Ep 10: You may leave childhood, but it never leaves you

Richard and Pat discuss the lasting effects that childhood trauma, rejection, disappointment and insecurity etc., have on all of us as we go through life. They also cover clinical and spiritual ways to deal with and overcome it.

Transcript

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And welcome to the two live. Two Unlikely Christian podcast. I always wanna say Too, too live. But that was actually kind of a, uh, a nasty rap group back, back in the eighties. So we're, we're not too live group. We're too unlikely. Christian, Christian Podcast kind of unveiling my past there a little bit. I'm comedian Pat McCool and now to the brains of our duo all the way across. The Atlantic Ocean to somewhere in England, the main man, Richard Turrell. Thanks, pat. Nice to see you man. Nice to see you. I'm glad you said that about me being the brains of the operation. It's, you know, one of those things I've, I've thought many times, but I'm glad that it's, it's out in the open. I'm very perceptive, and as I've, as I told my wife, between your education, all your degrees and my GED we're pretty, we're pretty sophisticated and rounded out here with our education, so we're combining here. So, so I'm, yeah, absolutely. I'm more than happy to, to assign you the brains of the outfit. And speaking of on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, we are now up to eight different countries. We just had Germany checking in with a place called, um, Geen, HESI, Germany. We'd like to welcome them in. You ever been to Germany, rich? I have. Up in Berlin, yeah. Been to Berlin. Berlin. Uh, do you know that I actually lived in Germany? With your dad's military moving about. Yeah. Yeah, I lived there, when I was two, but I don't really, you know, tell when I'm trying to act a little cosmopolitan and international. I don't always say that. So I tell, you know, people are talking, oh, I've been to Rome. Oh, I've been to Rome, I've been to Paris, I've been to, uh. Yeah, I've been all over Europe, but what I don't tell'em that I was being, I was two years old and my mother, uh, had me wearing a pair of liter hoing and, uh, I, I looked like, uh, a cartoon character. Are there any pic? Are there pictures back? That's, I do have pictures, honest to gosh. I will find a picture of me in German and I'll send it to you. I'll tell you where I get busted is where they, they'll, you know, I was like, have you've been to Paris? Oh, I've been to Paris. And you know, I don't tell'em I'm two. And they're like, well, what was your favorite restaurant? Just, you know, so I'm a little, you knows, I, I don't know. I'm just a pretty stump. The only recollection of a restaurant that I have of all my time in Europe was we were in Italy and we were up in some mountains, or my grandparents had come over and we were, just taking a vacation and up in the mountains maybe the, I guess the Alps or whatever they call and, my grandfather, who grew up, was born and raised in Jackson County, Mississippi, uh, all Estaba Mississippi, about 90 miles south of here. And we have a saying over here, you can take the boy outta Mississippi, but you can't take Mississippi out of the boy because my grandfather sat down. And the Italian waiter came up, you know, he, he spoken a little broken English. My grandfather couldn't read the menu and frustratingly he closes the menu, sets it down, looks up at the waiter and said, I'll have a bologna sandwich. And Sally here, my grandmother Sally here, will have a milk of magnesia. Yeah. That was our experience, that was my lasting memory in an Italian restaurant. So, uh, a a a cultural triumph hack, it sounds like It was. Yeah. Yeah, it definitely was. Although I do think I left my mark in Europe because I was in ho in hospitals in three different countries because. Once my brother tripped me going upstairs in Holland and I busted my chin and that, that burst open. And then in Italy, I ran in a grocery store. I was attacking, trying to tackle my brother and he did a Spanish, uh. Bullfighter and just overlayed me into the produce section. And that split my head open. And then back in Germany, I once drank a good portion of, a bottle of Mr. Clean cleaning fluid, and they had to take me to the hospital. And you know what, we're about to get into this inner child. I have no clue why you read my book. Why did I do all this? Why did I do all the others? Oh, the, the li well, the, the Mr. Clean looked like lemonade. Oh, I see. I thought it was like, I'd like to know I could cry for help or something. Well, I'm two, you know, I, I dunno, I, I didn't really, I hadn't really built up a lot of, I really built, yeah. I'm letting my parents know this life is not working out for me. I can't take the rejection, I'm not getting the love I need. I'm going right down there and I'm crawling up. In the cleaning fluid aisle, and I'm down in a bottle of Mr. Clean because they haven't figured out they need to put childproof caps on this yet. And I got about four or five gulps in me and then I was being, having my stomach pumped at a local, at a local germ hospital. Do you like, if I imagine a 2-year-old drinking a bottle of cleaning fluid, right. I just, I, I see it and like I see the child taking the first sip. Realizing it's not lemonade, and then they, they, maybe they spit out the lemonade, the, the cleaning fluid or you know, like some, they