Surviving the Holidays with Parental Alienation, Grief & Healing - Episode 125

Lawrence Joss discusses the emotional complexities surrounding the holidays, particularly for those experiencing parental alienation and estrangement. He emphasizes the importance of acknowledging feelings of grief, loneliness, and frustration while also highlighting coping strategies such as having a plan, seeking community support, and reframing negative thoughts. Joss encourages listeners to create new traditions and find ways to connect with loved ones, even in their absence, while practicing self-care and compassion during this challenging time.

Key Takeaways

• The holidays can amplify feelings of joy and pain.
• It's important to acknowledge the struggles of parental alienation.
• Having a plan for the holidays can help mitigate emotional distress.
• Resentment can be harmful; finding ways to address it is crucial.
• Creating new traditions can help in coping with loss.
• Community support is vital during the holidays.
• Self-care practices are essential for emotional well-being.
• Triggers are inevitable; being prepared can help manage them.
• Reframing negative thoughts can shift your perspective.
• It's important to remember that the holiday season is temporary.

Chapters

0:00 - Welcome And Holiday Theme
 1:44 - Memories and Mixed Gratitude
 2:44 - How Holidays Amplify Joy and Pain
 4:35 - Stages of Alienation and Planning Ahead
 7:05 - Service and Hope as an Antiseptic
 8:36 - Naming Invisible Loss and Emotions
 10:18 - Forgiveness Work and Releasing Resentments
 12:05 - Anticipating Triggers and Setting Boundaries
 15:10 - Communicating Needs and Seeking Consent
 18:08 - Self-Care Planning and Safe People
 20:10 - Creating New Rituals and Continuing to Live
 22:28 - Reframing Painful Holiday Stories
 24:20 - Shame, Self-Forgiveness, and Repair
 26:04 - Commemorating Loved Ones From Afar
 28:12 - Closing Wishes and Community Reflection

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)

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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

