#11 - Viral Chaos, ADHD is a Gift, & How to Stop Feeling Guilty After No Contact

Hi ya little cutie....How ya healin?

Here's some stuff I mentioned: (DM me if the links don't work)

• FREE manipulation guide + teaser to my course
• Mother / Daughter Dance off
• Book Reccomendations
• Spittin' truth while curling my hair
• Black Sheep = GOAT

We go all oevr the place in this episode, maybe one day I'll have a producer and we cna add chapter markers. Until then.... just jump around until you find a part you needed to hear, or listen to the whole thing while folding laundry / running errands! 

I LOVE YOU - You will be ok. I promise!! 

WHatever happened to you, I BELIEVE you. You didn't deserve it. 

You are not crazy, you are not the problem. You are the one who *noticed and named* the problem. That makes you a cycle breaker. and you should be dang proud. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUR SON, CHARLOTTE! (not my daughter, my fav listener!)

GO TO BED 

DRINK SOME WATER

GO BE THE GOAT 

love you, baiyeee 

@christie.heals

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hey, hi, hello. How are you? How you healing? Unclench that jaw, you little cutie pie. Everything's gonna be fine. You're doing great. Welcome back. And what the heck was last week? Um, uh geez, where do I start? You guys, we went viral so many times last week, and I say we because you all help shape the content. I use your questions and the messages you send me in the comments to figure out what to post about. So thank you for continuing to engage with my stuff. This is pretty wild. Um, last week we did the book recommendations, which people loved. I'll do more of those. Um we did the dance battle between the mom and the healing daughter. That was hilarious. I knew that was gonna hit, but I didn't know it would go as viral as it did. Um, what else did we do? Oh, I did another just like talking spitting truth while I was doing my hair. I'm not trying to sell hot rollers, okay? Everyone keeps asking me, where do you get your hot rollers? I don't know. I went to Walmart. I was in survival mode. I wanted to look nice and polished and put together while my life was falling apart. I am not a beauty influencer and I'm not trying to push products on you guys ever. That is just me being tomboy chic, okay? Because I grew up with two older brothers and a fire chief dad and a mom who wanted nothing to do with me. So I am I am self-taught in the beauty department and we're working on it. Um, so if you I don't know, some people DM'd me a link for the rollers and I tried, but just get any rollers. Um, and then today I posted the black sheep is actually the goat video, and that's already taken off. So I'm super proud of our momentum. And I just want to say to all of you who commented to the haters, okay, because these videos are getting a lot of eyeballs on them and drawing in people from all over the interwebs. I had some interesting folks come by and tell me what they think of my appearance and who I am as a person. Um, and I'm probably gonna have to stop responding to those. Although it's fun, I love to humble. My favorite comeback to humble these people is like, if it's a man, I'm like, dad, stop making fake accounts. Or mom, how many times do I have to report you? My parents are not actually trolling me. They they probably wouldn't spend time on that, but it's my way of like shutting it down. But um one woman brought up that I like, how's your eating disorder going? And a couple of them kind of threw me, so that was not fun, and I need to stop engaging. But you guys came in droves and defended my honor, and I just want you to know you don't have to do that, but also thank you because um one woman got me pretty bad, and I had to like meditate and do some breath work and be like, You're okay, you're safe. You chose this. If you're gonna be in the public eye, people are gonna disagree. That's why this is good. You're saying something important, and people are gonna be upset, but it still doesn't feel good for someone to call you ugly or call you stupid. So, anyway, thanks. You guys are pretty funny in the comments, too. But um, we we got pretty busy, and when videos go viral, if you can imagine the dopamine, okay, we're only human. Imagine opening up your phone and you have a thousand notifications and a thousand new followers and a hundreds of messages, and then you clear them all, and you're just like, okay, whatever, mark is red, not whatever, but like clear it, and then you hit refresh and you have a thousand more notifications. It's like winning the slot machine. So when a video is first taking off, I really spend some time to engage with it to keep to keep it going and show people that I I do engage with my quote unquote audience, following, whatever. You guys are super special and important to me. So um at some point the video gets so big to where I can't keep up with the comments anymore. But for the first 24 hours, I do my best. Never when my kids are around, which can be tricky. I wait till they go to bed and then I'll stay up too late. Anyway, I'm not complaining. I just wanted to tell you like last week was exciting, it was cool. Um, I go viral sometimes, but I've never gone viral that many times in a row, and um, it was cool. But then I got a little