Episode 44: Domestic Violence Awareness Month: From Abuse to Creative Alchemy: A Conversation on Healing Shame and Rebuilding Self-Worth with Jennifer

Hey gorgeous.

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And I believe in your ability to create a life you absolutely love.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Girls Who Recover podcast with Dana Hunter Fradella, where incredible women just like you, go to transform life's biggest setbacks into your most powerful comebacks so that you can live a life you. Love. I'm your host, Dana Hunter Fradella, transformational coach and founder of Girls Who Recover, and my mission is to pull back the curtain on our mistakes, failures, shame and personal disasters, and light the way for how to use those to create your biggest and most gorgeous comebacks. Follow the show now. Grab your iced coffee and turn up the volume for girls who recover. Let's light it up. The response to stories being featured in October on Girls who Recover, where we're featuring stories and experiences and voices of women who have experienced domestic violence. Has been overwhelming and so we are going to drop more than your typical episode this month in hopes that the stories that you hear will either help you on your own personal journey, help previous versions of you in your childhood, or your adolescents, or wherever the parts of your life have been affected by domestic violence. Or that it might help someone that you love, and if so, I hope that you'll take this to heart. You'll share these conversations, or you'll take them within you and decide to do something a little differently to love and support the woman in your life who has experienced. Or is experience any form of domestic abuse. So today I am, we're having an unexpected, unplanned conversation with one of my favorite humans on the earth. She is an author. She is a podcaster. She also is featured in an earlier episode of Girls Who Recover. While she's talking, I'll look up what number that was so you can go back and listen to her story, which is incredible. Oh, it's 25.'cause you were like the 25th episode. I remember episode 25. You can go hear her full story. And today we're here to talk about her experience with domestic violence. So without further ado besides giving an an unabashed shameless plug for my new favorite True Crime podcast, of which she is the host, same Crime, different Time with Jen Chambers, check it out. You can also find her on Substack and her OG podcast, which is now named Beyond the Margins from a Writer. My gorgeous writer friends Jen, welcome Jen Chambers and Jen I will just hand you the mic and take as much time as you like to tell your story, and then if you're open to it, I'll just ask you a couple of follow-up questions. Thank you so much. It's interesting. I didn't expect to be candid about this, but, I think that the more light we can shed on this and how common it is for everyone, I don't want my daughter to have that experience, and I know most of us don't. It's interesting and it's insidious for me, it snuck up on me. I didn't realize I was very young. I left school when I was 17 or left home when I was 17 to go to college, and I was in a very vulnerable place. I had I had just recovered from brain injury and I probably shouldn't have been left out let out of the house, but I was not gonna be stopped. And. I found myself in a relationship with a man, I guess he was a few years older than me, and extremely persuasive. It was really easy for me to fall into his, I don't wanna say trap, but. He said all the right things, and he was complimentary to me at a time that I needed that kind of reassurance. And so it just it wasn't insidious in that it just happened. I didn't, it wasn't like one big event. It know I thought this person cared about me. And it started with verbal abuse and then it started with financial abuse. Like it started. Really easily. And it was almost like I was too kind for sure. But I was just, I was really thankful that I had a person that cared about me like that at that time, because I was in such a vulnerable place. And, he was older and he was, it was fun and. And then it wasn't, and then it, it really wasn't things got really twisted. He was violent. He pushed and he shoved and there was sexual violence and I don't know about all abusers, but he certainly made it seem like it was my fault. I internalized that a lot, and it took a long time to get out. It took a long time. I was so ashamed to tell anyone. I didn't wanna tell my parents, here I was this kid who had gone out on her own and totally screwed it up even though it wasn't my fault. I felt like it was at the time. Now I just feel sad that I let, not that I let that happen, but that happened to me. I just, it's, I've processed it and I wish that I'd been able to stand up for myself sooner, but I can still remember exactly how it felt. The body does not forget. I know all of I can go right back to those moments, but I got my eyes opened and I don't have to let that kind of thing happen anymore. That's the important