You Are Not Your Past: Girls Who Recover- Part 2

 In this episode, I’m opening up about one of the most powerful parts of recovery: forgiveness. Not just forgiving others—but forgiving yourself. So many of us carry shame, guilt, and regret from our past, but here’s the truth: you are not your past. You are allowed to grow, to heal, and to become someone new. This conversation is for every woman who’s ever felt stuck in her story. I’m here to remind you that healing is possible, and forgiveness is the key that unlocks your freedom. Let’s talk about what it means to release, to rise, and to recover—fully. 

Listen to the Girls Who Recover episode where I share Part 1.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/recovering-your-personal-power-how-leaving-toxic-love/id1788356772?i=1000720933772

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:04

Hello and welcome to The Fitzon Project. I'm your host, Rachel Fitzpatrick. And I just wonder, like, have you guys ever been on a podcast as a guest? And if so, like, how did that make you feel? Like, what came up for you during that time? And how did that really really resonate because I'm wondering if it was the same as it was for me. Because I was recently on a podcast. I was on the podcast called Girls Who Recover. And it was with Dana Hunter Fradella. And I absolutely loved being on it. I loved her. And she led me through my journey of so easily, so empowering. And I was able to really like reconnect with one of my past selves from the pandemic, so to speak, and right before the pandemic and that self that carried me through all the way up until today. So I'm curious, like, When you're in it, you're in a podcast and you're actually being the interviewer or interviewee, excuse me. Are you like nervous or what is it that comes up for you? Because for me, this is what came up for me. I was nervous and I was freed. I felt so free. I felt free of everything. I felt a little bit liberated. And I felt like I just had broken some chains that perhaps I didn't realize I still carried around. And as I moved through this in this podcast, her podcast with me had just released on August 7th, August 6th, something like that. And that podcast for me, when I did it, it was in July. And then when I listened to it, it was just a couple days ago. And I remember feeling after the podcast, like, wow, I can't believe I went through all of that. And I've actually made it to exactly where I'm at now. And I was so freaking proud of me. Because I never really recognized or saw myself as anyone else. So like, I never got or never really had the opportunity to visit that area of my life because I've just been go, go, go in that type of detail. And it's been a long, long time. Because when you're in something so deep, such as what I exposed of myself and my experience in that podcast, you don't really realize that how you're swimming. You just want the easy. You at that point, you're just already kind of like at the bottom of the barrel and you're just like ready to just shift. So you just go with the current. You just allow life to life. And you do it with yourself and you do it for yourself, for your future self and all of your past selves so that everything that they did to get you to that point wasn't in vain. And that's kind of like how I felt in this whole situation. So as I moved through that, there's a lot of emotions that come up now, and I get to experience this in a new way. And one of the biggest things that came through to me today while I was on my walk, it was about forgiveness. and how I really, really truthfully have embodied forgiveness on so many levels. Forgiveness, not of what someone did to me, as much as forgiveness of myself, my own actions, my life, my part in all of it. Forgiveness of maybe feeling like an idiot, for lack of better term. Forgiveness of, you know, just not making good choices, like not being a perfect human, but forgiveness for being a human. Forgiveness for trusting, forgiveness for believing, forgiveness for all of this stuff, for Turning the blind eye to the red flag, forgiveness for not listening to my whispers. And not everybody is so lucky that they listen to their whispers. And when I have a lot of people on this podcast that talk about the whisper and talk about how discerning they are and talk about how empowering it was and all of the things that But there were a whole lot of whispers ignored before they shared the one that they actually decided to hear. And I'm here to be a testament to that because there's a whole lot of whispers I've ignored in my life that led me into this dark place to where I had no other choice but to listen to the whispers going forward. A whole lot. And it wasn't just one relationship. It was many because I eventually got used to being disobedient with my whispers in a way. I got used to self-abandonment. And that was what my nervous system now knew and now regulated for. was self abandonment. So it allowed me to continue to make bad decisions for partners, it allowed me to make bad decisions for life actions, and so on and so forth. And obviously, you can trend it out however you want to, you can look at the the the scheme of life, right? and trend out in your own ways. But yeah, there were, it wasn't like it was just one. No, there were so many that I was just like, yeah, no, it's fine. It's fine. Everything's okay. Because my nervous system was used to that. It's somewhere along the way, right? Whether that be a childhood situation, which I don't know, or whether that be a teenage or environmental or whatever it is that like came up and about in my life that made me think that that was the way to be. I don't know. I can't pinpoint that for everything in my life. I don't know. But what I can say is is when I started listening and when they started providing this, like this life, this beautiful life that I've been able to grow since then and out of, damn, it's been amazing