stop crying, you know, something happens. But, but you, you continue to drink the, the cleaning fluid. Is this, is this correct? Yeah. Somehow some. Somehow I got enough in me to have to go to the ho. I've wondered that myself. I would, I thought like, well, once it hit my lips, you know, didn't I just kind of spit it out? I, I was two. I don't remember. I do know, uh, my parents can vouch. They had to haul me to the emergency room, so obviously I got a few gulps of cleaning. So I believe it happened, pat, I believe it happened. I'm just curious as to what was going, what was going on in that little 2-year-old mind. Yeah, you're the same as me. Every time I recount the story, I'm like, how did I keep drinking? You'd think it hit the lips and I'd be like, okay, this is not, this isn't lemonade. We're gonna move on to, uh, we're gonna move on to something else. Maybe we'll go, you know, for a, a floor cleaner or something. But, I almost did it, but I did somehow, uh, survive childhood. Which, which is a good segue into what we're going to talk about today. Hey, uh, take care away. Your LinkedIn post and as you know, this is, this is something that I'm very interested in because when you and I first met in our first conversation, when we discovered that we had a passion for helping others and, I told you in addition to comedy, I did public speaking and things, I, you know, I'd always thought about the people carrying their childhood with them. I always thought so many problems in people's lives come from what happened to them, uh, in childhood. And we briefly mentioned it in that, and we mentioned it during the, um. During the episode on, uh, on addiction. And what we're gonna do is, I'm gonna read this, this is off LinkedIn that Richard has post, we've got three posts here. I don't know if we're going to get to all of them. Um, and remember the, this is all, this is Richard's clinical. Take'cause this all comes from his clinical practice as a psychotherapist and addiction specialist. I always tie in the stuff that happened in childhood as, as the devil's way of continuing to come in and pound you. Um, but you have it, you have this from a clinical clinician perspective, from the people that you've worked with. And, I've always thought that, well, I know for a fact Jesus uses. The, the clinical experience, uh, and therapy. To help people. Yeah. That, you know, that I, I have a very good friend here in Hattiesburg, Dr. Beverly Smile Wood. She is a psychologist. I don't know the difference between the two of you, but I think it's very similar. She is a sold out follower and believer of Jesus, but she has the clinical practice, that she, helps an awful lot of people. So I think people could get a lot of help from this. So I am going to read the. Very first post you said, and the word clinical, uh, inner child. If anybody my age is a man has listened to this, don't click away. Because we had the inner child thing going on in America years ago. We talked about it, but it kind of had a stigma. It was kind of like a. Uh oh, just get over it and grow up type thing. Mm-hmm. But as I've gotten older, the term really does work because it is, or that there are things from your childhood that, uh, are carrying with you. And I've always thought that you may leave childhood. But it never leaves you, and that's all of it. So let's read this. Uh, why the title is, why Inner Child Work Matters in Addiction Recovery. This is part one of a three part series detailing my approach of using inner child and somatic trauma therapy. Together working with suitable addiction patients, trauma-informed practitioners understand addiction is not. As a moral failing, but as a survival strategy, a coping mechanism rooted in unresolved childhood pain. For many addictive behaviors are driven by emotional wounds carried by the inner child, a part of the psyche that holds our earliest experiences of fear, vulnerability, and unmet needs. Eddie Capucci, Capucci. Capucci. Yeah. Capucci. A therapist known for his work with sex and pornography addiction Addiction developed the inner child model for addiction recovery. This model identifies the unmet emotional needs of a wounded inner child as the driver behind compulsive behaviors. Having trained with Eddie and his co-author, Nathan Jones, I found this model to be transformative in helping clients reconnect with these wounded parts of themselves, recovery in this framework. It means learning how to identify your dominant inner child archetypes and developing an emotionally literate, compassionate adult self that can re-parent and soThe them in my synthesized approach. Alongside these valuable insights and new parts of responding to disowned parts of oneself, I work with the body in post two. Two, I'll explore the somatic side of this work and how this approach allows contact not only with the trauma that lives in the mind, but in the nervous system. So if you could just elaborate from there. Yeah, of course Pat, thanks for reading that out. And um, so I mean, I guess I'll pick up on something you said right at the front end there about, you know, the stigma that can be attached in the child work. And it's really interesting. Often, you know, and I still come across it now. Um, there's that idea that we should just get over it. That it's, you know, um, it's a fallacy, you know, what do you mean in a child, you know, I'm a man or, or a woman, you know, like, and