Transcript

Welcome And Holiday Theme

SPEAKER_00 0:00

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. Did you ever think I hate the holidays? Like I just wish they wouldn't be around. Like this is so painful. I don't know what to do with myself in the holidays. Maybe you're thinking I just want to see my kids, my grandkids. Maybe you're saying I just want to see my parents. You know, these are real struggles when you're dealing with parental alienation, estrangement, disconnection. And it doesn't matter what direction in. It doesn't matter if you're a family member, they are struggles. So today's show, we're going to be talking about the holidays, what to do, what not to do, acknowledging the grief and different aspects of the holidays. I think it's going to be a really powerful episode. I hope you enjoyed. If you're new to the community, welcome. Bunch of resources in the show notes. Free 12-step meeting, parental alienation anonymous, wonderful, supportive community. That's a great place to build up some resources. We're also a 501c3 nonprofit. Please donate. Make it monthly if that's possible. And you're just supporting the next person in so they can find this resource. And we can continue doing this. And if you feel called to do that, it is appreciated. Please like, share, comment. I want to know what's useful, what's not useful. You can always email me at family disappeared at gmail.com. And with that, let's jump into the show. I remember the holidays, and we used to do some fun stuff. I remember the first holidays that I had my kids, you know, put up a Christmas tree. They were young. God, maybe five, eight, eleven, something like that. And, you know, I'm a single dad, and you know, got the it's probably a fake Christmas tree, but who knows? I'm not quite sure. And then no decorations. So I went in the kids' room when they weren't at school, and I just took out random pieces of their clothing, and I just put the clothing on the tree. And we had a great Christmas, and we had some things we did on a yearly basis. So there's a book. I don't know if you're familiar with Doug Funny. It was a cartoon, and there was this book I always used to read him about the 12 whatever things of Christmas, and it was just a ritual that we had, and I missed that stuff. And uh I'm also grateful that I got to do that stuff. And I just wanted to share that little story and say happy holidays. And yeah, well, let's jump into all the different things that I put together and the different stuff we'll discuss. So I don't take up too much bandwidth right here. Okay, let's go. I just want to acknowledge the holidays for everyone. And I'm not sure what holiday you're celebrating. It might be Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, it might be a different form of a holiday. It might be, you know, just uh it might also be different. It might be the sorrow with the colonization of the land, and you might not celebrate some of the holidays. And that's all still like a seminal day, whatever direction that you go. So I want to acknowledge all the different directions that we can go. And also want to say that the holidays amplify a lot of joy, and we get to have good moments and healthy moments too, and it also amplifies the pain and the longing and the frustration and maybe some shame and confusion, especially in the early days. Like it's a holiday. People are like, what are you doing? You know, and like, hey, I'm not doing anything with my kids. Like, you know, that's that's a rough thing to say. And early on, I must probably shared a lot of that stuff with people. And now around the holidays, I just say, you know, I'm hanging out with some family and some friends, and I'm super excited for it. And I don't go deep into the weeds because I don't need to take myself down that bunny hole. The holidays are hard enough by themselves without me jumping into traps that I've preset. And I do talk about the holidays with people that are really close to me, people within the parental alienation community that understand what I'm going through and I can get deeper and I can actually hear and understand what's going on, and we can have a real conversation versus some strangers or people I'm not really connected to asking me about the holidays, and I'm trying to get them to understand what's going on for me, and they have no point of reference. So I learned for myself that that was more hurtful. So I just again I just want to acknowledge holidays, happy holidays. Ho ho ho. If you're doing Christmas, I don't know what else we can say, but you know, happy Turkey Day, happy D happy decolonization day. Let's decolonize everything, you know, all the stuff. So and also want to validate the struggle that so many of us are going through. You know, if this season feels heavy, lonely, or unfair. I just want to be clear, you're not doing anything wrong. You're doing the best that you can as I am. Like, I'm not going to spend the holidays with my kids this year. I won't see any of them for any of the holidays. And uh it sucks and it's painful and it's a struggle and it hurts. And I also want to say there's there's people in the community that are different parts of the bell curve. And what I mean by that, there's people that are maybe even pre-alienation, then there's people at the beginning stages of alienation, and then people different parts of alienation, and there's people 15, 20, 30 years into alienation like myself. And it's really important to make that distinction because at different times in alienation, the struggle shifts. Like I struggled so hard to get time to do these different things, which I should, and I think I'm shooting myself. I don't want to shoot anyone else, but that's what I chose to do at that time. And as the pain mounted and it wasn't getting reciprocated, I took care of myself. I made a plan for the holidays. I went to 12-step support group meetings. I met with friends. I had a plan of what I was going to do through the day. So even though that I can validate the struggle, I also want to say the struggle shifts as I work on my interpersonal recovery, as I work on myself, as I work on my communication skills, as I work on my co-regulating skills, as I work on all aspects of myself. The struggle does change. So if you're in the fire, it hurts like hell. There is no solution. And I found that service, volunteering, being of service at PAA meetings, a different form of service in your own community is an incredibly great antiseptic for the wound. I also find that having a plan, like I said before, is an incredibly great antiseptic for the wound, too. Like I have to tend to that wound. It is real and it is there, and it's painful, and there's different variations of pain, and it does shift. There is hope with or without the kids. Like I'm gonna have a wonderful, wonderful Christmas this year. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My sister and her family and her husband and some close friends were at my house, and now I'm in a community in Hawaii and gonna have a great Christmas here. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm living my life. And I think a really important component of this is I'm not gonna stay in this contraction. I'm not gonna run and hide from my life. As I have more recovery, I can actually live like this full, rich, meaningful life. I miss my kids, and I choose to advocate for a relationship for my kids by being of service and doing this podcast in this moment. Like I can't affect a change within them, but by being of service, I can affect a change within me and maybe share something useful with someone else. So I just want to say it changes and it shifts and it moves. And I also want to acknowledge this invisible loss. Like we've lost this relationship with these children, we've lost this time with these grandchildren, we've lost seen our parents slowly start to age or some of the changes of life they go through, and we've lost relationships with other family members. Like there's this invisible loss that's so tangible and moves in so many different directions, and we need to acknowledge this and shout and scream about it. It's good and cry about it, like we can't suppress this stuff. But acknowledging all the different directions and aspects of our life that are affected by this loss, I think is incredibly, incredibly important. And as I'm talking about feelings like being angry, talking about being jealous of what the kids are doing with the other family members or the other parent or the other spouse or the other siblings, whatever it is, like that's good. It's real. You know, heartbreak's real. Even the resentment. Like I resent that's happening. You know what I mean? That's crappy. You know, like it's true. And then it's also like this idea of it's too painful, so I choose to numb myself out. Whether it's alcohol, whether it's food, sugar, shopping, sleeping TV, like that's happening too. That's also an emotion and it's a natural response. And I want to say one thing about resentment. Like, resentment is gonna kill you. Not gonna kill someone else. And and I say this from experience, like my resentment was gonna kill me. And unless I found a way to work with my resentments during the holidays, I was gonna shrivel up and die, or I was gonna just be a raging lunatic. You know, the pain is so visceral. Like, what else can you do? And I had to find a forgiveness practice. So meditation, you know, metta, which is uh, you know, a Buddhist-based meditation, loving-kindness meditation. There's a forgiveness meditation. You can Google any of the stuff. If we have time, we'll put some we'll put some links in the show notes about some forgiveness meditations. Maybe if I have time, I'll even put together a forgiveness meditation for the holidays. I'm not sure if that will happen, but we'll get to that. So we got meditation as a forgiveness practice, we got journaling as a forgiveness practice, we got different forms of therapy, somatic therapy, really really getting to the wounds and learning to forgive ourselves. There's so many different ways to access this resentment. And I think it's really important and something you should not skip over. If you're struggling, like actually dealing with the wound instead of dealing around with the wound, or like wandering in the woods, you know, trying to find a 7-Eleven, it's not gonna work. You have to go to the wound and you have to address it. And I'll finish this about resentments. In the 12 steps, you actually get to write out all your resentments. You get to write out everything that you're resentful for, whether it's people, places, things, institutions, whatever it is, and you get to look at your part in the resentments, and then you get to make amends where appropriate and available. And it's such a great way to move through this pain. And in conjunction with meditation or something else, else that is life-changing. So that is definitely something to consider. I also want to talk about triggers. Like there's a lot of triggers on the holidays, whether there's no one at the house, whether there's only friends at the house, you know, if there's empty chairs, maybe there's photos up of the family members that you're missing from a different year. There could be social media posts, and also those traditions that you're used to having aren't there. So please be tender with yourself and also know that the triggers are going to be there. So if I just ignore that these things are going to be around and I don't set myself up for a positive experience, I'm gonna feel some pain. And again, as recovery progresses and as I start to learn more about myself, I start to prepare myself differently for the holidays. I'd say be really conscientious about the triggers. How can you protect yourself? Are some of the pictures not necessary during the holidays? Do you want to not have something at your house? Do you want to make sure you have a meeting or a support group or some kind of faith group, whatever it is to go to? You know, be prepared. They're there, they're coming. There's no way around that, but there is a relationship to those triggers that you have agency and autonomy over. It's just a matter if you're present enough and embodied enough to actually make a different decision. And it took me years to make a different decision. I want to be clear. It's not like I popped into parental alienation. I made great decisions, I made messes, and I felt pain, and I cried and I raged and I tried every strategy. And then I let go. And