where you just kind of like burn it all down and you regenerate and you grow something beautiful and new. And that's what happened with me. and I had to burn it all down. And I don't think that I got to that part of my story with Dana as enlightened as I really wanted to be So this is part two of my part one with her. So if you want to listen to my part one, please go look her up. She's got an amazing podcast. As a matter of fact, she's in the top 10% of listened to podcasts. And then she released mine. So like, you know, just a lot of people might be hearing it. I don't know. But this is my part two. And when they are led here, and eventually they might be, who knows? It doesn't matter. But for my listeners and my environment, my people, it matters, right? Because this is what I'm about right here. And it's this growth. Because when you have this inner growth, then you get to embody it all. And all of those people that I was in my past, all of those women, man, I'm sitting here with them every single day, and I'm just so damn grateful that they existed. I'm so happy that I made some shitty ass decisions because I have this gorgeous life that I'm living and holy smokes, I can't even unsee it. I can't unfeel it. It lights me up. I'm standing here and my heart is open constantly. I've just broken the chains. And I did that through forgiveness. I want to lean on that word. I want to lean on that action. Because a lot of people say you have to forgive, you have to forgive, you have to forgive. And I didn't really realize that. One of the main teachers that told me that was my grandpa. And I could 10 out of 10 guarantee you he does not listen to this podcast at all. But Back in the day when he was giving me some good advice, he would tell me, you know, it all starts with forgiveness. You have to forgive yourself before you can really truly heal. Understand that you are not a perfect person and there's no such thing. And then you move from that. And the fact that you think you can be perfect is a myth. It's a myth. that was given to you by who in the hell knows who in the hell what, this perfection of this like perfect life and this Instagram story and blah, bitty, blah, bitty, blah, bitty, blah. You can appreciate your life and it not be perfect. I'm a true walking, talking person for that. There is not a perfect day. And every single day, I don't have a perfect day. But I have a pretty great life that I'm so freaking proud of. But no, it's not perfect because like, what is that? What does that mean? First of all, does it mean unscathed? Does it mean like pure light? Does it mean no sin? Does it mean you're walking only with Jesus Christ and everybody else that's above the light? Is that what perfection is? I don't know. Or maybe perfection is just like messy. Y'all saw this office on my Instagram before I cleaned it and turned it into this gorgeous thing. Look at this sign behind me. It is so pretty. But it wasn't perfect. And then this. that was a damn mess it was like gotta remove dressers packed of clothes that i haven't seen and haven't seen the daylight in like two or three years i have bags on bags on bags of clothes in my basement now that i'm gonna have this uh yard sale someday i'm gonna have a dollar everything is a dollar yard sale someday and i'm gonna make that happen but that's part of the mess that you just kind of like have to weed out like the weeds of your garden you have to weed them out so the beautiful flowers can grow but the flowers are still going to grow with the weeds they just might not grow as tall they might not bloom as quickly as you'd like to they might not even get seen because you're so clouded in the weeds the weeds are so tall and those are like just your metaphors right that you can use on every single day but like be like the flowers be like the garden I teach this all the time, on and off your mat, stop with the perfection. And then what did I do? Try to live this perfect life, step by step, project manage the shit out of myself. And I failed every time I turned around. I failed in this very forgiving way. Again, leaning on this forgiveness. Very forgiving. The failure of a failure of a failure is like for me, but did I die? And I did not. So I got blessed with the chance to learn about this forgiveness piece. I got blessed with the chance another day to come in and gratitude myself in my life. And that's where this all comes from. This is my yoga. This is my movement in my practice. This is me moving it in and through my body all day, every day. This is when I get stuck, when it gets icky, when stuff doesn't feel good. I'm telling you what, I feel it in my body and boom, there's the flag. There's the whisper. Now I know now what this looks like for me. I know now. I can pinpoint it now because I've been working with this. I've been training my brain to connect with my body for a while now, but before I didn't know. But it's a practice. It's a practice. It's not a perfection. It's a daily centered practice. And that's what I can't stress enough. Meditate in the mornings. Move your body every single day. Get past the stuck. Move it out of the body. Your body is a miraculous thing. You know how it gets out of the body? With breath, pee, and poop. Period. Sweat. Just kidding. Now it's a period. Tears. Snot. Okay. You get what I'm saying. Maybe there's like a dot, dot, dot. Maybe not really, period. But either way, dot, dot, dot. That's how shit exits your body and that is how it goes. But you have to move and you have to move your body. You have to move the organs. You got to move the bones. You got to move the breath. You got to move it all to get it to exit. That I know for sure. But how do we even know it's there? It's where the meditation comes in. It's where you got to silence, not silence the mind. Let me rephrase. You need to quiet the mind. All right. What if you met your whisper with your voice in the whisper? How soft does that sound?

