Childhood Trauma and the Healing Journey with Author Joshua Loyd Fox

What happens when you return to the setting of your deepest trauma and suddenly see it through new eyes? In this profound conversation with returning guest Joshua Lloyd Fox, we witness the transformative journey of a man who faced his childhood abusers in court and discovered unexpected healing along the way. Joshua shares the powerful story of testifying against the Archdiocese of Santa Rosa for sexual abuse he experienced as a child in a boys' home. Rather than finding simple closure, he encountered something far more complex—a reconnection with the beauty of Northern California that had been invisible to him through the lens of childhood trauma. Another unexpected outcome was the support of siblings—an unforeseen crucible in the form of the spiritual opportunity to heal familial divides forged in shared trauma. Joshua stresses the importance of literacy and cultural awareness of adverse childhood experiences and their repercussions. 

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:45

Hi guys and welcome to Language of the Soul podcast, where life is story. First of all, I want to welcome our producer extraordinaire into the room. We're kind of changing up our format here and we're going back to chatting a little bit before inviting the guest in from the green room. So in that spirit, welcome, virginia Grenier.

Speaker 2 1:08

Thank you, I know, it's that last name. No, you're fine. No, no, no, and I get it because it is actually in French, as you know, des Greniers, and I still don't even get that pronounced because I'm so Americanized. But they dropped off the day, and then my husband will say oh it was, I didn't know that Des Greniers.

Speaker 2 1:28

Yes, thank you, you. So you say it so much nicer because you've got the french going. But yeah, so the family when they moved from. So the family's from france and portugal, um is where they're from. So they came through canada, on the french side of it, and then into the us and that's when they dropped the day out of the day and then, um, my husband, I think he's third, yeah, third born generation in the us. I was like we're american, it's greener and I'm like. But I like greener because it sounds especially, especially in the creative realm, it's just absolutely it's so much better well, I wonder too.

Speaker 1 2:07

Um, for many generations, right, you had this obligatory anglicization, just to you know what I mean, when in rome. And so my girlfriend in high school was math mathadakis. She was greek and they shortened it to matthias. Matthias often comes from mathadakis, so anyway, I just think it's a no-brainer for a lot of people, but it's funny. Funny that it came from him. We're here now. It's greener. Yeah, it's it's and no-brainer for a lot of people, but it's funny that it came from him. We're here now. It's Grenier.

Speaker 2 2:31

Yeah and I don't, and so yeah. So in the writing world I do go by Grenier because it sounds so much better, and when people find that out I'm like, yeah, go ahead and use that.

Speaker 1 2:41

It kind of elevates it somehow.

Speaker 2 2:43

It does.

Speaker 1 2:43

Anything, it's like Target Target.

Speaker 2 2:52

And I'm target tarjay and, and I'm sorry, I my maiden name is stallard, which is very english and german, and so stallard just is not it. It just doesn't sound. There's no way you can make that sound great. So I like reggae.

Speaker 1 2:59

It sounds so much better um, does he have good genealogy books? I'm kind of fascinated with that.

Speaker 2 3:05

You know that time in american history so the family when they were in france, where the family originates from um and he has a grandmother who's portuguese, so that's where the portugal park comes in, um but the actually de gurnier family, the little town that they lived in, out there in france, the church burnt down. So they can only go back so far in their genealogy because the records are all gone.

Speaker 1 3:34

Interesting. Yeah, that's pretty typical. You hit dead ends. I feel very. As you know, I'm come from a long line of Mormons on the one side and they have impeccable genealogy books. Uh, you know, I guess the church of the church of the Holy Sepulcher, what's it called? Oh, latter-day Saints.

Speaker 2 3:52

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:52

Yeah, they keep really good records so we can go back to, I think, the 1400s in Europe. Anyway, I do want to steer I'm not going to ask about your nails, we'll save that for next week but I want to kind of steer toward inviting our guest into the room. We have repeat business here. I'm so glad to have this person back on because we're very invested in his story. Very early on, I think maybe our third or fourth guest was Joshua I guess I'll let the cat out of the bag Joshua Lloyd Fox, an author, and just fell in love with him, of course, and, uh, got very invested in his story and there's been a new.

Introducing Joshua Lloyd Fox

Speaker 1 4:33

I mean not that I don't want to reduce anything to a story, but I feel like that is largely the premise of our podcast is, I think it's very easy to see life as story. We say that every week. Life is story and sometimes it lands with people, sometimes it doesn't, but I think what is clear is, in vernacular language, right, we hear ourselves say, well, that was a chapter in my life, right, and then we'll, I'm starting a new chapter, or even the colloquialism um story of my life, you know. So we spin narratives, we perpetuate narratives. We create new narratives, meaning tell a new story, more than we realize. We use this kind of language, so it's got to mean something. So I and I didn't mean to go into this yet I was going to run it by Joshua, but I might as well just to set up, set the tone for this. Sometimes in my writing and we have talked about this quite a bit I find, wow, I think I'm writing about one thing, but there's an unexamined level to it. I'm clearly working out something else, whether it's emotional catharsis or some kind of paradigm shift, if I need new policy to move forward into the next chapter of my life. So I feel like we close chapters in our lives, right, we might feel like we're embarking on a new chapter and there's a reason we use this language. So anyway, in Joshua's recent Facebook posts, I realized, wow, in terms of my takeaway from our last interview, this seems like a really pivotal plot point. How could this not be a really pivotal plot point? So I was just dying to have him back on to hear more about it. I guess I'll leave it at that for now. He's going to hopefully fill in the backstory. So for any of our listeners that are not privy to the first episode. I'm going to give him a chance, maybe not to give us the Reader's Digest version of it, but to tell the story of his life in as much detail as he would like, to bring us up to this latest chapter. And these are all my words. He can correct me on any of that if he feels like it. Okay, all that said, I'm going to read his bio and invite him in.

Speaker 1 6:35

Joshua Lloyd Fox is the author of several novels, including I Won't Be Shaken had I Not Chosen, amongst you To Build a Tower. One Becomes a Thousand, and Unto this Mountain. He is also the author of the upcoming I Don't Write Poetry, a collection, his first book of poems and book six of the Archangel Missions, and that's titled Least of these. His short stories, the Book of the Tower and the Traitor, a companion series to the Archangel Missions, can be found on Amazon Vela.

Speaker 1 7:06

Joshua Lloyd Fox is an old-fashioned boy from West Texas who now splits his time between northeastern Oklahoma and Washington DC Wow, I didn't catch that before With his wife, author and editor Heather Dougherty, their children, friends and as many pets and books as they can surround themselves with. I think I said last time. That sounds like heaven. He is also the owner-publisher at Water Tower Hill Publishing LLC and has started his own masterclass series titled Joshua Lloyd Fox's Mastering the Journey.

Speaker 1 7:36

Joshua enjoys cooking, hiking, collecting books and can be found with a good cigar and even better Kentucky whiskey next to a wood fire on many evenings. He lives for his family, his vision and the journey God has led him to. The past few years he's been a soldier, a master aircraft mechanic, a cook, an amateur MMA fighter and, most recently, has worked as an engineer, a technical writer and an SME, which I had to Google, which is subject matter expert for the US and foreign militaries on missile defense systems. Just that, welcome, joshua Lloyd Fox. Hi, thank you. Nice to be here. For the US and foreign militaries on missile defense systems, just that. Welcome, joshua Lloyd-Fox.

Speaker 3 8:13

Hey, thank you, nice to be here. Did I sound like you?

Speaker 1 8:18

You know reading that bio reminds me of a couple of things.

Speaker 3 8:21

One I should do a fire tonight. I want a cigar and a whiskey. I probably need to change some things because, you know, as you've seen, I've been doged and so, yeah, I'm not that last thing anymore are we using that as a verb?

Speaker 1 8:37

now, I've been doged yeah, that's next year's.

Speaker 1 8:40

Uh, webster's word doged yeah it's only a matter of time. Well, I'm sorry to hear that, and Virginia actually is going to ask about that. That's yet another, I think, milestone a rather new one in your life. But yeah, it seemed like the same bio as last time from what I could tell. But yeah, I'm sure it requires some editing at this point, but it's the essence of you and that's what matters. So, as we said in the green room, I do want to bring listeners up to speed.

Speaker 1 9:11

For anybody who wasn't privy to the first episode, I would love for you to fill us in on what you've been up to, how that led to your career as a writer and maybe even launching your publishing imprint. But, more importantly, what led you up to this latest milestone, which is testifying in court, and I'll say more about that in just a minute. Before we get into that, as I said, we're going to ask the rote question we've been asking in the new season in the spirit of our podcast, and I know you'll deliver. Actually, and I guess I'm going to preface it by saying, when we ask this question, often authors talk about how creative expression or engaging in the creative process, telling one's story how it serves them, and I have to repeat. Okay, but the question was how does it serve society? So, with that in mind, the question is simply put what do you feel has been the cultural role of story or storytelling, and has that evolved over time?

Speaker 3 10:08

You know I might answer this a little bit differently than my titles after my name, because to me, being a writer or not, story is the most apex or central role in society or culture. Human culture, if you think back, it has affected history, education, societal norms, religion, family, business. Basically every aspect of life has caught up in story to me. My experience and even the mindsets that we focus on so much now, as far as motivation, goals and whatnot, to me can be surrounded or surmised as story and how it has evolved. I don't think it has. Um, I think maybe language has evolved, I think, with the advent of moving pictures or, um, you know, 3d, uh, depictions of story on a screen, story hasn't evolved at all.

Speaker 3 11:08

It's it's, it's our basis, root yeah, maybe the, the formats and the genres and the techniques have evolved, but maybe the function remains the same I think it's the way we learn, it's it's how we teach our children um, and even even in scientific or mathematical breakthroughs, it's always attached to story. There's a reason why we need mathematical breakthroughs. It's always attached to story. There's a reason why those breakthroughs and it's usually caught up in. You know, my grandmother died of Alzheimer's, or I had a math teacher that started this and I wanted to finish it. You know, all of that shows the apex or central role of story in our lives and, as you said earlier, the life story is also, you know, I don't want to get too, you know, foggy with the size of my answer here, but I do not believe that story is just one thing in life. I think it's all life.

Speaker 1 12:04

That's the idea, it's all pervasive in it. Yeah, it's in all its forms. Right? We say that every week it? Yeah, it's in all its forms. Right, we say that every week life is story in all its forms, very on topic and on brand. And I don't want to add to it because you know, this podcast is based on a 370 something page book on exactly that the ways in which life is story, and we can actually be empowered by understanding how it functions, on the micro and the macro. So I'm not going to add to it.

