that, but I never thought I'd be grateful for that.

Speaker 1:

That's super beautiful and so many of us come in with so much armor on and our hearts shut down and just there's no way we're going to accept help when we don't need help. And to go through that experience of opening up and feeling that and feeling your vulnerability and being grateful for that is super beautiful. And I'll say, like gratitude's an interesting thing, because my life is super big and I get to sit here with the three of you on this podcast people I would never have met without parental alienation and I've met all these other people and have these different relationships in my life that feed me in so many ways and add so much value to my life as a human being, as a friend, as as just having these different experiences. And yet I don't have these experiences in the same timeframe with my kids. Yeah, like both are existing at the same time, but I would not give up the life that I have today If you said, hey, you're going to have your kids back tomorrow and you're just going to go back to the way things are.

Speaker 1:

I really feel like this is profound form of parenting that I'm showing up with and I want to experience both and also keep this portal open for my kids and it's a super challenging thought to express and say out loud and I need to think about that a little bit, but I want to throw it out there. And I also want to say anyone out there that's listened to this says hey, I'm angry, this is crap, this is whatever. Be angry, be sad, being grief. We all went through these multiple phases of stuff and we might be talking about gratitude, but I think we all go in and out of all these different feelings and it's not rosy and it's not gratitude all the time. That's just not realistic for anyone or anything.

Speaker 1:

And we are running out of time here, so I'm just going to pop into one more question, and it's going to be has gratitude helped you cope with bitterness, anger, loneliness, heartbreak, like? Has gratitude helped you transform those ingredients in whatever you're tending to cook, in whatever you're growing in your garden? Has it done those things? And let's start off with you first, stephen.

Speaker 3:

Definitely that was my biggest challenge when I came into program was, you know, I felt very angry and resentful at the part of you know, I recognize that I played some part, obviously, in the alienation story in our family unit as well, but I was blinded by anger and resentment towards an ex who had, you know, compounded and created unnecessary alienation and division and disconnection and that kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

And to me it's not just, it's not really helping me cope, I feel like it's almost like the antidote to it, if that makes sense. And so the more I found myself finding gratitude for the things I did have. It's a mindset shift right To be in that space versus being in a space of anger and resentment. And you know I am kind of into all this, like how things energetically vibrate and et cetera, et cetera. And you know anger and resentment are low, low vibration emotions and feelings and it's OK to experience them and to have them and to share them and express them and talk about them. But getting stuck in it is a different story and I was stuck when I came in to program. So yeah, it's gratitude has been one of the big antidotes to being stuck in that place. So absolutely.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, stephen. And what comes to mind is I'm like seeing Stephen at a dinner table and, like five years ago, like you know, anger and bitterness is like taking up 80% of his plate, and then he has a little tiny bit of gratitude and a little tiny bit of smile and joy. And now I'm like checking out his plate and it's like 85%, like gratitude, and then there's some anger and resentment and loneliness, you know. But yeah, that's what came up, steven, anna, gratitude, coping with any of the hard emotions that you came in with what does that feel like to you, and has it been useful?

Speaker 2:

It has, because in order to feel gratitude I need to be in that slow space that we were talking about earlier and for me the bitterness and anger it means it's a sign that there's something else to investigate.

Speaker 2:

But it normally means that I'm fairly revved up and I can see now, because of the work that I've done, that the challenges that might prompt the anger or the bitterness can prompt gratitude if you look at it from a different perspective and saying that it's not always immediate and it's not always obvious, and I do get frustrated and certain things can be push buttons for me.