like exhausted. I I was working on the course, which I'm gonna put a link to this resource I made in the description of this episode, so go watch that video because it's kind of the precursor to the course I've been telling you guys about. I've been working on the course on top of all of this, which I love doing, but I I just got really run down. And what's really weird is like I think going viral is like being at a rock concert. You there's a lot of adrenaline. Um, and I couldn't sleep for 24 hours. I I just like one night I never went to bed and I was laying in bed like, what the heck? This is not good. I have the kids. So I had a 48-hour period where I was like just with the kids at the house, and they were like, Mom, are you okay? And I was like, Yeah, let's just go sit in the yard and like look at the clouds. Like, I love my kids so much. They are my top priority. My number one priority is being an excellent mother, which really just means not being a perfect mom, being a present mom and being an accessible mom, which is why I don't ever shoe them away. And like if I have meetings, I I try to schedule them around when I don't have them. But um, they didn't get the best of me, but they got a very funny version of me, and I don't think they knew how bad I was struggling. Anyway, then I started having some mic issues. I was recording some content after they went back to their dads, and like I recorded a whole 10-minute lesson and it didn't record any audio, and I was like, what the heck? So, like the high achiever psycho that I am, I'm like, I'm just gonna push through, I'm gonna do it again. So I recorded it again, didn't critical think about any of it, didn't really test anything, it didn't capture audio again. So now we're talking 20 minutes of like me just reading this lesson that I've scripted so heavily and nothing's being recorded. I was like, what's going on? Took a break and then like realized my settings were messed up, but then also realized the microphone had gotten wet and I needed to get a new microphone shipped. Anyway, blah blah blah. Oh, making content is so hard. It is actually, it's it's a grind, but I love doing it and it cracks me up. It's so much fun. I have so many ideas in my head that I wish I could get out. And um, when I ship this course for you guys, I'm gonna price it so that it's very, very accessible, don't worry. But I'm gonna use any resources I get back from you all to invest in like a real videographer sometimes to like help me get higher quality stuff and even better shots and even funnier drone footage of a dance battle because I just want to level up the content and keep growing this. So um yeah, that was fun. Then the last thing I'll tell you, this was just kind of weird and spooky, and ladies, like watch out. I got approached by someone who popped into my email, and it was basically someone someone asked me if they could invest in my my business, and I got very excited because they kind of were insinuating like a blank check and that my work had helped them, and they were the CEO of this big company, and that their company supports other um causes, and I was like, wow, like I I really want to make a documentary one day and do other projects. So I was like, oh my gosh, we're being fast tracked. This is so exciting. I wasn't paying attention. After one conversation that kind of wandered in a couple emails, I realized this guy just wanted to date me, and that's okay. Gotta pay attention. Just because I'm pretty doesn't mean I'm stupid. Goofball. I was ugly in middle school, thank God. Because I had then I had to learn how people actually work because nobody paid attention to me, so I was always watching everything. Um, that's okay. That just shows me though that maybe in the future there will be something, or this course will go so well and and enough people will bet on me the and the content I've created to where I'll have enough to just keep self-funding. I've poured a lot of my money and time and energy into this, but I love it. I've never felt so aligned to my purpose. It's wild. Oh, um, and the uh let's see, my cousin Tony came on the podcast. That's shipping next week because we had an incredible conversation, but I need to perform some surgery on it because it's it's a very long episode, and I wanted to get to the meat and potatoes of what we need to talk about, and the platform I'm using was like, this episode's too long, you need to pay me more, and I was like, not yet. So that will come next week. Um so I wanted anyway, after all that, I finally slept, and now I can think clearly and form a thought, and I like took a shower, which was very important. But I want to talk about a question that I'm commonly asked, especially after that video I made, where the black sheep ultimately becomes the goat, the greatest of all time of the family bloodline, right? You went through all that pain and suffering to learn to finally love yourself, and you didn't deserve it, but those people put you through hell, and now you're resilient as hell, and that is nothing to sneeze at. It's and that video was kind of like buckle up because when you make it through that, and when you alchemize the anger, and when you figure out what healing means for you, you've been set aside because you have a purpose, you have