Speaker 1 12:32

I love how you say it and the reason we ask it every week is, yeah, people say it in different ways, but it often boils down to the same understanding of how story functions in our lives. And if we do have an agenda, it's just to maybe enlighten people to just how vast and powerful it is, because obviously at this moment it couldn't be clearer that story actually does very much inform, whether it's social evolution, policy and world events. So an awareness of it, whether it's propaganda or political campaigning, couldn't hurt at this moment. You know and I we align ourselves. Far from us to have any lofty pursuits here, but you know, as far back as aristotle, fascism lingered on the horizon and we were aware that creative expression is the best way to combat fascism.

Speaker 1 13:23

And, uh, I think it's pretty obvious right now that we've got to fight for not just the arts but self-expression and storytelling in general, and to tell a new story that will combat, you know, the more disempowering narratives. Okay, so, I really loved your answer to that first question, so, thank you, but again, for our listeners, is there a way to bring our listeners up to speed, without being reductive or minimizing your experience, on what led you to the writing of your very first book? And, uh, again, maybe even up to this latest milestone, which would be the trip to california, and testifying and correct me if I get this wrong, but did you testify in a class action lawsuit against the archdiocese or a certain individual?

Speaker 3 14:08

it was against the Archdiocese of Santa Rosa in Northern California, santa Rosa.

Speaker 1 14:12

Okay, yeah, and an individual at a boy's home, basically.

Speaker 3 14:18

Mm-hmm, yeah, and encapsulating the story, putting a whole life in a nutshell, to me is not always a bad thing. The lesson comes in the lengthening of that story. But to get people hooked, as we would call it in the industry, you do that in three sentences. I don't think I can tell this entire story in three sentences, but I can shorten it down. So, as most people know, who have heard me on other podcasts and other interviews, know that I had a very rough and tumultuous childhood.

Speaker 3 14:50

I lost both parents at the age of eight. I was put into a boy's home in Northern California where I was systematically groomed and raped by other boys and a priest. I was then put into another home in Texas which I actually loved and grew up in. And then I, you know, I went the route of most orphans, where they're seeking direction If they don't want to end up in. And then I, you know, I went the route of most orphans, where they're seeking direction If they don't want to end up in prison or addicted to substances. We, you know it's usually the military or college. So I chose the military route.

Speaker 3 15:21

That was 27 years ago and since then it's been the roller coaster ride is everybody else's life until about the age of 40. I decided to end my life. I was saved by a phone call from a friend and I decided to actually do something with this thing called life. And what I wanted to start doing was write my story for my children, so they would know, or that I can leave something behind that my parents weren't able to leave the reason for my being.

Speaker 3 15:49

So I started writing that story. It took me about four weeks to get it all down and about a year to find a home for it. And yeah, so that was about six years ago, and ever since then I've just been taking leaps and bounds towards a completely new life, as one would after a midlife crisis like that. And that brings us up to what I wouldn't call it a new chapter to the story, dominic. It's. It's like the ending of a hanging plot line where I want to close off that end of that story, put it behind me cathartically, not let it affect my future. And so that's to tell. The next part of that part of the story, which goes all the way back to the beginning at that boy's home, is where we are today right.

Speaker 1 16:40

Well, I want to, again without you telling us your experience of testifying and I think there were a lot more outcomes of that trip to california. But, uh, maybe with a little context. I want to follow up on something you just said which is uh and I do have it written down, but I'll say it without taxing my eyeballs, I'll say it in the best way I can. You know, I think we do understand that writing or telling our story in quotes can be cathartic emotionally. Uh, a lot of people hope. We've had guests that have said, yeah, I really hope to outrun my demons by telling my story, and you know what? It didn't quite do the trick.

Speaker 1 17:17

So I think we all have different experiences with some imagined outcome, whether it's closure or forgiveness, or just again, you know, freeing yourself from demons, telling a new story, retiring an old narrative that's no longer serving you. I call it no longer beating old threadbare drums, but you know again telling a new story or writing a new song. So we've heard it all, but I guess I want to ask you you didn't see it as a new chapter or the closing of a chapter per se. The closing of a chapter per se, did you imagine there was some outcome, whether it's forgiveness, redemption, transformation, and has it been accomplished or is it a work in progress?

Life is Story: The Cultural Role of Storytelling

Speaker 3 17:59

this act of testifying, telling your story? It's a great question, because I went in with my eyes open, expecting one thing, and receive a surprise. So to me, if you go back to writing your own story, is that cathartic? It's only cathartic with as as honest as you are with it, which is one thing you find in therapy. The more honest you are with yourself and your demons and your darkness and your shadow work, the more you're able to process, forgive, love, move on. And so I had already. I had already journeyed the landscape of this part of my story in therapy years prior to all of this. So so I was able to be honest with myself and those around me, my loved ones, going into this situation. However, what surprised me was, like you said, it was a multifaceted experience. It wasn't just testifying in court and ending that part of it. It was everything that went with it, and then the feelings I've had since it.

Speaker 3 19:05

You know I've always had a negative connotation in my heart for Northern California, but this was such a beautiful trip. It's like I want to go back now. I want to go back to my roots, I want to move there. I want to see what, what it should have been all along. So maybe, instead of ending the plot line or coming full circle, it's more of a going back to your roots and starting before it went off the rails. Like, go back to where, like before my father died, we had a great life, and that was actually something I found out on this trip through pictures I'd never seen before. We had a great life before my father passed away. So so what do we do to go back, to recapture those feelings of a great childhood? And then, you know, bring it to where it is now.

Speaker 1 19:52

It's like connecting rather than it seemed like you resisted a little bit the idea that it was a again a pivotal plot point, or you know a chapter, something like that. Um, but I do think in the hero's journey coming back home is you see it in the wizard of oz, you see it in the alchemist right, it is one of those beats, one of those story beats in the and actually seeing it through new eyes. So I love that. I think it's interesting how we connect our emotional experiences with a location. You know a lot of people bag on la and I'm like well then, get out of dodge. Like you know, you bring yourself with you. When you get out of dodge, you still bring all of your yourself with you. When you get out of dodge, you still bring all of your lenses with you. So it is fascinating how we project or, you know, we associate. There's almost no way around it.

Speaker 3 20:37

Yeah, another thing to go along with that, dominic, is not only seeing it through my new eyes, adult eyes. I'll give you a funny little story. When we went back to the neighborhood I grew up in, I didn't remember how beautiful the views were water mountains to the neighborhood I grew up in. I didn't remember how beautiful the views were water mountains. I just in my child's memory it was such a poor, negative place so I was expecting that. And when I got there and I saw those beautiful views, I was like, oh my gosh, how do I not remember I grew up here amongst this beauty and then also seeing it through the eyes of my wife and my son. They have heard the stories, but now I'm showing them. They're smelling the eucalyptus trees and they're seeing the house. They're, they're in, they're breathing the air I breathed back in the eighties, you know, when my parents were still alive. So, yeah, it was a, it was, it was heavy man, it was really heavy, but in a positive positive way.

Speaker 1 21:31

Yeah, in the Seeker I actually use the words. I didn't have eyes to see it. I'm talking about divinity. Right, you didn't have eyes to see the beauty around you because of the trauma you were subjected to. Does Santa Rosa have?

Speaker 3 21:48

the redwoods right up against the water. Is it on the coast? Yeah, so I grew up in the water. Is it on the coast? Yeah, so I grew up in the bay area. Santa rosa is a little bit further north in the bay area, but we spent our time um in the bay in san francisco, in moraine county. So, yeah, redwoods everywhere right up or going down to san francisco, taking my son and my wife, uh, who both of them grew up in mid america, oklah, oklahoma and Texas, and while they've traveled, northern California has a beauty all of its own not found anywhere else, that's why I'm surprised you don't remember that, Because to me it's just breathtaking.

Speaker 3 22:20

It really is. But being born there and living there until I was nine, you know you have a child's perspective and maybe you don't see the mountains in the water for what they are, because they've always been there.

Speaker 1 22:32

Yeah, yeah, you take it for granted.

Speaker 3 22:35

Yeah, I think a child's perspective is very close in an adult can see a little bit farther down the road.

Speaker 1 22:41

Yeah, my experience too is like when you go back to your old elementary school, everything just seems smaller. Have you guys experienced that? You know, when you're, when you're young, the halls, the halls are just vast and limitless, you know, and the stairs are, and you go back and you're like, oh my God, is this Hobbit town?

Speaker 3 23:02

I think it goes back to not only the spatial perspective of being a smaller person, but that your perspective is not very far away from your core.

Speaker 1 23:13

Yep.

Speaker 3 23:14

As an adult.

Speaker 1 23:15

I don't want to get off track, but I remember I have 22 nieces and nephews, but the oldest one, who's 40 now, with kids of her own, of course grown kids of her own when, when she was little, um, if you lost your keys, you would just go hey, Christina, where are my keys? And she was a toddler so she could find them, because that was her whole world down there. Or my sunglasses.

Speaker 2 23:38

Well, I was going to say what Joshua was just sharing too, about the shift in perspective from being a child growing up there to being an adult, to being an adult, um, it goes right to that therapeutical concept of the egocentrism where, you know, just like you shared, dominic, you know the child's always thinking like, oh, the sun's following me, it's all like they are the center of their world. So you, you can't see past how anything is, except how you're being impacted by what's surrounding you, and so I, I think it's great that you know coming back home, just like you know, in the hero's journey, when the hero comes back, that self-awareness that you know, moving from that kind of egocentric kind of attitude to a more, you know, existential perspective, really, you know, does shift our narrative, shift our stories as we get older and face things in a different way, and seeing the beauty in a place that once brought you trauma.

Speaker 3 24:39

Yeah.

Speaker 3 24:41

And as you mentioned, the trauma I mean. When you have that that small egotistical perspective as a child and then you add trauma to it, you're forced even more introverted, you're forced into a dark room on the inside, not even to perceive even your small area of influence around you. So it was a very, it was a very traumatic space for me as a child and everything that happened after that and then it stayed that way. I I went back out there for my stepmother's funeral in 2002 and it was still small and abusive. You know, I think it was the, the lengthy therapy that I did at the age of 40 that finally expanded my perspective of that place and time so that I fully enjoy it. And now even I feel a pulling back there and my wife and I talk about it every day. I'm looking at pictures of the Bay Area, going, hey, can we afford a house there? Like what, can we just uproot our entire life to go back to the Bay Area? Because now it's a.