UNKNOWN: 15:59

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:59

How soft is this? That is where it begins. And then you can eventually have a conversation with Like you can get it to where, oh yeah, my shoulders are tight today. I'm definitely carrying some shit from earlier in the week. I bet I sat at my desk all week like this because I'm stressed about a go live potentially missing. What am I going to do? I'm going to roll the shoulders back and sit up tall. I'm going to practice the next couple of days, walking with my heart forward so we can go in and through and out. And that's how it works. Those were the practices, somatic practice. So back to me in my conversation in my podcast with Dana, what that brought up for me was totally understanding that it wasn't an over, it was not an overnight fix for me in getting to where I'm at by any stretch of the imagination. All that stuff happened to me five years ago. And as a matter of fact, it's not the only story I've got. Unfortunately, it's the most dramatic story I've got because it was the most recent one. It was the one that actually turned me to tune up. It was the one that was the loudest. I'll give it that. But it wasn't like I had never walked through a bad situation in my life because I have. I have spent the majority of my 20s in a bad situation. So that's another podcast for another day. Stay tuned. But either way, where this goes down to is my whole life isn't revolved around that. And my whole future is not even looking at that piece of my life at all. And I'm the first to tell you that when you are fully healed, you'll understand this because you know that when something traumatic or dramatic or whatever happens to you, you also understand that your future doesn't revolve around that. Why would it? You're fully healed. from that there's going to be more stuff that's going to happen you can guarantee it but the shoe doesn't always have to always drop like that no and that's where we get confused and i think that's where we get cynical in life is like oh the shoe's gonna drop again oh is it so did you really forgive yourself do you really know what that means Because if the shoe's going to drop again, and in that way, shape, or form, what was your part in it? And what are you on repeat for? You see what I'm saying? If it's going to drop again, in that way, shape, or form, you're on repeat. You're not learning. You're not hearing your whispers. You're not... You're not in your space. You're not doing your body. You're not in touch. So it's what I'm saying. Like, you can't unsee yourself now. You get it? Like, you can't unsee it? Once you see it, you can't unsee it? And that's how I'm at. Like, that's like the space that I'm in. And also, I want to tell you something, too. That guy, that guy, he is not a bad person. By any stretch of the imagination. He did a bad thing. I've done bad things. And I'm not a bad person. And I want to make that known. He deserves what we all do. The birthright that we came here for was to let our souls rise. Love and live and have fun and find this freedom. We all deserve that. That is our birthright. And I'm letting you know, he deserves that in every way, shape and form. And I hope he has it. And I hope he gets his liberation. And I hope he finds his own self-forgiveness in that situation. If he hasn't already, I don't know. I don't know. But I do know this. I did know this. I did have a conversation with him about two years ago. And I did tell him that I forgave him 100% and that I still loved him because I do. And he did tell me he was sorry 100% and did tell me that he still loved me. But that doesn't mean that we needed to be together in a situation. And that didn't mean that he needed to be part of my life. And we were very clear on that. And now he's not. And for the better part of it, you know? And as I spoke in Dana's podcast, as she did ask me, she was like, so, like, heard you wanted the house, heard you wanted the baby, but... were you in love with this guy or what? And my answer was, yes, I was, but knowing what I know now about true love and what that feels like, I can wholeheartedly say no, because I have the real true love and knowing the comparison now. But up to that point, Up to the me and me's and all of me's that got me to that day and that point, absolutely I loved him. 100%. And me today still has all the love possible for him. Because I have all the love possible for my son. And we created that. whether it's me and my fiance raising him, that's a different story and doesn't really matter. What matters is the universe decided, God decided, God decided how this was going to go down. And the story's not over, but the forgiveness is there. And that's all