skills, you have a gift, you have lots of gifts, and you were you're you're being prepared for a bigger need. You just don't know what it is yet. And my version of that is what I'm doing for you guys right now. What your version of that is could be that you're gonna write a book, you're gonna teach, you're gonna do something. Maybe you're just gonna be a parent to kids who don't get traumatized. That's a huge purpose. Um, but I get asked a lot in the comments of that video is how how long does it take until I feel better? I still feel so guilty. Um, and that's a DM that I get all the time is like, how did you, how are you able to talk about this stuff, let alone like dance in wigs and run around not caring what your neighbors think about you? So it's a very layered answer that we'll talk about in a couple different ways here. First of all, I do love myself. If my neighbors were to judge me at this point, I mean, I'm on a mission to help as many people heal as possible. So if you're gonna judge me because I'm having fun and being playful as an adult, then you're projecting that you don't know how to have fun and you lost your inner child. So you should go find it. But I mean, I I had a year and a half to two years of pure agony after I made the choice. I knew it was the right choice, and everyone's time frame is different. Healing is not linear, healing can be forwards and backwards. Um, but my brother also passed away about a couple months after I went no contact, so there was like extra, extra chaos and anarchy, and no village, and my amazing kids. So I kind of got dogpiled with emotional stuff, and I kind of had no choice but to sit with it. And especially after my brother passed, I was lucky to not have my kids when I got the news for a few days. Um, I say that with a grain of salt. You know, I I never wanted to put my kids through divorce. I think you know what I mean. But I couldn't get out of bed, I couldn't move. I was in so much physical pain, I was so sad, I was so grief stricken, I was so angry. Um so it's hard to say like how soon I healed from my parents and his stuff. I think his stuff will always probably affect me a little bit. That was hard. But with my my parents, I mean, I got betrayed so specifically. Maybe I'll just tell you a story here. I knew the truth. Like your story's different from mine. But I had to hear with my own ear what my mother was saying about me behind my back. So after, no, no, no, I hadn't gotten no contact yet, but my brother was still alive, and he and I had been talking for a while there, like comparing notes about childhood. I thought he was making a ton of progress trying to process some of what happened to him because he got at the worst. He got a lot more of the physical stuff, the violence, the shaming, the black sheep. He was the true black sheep. I was more the invisible child. I had many times where I was the black sheep, and sometimes as he and I got older, we were both the black sheep at the same time, and we would talk to each other about it. Um what was I saying? Oh, so he I thought he was making a ton of progress and I was helping him, and he was, but I also shouldn't have made my purpose to be helping him so hard. I just really wanted him to have a breakthrough with his addictions. But one day he called me out of the blue, and I answered, and he goes, Do you want to hear how mom talks about you behind your back? I'm sorry if I've already told you guys this, but some of you have never heard it. And I said, What? He goes, shut up. And the line goes quiet, and all of a sudden I hear his voice again, and he goes, Sorry, mom, what were you saying about Christy? I'll never forget it. And I realized what he was doing. He had three-way called her. I did not ask him to do this. This inf it's like he gifted me the most incredible thing, which was to hear it with my own ears. And she goes, she basically said that she she thought I was in my house drinking, and and no, I wouldn't answer the phone for anyone. Um, and I, in reality, I was grieving my divorce. I was not in my house drinking, although my mother tended to drink, so she was projecting. She had some very not nice, mean things to say about how I was selfish, and after everything they'd done for me, and like I must be a mess, and like whatever, just very unsupportive, non-motherly things to be saying about your child. And my dad was on the line too. He was like on speakerphone, like, gosh, man, the enabler and the narcissist are tail as old as time. So my brother's so funny. He like cut her off and was like, okay, thanks, mom, bye. The line goes dead. He calls me back. The line goes dead. What is this? The 90s? It's a cell phone. He hangs up. I figured out the call was over. He immediately calls me, and now it's just us two. And he said, he said, Do you see, buddy? He always called me buddy. Don't you see? Like, it's never gonna make sense. And if you're telling me that she says the same things about me, which was true, he was like, It's a game that we're never gonna win. So why are we playing the game? And I remember this, and just I remember being very upset, and he was like, Don't cry. He's the one who said she's like a mean older sister, she's not a mother, she doesn't want to help us, she doesn't want to support us, she wants to, she