Speaker 1 25:47

It's like that part has been healed and I remember the beauty beautiful, yeah, well, that is the significance of that milestone in the hero's journey. Again, not to be reductive about it, but this is what our podcast is about is like everything you ever needed is in your own backyard, right? So that's the Wizard of Oz. You just see it through different eyes. Everything you needed was there to begin with.

Speaker 1 26:08

I guess I don't like the idea that children. They're definitely egocentric not egotistical, but egocentric in their own ways. But I think, before ego takes the front seat, there is pure consciousness, you know, and socialization robs them of that and all these defense mechanisms kick in for survival. Do you know what I mean? But I like to think of the essence as being rather pure and not egotistical for sure. Yes, egocentric, your base needs are pretty much everything. But anyway, I want to back up a little bit if you don't mind, but I love that we put a little bow on coming back home. I do think it's everything.

Speaker 1 26:45

I've seen people from a pretty dysfunctional, abusive upbringing land back at home with their parents and it was clear as day to everybody else.

Speaker 1 26:56

Because you're not always as objective about your own journey, right, you mentioned. As long as you're honest about telling your story, I do think we have blinders and we can be less than objective about our own experience. That's why we bounce things off a therapist, for example, or maybe get feedback on our autobiography, that sort of thing. But anyway, I have noticed from the outside that, oh my God, there's some unfinished business there, or some baggage, and it's kind of a gift. Whether for health reasons or financial reasons, you end up back under that roof and it sometimes ends badly, but I think there's immense growth that can happen as well. Anyway, I do want to back up because I feel like there's missing information for our listeners. So thank you for encapsulating what led you to this point. I think you did it justice. I did just listen to our former podcast last night and I think you gave us some context. But tell me about the moment when the statute of limitations was lifted and you realized you could not just testify but literally tell your story.

Speaker 3 27:58

So to back up a little bit to how this entire journey started, you know I said I had therapy at 40. I was just going along with my life writing books, thinking that was the end of my hero's journey. You know, I found peace finally, and I even wrote that at the end of the first autobiography, as I found peace and every day was peaceful and I was good with that, that that could be the rest of my life, and so I think it was. Let me think it's 2005 now, so this was 2023. At the end of it it was close to october and I was finishing up book four in the archangel missions. Uh, one becomes a thousand.

A Traumatic Past and Healing Journey

Speaker 3 28:37

It's a political thriller and my, my protagonist was getting married in a small catholic chapel and the only one that I really knew but I really loved was at that boys home in Sonoma. And I wanted to get, as most writers will do, I wanted to get the imagery correct. So I Googled the pictures of the chapel at Hanna-Boyce Center is the name of the place and as I Googled it, these articles started coming up that I was not aware of or privy to. I was. You know, I was just blindly seeking peace in Broken Arrow, oklahoma, and these articles talked about boys that were there had sued the Archdiocese or Hanna-Boy Center itself for being sexually abused by the pastor or the priest there. And so I was. As I was reading, it was starting to come back a lot of the stuff that had happened to me, um, and and these lawsuits and stuff, and and, in that, within just a few minutes, I found out that california had lifted the statute of limitations for only three years, but we were coming up on that deadline. It was in december, it's only a couple of months away, and so call it divine intervention or, wow, that's amazing lesson. It was only december, it's only a couple of months away, and so call it divine intervention or lesson. It was only a few months from the end of that, uh, statute of limitations or the time frame.

Speaker 3 29:57

So I spoke with my family, um, I spoke with my children, my brother, everybody who has, you know, been a part of the story all along, and thought you know, should we pursue this as an end to that plot point? For my readers who have asked me about it? You know, overcoming childhood sexual trauma, especially from caregivers, is a. It's not a hundred percent figured out yet, and so I get a lot of questions, publicly and privately, about that part of my story which I was warned when I wrote it was going to happen. My first agent asked me if I would be able to answer questions about it. So anyway. So I talked to everybody, I prayed on it and I reached out to the lawyer in the article saying that I wanted to press suit.

Speaker 3 30:46

And I don't know if you've ever pressed a lawsuit, but there's a process you have to prove. You know you have the burden of proof that what happened happened. And so they got all the records from Hannah Boyd Center that I was there, that there was medical things that had happened that I said had happened. And then they put me in touch with a neuropsychologist who interviewed me and put her I guess her title and name on the line that what I was saying was true and factual, um, and that that session almost broke me again because I I suppressed a whole lot of stuff that if you're not aware, you suppressed it. I mean, even a therapist wouldn't know that there's something more there. You get to a place of healing and then something happens.

Speaker 1 31:31

Just to be clear, I believe you talked in our last podcast about some PTSD therapy that you underwent, so did you bring that to the table as well, if that makes sense, as evidence that this is not fabricated, or did you start anew with this court order?

Speaker 3 31:50

It wasn't just that I had written this story years prior. Right, I'd written what had happened to me and the outcome of it, and so they had empirical evidence that I wasn't just trying to just do this for money, that there was a whole platform here, a spotlight needed, so to say.

Speaker 1 32:11

And so I had a lot of. So what was the new? What was the new discovery in this case? You said there was some kind of unexamined stuff that came up.

Speaker 3 32:18

Yeah Well, the things that were unexamined was what they call bubble memories were coming up of more things that happened to me from the priest rather than just the older boys at the home, things that happened to me from the priest rather than just the older boys at the home and that was coming to the surface. I realized I wasn't as healed as I thought I was and would need more resources to continue that therapy that I had done. It's called emotional transformative therapy, ett. It uses lights and colors.

Speaker 1 32:48

But if you're not aware, I think that's what you spoke about in our last episode. You had done plenty of that, right.

Speaker 3 32:54

Right, I had and further need more. So to finish this part of the narrative, I pressed suit. It took several months to get the paperwork all put together and put into the court system out there in California, and meanwhile the Archdiocese of Santa Rosa, like many other archdioceses around the country, filed bankruptcy, and so the entire case went from the courts of justice to the courts of financial bankruptcy.

Speaker 1 33:24

It's a completely different set of laws, I guess, governing it different than the laws, I guess, governing it, and so we've been watching. Is that a strategy on their part to evade responsibility? Or is it literally that they went bankrupt because of, you know, legal fees, that sort of thing?

Speaker 3 33:42

So in a bankruptcy plan chapter 11 bankruptcy plan they don't have to. They just make a plan to disperse money. They don't have to take blame, they don't have to apologize. There's no justice served, nobody's going to prison. They're just creating an equitable and fair distribution of assets between their assets and the insurance companies to just give a monetary handout to your victims, or what they call the debtors. Because what they saw, or what they call it, what they call us debtors, like the archdiocese of santa rosa. I'm a debtor up there.

Speaker 1 34:20

They owe me interesting language it's got so many implications spiritually, you know, uh, but just to be, clear this was a civil class action, civil lawsuit. It's not a criminal lawsuit. I mean criminal suit, correct?

Speaker 3 34:34

it's not and that's and that's what they do. They do it to hold on to assets and create a plan that doesn't completely solve them. But also it it keeps the, the I don't, I don't know, I don't want to say the name and the, the name of the church, kind of without dragging it through the mud Right their reputation, yeah, their reputation, thank you.

Speaker 1 34:59

So they don't have to.

Speaker 3 35:00

They don't have to. It's already been assumed that those who submitted the paperwork and was proven that they were being honest and right were now debt that the archdiocese owed them. You know whether it was going to come out in mediation or a final judgment. They do the, they do the bankruptcy court, so they don't have to do 217 individual courts of justice trials. That could be, that could could just. However, the jury wants to end it can end it, I see.

Speaker 1 35:35

Well, the bankruptcy scenario out of the equation, isn't that often? Why cases are settled out of court is so that there's no admission of guilt and therefore no implications on the reputation, as you said, or the name of the institution. The Catholic church has been kind of getting away with that for a long time.

Speaker 3 35:52

They have. I mean, they don't have to prove that they're bankrupt and without money, they just go into the bankruptcy the chapter, whichever chapter they decide in this case it's Chapter 11, and let the bankruptcy court come up with a fair and equitable plan, a bankruptcy plan that gives money to all the debtors. So, basically, they took the victims of the sexual assault and made them debtors, like the church owes them money instead of justice. Wow, yeah, wow.

Speaker 2 36:20

I would say so. It's like you're not really being validated and you're getting betrayed yet again absolutely.

Speaker 3 36:27

However, with that said, moving into this next section, the judge in this case did allow impact statements from victims a very small percentage of the victims to come and give statements to the bishop and the other clergy, as well as the lawyers and the insurance executives, on how not only the uh the abuse impacted them and and their lives, but also the bankruptcy um. It's been going on for three years now and they're still in mediation. So how has that impacted uh victims who feel like they're not given their voice in this or they're not even given information. They they're not a part of the mediation. You know we have a committee that represents us, but we're not in the room.

Speaker 3 37:13

So, I actually I wondered.

Speaker 1 37:15

I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you. Um, that was one of the things that kind of stuck out to me, and my only research on this topic is your Facebook post. It was pretty comprehensive and, uh, I read it a few times and times and, um, why was this? The victim impact statements? Why wasn't that done in a courthouse? It sounded like they rented a hall or a facility to do this it was the courtroom.

Speaker 3 37:40

It wasn't the uh, the main judge's um actual courtroom because it was being um refurbished. It was a courtroom down the hallway.

Speaker 1 37:50

Okay, all right.

Speaker 3 37:51

It sounded like they rented a space to conduct this, something like that it almost felt that way because it wasn't in the actual courtroom where this case had been for the last three years. However, it's the same building. It was just another judge's courtroom. It was very small. It was very intimate. Even though there was probably 40, 50 people in the room, it was pretty packed in there, so it wasn't. You know, there wasn't all the cameras set up in the back, as maybe a victim would like.

Speaker 1 38:18

In my case.

Speaker 3 38:19

I would have liked that, but there were plenty. There was plenty of the press present part was the the victims giving their statements and the bishop sitting there who was the one that decided to go the route of the bankruptcy courts instead of the courts of justice and you said you looked him in the eye many times throughout your delivery.

Speaker 1 38:41

Right, yeah?