thing. It's crazy. I never talk about this, but I really do think that it's like ripping off a bandaid. Yeah. And I think a lot of it was being young, but a lot of it was not being confident and a lot of it was just a bad person that I got hooked up with. And I think sometimes those people can sense people that are vulnerable and. Needy in certain ways and target you. Funny, even after I broke it off I only told, I did tell my parents, I told a couple of friends and they wanted to go, they wanted to go and beat him up. And I wouldn't let it happen, which now I'm like, come on. I shoulda have, I know I don't condone violence at all, but. Now I wish I had in a way, even though I don't really, I just I've since heard that my, my abuser has died. And I wasn't sorry. I felt badly that I wasn't sorry. But I was just angry and it took up so much of my life at that time, and it was so focused around who he was and. And not on me. And the fact that I was being hurt, I wish I'd sought help sooner, but there's such a stigma and I just felt so ashamed. Yeah. And, I told you off camera it's funny, the, I found out that he wasn't just a bad person to me. He'd done it to other people and he would gaslight me, do things like take my clothes and give them to the person that he was, the other person that he was sleeping with. He would, and then I would be like, Hey where's my pajamas? Or where's my shirt? And he'd give it away to someone else. And. Made me feel like I was crazy, which is so funny. I can't believe I just remembered that. It's not funny but then I, like I was saying, I found out later that he was the kind of person who, he stole people's identities and hurt other people's families. And I'm so ashamed that I wasn't a part of that, but that I was connected with that and I didn't know it was happening. Thank God I would've hopefully got out of there sooner. But it is just, I think the shame part is the part that needs to I don't know why. I feel like it's always the women or people who are hurt, that are blamed, and it's never the people who are doing the hurting. I wish that I'd had one of those stories where he could have been. Taken to jail or got some kind of punishment. I don't know. I just I wish so much that hadn't happened, but I guess I'm at peace with it now. It's hard not to be emotional about it. Yeah, it's all welcome. It's all welcome here, and what I'm hearing, just to normalize it for you, Jen, and also for the listener, is there's some commonalities. It's like a blessing and also a weird, I'm just gonna leave it as a blessing to be receiving all of these stories and to have some personal experience with my, with it myself. And you and I were just recently on the Shameless Woman panel, which, who knew where that was gonna lead, right? Because we can talk about shame, and laugh about shame and be empowered about shame. And then also when it comes to the deepest, darkest parts of our. Life. It's really, you used the word insidious. It's insidious. And so some things that I've noticed that our conversations I've had in common are there's been some childhood trauma involved. In your case, it was an accident. Please go listen to the episode. It's so beautiful. And then a sort of new awakening where you didn't actually know who you were. Both metaphorically and literally because of the brain injury. And then you've gotten, you're in a, you're in a position where we're unprotected. We're but also longing for control, longing for love. And I just don't want it to say this about you. It's every human is longing for love. We're built that way. We're all built with big hearts. We're built with the, with longing to connect. Most of it. I'll say most of us, and even we in one conversation, we were talking about the actual, I didn't hear you use the word narcissist, and so maybe it doesn't fit here, but some connection between narcissism and domestic abuse and this idea that if you've got the personality disorder of narcissism, you actually cannot love. And a lot of that is linked to, again, trauma of being unprotected or unloved or on whatever it is. And. So then for whatever reason, we show up in the world and we want love. We need love, and we're, I hate to use this word, but we'll use the word vulnerable just because I don't have another word. And then there's this whole through line of predators. These people are predators, whether they have a diagnosed mental disorder or whatever, and they sense the impasse. They sense women who need love and support, which again is a lot of us and. Then they sink in, sink their teeth into the prey. The other thing I heard is that in the meantime, they're sleeping with other people, likely abusing other people, and because it's some, another woman compared it to a hoarder and that they don't hoard stuff, though they hoard humans as commodities and then they keep them on the shelf through. Abuse, which often starts as mental and then leads to physical, sexual use, financial, and all the while the narrative on the inside. Is that it's my fault. It's my fault. It's my fault. I cause it. I'm