wants us to suffer and like not do anything about it, and then like when we don't do well in life, she wants to call us the problem. He's like, This is not, we've never experienced what it's like to be a to have a real motherly influence in our life. Like, you know, and he and I I didn't cry, cry on the phone, but I was like, Josh, I'm devastated by this. I'm not drinking in this house. And he was like, No, no, no, you don't have to tell me anything. I know you're sober, I believe you're sober. Um and he sat with me for a little bit on the phone, and you know, a couple months later he was dead. There's a lot more to the story with him and his marriage, and there was some domestic violence, and his second wife was leaving him, and I was very upset with him because I also was in an abusive marriage, and so I was very frustrated and shocked, although not surprised. Anyway, um, so he passed. And but when I could hear with my own ears what she said, that's not when I went no contact. It was when I invited her over to my house to have a final discussion, and I asked her a few things, and I said, you know, I'm gonna forgive you. Just tell the truth. Like, just even if you think I'm not gonna like the answer, please just tell the truth. And she was like, Okay, okay. What is it? What is it? You know, when someone's guilty, they get really panic stricken. If you haven't done anything wrong, like why are you so panicked? You know? And I just asked her, like, have have you ever told one of my brothers that I'm just like in the house drinking and that I'm like really selfish? And she was like, What? And I I finally realized she had this tell my whole life. She always gets this like overblown, overinflated reaction to being called out to something she definitely did. Oh my gosh, how what are you talking about? That's that Darvo stuff that I teach you guys. What are you talking about? I never said that, that never happened. Um, Darvo stands for deny, attack, reverse, victim, and offender. And it's exhausting and it's disorienting and it's confusing. But this time I knew she wasn't telling the truth. And, you know, when you're dealing with alcoholics, even though you love them to death, sometimes they really don't remember what they did, what they said, because they lie so much and they do and say so many ridiculous things, and they're drinking, so they don't remember doing it. I was married to one, I was raised by one. I get it now. But when she kind of she she fumbles that conversation really bad. Um, and she also lied about getting lunch with my mother-in-law back in the day. Oh, it's a whole thing. I caught her drinking with one of my kids when she was begging to watch her. I got really frustrated and angry. Like, you could do it with me as a kid, you're not gonna do it with my kid. This is ridiculous. And she had driven my daughter home from daycare. Um, and then she went and told the whole family that like I yelled and screamed at her, and like that I was being too hard on her, wouldn't tell anyone why, of course. Took my ex-mother-in-law out to lunch, and my ex-mother-in-law's a gangster, and she told me. And I wasn't divorced yet. Um, so like good looking out. She she told me what was really going on, and it was hard. I never even said anything to my mom that I knew. I was still fighting for the relationship. But I even asked her in that final conversation, okay. Well, I know that's not true. You have talked about me behind my back to my brothers. I was on the phone. Um, the look in her face, too. When you see a mega narcissist's mask slip, it's unlike anything you've ever seen. This person who's caused so much chaos and anarchy and so much pain to other people, suddenly their face goes blank and they short circuit and they look really scared. It's almost like you can see the little kid in there that's pulling all the levers and the gears that's like, yeah, keep lying, keep manipulating. It's just a child in there running the adult's body, and they're they're a mess. Um, and when they've been found out, there's a certain like look. I also saw it on my ex-husband's face when I told him I wanted a divorce, and this time I was serious. Um her face just went white. Um, but I asked her, I said, Have you ever taken my ex-mother-in-law out to lunch to uh tell her that I was lying about the whole drinking thing and that I needed to be medicated? That's what my mother-in-law told me. And she was like, No, well, yes, but that's not what we talked about. And I was like, get out, just go. Um, the conversation didn't go well. She, whatever. It's that's a that'll that'll be a different episode one day. But um, I knew that I this was crazy. I knew there could be no relationship because this woman who was my mother in that she gave birth to me, she wasn't capable of repair, she wasn't capable of self-reflection, and I needed to step away. And there was just an inner knowing of that. There was a wisdom to it. There was a, this is my mom, but now I'm a mom. And if she's gonna make me feel insane, that's not good for my kids. So I have to remove the thing that's making me sick so I can be a good mom. That's super important to me. Business critical. Mission number one for Christy in this life is for my kids to know that I love them unconditionally. There's nothing they