Speaker 3 38:42

I. I sat, um, oh, probably 12 to 15 feet from him in the uh, the. I turned my chair towards him, which normally I would have been turned like at a 90 degree angle, facing the middle of the court. I turned it to him. Not a lot, not all the victims did that. I went last. They asked me to go last and, yeah, I looked him in the eye several times. I looked his priests who were with him in the eyes, I looked the executives and the lawyers in the eyes and then when I at the end of it not to give away my big, huge court drama thing, but I pulled out a picture of myself at nine years old, blown up the day I was put at Hanna-Boy Center and my big thing at the end was you're not giving money to the man in front of you, you're giving money to this little boy, and that, I think, was the biggest part of the impact what did you feel when looking them in the eye?

Speaker 1 39:37

I mean, did you see any acknowledgement, any regret or lamentation on their part? Did you see a shift when you made the connection? You know you're not compensating me, you're compensating this boy for all that he was robbed of Was there any shift at all there?

Speaker 3 39:54

I did feel there was one place. Well, first off, the bishop is an older gentle man, white haired, you know he's been a bishop for a really long time. He inherited this mess, as most clergy in the Catholic Church have. Now, I'm not saying he's incredibly innocent and free of any wrongdoing, but he's in charge of that specific archdiocese. But I love to quote scripture back to scholars of the Bible, especially when it fits my narrative, people, especially when it fits my narrative. And so I said that what he was doing was failing as a shepherd, that instead of leaving the 99 to pursue the one who I see as the victims, um, he's, he's protecting the image and the reputation of the 99. I think, knowing that that's a pretty cut and dry, straightforward lesson from the bible that jesus spoke about that, uh, that a shepherd, if he, if he does have a hundred sheep, he will leave the 99 in safety to pursue the one who is lost.

Speaker 3 41:02

I said, you know, you, you're not being a shepherd here that instead of finding ourselves in the court of justice, we find ourselves, you know, figuring out your financial, uh, continuation as a, as an entity. The largest business on the planet, the largest land owner on the planet is a catholic church. They act like all the different archdiocese are there, are their own, that they're all separate entities. They're not. Um, if you want to look at it as a pyramid scheme, with rome at the top and your parishes at the bottom, so be it. But you, you use the name catholic, you use the name the church, um, you're all part and parcel, part of the same.

Speaker 1 41:37

And he inherited and took on responsibilities that his predecessor refused to acknowledge or fix and yeah, it's almost like we have the power of being cycle breakers at any time.

Speaker 3 42:01

Right, and there's people that just keep protecting the narrative, you know, keep regurgitating the perpetrator of these atrocities to children.

Speaker 3 42:09

You want to make him feel what we felt in that moment and how, for me at least, and a lot of the victims just spoke only to the abuse, obviously, and I don't want to speak for them, but there's still future healing for most of them. I feel very blessed that I had the therapy that I had, which isn't paid for by insurance. I had to pursue that. I had to find my own motivation to seek out that therapy. But what I wanted to do was show him the difference and I've been told I did it quite succinctly the difference between who I was before therapy and what I've done since, and that I should have been this man all along and what I've done since and that I should have been this man all along, that my life went off the rails by the hands of people of power when I was a child and I had to seek out my own therapy, my own healing, my own fixing. And that's what all the victims deserve. They don't deserve necessarily money for their suffering.

Speaker 3 43:07

They deserve the chance to reset their narrative their story and go back home, so to say, to become the person they should have been all along yeah, to be able to take back their voices yep and their agency.

Speaker 1 43:23

It sounds a little bit. I mean, is there any satisfaction? And I call it repercussions right. Often society, let alone the perpetrators themselves, do not understand the repercussions right. It's a lifelong worldview, I would think, and it's a lifelong trauma. You know that actually can become intergenerational trauma if not treated. So yeah, and so you demonstrated how, through free will, you've taken the reins right. But was there any satisfaction in hopefully communicating all the repercussions, the ripple effect of these actions?

Testifying Against the Archdiocese

Speaker 3 43:59

There was satisfaction in seeing him put his face in his hands and feel the pain that I could only give him through words. You know, I couldn't take him back to those moments, but I could say words and as a writer I have a gift for words, and maybe why they asked me to do this in the first place I think I'm the only one in this lawsuit that's an author and a best-selling writer and I can put words together to make an impact, and so I feel like he felt something.

Speaker 3 44:34

Now, Did it did? Did the lawsuit end right there and everybody went home happy together singing? No, absolutely not. It still continues going on.

Speaker 1 44:42

That's why I used the words a moment ago a work in progress, and I don't. I'm really just open to learning and you know, listening and learning from you. We've heard a lot of different outcomes. So I want to be real specific. You know, I think closure just in my experience, closure can be overrated. Right, it's this elusive thing that we seek. But it may be a fantasy, just my opinion, but I do think sometimes we have an outcome in mind and then sometimes it's met or not. Does the word forgiveness enter this equation at all?

Speaker 1 45:12

I have my own relationship with forgiveness. At times there's a reason, it's a universal theme and I've seen the importance of it. At other times I kind of put it right up there with this elusive idea of closure. How did forgiveness play into it in terms of your own experience? Do you feel any need to forgive this person for your own sake? You often hear you don't forgive for the perpetrator, you forgive for your own healing. And I'm not saying I have a policy one way or the other on it. I think it can be overrated. Did that occur to you during all of this?

Speaker 3 45:51

No, like the priest who did this and I wasn't his only victim there, there were three of us there and he progressively got worse because I was in the 80s, the other two gentlemen were in the 90s and early 2000s, and at that point he was using chemicals, he was, you know, putting rags over their faces and, and so he I guess his, uh, his mo changed on how he was getting his, whatever he was doing. So, no, he's on the church, put him on a golf course in North Carolina, retired him to pasture, served a couple of years in prison and can no longer be touched. And so, no, I don't forgive that man. What I forgive is the situation. I forgive my father for, even though he couldn't control dying, I needed to forgive my mother and my father, and you know the people who put me into the boys' home and the family that I had, who didn't take me in, you know, instead sent me there.

Speaker 3 46:50

I had to forgive a lot of those people. But, like you said, forgiveness is for you said forgiveness is for you, it's to give you peace so that your, your, your heart and your mind is not caught up in negative emotions, which which can impact you physically, um for sure, mentally and emotionally, and then, like you said, you could perpetrate that onto those around you, your own children, loved ones, which I think it's a.

Speaker 1 47:14

It's a fascinating concept, you know, and I think we're all. I don't know, I can only speak for myself, but my relationship with this idea of forgiveness, this concept, shifts all the time. I used to say, maybe in my 20s and 30s, you know, forgiveness is great if you care to maintain a relationship with that person. Right. If you have to be in the same room at Christmas or Thanksgiving, yeah, forgiveness might be a really useful tool.

Speaker 1 47:39

I didn't really resonate with the repercussions for one's own growth or how limiting, you know, holding on to anger can be. So I understand it as a concept, but I just think different people have different relationships with it and it has a lot. And that's why I wanted to ask about expectations and then outcomes, because I think sometimes we expect us. I love what you said, that there was a different outcome than expected. I know many times in life I've embarked on something, thinking I needed one thing, but, oh my God, it was something entirely different that I actually needed in my spiritual journey and it was provided. So what was the outcome? That you said was kind of unexpected.

Speaker 3 48:21

Yeah.

Speaker 3 48:21

So when I informed my Facebook family, my book family, my company family and my actual blood family that I was going to be going out to California and had been chosen to give a statement, my family pretty much and this might make me emotional Um, my family decided to really rally around me.

Speaker 3 48:45

Um, I had brother, a brother and a sister that flew in from across the country to be there with me. Um, my brother, my uh, an older stepbrother, jeff, who still lives in that area I haven't talked to since I was a child, said I'm going to be there. So my siblings that I've only seen one time altogether since 1987 decided to use this opportunity to heal our own bridges and our own rifts and our own distance caused by all of this. So I had a couple of days there before and after the court appearance to do exactly that to have a reunion with my siblings to heal some bridges, to talk it out. You know, they didn't all know this had happened to me either, you know, until I wrote the book about it and you said some of them you hadn't spoken to in 22 years.

Speaker 3 49:45

Yeah, We'd all gotten together the last time when my stepmother passed away in 2002, and that was a whirlwind trip out there and I had just gotten out of the military and I was injured. So my brain and my life was on something completely different, other than healing and catharticism. So this time we were much more mature, our eyes were much more open, and the fact that they all really rallied.

Speaker 3 50:11

I mean, I had one brother fly from Florida an all-day flight out to California. My little sister is in college in LA. She flew up. My siblings that are still there in the Bay Area came. We saw an aunt, we saw old friends. We went up to my father's grave, which we'd only done one other time together in 2002. And again also in 2002, I was a young 20-something-year-old kid. I hadn't lived the last 23 years or had the therapy, so I was still very much angry, um full of rage for my family and and stuff during that trip. That was a very negative trip and plus we were burying my stepmother yeah, I feel like sometimes it's about timing right.

Speaker 1 50:54

One person might be receptive or kind of I call it big mind or expansive mind. Somebody might be receptive to healing, but yeah, not. Somebody else's on a completely different trajectory and hopefully you meet up. Sometimes these milestones, like a memorial service right or a funeral or it kind of puts everybody on the same plane, if that makes sense and there's a little more bridging, that can go on. But I found that very touching that you were supported by your family truly, and I love that. That was the unexpected outcome. But I want to read the question I have about that and it's about support. So I just wrote I was very touched to hear that you were reunited with and received support from family members who had not seen in 22 years and that must have meant a lot to you.

Speaker 1 51:40

But I've noticed when cycle breakers speak truth to power right, even if it's to the benefit of the collective or you know, policy or social reform, they're often gaslit right or otherwise receive backlash. So on the micro level, when, like BD Hyman or Christina Crawford or Tatum O'Neill, do a tell-all story right in order really to empower others to speak up or come forward, they're dragged through the mud and gaslit. It's kind of a version of the red dress syndrome or blaming the victim. I've noticed families, especially in like dysfunctional ones with alcoholism or some kind of abuse, are adept at really controlling a false narrative. That often protects the abuser, if that makes sense. So it's almost a form of identifying with the captor when families keep up the rote narrative at the expense right, literally just short of calling them crazy. So I just find that to be a really strong force in dysfunctional families.