embarrassed like nobody's talking about this because we have this portrait of who we're supposed to be in the world and this isn't a match, and the knower of us knows that. But then there's this biological component of now we're in this cycle of addiction. Which abuse creates, which has nothing to do with, your worthiness, our worthiness, our identity, our deserving, but it's a poison on the house. And so I'm wondering about, you said you've, what did that sound like? Can I just ask you candidly, what did that sound like when you were talking to yourself in the middle of that situation? You can't tell anyone. You can't leave. I don't want people to know. And it also, I think part of it too, because there was because there was sexual abuse and then like you're dirty and wrong and it's, even though it's not your fault or that part was really bound up with it or, you somehow you invited this. And I would tell myself those you can't tell anyone. You can't, no one can know this horrible thing because you are the horrible thing. That's why you can't possibly be real about that. And it's weird. It was almost, it was unconscious. I can. Go right back to this place one day where I was I was standing in my hallway and I was looking at a picture on the wall and I was, I had just been shoved into a cabinet, and I could just remember staring at that and it crystallized in my head, how, why are you letting this happen? That's why I keep saying I felt so long that I was letting it happen. I was allowing it. I, not that someone else was doing something. It was my fault because I allowed it. So that's, that was what took so long to unlearn. It wasn't about personal responsibility, even though I'd been, my family dynamic was that was the savior. Personal responsibility was, what, how you lived your life. And that just didn't have any bearing, so I didn't have the capacity to understand at some level. Yeah. It just, yeah. And so if you're taught, if you grow up speaking. Greek. You speak Greek and that's all you know. Yes, exactly. And that is what came up for me too, is okay, we value this Western ideal of hyper independence. Yeah. And hyper responsibility. And you're on your own kid. You always have been like, okay, Taylor, thank you for naming the disease of Western Society and what it sounds like here. And it's this, it's similar in various forms of addiction. Addiction. Just meaning like we are engaging with something that is harmful to us. It fucks up our biology and our brain chemistry. And then also it speaks to us and our own voice, the poison of toxicity of society. That's first of all, real angry with women and our ability to thrive or grow or be in the world. And second, this false belief that separate. Better, but separate is better. And so with domestic violence and abuse, it's this whole shit show of a gumbo, pot of, I'm not supposed to tell anybody. Sex is shameful. I know you're not from the south, but it's real shameful to be talking about sex. Okay. As it turns out, now that I've interviewed people from all over the world, it's the shameful. It's, it's a, again, a weapon against women to be talking about sex, right? And then this belief that, number one, it's we at, this is the other thing that's oh, it makes me sick. It's oh we allowed it, we manifested it. It's our, but the truth is no, that's fucked up and not okay. Like it's, that's not okay. And then not having the words like, I don't know about you, but as a kid I, nobody ever told me like, this is okay behavior. This is not okay. Behavior by men, it was like good luck out there. Good luck, especially, and I don't know what modeling of parents have to do. I don't know. I feel like I'm a fish outta water here, but I think that there's something here, right? Because it clearly was not your fault. You, meaning you Jen, but also everyone who's been experienced with this. And that's what we said before, which is why I was like, can we please record this? Because story after story of oh no, we have to be done. Izing this, stigmatizing this and carrying the shame again, like without blame. Do whatever you want. Feel empowered. But I think in our conversation on shame, we talked about how do we alchemize it? We talk about it. We talk about it. And so you mentioned, you said you processed it and you have a little bit of peace. What did you do actually, can I back up a little bit and just ask statistics show is very unlikely that anyone would ever leave an abusive relationship. It, we return, and then we die, typically. What was it that helped you separate yourself from that relationship? I felt like if I didn't, I was gonna die. I felt like there was, I was so ashamed, and at the same time I was like, this isn't because of my experience with my Braintree. I'm like, this is not what I was saved for. This is, this is, this can't be all there is, this can't be it for me. And so there was this one little light. Like somewhere in the corner of my heart somewhere. And I, it's funny I didn't have, it's not like I was like super brave or anything. I. I got my stuff out. I had my dad help me and move my stuff and then I was like, where's the furthest way I can go and still feel safe? And I live in Oregon, so I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go to school at Duke because I am not gonna be here in this state where this person knows where I am. I'm not gonna be anywhere. And so I got into school there and I went there. That's across the country. If you don't know, it's in North Carolina, right? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So far from Oregon. Yeah, as far as like I was like a line on the map to the other side. I'm on one side and it's all the way on the other side. Not on the coast but close. And I was like, I'm gonna live in Raleigh. I'm gonna do this for a summer. We're gonna see what's gonna happen. I hadn't decided if I was gonna live there permanently or not, but I wanted to and I wanted to do something for myself. So I, I just felt like I, I had to my soul was screaming at me that I had to get out, I had to get out and I had to physically, I felt like a coward because I had to physically leave because I thought I would go back. And so I was like, it was like big me was telling little me, okay, we have to get you outta here because that's the thing that's gonna keep you safe. You have to leave physically. Yeah, because, and. And it was great. It was a great experience. I I liked it there a lot. I didn't, I only lived there and went to school there for one summer because I didn't wanna stay there. It was a little bit hot for me, but I bet it was different. It was very different. It was great and I loved it there, but I've definitely a west coast girly, so I had to come home and by then I was able to know myself a little bit better and. Give myself the chance to change. I just wanna say something that made me like I might sob on the podcast today, but there's this commonality. There's this commonality of darkness and light and there's so much darkness in these stories of women being abused when really like we're actually positioned here to be loved in overflow of love from our families, from community. Like that actually is the framework for how things are supposed to be in, in my opinion. But also if you look at. Any spiritual wisdom traditions, like no. We're here to be love. Like we're here to be love and connected and we're all connected whether we like it or not, and there, and we can't experience the light. And this is where I really was like, oh, please don't sob audibly. Is that within us? We've had this conversation a couple of times. You had, I don't, I, I can't remember if you called in near death an NDA near death. I said white light. White light experience. White light experience. Okay, so you've already had this white light experience where you were given the keys to the kingdom proverb. Like you could go, you could stay, you decided to stay and you could have it all was the promise. And so now you know, okay, oh, I could have left and I didn't left the left life. Just to be clear, if you haven't listened to that episode, okay, and I didn't. And so I'm here for a reason and then you are. In the middle of this situation that does not match and creating shame and creating the narrative that it's my fault, I must have caused it. And like I, I can't tell anybody. And then there's this little light you mentioned. It's a little light in the corner of your mind. It's like this, isn't it? This isn't it? This isn't it. This isn't it. And then you sought support, sounds like via your dad. To leave the situation and then to create geographic space as a way of creating safety for yourself. Can I ask you, you said it gave me the space to know myself. Say more about what you mean there. It gave me the time and space to one of my things for me, because of my accident. I thought that after this experience, I had fought so much to be, my family really values me smart, and I was like I'm. I felt so stupid. I felt so stupid that I got hoodwinked. I don't, there's not, or just fooled, there's no really good term. But, I just, I felt so used and so foolish because of that. And going to Duke made me feel like. I was real. Again I'm not stupid. I can do this. I'm not stupid. I can and just because that happened to me doesn't mean that I'm done. It doesn't mean that's all that I am, and, but I, that's a lot to do with the fact that I'm really stubborn and I just wanted I knew that there was something better. I just couldn't stop. I knew that there had to be something better for me, even if I didn't know what it was or how to get there. I knew how to put one foot in front of the other and keep going. And some days it wasn't a lot, but, and it ended up that wasn't the place for me, but I found that it wasn't where I was, it was who I was. Maybe it was the place for you exactly the right time at exactly the right place for exactly the right number of days. It could be. It seems like it worked out so and this grounding into giving yourself safety and space. I also am hearing you get in there and have the most important conversation. You, with you. Which I am, I don't wanna project this, but