could ever do that would ever push me away. And God forbid, if one day they wanted to go no contact with me, I don't know how that's possible. I would self-reflect like hell and be super curious and ask for feedback and work on myself and give them their space. You know, like I just want, I don't think that would ever happen. My kids and I are super tight. Um, but um I made the decision and was like, you're sick. Like you're you're sick in the head if this is unhealthy for me. But that meant I also ended my relationship with my dad because they're a package deal. We'll go into detail about my relationship. With him soon. He and I had a mega trauma bond. Um, but my dad always takes her side. Always. That's why they have no friends. That's why they've always had to move, and all the neighbors at some point always turn on my mom. The narrative's always been poor mom. I'm not really answering the question, but I'm getting there. Um, but it meant I lost my dad. It meant I lost my brother because he was a package deal too. He does not go against mommy, dearest. And finally, the golden child can be in the spotlight. Like, she's all yours. You can have her. She's gonna eat you alive. But um, here you go. You can have her back. Um, she's not gonna, she's not gonna take me down. Not like this. I'm too smart for this. And so it was kind of like grieving so many people at once. My other brother was not dead yet. He died many couple months later, like four months later. Um I was instantly relieved. Once I made the decision, I was like, oh my god. Well, duh. But also seriously, because I have nieces and nephews that I love and adore, and this meant there was gonna be some shrapnel that was gonna cause me to not be in their lives for many years, and I did not take that lightly either. But one day they will be adults and they can come find me, and Aunt Christy's always gonna be here, and we don't even have to talk about them. I just want to know about you. Tell me everything. I'm here. I couldn't be around you when you were a kid because I couldn't be around them, and that's just what it is. But I never stopped loving you, yada yada. Um, but I I needed, I mean, I had a therapist, I had two therapists for a while. And I, for me, therapy is it's not a marathon, it's a sprint. When I'm working through something difficult, I will go in like a many-month sprint with someone until I feel like I've made a some had some epiphanies and realized some things, and then I like to go back to my regular life and apply what I've learned and see if things are better. And I had made so much progress with a certain therapist that had helped me do the past life, um, not past life, the childhood regression therapy, where I went back to my saddest moments as a kid, and that's why I do the inner child content sometimes. Um I had to go back and rewire my brain for some certain terrible things that happened and go back and tell that little girl that was me that she's safe and she never deserved it, and protect her from what actually happened in the moment from either of my parents or a brother. Um, I had done enough work to where I was actually okay. But I felt like I chopped my own arms off for a second. So it like it was disorienting and that it was weird, but there was so much relief. I was like, wait a minute, this means I'm never gonna have Christmas ruined again? Wait a minute, no one's ever gonna hang up on me and tell me that I'm an awful daughter just because I set a boundary and said I'm tired, I can't come over right now. Wait a minute, no one's gonna throw it in my face, everything they've ever done, just because I said that they hurt my feelings about something completely unrelated. It was like instantly my brain started rewiring. But raising kids with no village while I was building my other business, that was tough. And I, you know, entrepreneurship is something, let me tell you. The work works on you more than you work on it. And I was my flight trauma response was activated, which means I like to hide in productivity and achievement, like my dad, who's also very accomplished. Um, so I was working a lot, running from my pain. Um, but then my brother died, and it was just like, okay, this is this family system is sick. Um I and you know, so that's I just learned that grief isn't linear. I think at first, the same thing happened with my divorce. I didn't cry about my marriage for the first year of being separated and getting divorced. And I really thought something was broken in me. Um, but I also was wise enough to realize in both my marriage and in my family, I had been grieving these people forever. I had been grieving what the relationship wasn't for many, many years. So when certain decisions had to be made, there was a certain level of peace and acceptance right away and relief. Um but I've learned that grief is is grief is a bee. And she will just bang on your door one day out of nowhere and rip you out of your desk and back into bed and be like, no, you need to sit here and cry, and you may not even know why, but you won't feel your feelings, so I'm gonna force them to come out. So I went back and forth between the anger phase and the not the bargaining phase. I would say the bargaining phase for me was more like I had to let go of the fantasy that my mom