Speaker 1 52:42

I fantasize do you know what I mean? That I would get the kind of support you got that. You know. My brothers and sisters and I all read the adult children of alcoholics back in the 90s and our 20s. But it was kind of put to rest right. So I'm at the point in my life where I'm like I have no desire to knock anyone off their pedestal. They've got grandchildren now. Do you know what I mean? I'm trying not to say names, but let's let certain people just live in peace. And yet truth-telling is very important for, again, social reform policy, that sort of thing. So maybe you could talk more about what it meant to you to have the support of your family and have you received any gaslighting about this, or, if it makes sense, a little bit of blaming the victim.

Speaker 3 53:28

No, I definitely understand that, and I think we had a separate or a different outcome on purpose. We were very intentional. So, if you go back in time six years, I wrote, I wrote my truth down in a book that they've all read, because and I've also set boundaries in my own life, with my family I blocked a couple of my siblings at times because they were being toxic, and so not only was this a cathartic experience for, I think, all of us, and we were able to clear the air on some few things, but over the last several years of my journey, I've been very intentional about health and mindset and creating boundaries of those people, and they get to make the choice right. Right, are you going to choose to continue the abuse in the, the narrative, for your own peace of mind, or will you take a step back and value me in your life and what we're doing here enough to make changes in yourself? And they all did beautiful well and and again.

Speaker 3 54:34

I want to take credit um for that, because if I had not written my truth out, my story out they may have come to this situation as exactly what it could have been.

Speaker 3 54:46

It could have just been a fun new family reunion, us all getting back together and forget the reason we were all there. And what I have to give credit to my siblings all of them and we're all in our 40s and 50s now is that they were very much aware of the reason I was there with my wife and my son and they didn't have to be there.

Speaker 1 55:04

I didn't invite them.

Speaker 3 55:07

I was there for my own reasons and to put a spotlight on what happened and make sure it doesn't happen anymore. So, to their credit, they made the choice to keep the peace um to go against any kind of nature from the past that made them the hero instead of the perpetrator.

Speaker 1 55:24

Um and and I just I find that a blessing. You know, I think everybody was either seeing the opportunity in it or just at a point in their spiritual journey where it made sense to come together on this. I just it's a huge blessing. But I want to be clear Was one of your brothers I know you said he had a similar traumatic childhood Was he in the foster care system as well, or was he literally at the same boys school?

Speaker 3 55:53

No, I'm the only one that was put into the group homes like that until I was a teenager. And then my next older brother, jason, joined me at the boys' home in Texas. But my older brother, jeff, who is still in the Bay Area and he's in his mid-50s he's the oldest of all of us he had his own traumatic childhood that gave him a lot of anger and a lot of um, let me just call it a big chip on his shoulder. That is a that has affected his entire life, his son's life, his, his relationships with people around him, his life and, um, I think that even he got a little bit of I'm not going to call it peace, but maybe he got a little bit of clarity on what might be needed to change his own life.

Speaker 1 56:39

Right, of course, your example, yeah.

Speaker 3 56:42

And because I chose now that's the one area where I did choose to forgive. You know, jeff was 10 years older than all of us and had anger issues His father wasn't in the picture, he's a stepbrother and then also had a big problem with our mother, who then also passed away when he was 18. He had every reason to be as angry as he was, but he didn't have to take it out on his younger siblings. So there was 100 percent a level of forgiveness with my brother, jeff, and when I saw him the day before the court case because he didn't go to court with us he gave me a necklace, the Archangel Michael, a necklace. He pulled it out of a pocket and he goes listen, I want you to have this. I can't be there to bash this priest's face in for you, but I can try to give you some protection. That's a big one.

Speaker 1 57:37

Is that the significance of Michael protector?

Speaker 3 57:40

And that I write the Archangel Missions and that he come to find out he had all of my books and he had followed me and he only ever puts a heart on our post and stuff. But he's aware of what we're doing here and I needed a big brother in that moment, Sorry, and he came through. Wow.

Speaker 1 58:06

Well, I would think you've said you don't blame your parents for making an early exit. You can't. But yeah, feeling safe is really important, especially in childhood, you know, and um, if you didn't have a protector, right, that's a very vulnerable. It affects the rest of your life, so I love that. He, that sounds like closure to me, the gesture, the gesture he made.

Speaker 3 58:33

You know it might have been a bit of closure for both of us. Beautiful. I think we're born into roles. He was born into the firstborn or the big brother, and I don't think that his life has gone the way he's wanted it to go, certainly not in the relationships with all of us, and that may change. There may be some growth and adjustment, but I think that we've created a road of grace and love and mercy, and we might, you know, this whole thing might not have just been for me. Actually, I don't believe it was at all.

Speaker 1 59:07

It's. All of our journeys are intertwined, you know, spiritually. But that's why I said timing, you know, because it almost seems like it's a blessing when you can come together and have a moment where everything's water under the bridge and there's healing to be had. But everybody's kind of just doing their own thing oftentimes and you have to be receptive to these opportunities. So, anyway, I think it's a beautiful thing that happened. Do you feel like it's still a work in progress? Do you feel like there are outcomes that maybe are on the horizon that you're not aware of Because we never really arrive right? You kind of hinted at that earlier. You had hoped that writing the book would kind of get it out of your system, but there was still more work to be done. I don't know that we ever do arrive. There are always challenges and, frankly, that's how we grow right. So what do you see as being next, if that makes sense, in all of this?

Speaker 3 59:57

Well, there's, there's two different roads of outcome. One is personal and one is societal. And so, from a personal aspect, you know, I have relationships with all of my siblings. This, this, uh, this court case will be settled. Uh, you know, we'll get a chunk of money and what are we going to do with that is really, you know. Do we put it towards the books, the company, our own personal, you know, mission that my wife and I have those? Those are questions for, you know, later down the road, it's the, it's the other things that we put into the lawsuit that I'm really excited about.

Speaker 3 1:00:34

Number one they had to all of California is raise the awareness of childhood sexual abuse from adult caregivers. Don't ignore it anymore. So call it, you know, putting in new training, new screens, new, you know, video and audio capture capability to make sure that children aren't left alone with adults, whether they're trustworthy or not. All of those things have already happened. I ask to not be silenced. I get to tell this story, and that's the biggest point for me is it was a half of a chapter in my book six years ago that made me very much want to put a spotlight on not only the therapy and the need uh, but that you know we're going to have a. We're going to have a national pandemic of older people who had childhood adverse experiences and that's going to affect their, their health, and when you affect people's health, you affect people, taxpayers, pockets. So new laws, new legislation.

Speaker 1 1:01:42

Normally, in a settlement like that, there would be a gag order or an NDA you wouldn't be able to speak openly about it. Is that it?

Speaker 3 1:01:50

Yeah, you're, you're not able to, and they can do that. They weren't trying to do that in this case because I think I think the camera lens has been blown wide open on the churches.

Speaker 1 1:02:00

I just want to make sure I understand you included a clause that allows you to speak openly about this. I did.

Speaker 3 1:02:05

I did personally, because I'm a public figure and I've written books that are now picked up by colleges and foster care systems, and the Surgeon General of California has it on her platform, and so, because of that, I wanted to make sure I was able to finish this plot point in my story to tell my readers hey, there was a port in the storm and I was able to do something with it, and so that was my personal clause that they couldn't stop me from telling this story, no matter if they didn't want to take the blame or anything. And I'm going to, very poignantly, tell the rest of this story now that I can use the name Hannah Boyce Center and Father John Cruz. I'm going to tell this story and they can't stop me, and that was important to me.

Speaker 1 1:03:00

Good for you. Yeah, it sounds like a lot of words have come up today. It sounds empowering, I was about to say but words like debt, do you know what I mean? I feel like there's a spiritual slant to all of that. Either of you ever read Great Expectations.

Speaker 3 1:03:15

Oh, I love Great Expectations. Yes.

Speaker 1 1:03:19

I just love it for the meta view and even Scarlet Letter and, come to think of it, wuthering Heights. It's largely about intergenerational trauma and debts, if that makes sense, and divine compensation and a seed planted here that may come to fruition later. The idea of a crown in heaven right, may come to fruition later the idea of a crown in heaven right. The idea that if you've wronged somebody, I guess karma, you know, it'll come around at some point. But I guess I have a question. We all struggle with this, so there's no indictment at all in it. It's a very earnest question.

Speaker 1 1:03:53

I think a lot of our guests on this show in fact have it's so reductive but made lemonade of lemons or found purpose in their trauma by choosing to tell the story with the idea that you're affecting policy or maybe making a difference societally. And that's a beautiful thing, it can be taxing, I mean I'm sure you know emotionally taxing to relive these things. But really, more to the core of my question is at what point are you perpetuating a narrative that's counterproductive or limiting in your growth and do you recognize that and do you struggle with that? I personally always find a balance. If I'm going to write about my trauma from my childhood. I know the toll it's going to take on me, even if it's just that week while I'm writing it. But I also know we cement narratives by retelling them. Do you struggle with that balance? I'm doing good in the world, I'm affecting literally policy and law, and there's some value to that. Yet I need to keep my emotions in check and be aware of my spiritual journey. Does that make sense at all?

Speaker 3 1:05:00

Yeah, and again I want to go to the micro and the macro. For me, the the personal is in the identity, and I preach this all the time. I can't stand when people say I'm a recovering this or I you know it's. It's especially like alcoholism. I'll just use that as an example. Are you recovering alcoholic because you never touched a drop of alcohol again? Or are you a recovering alcoholic because you can go have a beer and it doesn't control your life? Which one is the actual definition of recovery, and so I don't want to be identified, personally or society wise, as a victim or a recovering childhood abuse victim.

Speaker 1 1:05:42

I was going to say. What about survivor? We often swap out victim for survivor. Is that more empowering? Is that more accurate to you?

Speaker 3 1:05:50

I'm a survivor. Let's call it okay I survived.

Speaker 1 1:05:53

A thriver.

Speaker 3 1:05:55

Yeah, I'm a survivor, because I was cast away on an island and I was found and it's going to affect the rest of my life, because I'm telling the story and I'm not going to actually leave that island. My life is going to be still on that island. What kind of survivor are you? So, to me, what I would like to do is to and you say there's not ever really any solution or final thing, for me it's did, did this? Was this cathartic and healing enough to reset me on the path of my life the way it should have been, what it was fated to be? Yet? So why would I ever go back, right?