it sounds like this is a commonality, is oh, we woke up and remembered who we are, and then we started to talk to ourselves in a way that was supportive and loving and creating safety. And listen, I don't know what's happening, but we're outta here. And that's not, you said our, my story isn't who I am. It's a part, it's a part of the story. It's not my identity. And then this deep remembering, which I'm gonna argue is embedded in the code of everyone. Is this remembering of course, you're worthy of it. All of it all, of course. And when we're in these positions of being vulnerable, we get disconnected from the knowing. Which you knew the whole time, like you knew, your know, our knowers know the whole time. But society does, its damnedest to separate us from our intuition, from each other, from community, from support, from love in search of these, I'll call them patriarchal values of independence and. Lone ranger and creates your own success by any means possible. And then also this weapon of, and also by the way, you have to be beautiful and fucking smart. Real smart as you can get. I'm, I have that same thing, which is why you can see, you can hear, oh yeah, I thought if I was smart, then I was gonna finally be okay. And as it turns out. I had to get smart and realize that's not the end all, be all. I'm not sad about me being smart. I like being smart, but I realized like that isn't my who I am. That's not my worth either. I could be dumb as a rock and still have pure a hundred percent worth because I was created. That's it, because I am. Yeah. Okay, so what about, what did you discover about yourself in the process? What have you discovered about yourself in the process? That I think my innate curiosity about what's happening next, I think we've talked about this before, but I'm a very much Sagittarius, so I'm all about what's happening, what's gonna happen, what's gonna happen next, and I really have been leaning into that that's okay. It's okay. For me it's not that I'm planning for the future all the time. I'm always trying to enjoy the now, but it's okay for me to be excited about what's happening next. And that's been really fun. That's been. That's been really fun to, to learn about myself. I learned that I learned that I was hiding, that I was hiding because I was afraid, and that now I don't have to hide anymore, and that's been a huge lesson in my life. Whatever I was afraid of, if it was myself or of being hurt again. It's all it's what you do with it. It's not that the hurt is worth it because it's that's silly. It's, yeah, it's what you do with it. It's what you alchemize it into, and for me it's fuel. Most of the time it was going over there was such an incredible experience because I. I just allowed myself to be, and I didn't try and put any labels on myself and then it made everything whole in a way, just allowing myself to, to not have all the answers and to not know where I'm going, but still be excited about it and to still be excited about the learning and the process because that's something that is fascinating to me. I'm reading this book by Rabbi David Aaron called The Endless Light and he's, it's about kabbalistic wisdom, and he said something that was like, oh, that really stuck with me. He said the word shalom, the Hebrew word shalom means peace, but it also means wholeness or completeness. It sounds like there's this piece of feeling whole despite the, despite the events and the circumstances, the remembering of. I am who I am. I'm whole and worthy as is. I'm a Sagittarius. I like this and I like that, and I like this and I like this, and it's okay and it's okay. And in that we create our own peace. Or we are given the peace. I don't know. It's both. Both in the same. What's that like to know who you are, to be at peace with you? This story of your, of from your life. What's it like now? What's it like now in your career and your marriage and your family and your being in the world? I feel like I come from a place of knowing that it's gonna be okay. That, that I can get through things, I can get through things with my family highs and lows, and I can get, there've been really awful times. My son was very sick and almost died. And it was awful on so many levels, but I knew that we were gonna get through it no matter what happened. No matter how he was impacted. I knew that I had the tools to go forward just because I know that I can't. There's so much value in that for me, knowing that I'm able to do the things, whatever they are, and I'm able to. Brave storms, whatever happens, it's, I'm gonna be okay within myself because I'm stronger than I thought I ever was. So for me it's about knowing my own worth and my own strength. That's, it's not a good gift to get, but it's a gift that I was given. In the darkness, we are able to access the light. Absolutely. And that does not mean that like I think there's a reason for everything.'cause I don't, or like I don't under, I still don't under, I don't understand. I think it's terrible and ter and terrifying and horrible and. This is seemingly the whole