that matters. The forgiveness is there. And full-heartedly, When we make a mistake or we make this thing, like let's put it in a work perspective. Let's say that you do something at work and it costs you$500,000 and the company is almost going to go bankrupt because of it. And now they have to do X, Y, Z to get up and out of it. And it's all your fault. And they fire you because they think now you're the idiot. But it was an innocent person. move it was a day in and day out situation but they fire you and tell you you're an idiot and all this other stuff so like are you an idiot No, you're not an idiot. You're a human being. You're a human that made a human decision and a human mistake. And then things happen because of it, because that's what they do. Everything you do is a domino effect. And that's what things do. It's like having a dog and expecting a dog not to bark. Dogs bark. Things happen because things happen. Domino effects happen because domino effects happen. That's how it works. All of it. That's how all of it works. But in the grand scheme of things, does it matter? Hell no, it doesn't matter. Let's look at the world, for example. We are like a tiny ant in this whole entire planet system. We are a piece of stardust. Let's look at it like that. Now does that mistake matter? No. No, I don't. So you might as well just not keep holding on to it and actually forgive yourself. Forgive the fact that it happened. Forgive the fact that, yeah, you humanized yourself. And then, boom, move on, man. Move on. And, like, can you also do that for others? You think you can do that for other people? I think you can see a human in other people. I don't know. I spent a lot of my time judging people because I was afraid to be judged. I spent a lot of my life doing that. From a small town, spent a whole lot of my life judging people because I was afraid to be judged. Judged from what? I have no idea. Being a human, I guess. How dare I exist? among all of you. You know, like how silly does that sound? Yes, when other people are crossing and other people are doing the thing, like, is it okay? If you can be a human, can they be a human? And that's where it comes into. Now, if these people are repetitive dog abusers, And it's your pet, and then they go and they abuse somebody else's pet, and then they go and abuse somebody else's pet. Now, are they to be forgiven for being a human? I don't know that I can answer that with a straight face and say, yes, sure. Right? I actually did have that happen to me. I dated a guy that totally almost killed my dog, y'all. almost took him down almost took him out now that did that was a traumatic event that was a before this other one traumatic event and um yeah and then i caught wind that it happened again to someone else's poor dog and i'm like are you kidding me yeah it's wild But, like, I have to work on that, too. And that's something that I will evolve into eventually. I don't know. That's the one hang-up probably in my life of my past that I have not gotten fully over. But now it's not really on me. I forgave myself for being a dum-dum because I was a human and I, you know, stopped listening to the little whispers long before I got into that situation. Didn't understand the little whispers. And then, yeah, it was unfortunately at the expense of my little puppy. He's fine now. He'll be 11 in like two weeks. He's literally like right here on the floor. But he's all right, you know. Yeah, that kind of, there's things though in our lives, right? They kind of give you just like, oh, dang, cringe. I can't believe I did that. Cringe. You know, maybe something not so heavy. Maybe Facebook 2004. That's cringy too, dude. Like a lot of y'all don't even know about Facebook in 2004. But guess what I do? Because I was in college and I was like, it was back when it was just university proprietary thing. And before your parents could get on, it was while and out. And then your parents could get on. You're like, oh man, cops are here. Yeah. Not really, because my parents still don't really know how to use Facebook, but other people's parents did. They figured it out really cool, really, really, really quickly. So that's kind of like exactly how the demise of Facebook came about. But anyway, yeah, forgiveness goes a long way. And all in that is love, this self-love, this love for humanity. And I'd have a lot of that. I'm filled up every day with that all the time. And I'm so grateful and I'm so thankful that everything happened exactly the way it did for me. All of it. And quite honestly, you know, I feel like my... My situation was a little bit, I don't know what it was. I actually don't even have words, but I just wanted to present this in a way and the power