Episode 06: Meeting Myself

This episode is a return — to the very reason this podcast exists in the first place. Where I Meet You was never meant to be polished or perfect. It was meant to be a place where I meet myself, in grief, in growth, in all my layers, and tell the truth about what I find there.

So this one is me coming back to that. No big topic, no neat lesson — just an honest check-in on where I actually am right now: my feelings, my emotions, the current state of my life, said out loud instead of managed or smoothed over.

It's a reset. A recommitment to using this show the way it was always meant to be used — as a mirror, not a performance. A place to hold myself accountable to my own honesty, even when that's uncomfortable, even when there's no tidy takeaway at the end.

If you've ever needed permission to just say where you actually are instead of where you think you should be — this one's for you too.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

I always find it a bit funny when I start or when I sit down to start a new episode because I truly never really know how to start them. I almost feel like I should be sitting here being like, Dear Diary, today is May 30th, 2026. But um, and I think in part because I'm still trying to get used to doing this by myself, um, I'm always used to having uh my best friend Jamie on the screen across from me, and we just start talking, or we had been talking, and then she randomly hits record, and then we just roll into whatever episode we were going to talk about. But on this episode, I wanted to kind of circle back to why I started this podcast. And part of that goes back to a couple weeks ago when I was having a conversation with one of my um one of my other best friends, Will, you know, and we were just catching up and you know, the whole back and forth of how are you doing? What's new, what's going on, yada, yada, yada. And um in the conversation, he was asking, what did he say? He had asked me, How's life going for you? I said, Life is good, working on getting myself to better places as well. And this was kind of like farther down into the conversation after we had been talking a little bit. And he's like, It's always going to be a work in progress, but I know your motivator is to always grow, so you're on the path. And I was like, Yeah, right now I'm also working on making myself feel safe again. And he's like, safe in what way? And I was like, safe in the sense that I don't want to hide myself and just keep digging myself into a darker cave. And the conversation carried on, you know, and he told me, I'm glad you're working on that. Safety is paramount and I'm proud of you. And then, you know, after he wrote his messages and I started typing out this whole response. And as I'm sure so many of us have done, then I deleted it. And then I heard a little voice in the back of my mind say, No, you promised that you would meet yourself where you are. You know, hence the the name of the podcast is where I meet you. So it's a promise that I made to myself when starting this project, is that I was going to be honest with myself, and that's fucking hard. It is really fucking hard to be honest with yourself. And it's funny because it's like, who are you kidding? Who are you truly kidding? Like, I already know the person already knows because that person is me. It's not like I'm trying to hide something from my parents or a sibling or a coworker or a friend or even my boyfriend. It's like the person you are trying to hide from is already living inside of you. Make it make sense. You know, the message is coming from within the house. Like it's inside the house. The alarm is going off inside the house. It's not at the neighbors, it's not at the grocery store, it's inside your own fucking house. So when you sit there and you try to lie to yourself about how you're feeling or truly acknowledging things, it's like, truly, who the fuck are you fooling? And so I decided to be honest. So I retyped the text message and I said, So before I read the text message, I just want to um give a little background information for people who may not know me for my other podcast, Stay Wild Trauma Child. But in 2020, I lost my significant other. And in 2022, I started dating somebody new. And so um my text message back to Will was I'm also still terrified about being in a relationship, even though I've been with Robert for four years, I'm afraid to fully let him in. And at points, I feel myself pushing him away. And he's like, Why are you terrified about being in a relationship? Like, what about it scares you? And I said, Because I'm afraid that we are going to build a beautiful life together and it's all going to blow up just like it did with Matt. And logically, I know that's most likely not going to happen, but it's been holding me back from a lot. And then, you know, he proceeded to ask me if I feel safe with Robert in this, that, and the other, which I do. I love him a lot, but it's just when you're dealing with the grief brain, it's like it's almost like arguing with a toddler that you can sit here and be like, the grass is green and the sky is blue, and they're gonna be like, no, it is purple and red. Like, but you're like, no, it's not. And it's like logically, I know my boyfriend is not just all of a sudden gonna die. Like, I I know that. But my subconscious mind, there's like this little voice that sits there and says, but you don't know that. Because you've been through it. And it was very unexpected when Matt passed away in 2020. So um, my nervous system has definitely been on a roller coaster the last almost six years of ups and downs of like feeling safe and feeling okay. And then it was like to some people, what I'm about to say may sound terrible, but until