mission as it turns out of girls who recover is there's so much, so many of us who've walked through the fires of darkness or I don't know, whatever swamps or whatever your experience is. And then in that, we remember that we not only get to access the light that, but we are the motherfucking light. We are the light. And so there are, the bravery is in. Okay. I used to feel, I feel some shame around this and I'm gonna say it out loud. That's the bravery is to shatter the glass ceiling of, you better not say anything. That was, my abuser said, you better not say anything. It will ruin both of us forever. And so I didn't until I did. And the glass ceiling is shattered of You better not say anything. Oh, no. We're gonna be saying something. And in saying something, a few things happens, at least from my experience. One is we start to feel to heal. We start to call out the boogie, the boogeyman of shame that's still hiding under the bed sometimes. And then also we light the way for the woman who's oh, that's me, or that's someone I love. And so in alchemizing, the shame into, yeah, still feel a certain way about it, makes me feel terrified to say things that I'm sometimes saying on the podcast. And every week there's a woman who's I am so grateful that you gave words. That's my experience too, and I'm going to X, Y, Z as a result. And so can we talk about the word healing? Word healing, which may be required. What have you. I heard you mentioned Thera, the some therapeutic support. What would you recommend for what have you, what's your experience in healing and what would you recommend? I've had many failed therapeutic experiences. Same. Same. I took me forever. Forever to, yeah, to find. Something that works there. And I think that there's, I didn't wanna give up on that either. I was like, I'm gonna make this work. And it was terrible and I stayed with it for way too long. And, the freedom to say, you know what, this is not working for me. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna give up on therapy. I'm gonna try a different way, a different person. It blew my mind the idea that I could do that. You're allowed. Yeah. Yeah. You're allowed. So that, that was really helpful. Be able to find that, find the right person. And I've had several of them over the years and I've gone long periods without therapy. I'm back in now and it feels really good just'cause I feel like I'm at a different place than I was last time. I like doing therapy. Virtual therapy is my favorite'cause I live so rurally. So it's great that it's so much more accessible now. So I would encourage anyone to do that. There's, speaking of stigma, there's a huge, still a stigma around that, but it's like washing your clothes. You wouldn't go too long without washing your clothes. Why don't help someone, someone help you scrub your brain a little bit, and it's okay. I find that really helpful. But I also journaling helped me a lot and I doing a lot of journaling and then the journaling kind of got me to where there are certain things that I feel make my day complete and for me. And I wrote'em down. So that's, I, it doesn't exist if I don't write it down'cause I won't remember it. So for me it's exercise and playing music and being with my family in some form or another. Also writing. So I guess there's four things. So sometimes I've fallen off and not done those things, but. I know that when I need to get back to my center and back to my wholeness, that those are the things I need to do. I have a list, I can go back to it, and if I go for a walk, stuff starts to make sense. Again. If I pick up my instruments, it's all gonna be okay. So I think developing your own toolbox is hugely key. Yeah. So I, all of those things. I know you haven't mentioned this, so we can delete this if you want, but all those things, there's ACC access to your own spirit. All of them. Movement, music, the language of the soul. Connection with other souls in your family, connection with nature on the walk, movement in your body, and then writing, you literally are the channel for the divine. In the writing, which is why I, remind me again, 30, how many books have you published? 30. It's two or three. I forget. I'm gonna say 32. More than 30. More than 30. And I know you're working on another one. You've got multiple podcasts, and so you are allowing yourself, forgive me, feel free to toss all this, but I am witnessing you. Allow yourself to be the channel for the light. For you to come, for it to come through in the, like most gangster ways in these true crime episodes, and you empowering a movement of people to write their own story and to really get more in touch with their knower and their intuition and their me message through their writing. And then all of the stories and the talents that you're sharing in your book plus this TEDx talk that you're, we're lining you up to, to get. To be honest. So stay tuned on that.'cause that's right around the corner, along with our pod, podcast publishing company, and then some. So it's really just the beginning of this. And so is there anything