so we can be quite self projecting of a part of us that is, you know, an early part of us that's wounded. You know, that's hurt. And, um, we all carry, you know, that kind of younger part of ourself. You know, our older major schools of psychology agree. Now that, um, and all the minor ones that we all have different parts of ourselves, like, no, you know, no one's just. There's not a single personality, right? So we carry these younger parts of ourselves. But so also, also often there's this idea, this, this tendency to like reject that part of ourselves. And the interesting thing is I think that the way that we relate to our in a child will usually mirror the way that we were treated as children. So if someone is rejecting that idea and rejecting that part of themselves, then that's probably what happened when they were a kid. Yeah. And often I think the people that reject these ideas the hardest are the people that need them the most. You know, it's like, I think there's something in that. The idea of the inner child is not that we actually carry a child. You know, there is a child inside of us, obviously that, you know, is not what it is. But what the, what the inner child idea does is it pulls together a lot of, uh, more complicated psychological ideas. And, um, it, it packages them together in a very useful metaphor. Yeah, a very useful metaphor. And in d you know, so that kind of construct allows us to start to relate to ourselves in, in different ways. That would be my opener there apparently. Uh, and I have always thought, um, as I've said that, that so much of what goes on in our lives all goes back to childhood. If you were rejected as a child, you're expecting to be rejected. If you had trauma, I didn't really have trauma. Uh, you know, you, you, you had trauma. Lemme ask you this, you know, Chris, we're getting into the fall. Um, you had trauma in your life. What, what kind of, are you, are you a big fan of Christmas, for example? Not really. Okay. Not really. I knew that was coming. Yeah. You, you don't have to go any farther because the, you just made my point. Here's the point that I was going to make. I knew you were going to say this.'cause when I talked to somebody, see I loved Christmas'cause I didn't have the childhood trauma. A lot of the stuff. That I got into happened later on in life and you know, or as I became a teenager and bad decisions, but you had trauma in my life and I knew how you were gonna answer this question. People that aren't big Christmas people, you can pretty much tell they had trauma in their lives as a child. See, the whole Christmas season comes to me or, and my wife and you. Full of great memories and fond memories. It's not for you. It's because you had trauma with the parents, you had parents drinking, you had divorce, and the, you didn't feel all of that comfort and joy and everything at Christmas time. Um. I've got people very close to me. A, a guy that's that just, no, he doesn't like Christmas at all. He had a horrible father and a horrible childhood. So, you know, one, one way I can just about tell if somebody had a good childhood or not, by asking that one question, did you have, do you remember the Christmas and the family thing that way? So you had that trauma. I knew how you were gonna answer that question, but. To broadly expand it even to myself. I just remember I can be going down the road and something will pop in the head. That happened, you know, in the fifth grade. Was it a rejection? Was it, you know, getting a a, a tail whipping for something that I didn't do and understand why now I did most of the stuff I got the tail whippings for. Trust me, I'm, but, um. It's those little things that go with us If were you rejected? Uh, were you, you know, dumped by a girlfriend, a boyfriend or something like that, did somebody treat you badly? Those things all, I think, all stay in our heads and to tie the spiritual realm into it, I would say all of that to beat us up all through. Drew life. You said a lot in that post there that I was just noticing'cause I just skimmed through it. But there are so many things in there. That he can use to destroy you? Not just in addiction. I think just people are just in, you know, we talked about in the spiritual Warfare podcast, I know people that, as a child didn't, you know, maybe get the love I and that they should have and they go through life. Expecting things in the subconsciously expecting life to treat them that way. Does that make sense to you? Yeah, of course, man, a lot. I think that, you know, the way I come to understand it since I came to Christ is, you know, those wounds, you know, those childhood wounds, the things that happen, you know, traumas, all of those things, they kind of create the um. The cracks in our psyche that the enemy gets into, you know, oh, I had a brilliant sermon the other day and, um, the, the pastor was saying, um, he said, not everything, not every negative message you hear about yourself. Not every dysfunctional thought, not every, you know, a difficult belief is an attack of the enemy, but it might just be that the enemy told you a lie 20 years ago that you still believe now. And I thought that was very powerful. So yeah, I think, I mean, it all joins up somewhere that, look, a debate that I have quite often with, uh, Christian friends is this idea that like, actually, well, like if we're a new, you know, we're born again, we're