was ever gonna wake up one day and be like, I'm sober and I wanna lead and guide you through life, even though I haven't really ever built anything or maintained any relationships. I was always projecting my own goodness onto other people. Hold on, I need to take a drink. I was, I did this with my ex-husband, I did this with my in-laws, I did this with my parents and my brothers. I always approached relationships with like, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. They're trying their best, but like really the behavior was really, really atrociously bad. Really, really bad. I had to let go of the fantasy that anybody could change and let go of the responsibility that it was even my job to help people change. I had to take accountability for the fact that I had a savior's complex and I was a people pleaser. Like, it's not all victim mentality. You'll be you'll go through phases where you're like, why me, poor me? And that's an important phase because you're finally being real with yourself. Like, oh my god, this was so wild and unfair. What the heck even was that? That whole dynamic. Whether it's your parents or a romantic relationship or a friendship, you the victim mentality is cool for a second because you're finally being honest with yourself. But in a lot of the comments on this last video, they're like, when am I gonna feel better? Well, when are you gonna stop believing all those false narratives? You're probably hearing people's voices in your head that aren't yours. Uh like a monkey on my back. The second I like would lose my keys in this healing phase, or like my house was a mess because I was building a business while raising kids, yada yada. I would hear these voices, like, you're so stupid. You're you always lose everything, you're so messy. And I had to catch that voice. Okay, and say, Stop it. Don't talk to me like that. Leave me alone. Go, go away. Like you're not. It wasn't my voice, it was my mom's voice. And you have to cast whoever's voice it is away, your mom, your dad, your grandparents, whoever was the hardest people on you, they gave you some very limiting beliefs. And you have to notice them and retrain your brain, rewire your brain, and be gentle with yourself enough to say, I don't actually feel that way about myself. And even if you don't believe it, you still gotta catch it and like you gotta fake the confidence before you finally get it. That's true with all types of confidence. But this is the confidence of self-trust, the confidence of self-love. And over time, I really was like, if I lost my keys and I was trying to get to an appointment in the city, but I needed to go drop off my son's water bottle because I forgot to help him put it in his bag, and it's my fault for not having more structure because he's only six. Like, oh God, I'm so such so stupid. Like, I would catch myself and be like, no, hey sweetie, I think you're doing great. I think you're going through a lot. It's okay, let's just slow down. I had to talk to myself like I was a little kid, and that's called reparenting. That's something that an unhealed boomer would be like, that, this, that's what's wrong with this generation. You're too soft. Like, no, you guys are a mess and you're bleeding all over everyone. Reparenting is great. Learning to give yourself grace and say, oops, the house is messy. Maybe we really should make sure at least the kitchen's clean before we go to bed. You know, you're doing a lot, and I'm so proud of you. I'm so impressed with you. I love you. You're safe. Let's tackle that later. But like right now, it's okay, baby. Like, where are your keys? When was the last time? Oh, remember you switched purses. Yeah, that was a cool purse. Let's go find that purse. You had a cool outfit on that day. It's in your closet. Let's go look. Oops, it's not in there. Oh, it's on the air fryer because remember, you were hungry because you also didn't eat breakfast. You know, like being able to walk it back, catch that negative voice. That negative voice is what keeps you feeling guilty. Um, we also don't need to save people from their own BS. Our parents, our family, our friends, whatever, your romantic partner, whoever you're had to separate from, they acted in a certain way. And there are consequences to people's actions. We have been groomed. When you are an empath, when you have usually ADHD and like some spiritual gifts, you probably don't even realize you're clairvoyant, you're clair audience, you're claircognizant. Go look it up. Go look it up. You have gifts that are real. You can believe in religion, and these things are also true. How do you think Jesus like healed people? Like there was like there's other modalities. It's like yes and it can be very confusing to be in your head because you're very gifted. So you have to pay attention to what's being said. I forgot what I was saying before that. I feel like I kind of switched thoughts and I forgot what I was saying. Uh shoot! I lost my train of thought. So I'm just gonna jump right back in, remerge with traffic. Um I don't know. You guys, I'm so sorry. I hate when I do this. So, so, but that's a good thing to hold on, let me explain what just happened. Tell me if this feels familiar. Do you feel like you have 15 trains of thought at once? Are you like thinking about