I'm wondering if this is, we could have gone out on that one, but something that's popping up me being curious is that, is you're experience having been in that relationship. Does it show up at all in your current relationship? And if so, what are the ways that you're able to navigate that? That's a great question. Yes, because my coping technique used to be making myself small and denying every need that I had or want that I had, and. Just doing the barest minimum for myself because I thought that I could erase myself into, into not needing and then it would, the pain would stop if I just didn't need anything or want anything. And so when I get triggered. It's really easy for me to be like, Nope, no, I don't need it. No, I don't. I don't need to eat. I don't need to. I don't need anything from anyone. I'm all I'm an island by myself. And it's not healthy, but I recognize it when it happens, and so I, I know that when I start to feel those feelings, I need to go back to the things that are nourishing and filling me up. And I, I wish that I never got triggered at all, but I guess at this point it's how it is. So we're calling it good. Yeah, just very human. Very human. Has to be triggered by things and anyway, welcome to, one thing about. Having lots of conversations. It's just oh, it's human. All of this is very human of us. So welcome to humanity that does not discount any of the nature of what we've talked about. And also, what the, your work in the world is the great connector, the podcasting, the writing, the speaking, the teaching. This art workshop. Did you do your art workshop? Was that this weekend or kind of No, it week, next week. Okay. I'm so excited. Oh my gosh. Ugh. We're gonna have you come on and do this workshop with us yeah. I'm sorry. I have to get a little bit angsty around yeah, fuck the patriarchy of the man. It's the great separator that says you shouldn't need anything. That doesn't come from you. It's I just I wanna call you, not you forward Jen, but you, the listener. That's not, you're not alone and thinking that like you shouldn't need anything. There's something in the water. There's something in the water. It's Western patriarchy. I don't know what it is. I'm just calling it that because it's the easiest thing that's oh no, there's something in the water that we're drinking that makes us believe that we aren't, we forget who we are, that we're not worthy, that we're not deserving, that we don't have needs, that we don't have desires, that we don't have goals that we're, and that we have to shrink ourselves to fit in some mother fucking cage that was just there when we got here and we were shuffled in and now. We're in the middle of the an awakening. This is the other thing about girls who recover. You're living in it too. It's oh no, I'm awake. Now. I know who I am. There's still the subtle nuances of the sickness that like to creep in, and then I'm waking up. I love to use the wand as it's the tool of awakening where it's oh no. Fuck that noise. I'm gonna write this book and I'm gonna go give that talk and I'm gonna say that thing and I'm gonna come share the truth because. Who am I not to? How dare I not say the truth about my own experience, knowing that the personal is universal. And the assignment is we show up, we tell the truth, and we set each other free repeat. That's the assignment I was on. I went on a riff on Instagram this morning on stories. I'm like, I fucking hate social media. It is so fake. I'm tired of showing up here. Everything's magical'cause it's not. And also be able to laugh about that. Be able to laugh about all of it because if we can't, what else is there? So one offering, Jen, if you, if there's someone, and there is,'cause this is how the world works. There's someone listening right now who's in that situation, or who's recently exited, or who's on the periphery of being love bombed by the person who senses the need for love. What do you wanna invite her to know? Look for your light. Just it's there. It's there. You just have to believe in it. Look for your light. It's there. And it's okay to believe in it. Because we know that there's light. We are light. It's us. And the know or knows. Okay. Anything else that you'd like to share before we sign off? No. This was really interesting and it helped me think about stuff that I haven't thought about and maybe put together. So it's I'm really grateful. Thank you. Yeah, there is so much freedom and power and connection with community and connection one-on-one and connection with our own story. And hearing somebody else be like you're, yes, you are a sexy unicorn, but not in this way. It's very typical in the world of this experience that we're talking about. So thank you for your. The audacity to come and tell the truth for your courage to explore it in this way with me totally unexpectedly and unprompted, unscheduled, and for the light that you are offering to the world. Thank you. Love you, Mina. Thanks Jen. You too. Thank you. Oh, whoa. Did you just feel what I felt? 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