saved, we're a new creation, right? So therefore everything you know is wheel washed clean, you know, so therefore. All past traumas, wounds, you know, difficulties, addictions, compulsions, whatever, like they're gone. And if they're not gone, then you're not saved. And I think that's really dangerous actually. Um, I think that sometimes God works through people and that's the role that clinicians like therapist, like myself, complain. You know, we can help people that need that little bit of extra of extra help, you know, that need some. Psychological input in order to get freedom from, from the kind of stuff that we're talking about, pat, you know, that, that, you know, that pain, those fears, those negative beliefs, you know, and the things that people do to escape from them, you know? So, um, yeah, that's, that's what I think about all that up. I totally agree with you. That was the old thinking and I also heard a pastor saying. And the way we were thinking it used to be once you become a Christian, once you follow Jesus, that we discussed this in spiritual warfare episode, that oh, everything should be great. Well, if I have a broken arm and I accept Jesus, he's probably gonna make it possible for me to get to a doctor and get that broken arm fixed. Yeah. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah, I'm understand. Yeah. Just not just touch my hand and go. It's so much deeper and I think it's very dangerous thinking. You've accepted Jesus. You're born again, you're saved, and everything should be fine. I know people that are Christians that have killed themselves, that they just, life just tormented them and tormented them. They, you can listen to the devil. You cannot be following Jesus or not getting the help that you need. I know people that are going, that are alcoholics, that are sold out followers of Jesus, they attend these meetings. They attend our AA meetings constantly. They need that help. They need the therapy, they need the clinical, the clinical help, the books that, that you read on it. So I totally agree with that. Um, that is pretty brilliant what the guy, what he said, it's not all intact, but it could be something that he put in your head that stays with you. My wife and I were having a conversation other, I don't even know what it was about, uh, an album, Crosby Steel's Nash, and Young four Way Street. You, you're a little too young to have the best generation of music. Rich. I don't know what you listen to, but you're right behind the sixties and seventies and most of it came outta Britain that I've given you credit for. But I had this great, this great album and I, and we were talking about it. I was like, yeah, I was playing the song and I said, yeah, I don't have this anymore.'cause my brother told me his friend broke it. And then I started thinking, I was like, you know what? I bet his friend didn't break it. Mike probably broke it'cause he was always lying to me. And 10 minutes later I'm talking about Mike taking my headphones, tearing my headphones up, and I start thinking and I can feel myself actually thinking about that moment in childhood when my brother was being an abusive brother to me. Uh, and I just think that if that's little stuff like that is always in our head. If you are somebody that. That maybe was bullied as a child, that was rejected, that was, um, you know, that had failings, had fears as a child, didn't feel love as a child. I think that stays with you for the rest of your life. I think your, your yeah, it 100% does. Right? And, and it doesn't have to, but like you will carry it with you and like we have all these, and look to some extent was. We're, we're supposed to, right? The way that we view the world, the way that we view our place in it, the way that we view others within the world, right? The way that we view ourselves, it, it's forged in childhood. It's supposed to be. That's where we learn how to, you know, how to engage with the world, but, but sometimes there's too much adversity. There's too much difficulty. There's too much. Things like rejection and abandonment. We all experience that to one degree or another, right? There's no, nothing exempts us from that, but when there's too much, it gets lodged, it gets stuck, and it causes this kinda psychic pain, you know, this intrapersonal conflict. And then so often that are people that, that I meet, you know, in my practice that. The ones who, the way they found to cope is through drugs, through addictive sex, through alcohol, through, you know, gambling, whatever it might be, right? Because it, it, it somehow soothes the pain. And it's funny'cause that works different for different people. If you look at heroin addicts, you know, as far heroin addicts, right? Among other things. But heroin addicts, often what was missing was comfort and nurture. Yeah, because heroin is, you know, it's, you know, there's this, just this, certainly at first, this immense sense of comfort and ease. Right. You know, if you look at a cocaine addict, it's often what they were lacking was stimulation. Yeah. Um, so it's, you know, the, the, the, the drug that someone chooses will often reflect what was missing. Childhood. That's, that's a very interesting thing. The nickname for, um, heroin. Certainly in this country, one of the old school nicknames for heroin was, it was called Mother's Love. Yeah, mother's Love. Yeah. Yeah. That was, that was a revelation, which