now I'm of service, and my pain has shifted. I still feel it. It's a dull ache that's with me all the time, but it's super shifted. And as I said before, I have a great life because it has shifted, because I'm doing recovery work, because I'm addressing the triggers and the resentments and anything else that's coming up. So I hope that for you, for your holiday present, that's what I hope you give yourself. Gotta say, this is a tough one. You know, we're around other family or other friends or in other social gatherings, and there's this idea that we need to be festive. You know, I would like to curse a bunch now. I don't really curse on the show, but it would be appropriate now. But I'm like, hey, you be festive. You leave me the hell alone. I'm gonna do what I need to do to take care of myself. Like, I don't need to be festive. If I'm sad, I get to be sad. Right? And I also don't need to project my sadness, my resentment, my fear, or anger onto other people. If I'm in a really crappy situation, I want to be clear with people that this is how I'm feeling. You know, I just want to make sure before we have these interactions on the holidays that you're aware of it. Asking for consent is a great way to heal yourself and also to grow relationships and let people show up to support you. Because if you're not actually having an intelligent, grounded conversation before these really tough days and you just show up dysregulated, that's gonna dysregulate other folks. But if you're having intelligent conversations, emotionally intelligent conversations before, people can actually show up to support you. Yeah. And and you don't have to pretend that everything's alright. And you can start to change your system by communicating, letting people know where you're at, giving them choice if they even if that feels like too much or too little, or you know, and people are gonna love you through it, you're gonna be surprised. And go to places where there are people that are experiencing the same thing. And that's why the 12-step community support group is so wonderful. There's all kinds of holiday meetings, and you might not like 12-step recovery, you might have some other social gathering or some other community you're connected to, or some other group, but be in community and hopefully you can find some people that can understand what's going on. You know, super, super, super important around the holidays. You know, one of the things that really challenged me during the holidays was seeing families together intact. This is gonna sound not so nice, but I hated them. You know, I'm like, how come you get to be together? How come you get to be so happy? I just want five minutes, I just want 10 minutes, you get 24 hours. I'm like, come on. You know, and it was super triggering for a while to see whole families together or a dad and a daughter sitting on a bench having an ice cream, or you know, everyone's super festive. And God, I hated them. And I and it was just that I hated my situation. It's just that I was out of control. I had no agency in my own life. There was nothing I could do to control the situation with my kids, and I just projected it onto all these people. But it's real, it's hard to see that stuff, and it's it's important for me to acknowledge like this is hard and it's a real feeling, and it's also a trap. Like I can't compare myself to someone else on the outside, and like we hear all different variations of this, like what's going on on the inside. So I would say, hey, if you're feeling that way and you're out and about, like, acknowledge it to yourself. You're like, yeah, it's okay that that I'm feeling a little jealous, triggered, whatever the word is. And I don't know what's going on over there. Like, I can't compare my situation to their situation. I don't know. You know, and there's a little bit of space acknowledging the comparison trap. So I just want to say, hey, consider that. Consider that as a good way to do something. So we're just gonna talk about some some self-care and coping tools, and I've covered some of these already, but I just want to go into them a little bit more. Have a plan. Listen, Stan you gotta have a plan. No plan, Stan. You know, you can go right off the rails and into a ditch, and it's gonna hurt. And you don't have a lot of control over your life right now, and and you might be in the middle of court or you might be trying to reintegrate with a loved one. But have a plan. What are you gonna do? Where are you gonna be? Where do you have support available? Even what are you gonna eat? You know, making sure to sleep, take care of yourself. You know, like have a plan. It's gonna change the trajectory of your holiday. It might suck still, but there will be pockets that that'll unsuck, and then there will gradually be less unsuck in time, and you'll eventually find a space that you can titrate in and out, but most of the day will be pleasurable, maybe. At least that's my experience. And again, like we talked about triggers, reducing emotional ambushes, you know, like if I'm gonna see a parent of someone else, or I'm gonna see another family member or someone else, and they tend to discuss this, or they want to get into what's going on with my kid and give me advice and stuff like that. How do I prepare for that? You know, and a boundary is a great way. If there is someone and you interact with them and they bring up a subject matter that that feels uncomfortable, it's like, hey, thank you so much, Sally Joe. I really appreciate you inquiring about the kids. And I'm not really open to talking about it right now, but thank you. And then hopefully the subject changes, and if it doesn't, you just excuse yourself and move on to the next conversation. You know, but having a boundary and doing it in a kind and nice way is a great way. And you're you're reducing the possibility of really going sideways on the holidays by actually being prepared for the interactions that you're going to have on the holidays. And we're talking about community, and in like parental alienation on this has the meetings on all the holidays. And that might be for you and not for you, like I said before, but identify a couple safe people. Who's a safe person that I can go to if I'm feeling super