you've experienced what I have, like you can keep your judgment to yourself. Because I explained to Will that after Matt died, that was the first time in my life I didn't have to worry about anyone but myself. And I started really taking care of myself, and then before I knew it, I met Robert and I put myself in the same pattern as I did with Matt. And the same pattern being that I moved in with Matt three months after starting dating, after we started dating, and I did the same thing with Robert, you know, and there's there's a lot of layers to the situation, like the two years leading up to meeting Robert and starting a new relationship were a lot of turmoil. Like the first year of grief was a lot, and I was all over the place. I was closing up his business, being Matt, and I was deciding on if I was gonna move back to Connecticut, and I was just trying to fucking survive. I was trying to find my way in this new world that I had no idea how I ended up in. And it's so scary to start over again. And I'm like, I'm so if anybody listening to this is in a similar stage of starting over and or thinking about starting over, like, yeah, it's hard and it's fucking scary, but it's gonna be worth it. I promise it'll be worth it. Um but but the biggest thing through this whole process is learning how to be truly honest with yourself, and like sitting with those feelings and acknowledging the fact that you're like, yeah, it scares me that Robert and I will be together five years next year, and that's how long I was with Matt for. And it's like these irrational timelines that pop up into your brain and they like send off alarms, and it's like your body is like, no, no, no, no, we can't, we can't get to that point because then something bad's gonna happen again. And it's like until you get to that point and get past it, like the one thing I can do is sit here and continuously tell myself that I am safe and that I trust myself that no matter what comes my way, I will be able to handle it. I will be able to take care of myself. And I feel like there's so many reasons why we end up in the situations we do or we make the choices that we do. Sometimes it's about money, sometimes it's about convenience, you know. Like 2022 was such a weird year for me because, as I mentioned, it was like the first time in my life I didn't have to worry about taking care of anybody else. I was just focused on me. I had lost 40 pounds, I was working out, my mental health felt pretty good. I felt like I was at a good place with my grief, but that's because I was so focused on myself. And then I moved in with Robert, and routines changed, and and nothing bad happened, but it's just like I fell into a depression and I fell out of my routine and I stopped prioritizing myself. And it's like, especially over the last year, I have felt that seeping over into other areas of my life. And as I mentioned in my other episode about being seen, or rather, not wanting to be seen and like gaining weight and feeling tired and fatigued, and it's like so many of the places you want to get to in life all start with being fucking honest with yourself, being honest with yourself, making yourself accountable, but also like being realistic with yourself. Don't sit here if you're out of shape and you haven't exercised in 10 years and be like, I'm gonna start running five miles every day. No, start with a 10-minute walk every day for 30 days, and then maybe after two weeks or after the 30 days, you bump it up to 20 minutes, you know, or maybe every day in that first 30 days, you increase you add an extra two minutes on your walk or an extra five minutes every day, so that by the end of the month you are walking closer to an hour, you know. I'm no mathematician, so just you know, follow my drift. You get it. I've also recently been uh reading Shonda Rhymes. She wrote a book called The Year of Yes. And in the book, um she talks about her weight loss journey. And there was one part that really stuck out to me where she was like, um, you know, I know this is gonna be hard and it's gonna be a lot of work, and it's gonna be this and it's gonna be that. And she's like, um, oh, the gist of it comes down to the fact that she's like, I was choosing fat. You know, instead of, you know, every time I chose the brownies and cookies and the red wine and the the couch rotting, I was choosing fat over being healthier and working on my um working on myself. She's like, I was choosing that. And, you know, I may have mentioned in one of my other episodes that if you're not changing it, you are choosing it. So it's like, you know, and then it's like, oh, that's crazy. Why would I choose to be fat? Well, you're not, I'm not discounting the people who have medical reasons or medications they are taking. Like, I'm not, I'm not, this is this is about me. I'm not placing judgment on anybody. But it it clicked in my head too that it's like every time I sit on the couch and just binge watch TV and eat junk food or run through a fast food restaurant. I'm like, you're choosing this. This is a choice. You had two options. You could go home and cook something, or you can run through a drive-thru. Sometimes it's convenience, sometimes it's because I'm tired. That's fine. Those are all justifiable reasons, but I still made a choice. And that's where I have to be willing to meet myself and be like, yeah, I made a choice to eat fast food four times this week and not cook. Or I chose not to eat breakfast, and then I fucking binged to eat the rest of the day. Um, so like those are all choices, and like this is all part of like taking the radical accountability to meet myself where I am. So, and I'm not saying any of this is gonna be easy. It's hard, and this was my fucking idea. Like, it was my idea to do