you said, because as I told you, I never did the heroin. I never did the heroin.'cause it never showed up in my town. Because as a teenager I was doing everything. But I did the cocaine. And I've told you before, I wasn't, I had mother's love, you know, I'm the guy that loved Christmas. I had the mother's love the dad taking me to the ball game and, you know. My dad was a little bit of a hard case, but I had that growing up. But you just said something I never thought about. The one that goes for the cocaine, which I did, uh, as we've discussed, is looking for stimulation. Well, I have a thought, Patrick, I could share with you if you would be interested about your. Story. Yeah. Can you tell, you, tell me what you think. Like, I'm willing to be wrong, right? But you, there was lots of love in your house. You know, I've read your book and we talk and stuff and we talk on here and we talk off air and, you know, all that stuff, right? So you grew up, there was love, you know, lots of mum, you know, your actual, your mum was loving, your father was, was present and attentive. Um. You, you, you sometimes refer to your dad as a bit of a hard case and he was a military man. Right. So I would guess the rules and regulations, you know, like some quite probably quite rigid, strict boundaries in the house growing up. Yeah. And then everything about how things developed for you was the opposite of that. Rebellious, messy, yeah. Like extreme, yeah. Chaos. Yeah. I, I kind of think that everything that you did was a reaction to that rigidity. Yeah. And, um. I think the cold coming for you probably was,'cause it was there and it was an active rebellion, you know? And of course once you've injected a drug like that, it's extremely addictive and you did well to get away from it. But that would be my, um, formulation of what, what you experienced, what, what you make it a. Chills when you said it. Fuck it. Never really, that never really hit me. You know, that's why I said I always like talking about this.'cause I'm always trying to think back in the childhood, but I didn't experience that trauma and I think you may, I think you may have just gone right over the target because that's what I was doing. You said why did you drink the Mr. Clean? I was just, I was always rebelling. And I was the third, I had an older brother, second older brother, I mean a, uh, two older brothers. And then I was a little pooky. And if you ever, you know, if you ever look into quite often little number three, little Pooky will be the salesman, which I was, I was a top salesman with the insurance company I was in. I was a top performing executive with that insurance company. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then I quit and I became a. Comedian, they end up in the entertainment business or something. Um, I think you're exactly right. It was rebelling. I was, you, I was just constantly, you know, creating the chaos. I can remember somebody asking my brother like, what is wrong with Pat? He has everything and, and then the next thing you know, Pat's going, has everything going for him, but. You know, last night he went out and ran his car into a tree, or last night for, he, he doesn't need food, but him and his friend just got caught burglarizing, a convenience store. So I think you just nailed the head. You just hit the nail on the head. Well, and an interesting point that comes outta that, which is really important, I think for, you know, for the listeners is like it, you know, like, it doesn't have to be like an obvious, I. Like trauma, you know, like abuse, violence, neglect, growing up with a alcoholism, sexual abuse. You know, it doesn't have to be those things. Sometimes it's much more subtle, you know, sometimes it's much more subtle, but, but like, oh, you know, we can usually find the roots of. Dysfunctional behavior in, you know, back in, in childhood.'cause all of that, all of that behavior, all serves a purpose. This is a really important point, right? It's like, I know we're going kind of going all over the place a little bit, but I think it's valuable, right? It's like. All that behavior serves a purpose. Right? Like in a really messy way. Yeah. So for you though, you know, like, I think anyway, and I'm not telling you like, I'm aware that we're kind of, you know, potentially izing you on a podcast, right. But like, like that, yeah. There is that like, you know, that need for like rebellion for messiness, you know, for, you know, all of those kind of things, which Sure. You know, you know, a bit of chaos, which are all things that, that kid, kids need some of that. Right. Actually. How, how a, you know, how a young, how a boy forms his identity as a man is by starting to push back. Yeah. Against the boundaries, right. And tests them and where do they lie and what can I do? So like actually all of you're acting out and all of the mad stuff that you got up to, like it all actually served a purpose. It did it in a way which was horrific, you know? And like dangerous. Yeah. But it all served its purpose. My drug addiction served a purpose. I was so full of like anxiety and self-loathing, you know, that, uh. I needed someone to take the edge off of that. And to be honest with you, if I hadn't become a drug addict, right, I think in a very good chance I would've killed myself.'cause what was going on inside of me was so painful. Yeah. So it all serves its purpose, right? All