Speaker 2:

But because my whole approach is a lot slower now and I've learned how to respond rather than react in program, I'm less prone to jump to conclusions and if I can sit in that space I can pull out what's making me angry but also what I'm grateful for for being in that circumstance in the first place. I love the way that program work and doing this work has changed my perspective and it feels like a bigger picture thing going rather than the black and white thinking. Black and white thinking was my survival and it felt familiar and it wasn't great for me and it was lonely, but I knew how to do it and it's nice to be able to expand. I've been able to expand in recovery rather than being in a very contracted state thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1:

I think you mentioned the black and white thinking before and actually having the whole spectrum of colors and emotions that are available and not just jumping from one polar opposite to the other polar opposite and living in this polarized world, I think is where we come into this, a lot of us and then finding those middle ways are super transformative, like you're talking about, Emma. Thank you for that and Linda, gratitude, bitterness, anger, sadness, longing.

Speaker 4:

So I want to speak to what you're saying as far as the anger and how we're not. I'm not always grateful and I feel as if my gratitude is inversely proportional to all the anger, grief, sadness that I've had. You know, I'm only able to be this grateful because of how deep I was in, where, you know, at the bottom of the barrel, you know, I was there, fetal position, not being able to get out of bed. I mean just really just not being able to focus taking my walks and just being angry the entire time. I couldn't smile at people. I would go through the mall and someone would greet me like oh here, try this lotion. And I mean I would say, and I would just have this stonewalled face. And they said you should smile. And I looked at them and I said I just lost my children and I wanted to just shove my grief, my sadness, my anger onto anyone. And it was just this insidious, like kind of disease that makes you want to infect other people with your pain. So you know that said this bitterness, you know, and how you turned it into gratitude. You know I've heard this saying that resentments are premeditated expectations and I have a lot of resentment and in that I am able to identify my role in where this all comes about. And in this part of this process is where you kind of look at well, what is your role in these things? And when I first came in, I thought why do we have to say anything about what our contributions were? I didn't do anything wrong and I thought that it would be something where you shift blame and what I've learned is that it's not about the blame, you're not taking on any blame, you're not taking on culpability and it's not self-deprecating. I was concerned that the process would be that if you take on any responsibility, it would be very self-deprecating. But in my process of learning this, it's a way that you can look at things without having to say but.

Speaker 4:

And I'll just give an example that Mother's Day is coming up. It's a huge trigger for me because last year at this time I didn't get to spend it with my children. I was in pain, I had an injury and I had limited mobility and I didn't have my children, and that was when my daughter and I had one of our last exchanges of, among other things, saying that I had abandoned her, that I didn't want her for Mother's Day. I told her, explained to her you know, I have an injury, I have limited mobility, and she said well, it sounds like you can't take care of yourself. How are you going to take care of us? I didn't respond to that in any way, but of course in my mind I thought wow, how can you say that I'm the one that's injured, I'm the one that should be upset. But at the end of the day, in all reality, she was right.

Speaker 4:

You know, I was having a difficult time taking care of myself. It was my ego that said no, I can work all the time. Yeah, I can be a full-time mom. That's just not always the case. You can't always do that.

Speaker 4:

So I just try and look at it where I flip the script and I take that bitterness and anger and I think what is my role in it? What am I really upset about? I was really upset about when she said that to me. I was really just more upset about yeah, no, I can't do it and I'm, I'm upset about that. It wasn't. I wasn't upset that that she was wrong, because she was right.

Speaker 4:

I was blinded by my own insecurities, and so, you know, that's where, to me, the gratitude comes into play is that I'm able to see things from perspective that I never got to see it before. I saw it from my lens of why I, you know it happened to me. When things are just happening, they're not happening to me, they're just, they're just happening. And this has allowed me to turn that around and just see other people's perspective, other ways of looking at things, without saying, oh, everything is my fault and I'm such a horrible person, I'm such a horrible mom and, yeah, really be able to take accountability of my own, my own decisions and actions.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for that, linda, and the thing that really struck me about that is the idea about pain and suffering creates capacity, and in creating capacity we also creating capacity for gratitude and happiness and play and then all these other things, and they are directly and proportionally related to each other.