dysregulated, scared, isolated, whatever it is? Like, are there those safe people? And for some of us, maybe there's not. And then it's a matter of setting up a schedule with some loving, kind stuff, playing music, dancing, meditating, reading a book, whatever it is, but having a plan in that way. But if you have the possibility of having some safe people in your life, identify them. Connect with them beforehand and say, hey, will you be my safe person for the holidays? I tend to feel a little bit scared and overwhelmed. Is that okay? Can I reach out to you? It's like Hell's the Bells, reach out to me. I'd love to support you. And if I'm feeling overwhelmed in my support, I might have to tell you that I don't have full capacity. What a great thing that you're advocating, asking for support. Other people get to say yes or no, and they get to show up in the in the capacity that they can. So I think that's incredibly important. Another great way to take care of yourself is create different rituals. Like some of the rituals that we don't have now, because our kids aren't around, doesn't mean we can't have a variation of something completely different that we can incorporate now into our lives. So, what are those new rituals you want to do? You know what I mean? Is it uh you wanna bring socks for everyone that's gonna be at the event? You know, a silly armband? Do you want to bring some kind of art? Do you wanna cook a particular dish? Do you want to wear particular pajamas? You know, like figure out some traditions, own them, integrate in them into your life, embody them, and share them with people. And one day maybe you're gonna get to share them with your family members too. But don't start living, don't stay in this contraction and miss your own life and your own opportunity to create all these wonderful things. You know, do it. Don't stop living. That's the thing that nearly killed me is when I I stopped and I got stuck. And no matter what, you'll still. Get stuck sometimes. No matter how much work you do, you'll still hit a wall. You'll still hit another construction zone where you'll have to learn some new skills. And lastly, on the tools, I'll say, and this is kind of silly, and probably the most vital thing of anything I'm going to say today is are you breathing? Yes, you heard me right. Are you breathing? Are you actually taking air in? You know, are you trying to reset your nervous system by taking deep breaths? If you take breaths into your belly, that will calm your nervous system. You know, if you're stuck in a pattern of just thinking and you can't get out of it, there's a great breathing technique which is called 578. You breathe in for five, you hold your breath for seven, you breathe out for eight, you breathe in for five, you hold your breath for seven, you breathe out for eight, and slowly, like that monkey mind, that mind that just wants to ruminate and get stuck on stuff, will slowly start to shift. You're oxidating your body, you're remembering to breathe, you're concentrating on something different. It's a great tool to use that I use everywhere. I still use it today. I use it a lot when I'm flying because I'm a nervous flyer, but it is a great way to reset your emotional ecosystem. And it can be at the dinner table with your family, where you can just titrate inwards. And titrating just means how much energy is going out, how much energy is going in, and how do I toggle between those two things. So titrating is basically togling. So you titrate inwards a little bit more, and you start doing your breath by yourself and you check out on the conversation a little bit. You know, it's a great way to come back to yourself. I also think another really important area to consider on the holidays is this idea about reframing some of the worst hurts and the places we feel really stuck when it comes to the holidays. You know, this idea that we're forgotten by our children, by our grandchildren, by our parents, by the family members. I felt that a lot in the early days. They don't care about me, I'm forgotten, I don't matter, I'm disposable. You know, where the reality is, is my kids were just trying not to die. They were trying to live and enjoy something and do it in a way that is familiar and is a default to them, and they had to pick which direction to go, and they split in one particular direction in order to survive. So I got to reframe the holidays, and I know that it's not that my kids hate me, but my kids are just trying not to die. They might not be making the best choices at times, but on an emotional level and a coping level and habits, like this is what they're doing. And it feels super, super personal, and sometimes it is super personal, but there's also a lot of complexity to it. And me by me reframing it and kind of like journaling about it and digging underneath it, I can see the complexities of what's going on in that. So consider reframing something. Like you bump into something really, really, really crappy. How can you reframe it? What does reframing look like? You can uh use Chat GPT and say, I'm having this thought, can you reframe it in a positive way? You know, great, great, great, great, great resource. So I I would like to say that. And also, like as you're trying to reframe these different things and you're feeling these different feelings, and this again might sound trite, like that's not permanent. The holidays aren't every single day. And there's way too many holidays together. Let's just let's change that. You know, we don't need to change the time zone or the hour forward, hour back stuff. Let's separate the holidays. There's too many together. And I'm just being sarcastic, but it's a lot on the nervous system from Thanksgiving to New Year's. So let's just also remember that this isn't something that is um permanent. It's gonna change. The holidays are gonna end, we're gonna put it to rest, we're gonna let go of it after a little while, and maybe quickly, maybe not quickly, and then we're gonna move on. But it's not permanent, it's just something we need to have a plan for, and we slowly move through it, and then it changes. Yeah, there's another thing that I haven't really talked a lot about, and an internalized oppression, internalized shame. And I think this comes