of these things we do, they serve. Their purpose is just sometimes they do it in a way which is so dysfunctional. And destructive that has to, has to stop, has to stop, man. That's some insight. I just, I never really thought of that. When you, the kind of, the light bulb went off when you said the cocaine is going for the charge, the other's going for the love. I've always wondered where the two were, because there's, a correlation, but there's a big difference there. And that's what I was looking for the thrill. Mm-hmm. So I never really, um, never really thought of that. Uh, while we have time, can I read part two real quick? Yeah, let's give it a go. We can. Talk about this another, you know, a bit later on in our schedule, but let's give it a while. Okay? Let me just do this real quick and we will, uh, see what the body remembers. The somatic side of addiction, addiction is more than a mental pattern. It's in a bodily response to overwhelm. That's the core insight I gained from training with somatic trauma expert, uh, BA wa Rothschild. Author of the Body remembers when trauma occurs, the nervous system can get stuck in survival, states fight, flight, or freeze. In this state, the body no longer feels safe. Even when the environment is for many. Addiction becomes a way to numb, escape, or artificially regulate. This dysregulated system, Roth Child's trauma-informed approach teaches that before diving into childhood memories of en inner child work, clients must first learn to regulate their body. This means building awareness of sensations like shallow breathing. Chest tightness or restlessness without judgment. Once some degree of somatic safety is in place, can deeper psychological work like inner child healing proceed with the overwhelming the system? In part three, I'll share how combining these two frameworks, uh, CAPA's any inner child work and Rothschild's somatic approach creates a powerful path during long term recovery. This sounds like you're kind of continuing on what you, what you were saying for many addiction becomes a way to escape. Um. The AR and artificially regulate the dysregulated system. So you're saying for a lot of people in addiction, they have a dysregulated system that's coming from, from childhood. Yeah. Most pe you know, most, if not all, people in addiction like it, it is an issue. Know it's an issue of emotional regulation and one way or another, you know, people that, that they're really kind of down in a part of their nervous system that's like kind of. Should be for like calm and relaxation, but actually they've kind of dropped past that and they're into sort of being quite like, you know, shut down, dissociated, disconnected, or often people, like they're up, they're, they're, they're up too high. You know, they've gone into the part of their nervous system that's responsible for activity, you know, for moving forward, for getting stuff done. Now they've shot kind of past that and they're into fight or flight, you know, and, um. So helping people to kind of be able to regulate their state and stay in that kind of, you know, more the optimal parts of their nervous system. Is really key. And when you start to talk about and remember traumatic memories, right? Like then you, people become dysregulated. So you have to be able to regulate, like if you're gonna dive into the, into the kind of material that sometimes you have to look at during inner child work. So you have to be able to help people regulate. Otherwise actually it just becomes kind of hurtful, you know? It just becomes harmful. So part of the inner child process that I use or. Use in the model that I'm talking about there, it is about helping people to start to put like a narrative together of their lives. Why they've acted in certain ways, why they've thought in certain ways, why they've felt in certain ways, you know? It doesn't mean reliving every single event. It definitely doesn't need to be that. It definitely, it shouldn't really be that, but it is about starting to, oh yeah, that relationship with mum, that was like that and dad was like that and that left me feeling like this. And actually that how that plays out to me today, is that right? But when you start getting into that kind of territory, it's dysregulating, you know? So you need to be able to help people to regulate. Okay. Feel that whatever it is that's come up, regulate, regulate, regulate. Whatever's come up, regulate, regulate, regulate, and then that, that way you can kind of move through the process, release some of the emotional charge, gain an understanding of the story. Also, you sort of teach people how they can manage their emotional state day to day. And that's where the magic, you know, that's a big part of where the magic happens. Uh, do you think, and I say this because I just, I know people. That are stressed out in life and they're quick to, it could be a woman that's, got children and a husband and they always feel like they can't, you know, they're always having to stress to kind of measure up. They, and goes back to childhood where, uh. The parents were always, or the father was always giving'em a hard time or not accepting the way, I don't, I'm not saying this correctly, I just think a lot of people that they still react as adults. Based on what they did as childhood. From childhood. It could be from the parents or I didn't measure up, I guess what I'm trying to say, people