Speaker 3 1:06:32

and so for me I don't, and again, I'm going to get to the macro with this, but to me the micro is I don't want this to identify me, even to myself. I don't want to identify myself as a survivor of anything. I just want to be Josh, the author, the, you know, the publisher, the husband, the father of legacy that one day my children or grandchildren or great-grandchildren can tell the story of their sky on um, or their, their, their ancestor, who overcame such great odds to give them and help them with the life they have now. That's, that's really the legacy of it that I want to leave and then there's the macro.

Speaker 3 1:07:11

The macro to me is is this going to be a plot point or a point of discussion that I'm always going to have to speak to Did?

Speaker 1 1:07:19

I do my best.

Speaker 3 1:07:20

Did I finish the story, did I wrap it up? Did I put a bow on it and I can move on with my life? Or if every interview I do from now to the end of my life, this has to come up, did I really did it? And nothing against here, I'm still in the midst of it, so don't think anything here. But did I really survive anything? Or is it still in my life?

Seeing Home Through New Eyes

Speaker 3 1:07:42

And I think, to be a true survivor or to really truly heal from something it no longer impacts your life at all, and that's what I want to see as a society, will we ever get to the point where there's not childhood adverse experiences? No, but can we get close? Can we at least be intentional and aware of it so that we know, as adults, what, what we're actually doing to children's brains and minds? Can we educate society on what happens when a child is yelled at or spanked or held, held, you know, separate from the rest of their class or whatever? And I think yes, absolutely A hundred percent. And I think the young people I look at my, my own children they get it better than we did, they understand.

Speaker 1 1:08:26

I was going to say, you know the word awareness comes up, or heightening awareness, but we're also empowering future generations right To, I don't know. Speak up I. Sometimes I feel like, you know, there's pendulum shifts and society might make progress in one area, but then it reverts a few years later. God knows, you know, we might be in an area of regression right now, but I do feel like there's a dialectic and there's forward movement, however painfully slow it may seem, and contributing to that is what we're here for. Just my opinion.

Speaker 2 1:08:59

You know, and I was going to say to add to that too, um, which is actually along with narrative therapy that I'm studying, um is existential therapy. It's the whole purpose of meaning making, which is what the human experience is about. It's about finding, which is what story is, about finding that meaning. And I feel like, josh, you're definitely on that path, that you're at the macro, micro, micro level. You know, doing that meaning making process of you know, how does this all apply to me? What does this mean overall?

Speaker 3 1:09:28

and and now I'm able to let it pass through me and continue that forward momentum, well, you're, you're reading victor frankel and you're you're learning about logotherapy, probably, let me just say the search for meaning in this. Can I find meaning in this? Which means that I can use it as a motivator to fix blah, blah. I love it, I love it. I think the existential psychology model is one of the best, if, if that's the model that is best for you. Uh, victor frankel said I love giving therapy to Christians. I can use their Christianity against them.

Speaker 3 1:10:00

So not in a negative way, but as a search for the meaning of why we're doing what we're doing. Jesus was all about meaning and finding the purpose in it. But let's go back to the original point an hour or so ago, about story and life as a story. You know, there's that line in dead poet society that we're all allowed to leave our verse or our page and the story never ends. Life goes on, humanity goes on. Whatever, what, what, what impact to the whole will my verse leave? And then the legacy is is is crucial because you know, my, my parents. There's no empirical evidence of their existence except for their children, and when we're gone it's as if they didn't exist at all. And so you know, I'm getting into middle age now, where I think a lot about what am I leaving behind on this planet, or even in my own family after I'm gone?

Speaker 1 1:10:57

Well, you hinted that. Sorry if I interrupted you, but you know it's kind of reductive to say, well, we're association makers by nature. It's human nature. But that doesn't take the power away from storytelling. It's how we evolve, it's how our noosphere evolves, right? So it's very. That's kind of why we asked that question at the outset.

Speaker 1 1:11:16

You know what is the function of storytelling? Well, we learn through parable, we learn through metaphor, right, we're wired that way and so I think both can exist, right? Oh yeah, we're association makers, so we assign meaning and we assign purpose and we assign numinous experiences, right that to mundane things. Well, that's why I'm a storyteller, because I thrive on that, and I know it's how we, uh, grow. You know, you change minds by touching hearts. It's not a didactic, it's not a didactic thing. Storytelling is probably the primary way that we evolve, not biologically, but in terms of our paradigms and thought forms, anyway. But in the same way I don't know, I guess I feel like legacy. We all want to leave a mark. It's human nature, right, to combat this existential terror of just being dust in the wind and coming and going without having left a legacy. But that doesn't diminish it, right? That's how future generations grow. So in all of this I was just going, yeah, I guess I'm old enough. At what am I 56, virginia, help, I think I'm 56. But I'm old enough to go, holy crap.

Speaker 1 1:12:33

Sometimes I feel like you know the same, the pendulum swings that I mentioned in the regressions like. Sometimes it feels like we're moving at a snail's pace. But I think back to Donahue pre Oprah, pre, you know, geraldo Rivera, all those talk shows in which we put everything on display, if that makes sense. We vomited our social ills, um, before that, our social ills, before that, really everything was swept under the carpet, from alcoholism to abuse, to narcissism, to all the dysfunctions, right, that happen behind closed doors, and then the LGBTQ tolerance, right, and the whole DEI thing. Night and day, the progress that has happened within my lifetime is night and day. We all know, right, we can regress and look at the Taliban. Overnight, everything reversed. I think, arguably we're being faced with that right now. How bold can the regressions be? But imagine if we didn't all leave our verse, joshua, to use your terminology, or I mean I really it's been a while since I've seen, um, what was it called? Dead poet society?

Speaker 1 1:13:40

yeah, imagine if we didn't leave our verse. Imagine that we'd be dragging around clubs. Right, we would. I don't know what we'd be.

Speaker 3 1:13:48

We'd be wearing pelts and carrying clubs yeah, and to go along with that, just to kind of condense it down to its elements is are we learning by story, are we leaving behind a legacy of story or are we leaving behind truth?

Speaker 1 1:14:07

Exactly Human history.

Speaker 3 1:14:09

Yeah, the pursuit of legacy and leaving behind a verse is you have to be as honest as you can. We have to tell the truth of what happened, however ugly or dirty it was, or we will never learn.

Speaker 1 1:14:22

Well, that's why I kind of wanted to reconcile the romantic notions around storytelling with a very concrete empirical function of it, if that makes sense, like I do think we can get real flowery about the language, but the function is the same. Right, we're leaving records and we're tracking. I mean, ayn Rand would say we're holding up a mirror and that's the only way to evolve. So I think both can exist. I think we're leaving very concrete records of human arguably progress, but it's also done in a way that jives with our like, as we said, you know inclination to connect dots and assign meaning. Does that make any sense? Absolutely, both can exist.

Speaker 1 1:15:05

I don't think, and you know there's a whole debate about whether art does tell the truth or whether it's actually artifice. Art artifice. I think you can tell a more heightened universal truth through storytelling, right, and I think there's a lot of romantic notions around telling the truth. Some guests we've had and my sister is hugely influenced by a guy named Dr Moose who says you can smell I'm going to mix metaphors smell any grain of untruth a mile away in narrative nonfiction or memoir or autobiography. And yeah, I don't know about that. I feel like we have the artistic license to tell things in a way that ups the stakes, if that makes sense and heightens our receptivity through metaphor. So does that make any sense to you, joshua? Where do you land on all of that? The form, I think, can be poetic, or I'm just throwing things out there, you know, can be poetic and romantic, but the truth can be there.

Speaker 3 1:16:02

Well, exactly, you know, there's people in the world who would read my story, my truth, and see it differently. Their perspective Right, it's a matter of perception. Where I believe true truth comes into play is the ability to be transformed by it, to be open to it. It's very difficult to understand, for instance, a trans person's truth at life when you don't have to keep in changing the language here and you know there's no real absolutes at all. I believe, um, but yeah, it's a matter of perception. And do we tell the truth enough, and is the receiver of that truth open to be?

Speaker 1 1:16:50

transformed by it. Maybe that's where craft comes in right, If you're a master of your craft and again, no romantic notions here at all. But maybe what it is to be a writer is to know, when you're reaching people viscerally, when you're reaching them cerebrally, what's culturally relative, what's universal. Maybe that's where craft comes in right, Because one person can tell a story about the trans experience that doesn't reach people or transform them, and yet somebody with a little bit of technique or craft might be able to employ those tools to best tell that story. Virginia, I know you have an opinion on this.

Speaker 2 1:17:28

I was listening to that the whole time. I was thinking about this, and the reason why Dawn brought that up is because I do have a trans child my oldest.

Speaker 1 1:17:36

Yeah, not what I was thinking at all. I just know you have opinions about who is best equipped to tell this story.

Speaker 2 1:17:43

I think, I definitely think, when it comes from somebody who has walked that path, what happens is, which you know sorry, this is going to be, just it's only because of being in my studies it's made me more so. What I mean by that is I was very transparent, very authentic, very genuine when I was growing up as a kid. Um, because I grew up out in the la area and you know it's a very diverse area um in general, and definitely was during um, the gen x generation, I feel. I feel like yeah, it's pretty progressive.

Speaker 1 1:18:19

I would think it was.

Speaker 2 1:18:21

It was. It was really progressive during the 80s and 90s, so I was very fortunate that that's what I grew up around. So I was, you know, exposed to that. But when I moved away from my 20s and moved to a very conservative southern Utah community, where I've been now for over 20 years, I did not realize the shift in my perspective. Going to what Josh was just saying, that the shift in my perspective and so, um, going and and going into counseling and getting my license, you know, to work for my licensing and stuff, I realized that, unbeknownst to me, that shift had happened. And what I've discovered sorry, this is probably longer than anybody expected me to share, but now when I share past experiences that I experienced in my youth because I brought those walls down, I'm showing up genuinely, I'm being authentic again. I think I touch people, along with my craft of knowing how to write, because I have that writer's background.

Speaker 2 1:19:25

Those two things combined is what I think does what Josh was talking about where it can help, you know, transform somebody If they're willing to tap into their own empathy, be open-minded, and all of that. Where you could be an individual like I'm just gonna use my child as an example like my trans daughter, and she could tell her story, but she is very guarded and so I don't think it would. That transformation wouldn't happen, her telling her story as easily because of that, those walls being up, her not showing that, you know, um, authenticity, authenticity, transparency being genuine, and so I think the two have to be hand in hand. That's just my opinion I gotcha, joshua.

Speaker 1 1:20:16

I don't want to jump in if you have something to say, but yeah, no, I.