Speaker 1:

So I appreciate you bringing that in, because I don't think my heart would be in the place it was unless I had to suffer through the things that I suffered because I didn't learn that in my family of origin, the show and that kind of know, yeah, this sucks, this is painful and and there's a lot of great medicine and great potential that comes out of, out of struggle as we've seen in the history of the world. So well, something happened there. It was a lot. Anyway, thank you, my beautiful friends, that we get to spend a little bit of time together having such a wonderful conversation around all things. Gratitude, like I don't know if it gets any better than that. So if you all just want to give me one sentence to check out and say goodbye, and we will start with you, stephen, and then we will wrap up the show.

Speaker 3:

Wow, I guess, to be apropos to the subject at hand, I just feel really grateful to be here and to share this space with three other wonderful people and to be walking this journey together.

Speaker 1:

Anna, can you do a little check out and let us know what your last thought before we go?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm also very grateful to be able to participate and feel inspired and feel like I have a warm heart space after this conversation. But also I was thinking that I'm grateful that all of this process and the ins and outs has really allowed me to be grateful and joyous about what I have rather than what I don't have. That's something that's always in front of mind for me and hopefully that resonates with some people in community that are a different part of their journey.

Speaker 1:

Thank you and Linda.

Speaker 4:

You know, I've heard of this thing called abundance, which I'm not as familiar with, but where you are, you know, attuned at higher frequencies, and I know that was mentioned earlier, and I heard the example of when you're laughing with someone at something, then you both are laughing and you're at a high frequency. But when you make someone laugh it's an exchange of energy and their laughter is actually a thank you for what you've done for them to make them laugh, and so that takes you to a higher level of frequency and connectivity and to me is a form of gratitude when you have these kinds of experiences, like we did today in this exchange of information, where we build upon and can not only relate, can really build upon and extrapolate upon each of our experiences. In this shared experience we all have all different, all different cases, but all part of this shared experience.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for coming out and playing in the sandbox with me today, and I hope you all have a beautiful day. Wow, wow, wow, wow and a wow and and I say all those wells because, like, I'm sitting here having a conversation with three friends that I never would have met and we're choosing to spend a sunday talking about gratitude. If you would have told me this, you know, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, maybe even five years ago, I would have said you're, I'm not going to be on a podcast talking about gratitude. There's just no way. That's not how I want to spend my time, and today it is, and it's super fun sitting around with your friends talking about what you're grateful for and the monkey mind and how you've had all these other projections around gratitude and you couldn't really just be grateful for the little things in your life that manifested on a daily basis, and we also spoke about how grateful we are today for those little things and I feel super full, super excited, super grateful to have community and friends that are willing to explore a conversation about gratitude on a Sunday and it's actually Saturday. So I lost a day, gained a day, super grateful for that too. So thanks for coming out to play. I hope you enjoyed the show. We'd love to hear from you. You can always email me at familydisappeared, at gmailcom, and five gratitudes in the comments on YouTube or wherever else.

Speaker 1:

I want to know what you're grateful for today. It was explained to me that if I couldn't find anything to really be grateful about, it's just to get super, super simple. Be couldn't find anything to really be grateful about is just to get super, super simple. Be grateful that I got out of bed, that I'm able to walk, that I could feel the sunshine, that I can see, that I can hear, that I had a piece of toast for breakfast. So really low bar for gratitude. And be creative and let us know those bigger things that you're grateful for that relationship, that puppy, you know, whatever. Anyway, I'm tired of talking and thank you for coming out to play.

Speaker 1:

Great stuff in the show notes. Check it out If no one's told you yet. Today I love you and, again in the spirit of gratitude, I love that I'm able to love and say that out loud and I'm so grateful that my heart is open to that degree that on a podcast, looking at a camera to some random folks and to not some random folks that I can say like, like, I love you and I can share that openheartedly and genuinely. Have a beautiful day. Hope to see you around the neighborhood. Bye-bye. 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? Thank you.