that say I didn't measure up. I know people that do that they've, you know, they were told or made to feel like they didn't measure up when they were young. And now that they're old, the same thing is still there. You know, it's like I've, I've gotta do this for my husband, I gotta do this for my spouse. I've gotta always be perfect because I, it goes all the way back to childhood, not getting that approval, not getting that love and that type of thing. Do you, do you think I'm onto something there? I think it, it's very accurate. Yeah, it's very accurate. Yeah. But look, this stuff comes in, you know, it's been spoken about for years in different ways. You know, core beliefs, you know, internal drivers and injunctions. You know, you know, you can draw on lots of different sort of schools of thoughts. You've got internal family systems now. Um, there's all sorts of, lots of different. Schools of psychology have looked at this in this sort of material with slightly different emphasis, emphasis with slightly different terminology, with some philosophical differences. Um, you know, I go, he go all the way back to Freud, you know, with the e the ego and the super ego and, and Yung with his archetypes. You know, the two like godfathers of psychotherapy, modern psychotherapy. In a child is what we're talking about. And in a child, yeah. It's about how the unconscious mind is impacted by the events of childhood when the personality is forming and those play out in our adult lives in ways that we're not aware of and sometimes. One of the simplest definitions of therapy, which really captures what it is in a nutshell, is making the unconscious conscious. Because if the unconscious becomes conscious and all of a sudden we understand why we're acting in certain ways, why are we feeling certain ways, why we think in certain ways, then we can do something about it. And if we aren't aware of it, then we can't, you know, we're just kind of caught in the current and eddies of our underlying psychology, and that can be a very painful place to be. You know, like the, you know, the, the woman who keeps ending up in a relationship with the same man, but with a different face, you know? Yes. Like, you know, the person who, regardless of what they achieve, they never, ever feel good enough. They always feel like a fraud. They always feel like they're gonna get caught out. You know, the person who fears rejection constantly, even though there's no evidence that they are going to be rejected, you know, all of these things can play out again and again and again and again and again. And they can, you know, they can change, you know, life from living to, to existing or surviving, and that's very sad. I think that's a, that that's a good, good way to, to leave it there. I think you're exactly right. So the, they keep playing out, they keep creating a reality by what's going on in their subconscious mind, and it's just something that I've always thought that you carry all of that, um, throughout your childhood. And you take it out on a lot of people. If you've been rejected, if you were rejected at a young age, you're not gonna be as trusting to somebody that might have earned your trust. You're always thinking that could happen to you. Yeah, absolutely. And you, I mean, look, one thing I would like, I wanna say before we end Pat, is like, like, so for me, like really, I did a lot of therapy. I did many years of therapy. I continued to struggle after, long after I got clean. I found Jesus and like J. You know, like coming to faith was all my, it was like the missing ingredient, you know? It was like the missing ingredient. And all of a sudden things fell into place. You know, I got touched, I got healed. You know, I was washed, clean, and actually that. But look, therapy helped. But it was still always a struggle. Inter, you know, meeting Jesus, everything started to change, you know, and um, the therapies have been a really important part of that picture, and it continues to be a really important part of the picture. But, you know, without Jesus, it's like for me. You know, and I often think this, the, the, the more troubled amongst us, pat Yeah. Um, psychology on its own, it will only take you so far. Um, so yeah, this is none of the, none of what we're talking about today is, uh, an alternative to, uh, to, to Jesus. But it is a good add on. Yeah. Bringing out that you have a clinical take on. What happens in our childhood that I think Satan uses over and over to contact over and over torment us. And that's what's so interesting to talk to you. You had the physical addiction, actually, you've, you have provided so a free analyzation of me today because that you, I got chills when you said that. I was like, well, that does make sense. I was one that was searching for this thrill. But I will tell you that when I, because. Everyone's different. When I became a true follower of Jesus, I was healed. I mean, boom, I started following God. So see, I didn't have that physical addiction, so you and I come from different backgrounds. It changed. I decided I am first. I decided I was gonna follow God. As you read my book, I became a believer in my mind. That's a whole different episode, uh, becoming a Christian and becoming a real follower of Jesus. But I became a. Christian and all of a sudden I doing the bad stuff, eh, I didn't wanna do it, but when I became a follower of Jesus, I was healed