Speaker 3 1:20:20

I loved how you, how you kind of boiled it down to its elements in in craft and authenticity and truth. And I'll give you back to the example of talking to the bishop and you asked me if I saw any uh result. Did he did anything impact him? Um it, and I think the reason that the lawyers asked me to come out of 216 people who had you know, their own stories and wanted their own 15 minutes in court, was that I have the craft of words. I had written the story and they had you know, and I had written the story and they had passed the book out amongst them. And I believe that my statement I'm not going to say was was better than anybody else's, but I believe it made an impact because I was able to say it in a way that somebody who had no experience other than going through all of these hellish lawsuits and stuff in his vocation could feel the same feelings and emotions and put himself into that room. Like I said, I couldn't take him into that room.

Speaker 1 1:21:30

You have the best tools to do that. Tell me if this resonates. Storytellers vacillate between logos, ethosos and pathos, and so you're touching all all those components and so I don't know. I relate to all this because I feel like I spoke at my mom's services and I took time. You know, if I it wasn't the main eulogy, but I, I got up and contributed and I and I got the comment like I mean, I have a minister for a brother-in-law and he often does the funerals or the memorial services. It's just his job and our family and my sister is the singer. She's the one who can sing without breaking down. I couldn't do it, but she's professional and then she falls apart later.

Speaker 1 1:22:15

So, anyway, our services services, I thought were so authentic and so heartfelt and just everything it should have been, and um, but I got the comment like, yeah, well, we're all performers and I thought, holy crap, did my contribution, did my tribute land that way? It was nothing but authentic to me. But I think, because I'm a storyteller do you know what I mean? There was some projection, not that it was anything less than authentic, but it maybe it was slick, if that makes sense, because I knew how to write a good story. Should I apologize for that? That makes sense at all, absolutely not well, from a personal.

Speaker 3 1:22:53

It was your personal truth. But because you have the gift of words, you're able to make the impact. Somebody else who just stumbled all over it wouldn't right.

Speaker 1 1:23:05

Yeah, and I guess I was trying to offer too, that it's not just about having superficial craft or technique To best. It sounds very mechanical, doesn't it? To hit the pathos, the ethos and the logos, that is unexamined right, that should be second nature to all of us. But maybe the thing that made us storytellers in the first place is that we do have you call it what you want the temperament and the disposition, the brain chemistry. Some people would dismiss it by saying our prophets have the God gene. You know we're predisposed to numinous experiences and dot connecting and all these things we've been talking about. But you know what? It's also a gift to the rest of us, isn't it? And I include creatives and storytellers among those prophets that supposedly have the God gene.

Family Reunions and Unexpected Outcomes

Speaker 3 1:23:51

Let's just take it where we can get it folks. You know, yeah, and I think it was Chris Rock. It was a comedian that said he was talking about comedy, but I'll use it in art. Art, I believe, is the last place in today's society where we can tell the truth, we can say the words that need to be said without censorship, but yet, sadly, I think comedy is more so than any other format or genre.

Speaker 1 1:24:17

They would say we're walking on eggshells. Right now, more than anyone, you know right, you can be canceled in a heartbeat.

Speaker 3 1:24:25

Yeah, three months ago, maybe not as much today, it's, it's scary.

Speaker 1 1:24:29

It's a very real thing. We've got to anyway. Maybe we'll devote some episodes to the idea of censorship and how we can combat fascism and censorship yes, through art, telling the truth through art.

Speaker 2 1:24:41

Well, and I was going to say and that's probably a good place to segue is you know, josh, with all this other stuff that's been going on that you've been dealing with, we now are moving into a part of your life where you are being affected with what is happening right now within our society, within our culture, with Doge oh yes, so, yes.

Speaker 3 1:25:04

So, through all the book writing and the publishing and everything, I've had to maintain my day job, my career, 27 years with the government, and my last gig was working for OPM as an IT consultant. And as if anybody's following the news, january 20th Doge and Elon Musk moved into the OPM headquarters. On the fifth floor.

Speaker 1 1:25:26

I'm sorry. What is OPM?

Speaker 3 1:25:28

It's the office of personnel management. It's the HR wing of the federal government. Gotcha, I heard opium. I just wanted to make sure. Yeah, opm, and they're in the. They're in the Roosevelt building, which is a block away from the white house, so they're right there. But OPM has been around. That's who does your security clearances and sets you know, sets rules and regulations within the federal government. If the federal government was a, was a corporation, opm would have been HR, and so that's what we did. We handled, you know, retirement services and all of the HR stuff for the federal government. Anyway, they moved in and took us over and kicked 20, 30, 40 year civil servants out on their butts, basically to incorporate this new, smaller, more efficient government. And yeah, I was directly impacted. My contract was canceled. As of March 31st, my 27 year career in the government will come to an end.

Speaker 1 1:26:32

Holy crap, was there a severance package offered or no?

Speaker 3 1:26:35

Not me, since I had retired and became a consultant, so I was a contractor. Oh, I see, I do have surgery.

Speaker 1 1:26:42

People get hung up on how much notice was given, like the mechanics of it. How much notice was given? Was there a severance package? Let's take a step back and just talk about the ethics in general. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 1:26:52

Yeah, I mean people are like well, we're making the government more efficient, we're getting rid of programs and fraud and waste and all that. No, you're getting rid of people with families and homes and bills, and so it is what it is.

Speaker 3 1:27:11

I think most of us have come to terms with it. I've never seen anything like this. I've been in government since Clinton and I've never seen anything like this. What is it going to do, I don't know. But for me personally, they did allow me to go out on disability. I have to have spine and brain surgery from my injuries in the military 20-something years ago that I'd been putting off for a very long time. So I have a chance now to get some surgeries That'll take away some pain. That'll at least have some income coming in while the books and the company and stuff continue to grow. So personally, we're okay for a little while. But the thing that hurts is being called waste, being called a fraud. That my 27 year career and my literally giving my sweat and blood and tears to this country was vilified in in the news by billionaires who never served, and that's what really that was.

Speaker 2 1:28:07

That that was the kick in the teeth I wasn't expecting yeah, no, that sounds horrible, and I mean, if you think about it too. I mean you just said that you've spent 20 plus years, you know, dedicating yourself to this country, you know, both in active and civilian service, and you know, so that's a big part of your personal story. Your journey through, through everything else you've been through, to only fill another portrayal.

Speaker 3 1:28:33

Very correct, although at this point in my life I believe I'm healed enough to see the silver lining of it. I have an opportunity now to pursue my own. What used to be a side hustle may become my new story, with the publishing company and the books. So I'm writing the sequel to I won't be shaken, which was my first autobiography. It's called shaken the worst, which is a fun play on words that I thought that I had come to. You know and, uh, you know, lived happily, happily ever after. But life continues, life goes on, and so what's the next chapter? And it? It shook me worse than the first part. So it will definitely be a part of that, this narrative with the government and the ending of my career and the opportunity to grow into the next phase. And I think, dominic, you said it very well that if there is no final conclusion or present with a bow on it, there's always another step to the journey until we're gone. Yeah, and what can we learn and teach from that continuation?

Speaker 1 1:29:41

When is that due to launch the second installment of your autobiography? Any release date? Yeah, this December 12th. Any uh release date?

Speaker 3 1:29:46

Yeah, this December uh, 12, 25, uh uh, shaking the worst um a story of still overcoming odds by Joshua Lloyd Fox.

Speaker 1 1:29:56

Awesome. Well, we'll put some links in the episode description and we're coming up on, I think, almost an hour and a half. So you know, hour and a half. So you know, I think we just opened a can of worms here. Maybe we'll do an episode three, because sure there's so much to say about the implications of this moment.

Speaker 1 1:30:11

Where we're headed, I just call it fascism. I mean you could call it a kleptocracy or a broligarchy or an oligarchy. The thing is, um, we're fucked. No, I'm kidding. The thing is we're, we're all figuring. I mean, in my experience, we're all figuring out how we can make a difference moving forward. I think a lot of us have felt paralyzed or like deers in the headlights, but the bottom line is we'll figure this out. I mean I plan to remain above ground and as long as I'm here, I've got to find my own way personally. But I feel like these are big, long conversations. I will say I've already been affected as well. The drugs that keep me alive.

Speaker 1 1:30:50

I had a 48-hour scare. You guys may remember the moment when, basically, the executive order had passed to. Literally it wasn't supposed to affect Medicare and Medi-Cal but ironically, everybody was locked out of the federal database during those same 48 hours before it was revoked or, I guess, rescinded, and so my meds for that month didn't go through and my health was. I literally could have ended up in the hospital with A, b, c or D and thank God my CD4 count didn't dip and a month later, magically, it went through. So, through a lot of detective work, I did pin it on that 48 hours in which complete chaos reigned. So I've already had that scared. You know what I mean, and so who knows what the future holds, but I feel like you kind of hinted at being devalued and I'm sorry and I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 1:31:44

The extreme of this mentality is ethnic cleansing, coaling of the population, trimming the fat, getting rid of the excess, but it's not just in terms of government waste or corruption or bureaucracy, it's literally let's thin the herd. So what could we do without more than not just our old folks who are draining the system? How dare they, even though they paid in now I'm preaching, right, they paid into social security their entire adult lives, but they're they're a liability at this point. So we're fine doing away with them. But I'm hiv positive and I'm a member of the lgbtq community, one that has been silenced and erased historically for decades. So I'm the first to be cold eventually.

Speaker 1 1:32:28

Eventually I'll get a second wind and figure out, you know, I'm just going to keep doing what I've always done. Actually, I've devoted my entire adult life to getting people to look beyond the end of their nose. And we had another queer filmmaker come on and said you know, we disparage normalization and the gay agenda and it's like, actually, the efforts toize, we're just trying to get you to be human, actually, you know. And so when I feel myself being a defeatist, I go well, I'll just keep doing what I've always done. And I quoted Vincent. You might have noticed that, virginia, on Facebook I had a moment and I just put up the words from Vincent by Don McLean they are not listening. They're not listening. Still, perhaps they never will. I think a lot of artists feel that sense of futility, like, oh my God, I understand we change minds by touching hearts and I've devoted my life to that, but does it really go very far? So I think I need a second wind and I notice all my friends are trying to figure out how they can make a difference.