of forgiveness, the power of opening up to yourself. And like cracking into past experiences that now have led you into this like gorgeous life and this gorgeous sense of gratitude. And those are the things when life is getting heavy, when life is just like, oh man, I should have woulda coulda. It's the gratitude in the now. It's the gratitude in the exactly right this moment now that's going to set it all free. And that is something I can absolutely guarantee. And that's what happened with me. And it was the yoga. It was the movement. It was the breath. It was the therapy. that's another level to it too you know like everybody has your baseline and when you're down below that baseline and you're in this like little roller coaster and you're barely escaping up to the baseline and going down and dipping that's how you know you need therapy right and we call that a little bit of depression but then when you're at this baseline and you're ready to just kind of like boom i need something more in life there's got to be more to this life There's gotta be more than this. That's when you come into coaching. That's when you come into like accelerating your life into mentorships, into career changes, into this gorgeous acceptance of receiving and all of this that is available. And that's when you're not hinged on your past, man. That's when you're hinged on your next step. You're hinged on the future. You're hinged on this excitement of like, man, this is who I'm going to be when I walk into this room. That's the life. That's the juice I give now. So all of that to say is. if you are interested which i didn't even know i was going to talk about this but if you are interested in leveling into a coaching experience or a mentorship experience reach out to me i can be reached in my email there's a send me a text link at the bottom in the show notes and i'm also going to post dana's podcast with me in the show notes so you can get the sense it's a it's a little bit over an hour long of a podcast of what I'm talking about. It's like part one. Then I want you to come back in here to part two if you did this in reverse or solely okay. But go listen to part one if you haven't. And also write her review because she's, first of all, amazing. And she healed me beyond belief. And allowed me to genuinely step into this like courageous, brave woman that I knew I was, but never really labeled myself as. And now I'm like walking in this like, yeah, man, I am courageous and brave. Look at me. I am. And I did that on a lot of different levels. I did that. But you know what? We all are. We all are. And also, he is too if he decided to change his ways. And I believe that at that. And I truly believe it. So go check out Dana's Girls Who Recover. If you want any coaching or mentorship or want to know what all the offers that I have, I do yoga. I'm in a 21-day program. situation right now, August 1st to August 21st. It's a membership type thing where we're doing yoga every day at 6.30 in the morning, Monday through Friday. And then on Saturday and Sundays, we meditate together. It's not too late to join in on that. You have access to the recordings through the end of August. And then September, I'll be announcing a new little thing that I'm going to be doing. But I'll let you know about that next week when that's going to happen and what that's going to look like. And then also, you want a retreat? I got a retreat. I'm doing a retreat. October. October 9th through 12th. That is my retreat. And it is a transformation. You know, not all of us are born in this like luxury life and sleeping in satin beds and waking up to the salt of the air and the ocean breeze and all these things. Some of us are born as wild ones. And that's our luxury life. And that's where we're going. We're going to the Red River Gorge. And we're going to be waking up to the mountain air in the October skies. And it's going to be absolutely gorgeous. We're going to be meditating in the mornings and setting our mood, setting our day, moving this stuff throughout our body to get absolutely rid of it. You're going to walk in one day and you're going to leave a totally different person. And that's a fact. So if you're ready to upscale your energy, upscale this like crazy, Ah, there's got to be more to this in my life. Reach out. Let's talk. Let's get you in this yoga retreat. I've got two spots open and that's it. By the time you hear this, they may be full, but it's worth it to reach out and ask about it if it's something you're into. All right. Well, with love and light, my friend, lead with this open heart, bring in your forgiveness, and everything will fall into place. Guaranteed. I love y'all. Thank you for listening. And until next week.