from it. Or heard Alice Cooper, uh, you know what I'm talking about, right? Alice Cooper, the musician. Yeah. The, the musician. Yeah. Peace. I came to Jesus. I was just healed and I was myself, but one size doesn't fits all. I know people that are. Sold out followers of Jesus. They've gotta be in these 12 steps. They've got to be, they, they need the therapy, they need the help. So that's why we like to combine the two in our conversation. Again, the friend of mine that I'd like for you to meet one day, um, when you come back to Mississippi, Dr. Beverly Smallwood, she is a. Sold out follower of Jesus, but her practice is all about, bringing people, the therapy, the help and, um, everything just like you do. Yeah. So I think that's very important. And, and the key is, I will tell you the thing with me and you when it comes right down to it. We were incredibly miserable people. And we, in our first conversation, realized that we were filled with joy, filled with peace, filled with happiness, and there was one common denominator. Jesus, although we didn't know it during the conversation, we didn't know it until we had a conversation, until we had a conversation later on. So I don't think it was an accident that, uh, that we started having a conversation. But, um, I've just always thought that I know people and I can just tell by their reactions. And a lot of times, just like my question about Christmas, a lot of what their troubles they have in their life doesn't have to be addiction. It could be troubles in marriage or, or aggravations and things. It. All can spur back to what happened when they were in childhood. But for me, because so many people had the rejection I've told you before, I got dumped by girlfriends a couple of times and that kind of stuck with me. I had no idea that God was playing the long game and he had this woman that I never thought I, I could ever in a million years have a wife like I have. Yeah. Destroyed back then. And when I met my wife, I'm like, yeah, it's probably just a matter of time before this is gonna blow up on me. Uh, but being the woman of God, she was, uh, it more and more realized, no, this is the person that, that God had for me. But Jesus had a plan for my life. Uh, go ahead. You were about to say something. Yeah. No, it's'cause there's that, you know, it's like, look, God works all things for good. Right. But then we know that the en the enemy, you know, he's, he's here, he, he, he walks around like a Roy lion looking to the vs. Right. And sometimes it's, you know, I, I see that as a stumbling point for many comings into fate. It's like, why did I have to suffer the way that I suffered? You know, like, why me? You know? And I think it's complicated, right? It's like, well, we know the enemy's doing what the enemy's doing. Right? But then also, I think at the same time, almost paradoxically. For me, God, God worked all those things for good. So the enemy does what he does, but if we are able to kind of like have faith and kind of, you know, embrace Jesus, then we can be. Kind of healed and you know, redeemed and transformed, and then actually all of those painful experiences. You know, I wouldn't be sad. I don't know what I'd be doing. Maybe I'd be working at a bank or something, who knows, you know? But like I wouldn't be doing what I was doing unless I'd been through what I'd been through. I wouldn't be able to help people unless I'd experienced what I'd experienced. I wouldn't be able to help them the way that I help them now, you know? So he does work all things for good, but. That can still involve a lot of suffering.'cause we live in a fallen world, sadly. And there's, you know, the, the, the millions of darkness are, you know, they're amongst us and they're, they're very real, you know, so it's a complicated picture. But, um, yeah, there we go. To close on that, actually, my struggle has been one of the greatest blessings, which is a whole nother. Podcast. If you come through the struggle and you've seen the dark, you've seen the struggle, you've seen the misery, then you have the joy and the peace that Jesus can bring you. I enjoy everything I do now. I mean, it's just, I never would've been that I was the guy that you just, you just psychoanalyzed. 20 minutes ago that I might have been searching, for the excitement because I kind of was, I always needed. So I would sit in school going, this is killing me. I need to go outside and break a window or something. But after going through all of those struggles, I just have peace. I have joy. I can sit by myself. I love solitude. I left just sitting around where before it was like I had to be doing something. You were gonna have one final thought. Well, um, it, it's nothing major. Pat. We could have discussed this off better, but I was gonna say, should I send the invoice to your email or shall I WhatsApp it to Yeah, so yeah, send it to my people and, um. I will have them. Hey, could you guys cut Richard, a three party post dated check and get it in the mail across the pond. It was very valuable, rich. It truly was. And I hope what we pleasure, hope we have talked about today is valuable to uh, to our growing audience. So, alright, rich, appreciate you checking in with me, uh, today. I know you had to kind of squeeze in there. Because you've had a busy, busy weekend. So, uh, I will see you next week and uh, to everybody out there, God bless you all. God bless you all. I.