Speaker 2 1:33:28

I agree, I think, with what's going on too is and I know all three of us are part of that generation which is Gen X, where we've kind, you know, fire, sell it down and anarchy a lot of the time in our youth we also are like well, you know, as long as it's not overly affecting me, we'll just ride out the wave. And I think a lot of us are waking up and going not anymore.

Speaker 1 1:33:58

The stakes are way higher. I mean it always. You could say in history it always seems like the end of the world. I will say the horrors of this century are pretty unmatched, right. And then somebody else will come along and say, actually, you know, the amount of violence inflicted on our own race is declining. But I think it's all the lens through which you view history, right. I don't think many things are unprecedented. I will say I think climate change don't think many things are unprecedented. I will say I think climate change is very real and it's unprecedented. I think fascism has come and gone many times.

Speaker 1 1:34:34

We just I identify as somebody again Gen X. But I grew up between wars. You know Vietnam was still raging when I was a kid, but we were protected from it. So there is a little bit of a false sense of security. 9-11 for me was a big wake-up call that we're as vulnerable right as everybody else to terrorism. So there have been milestones and I call it just. The real world has gotten in a little more. I'm more invested and instead of creating my own reality, I'm a little more like yeah, there's a real big bad world out there, and to what degree do I want to make my difference. There's a real big bad world out there. And to what degree do I want to make my difference? But I a long time ago realized amen to political activists, amen to militant activists. That's not my gift. My gift is being a storyteller. So I just take refuge in that?

Speaker 3 1:35:21

No, I was going to say so. How can you use that? How can you use your own gifts to further the right narrative.

Speaker 1 1:35:30

Well, I've done it my entire life. So the question becomes whether I continue to put stock in that or just realize it's not making a difference. Yeah, I just think we need to renew our hope on the daily, especially artists.

Speaker 3 1:35:48

Yeah, Well, I think that the younger generations are much more aware of don't call it the, it's not the human experience or the gay experience or the LGBTQ experience, but I misspoke that we are all having a human experience and we're all, and I, I have so much faith in the young people that, um, you know, older people don't, because I think that they have a worldview even our generation does not have.

Speaker 3 1:36:19

And while, yes, fascist fascism has come and gone several times and the horrors of of this, uh, current century are unprecedented, I think the young people will be the ones that come up and and re-change the world the way it should be, and it's it's breath. It's breathtaking to see it, even in my own children and their, their viewpoints on stuff. But, um, I worry, I worry very much in the interim about my lgbtq friends and family and we have, like I said, I have a trans child as well and it's really weird to have to send a text message saying hey, I just read this article that they're trying here in oklahoma to remove your rights to your um, your name, your profession, getting housing, like you always have a safe space with us. It brings it very real when you're texting that to your own child. Wow, and so it's no longer a war on distant shores.

Speaker 1 1:37:15

Yeah well, everybody's affected, you know.

Speaker 2 1:37:18

Yeah, yeah, I have the same conversations, josh, with my oldest, so if it's not a weekly, it's almost every other day conversation. So, yeah, it's not easy.

Speaker 3 1:37:30

There's a line in the Revolutionary War that it says this war will not be on some distant shore that we just hear about, Whether it be amongst us, between us, in our own backyards. Our children will see it with their very own eyes and I think I have hope for the future because of that, that the worst that evil can get, the more aware people are of it and aware of the change needed.

Speaker 1 1:37:54

Yeah, well, exactly the way I put it is sometimes even in on the micro level and maybe a standoff with a friend. It's like sometimes there needs to be something to address, so the stakes get really high so you can address it. And so, absolutely, we're being called upon to decide which, and I I just have a real expanded view right now. But Virginia and I, we we've talked about this on the show. How you know, when people dig in their heels, it's the fear of change, and so I know what the march is. Do you know what I mean? I'm thinking in French now, the démarche. I know what the march of human potential is and I know where we're headed. And there's a do you know what I mean? A last-ditch effort and that's called conservatism, by the way to fight against that progress. So I'm with you on a really good day, joshua. I do see the promise in future generations. I can get down on them too, by the way. Yeah, I will say I don't have a policy on it. That's why continuing to do this podcast is really tricky, because I have no wisdom, I have no answers and I don't have a personal policy right now. Check with me. Do you know what I mean, as time goes on, I'll get the wind back in my sails. I'm not going to call it losing my religion, but absolutely my hands are in the air. For the moment, my only policy is, you know what? I'm going to continue doing what I've always done, and I do feel a little bit like I said, they're not listening. They're not listening still. Perhaps they never will, but even on the LGBTQ issues you guys mentioned Virginia we talked about hand-holding right. Yes, you get to be my age and it's like I am not here to hold anybody's hand on the journey toward connecting with their humanity. Too old for that shit, but I do feel like, okay, okay, now it's affecting people.

Truth, Forgiveness, and Legacy

Speaker 1 1:39:49

I've spent my whole life gently, diplomatically, trying to make a difference. Do you know what I mean, even in my grassroots circles, through my example, not through preaching, not through militant activism, but just being a great uncle, as I've said many times, or or a great nephew, or a great kid. You know, I hoped that was enough. I love that people are now seeing oh, my own kid, oh shit, you know what I mean my rights. I see it now. Okay, I'm glad you see what I've been preaching my entire life. So I'm tired, but I'll. Yeah, and tomorrow's another day. Right Back to story. That yeah and uh. Tomorrow's another day. Right back to story. That's what scarlett o'hara said. Tomorrow is another day. I do like that. People are being affected, you know, even people that just wanted the price of an egg to go down, that blinded themselves to everything else. I love every news story here where it's directly affecting them.

Speaker 3 1:40:40

Sorry, you're dead on, you're dead on, and that's why I said I, I have a lot of faith in the young, the younger generation, because they are young enough to fight the fight that you and I are both too old to fight Right. Did we give enough legacy? Did we give enough example of humanity and love and alien I'm your uncle, you know. Kind of thing Beautiful.

Speaker 1 1:41:02

Well, and that is the beauty of youth, it's not just because sometimes I think youth thinks they're the first generation to see outside the box and they try to reinvent the wheel. But the truth is the optimism of youth, the unlimited potential that they see that we don't. So I'm banking on that as well to at least um.

Speaker 2 1:41:28

My two youngest have shared with me is that which I think they are totally right in, because I've learned this over the last year and a half um, as I've rediscovered my, my full self again, is um. The older generation doesn't like to sit in the uncomfortable, because we've gotten comfortable.

Speaker 1 1:41:41

And the youth, the youth is able to they're able to be okay, sitting in what is uncomfortable and waiting it out interesting, maybe because it's all they know maybe I think there's a resilience to youth and, uh, I don't know that they're more comfortable with conflict, but, um, yeah, maybe complacency sets in, or futility amongst the older generations. It's been going on since the dawn of time.

Speaker 3 1:42:09

Yeah, I think their worldview is much larger than ours. Were, dominic, I think that their acceptance of difference is much broader than ours.

Speaker 1 1:42:20

Yeah, we grew up in a different world than they did. Yeah, it's true. Well, we've talked a little bit on this podcast about how the world's a smaller place because of technology, and, yes, there's a lot more exposure to other cultures, and yet there's more isolation as well. I agree with you 100%. We're aware of cultural relativity more than ever, and hopefully that translates into what we have in common, right, even with the Middle East conflict. It's like, hopefully. I mean, it's always been that way, right, the Israeli music festivals have always brought Palestinians and Israelis together through music, right, and I think youth has always had a monopoly on that, seeing our shared humanity.

Speaker 2 1:43:02

Well, and that's what story does too. It shows us that same thing. And having a smaller, where they can see the cultures and see that that story does too, it shows us that same thing. And having a smaller, where they can see the cultures and see that that story. You know the main line of story trends, you know can be translated across all languages, all cultures. It's just phenomenal.

Speaker 1 1:43:19

No, I actually feel like we opened a can of worms. So if we ever get enough energy to talk about the changes on the horizon and how we can combat them, maybe we'll do a whole episode. It's just too much to go into, isn't it? Yes, it's a tricky moment. It's shifting day to day we need some.

Speaker 3 1:43:34

We need some downtime to be able to get gather our thoughts well flooding the zone.

Speaker 1 1:43:39

Right, that was the whole. Strategy is, if you can't combat any one measure or any one executive order or any one policy, you're just going to throw your hands in the air. And that is exactly what is happening, and some Democrats have said okay, but it's okay to take a breath, it's okay, right, it's okay to take stock, and then dot, dot, dot. I take solace in the fact that I'm not a doom speaker about it. It's not the end of the world. Courts are fighting certain things, certain measures, certain policies, certain executive orders. It is being played out in the courts. There are measures being taken that we're not aware of. So I'm just hoping for that, but maybe we artists do need to band together and have a strategy.

Speaker 2 1:44:25

Josh. I'm just curious, though with everything we've shared and the fact that you've been dealing with a lot of change just in your own thing, Is there anything you'd like to impart to our listeners?

Speaker 3 1:44:37

Goodness, this is why we write books, so that we have the time to find the right words for posterity and history, for posterity and history, um, to impart just just love, truth. You know, really and truly, I don't have a soapbox anymore. Um, the need for that went away with, uh, just getting through the day, but it'll come back around. It always does right life, right Life is a flat circle, and so you know, just any kind of advice or wisdom to give to people is keep doing what you've always done. Keep doing what you've always done in the midst of the storm.

Speaker 2 1:45:22

Thank you.

Speaker 1 1:45:23

Yeah, great words, because I do feel like sometimes we need to remind ourselves and each other why we do what we do, and that helps renew hope. So that's why I really thrive on this podcast. You know that Virginia is getting in touch with like-minded people and hopefully getting validation we're not crazy but also getting that second wind to rise another day and, yeah, make our difference in the world. So, thank you, joshua, that was beautiful and yeah, we'll talk politics next time, I guess, or not? All right, thank you so much and we will put the links in the episode description.

Speaker 2 1:46:00

I will add the link as well to Joshua Lloyd Fox's first time being on our podcast. So if you didn't catch it you can find it easier as well. I think we really covered what the essence of what this podcast is about is is really to bring us together, and we do that through the storytelling.

Speaker 3 1:46:20

Beautiful. Just one last thing, dominic I appreciate the love you have for us, but also know I've watched your story as well, and this podcast and everything. I'm very, very proud and love what you guys are doing here.

Speaker 1 1:46:32

So thank you so much. Thank you, okay. Thank you so much, guys, and to our listeners, remember life is story and we can get our hands in the clay, individually and collectively. We can tell a new story. See you next time.