up a lot in the holidays, at least it's for me. Like I'm a bad dad. I did this, I didn't take him on trips, I didn't I worked too much. I uh whatever, whatever the story you're telling yourself. I tell myself a lot of stories, and I think I'm a great dad, and I did stuff that wasn't great, and I and I did the best that I could, and I don't think there's a wrong here, but that internalized oppression where I'm just like you're speeding yourself up, you know. That's that's that's geez, that's a lot. And in the holidays with all the emotions and stuff, and you start getting stuck in the internalized oppression, and it's good to have a word for it, it's good to know that you're just the bully, you're bullying yourself. You don't like, oh wow, like oh yeah, I'm bullying myself. Like, what can I do to reframe that? What can I do to work with this? Um, and again, support groups, safe people, community, service, like all these different things start to dissipate the shame, and also giving voice to it with your trusted people in your life at meetings. Oh God, yeah, I'm feeling I'm feeling shame. And when I say it and I say it out loud and I say why, it like starts to dissipate, and it's not real. So much of it is not real. And there are certain things that that are like I'm not saying like there's no shame and there aren't mistakes we made that we feel the impact of, but we can forgive ourselves. And when we're talking about resentments before, like you might always think that the resentment's going out, going that away. But there's a lot of internalized oppression, internalized resentment that I resent myself, and I need to do my forgiveness practices on myself, maybe first. Well, I'd say definitely first. Definitely first. If I can forgive myself, then I can forgive anyone else, you know. I want to move on to kind of like a different topic. Like, we don't have these loved ones in our lives, we don't have our children, grandparents, parents, family members in our lives. Like, what do we do? Right? We're starting new traditions, we're hanging out with different people, we're trying to take care of ourselves, we're setting up safe people, we're doing all these different things that I'm talking about right now. But is there anything we want to do to commemorate this particular holiday? Do we want to write a letter? Do we want to record a video? Do we want to create some other piece of art, a song, a dance? Do we want to just set up an altar and offer something for our loved ones that aren't there? You know, these are really, really important things. Like we don't have to not interact with our loved ones on the holidays. And when I say not interact, I'm talking about not interact emotionally and spiritually. And for some people like myself, with these different other ethereal planes that I'm connecting with my kids, I don't have to shut that down. Those aren't shut down. Like I can still have a loving relationship with them on the holidays and I can express it to them, and I don't have to have actual physical contact or proximity. So just consider what you can do that's kind and loving to yourself. I love my kids and I miss my kids. And as I was saying, I'm I connect to my kids more on an ethereal plane of times because I don't have access to them. And also I gotta tell you, it's a lot less stressful connecting to them through meditation, through prayer, through song, through journaling, through writing them letters, through making them videos, because it's just an act of love. And at the same time, it's a self-care, which is super important during the holidays, is I'm not getting any triggering feedback, I'm not getting any pushback, I'm not getting anything. Like the relationship is super pure and rich. And yeah, it would be nicer to be reconnected with them, but if it's really a struggle or there is no connection, sometimes for me, I've chosen to make this choice to connect with them this way. And that's a lot of stuff that I've covered today. And I just want to again say happy holidays, be kind to yourself, take care of yourself, resource yourself, do something fun, baily laugh, watch some comedy. I don't know. You know, be kind to yourself, take care of yourself, love yourself, give yourself compassion, take a nap, do something that's great, and uh, I hope you have a happy holiday, and you really get to take note of where you are, where you're going, what you can do to take care of yourself, where you can actually uh have an impact on how your holidays progress. Thank you for coming out today. I'm gonna give this a wow, wow, wow, wow. Wow. I have some people in the community that really love the wows and we joke about it. And uh it started organically and now it's just what what I do. Have a great holiday. Please like, share, comment. Let us know what you're doing through the holidays. Like what positive stuff, how are you taking care of yourself? I know there's a lot of trauma and a lot of grief we want to share, but I want to hear what's different this year. What are you doing to take care of yourself? What can you share with other people in the community? Please like, share, comment. Great resources in the show notes, parental alienation anonymous, great meetings during the holidays, great support. And uh yeah, get support, find community, figure it out, and good luck. And it's hard. I want to acknowledge it is hard. So, with that being said, nice playing in the sandbox with you today. I love you. I hope you have a wonderful holiday. I hope uh I hope moving into the new year, you can set some really great intentions of what the new year is going to look like, what you're gonna change and work on within yourself, and what your hopes are, what your hopes are for the year. And it'll be really great to write right where you are, like when you're writing your hopes down. Where are you right now? What does it look like right now? What are my hopes and my intentions? And then next year revisit that and write where you are then, and at least you have something to compare it to, because otherwise we just forget and we just move on and we think it's all hopeless and crap. With that being said, have a beautiful day, and I will see you around the neighborhood. 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.