this, to sit here and be like, how honest are you really gonna get with yourself, Steph? How much are you willing to look yourself in the mirror and say, some of this has been done to you to you, but some of this you have chosen. And that's yeah. Consequences of our own actions are always fun. So every choice you make, whether it's in the positive category or the negative category, they're all moving us down a path. So nobody's saying you have to make one giant choice that catapults you, but it's all the little baby steps and baby choices, it's the micro choices that you make that are the ones that really move the needle. You know, choosing to exercise every day for 15 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, choosing to meditate, you know, every morning for 20 minutes or choosing to sit in the sauna every day for 20 minutes. I don't know how you can how long you can sit in a sauna for, but you get the point. Like, if I sit here and I choose to chips and dip every night and ice cream before bed, well, I am going to feel the consequences of those choices, you know. I'm not gonna feel good in the morning, you know. And don't get me wrong, I know there's people out there that can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and like, good for you, you're God's favorite. Thank you. I'm glad somebody is. But, you know, but if I sit and I choose to start my morning with lemon water, warm lemon water every day, I'll start to see the positive effects of that choice. You know, everything has a ripple effect, and so it all comes back to like being realistic with yourself, learning to meet yourself where I where you are. And like, it's okay. It's okay to sit there and be like, God, I'm tired of being heavy and overweight and feeling puffy and this and that. But if you want to change it, then you gotta change it. And and I'm I'm saying this to myself. You guys are just listening to this conversation. Um, you know, because I'm a Gemini, so we're allowed to talk to ourselves since there's two of us. But I have to look myself straight in the mirror and be like, Steph, what do you want? Oh, that makes that question makes me laugh, because my wonderful, wonderful Emma. When I first started, when I started my first six months, six month intensive therapy with her, she uh she asked me that. That was one of the first things she asked me was, what do you want? And I was like, peace. She's like, What? That's all you want is peace. A little farther into our session, and as I started explaining things, and as I started, as we started digging into my trauma timeline, she was like, Oh, now I see. Now I see why the first thing that comes to your mind is peace, because you can't think of anything else. Your body is screaming, your mind is screaming, everything feels like it's on fire. So all you know is that you need to hit peace in order to think any farther. You know, and as that six months went on, it changed. I could sit there and tell her that, you know, I wanted to build a business that was gonna allow me to work anywhere in the world and make, you know, ridiculous amounts of money so that I could take care of my family and my friends and afford this lifestyle that, you know, gave me time and freedom. And yeah, time and freedom and the ability to do what I wanted every day, you know, and to like really make an impact in the world. And it's like, I think about I think it's been three years since I started working with Emma, and to think back that I was like, I just wanted peace, and I still do, but I I have found ways to incorporate more peace into my life, and part of that is, you know, learning to be more honest with myself and allowing myself the time and space to sit with those feelings and emotions, which can be difficult. It can be difficult to carve out that time, but quite honestly, like for a while for me, it was like non-negotiable. And then I started a new relationship, and as so many of us do, you start a new relationship, and then it's like you guys want to be together all the time and you're happy, so you feel like you don't need to worry about all that stuff. But then, you know, routines, you fall into a routine or out of routines, and then it's like um the next thing I knew, I was in a really deep depression, and the weight, you know, the 40 pounds plus that I had lost all came back, and some, like with a vengeance. But then you realize that it's like somewhere along the way I stopped feeling safe again. So I need to stop and sit and remind myself that I am safe and that I am loved, and that no matter what happens, I will be okay. I can figure it out. I have survived every one of the worst every one of the the worst days of my life, I have fucking survived, and trust me, there have there have been a few. But those are stories for another time. Grief will probably be a pretty big theme throughout this podcast. Because I feel like grief is in my mind it's like the ultimate love language. The hard part is it it has no where to go. And I feel like it's still such an unknown thing. And it's truly crazy how I either know so many people who have experienced really traumatic grief or really heavy grief, really heavy grief, ugh words are hard. And then there's people that feel like or it seems it seems that they've never been touched by it. And I'm jealous to a point because I don't envy the first time they have to feel it. But I do envy that currently, right now, they have no idea how badly it hurts. But the people like me who do will be here for you when that time comes. So with that being said, remember that you are important and that you deserve to give yourself the time to sit and be alone and really get in tune with yourself. Be your own best friend. Until next time, this is where I meet you.