something that happened to you while you're thinking about what you need to do, while you're doing something like showering or driving, while there's like maybe some clutter in your home and you're thinking about putting that away? Do you know how many conversations you're having with yourself at one time? Do you know not everybody thinks that way? Um, I think this is not like I know some people aren't gonna get this, but some of you will. And those of you who get this, that's who I'm talking to. If it's if this isn't for you, just throw it back at me. You're just maybe not ready to hear it. Or maybe I'm an idiot. That's fine. I don't think I'm an idiot. There's something about ADHD in the creative brain. Okay, your mind was not wandering, your head was not in the clouds. I think in pictures, I think I hear voices of the characters for my video in my head. That's like how the scripts come to me. Like out of nowhere, I just start hearing the dialogue of what could be a really funny video, and I have to frantically write it down. If you've ever been accused of like not paying attention, or you've been with a partner or a boss, or in school with your teachers or coaches, they're like, You're not paying attention. You probably have ADHD, first of all. Second of all, it's a gift, but it's a it's you're very misunderstood your whole life because not everybody's having all these ideas and brainstorms, and like I don't even want to call it fantasies, like I've just always been having pictures in my head and like movies playing of ideas many at once. If you could see my brain, it's like many TV screens, and I'm ha and they're all different conversations. Um, so those of you who experience that, I want you to know there's nothing wrong with you. You have a very attuned antenna and you are receiving messages from all over the place. And you guys, my most viral videos were downloads, they were like gifts that were given to me. I suddenly, like, bam, the idea will hit me out of nowhere. The foot stomping video with my mom, that other viral video where she's like, I didn't step on your foot, and then the dad calls and is like, You upset your mother, you're a bad daughter. That came to me quickly. Line, I saw the foot stomp, I saw how I was gonna do it in my bedroom. That's when I started recording videos in my bedroom. It was like instructions that were given to me. Anyway, look into the spiritual side of your ADHD because it's not a bad thing, and there's nothing wrong with you. And you can also believe in religion and also understand that you can have different gifts that we don't really talk about in this modern society. You don't talk about hearing voices or um seeing pictures in your head or having dreams that come true, but that stuff never went away. Okay, there's a reason. Tribal knowledge like gets passed down, and like witches were real, witches were really doing stuff. Like, you probably have some cool ancestors in your family tree that got whacked off because people were scared of them. Anyway, I was talking about healing. Um, oh, like the gr I was talking about how grief is not linear. Um, I think. So we're just gonna jump back in there and forgive me if you're like frustrated because I totally lost the thought. Just drop me a DM, I'll finish answering it. I would go back and forth between the anger phase and I don't know, what are the phases of grieving something? I would be fine and then I would get angry, but also my parents live in the same city as me. They followed me here to Texas. So they would show up at my kids' sporting events that I did not invite them to because they befriended my ex-husband, which was the other form of betrayal. Like these people, if they ever try to crawl back in your life, like they've they've done things, they've talked about you, they've befriended people who have done you very, very wrong in order to still have access to your children, or still have access to you, or just feel like they still have a sense of control, like they're my grandchildren. Like, well, you should have fixed it with me first, but now you're super duper dead to me. Um, so for a while I had to see them at my brother's or my brother, my son's baseball games, my son's basketball games. And one time my I was coaching my son's games, and my mom came over and tapped me on the shoulder and was like, I need to speak with you. And I was like talking to the kids on the team, and I was like, you need to back away. Do not tap me on the shoulder, woman, and like wait your turn. Um, but now when I see them in public, I I used to have a physical reaction when I would see them because I I didn't have the the I wasn't healed enough to start talking about it online. So I wasn't like it was still very raw. So when I would see them, my nervous system, like my I would start shaking, not because I was scared, but when you're so angry, you can start to tremble. And just the self-righteousness of showing up at the event, and my mom has this way of like flipping her hair and walking away and being like, Can you believe her? And it's like, no, can you believe yourself? Like, do you ever sit and think about the things that you've done? Like, ever. Like, yes, please show up at my kids' sporting event and act like you're the victim. Like, no offense, lady. I can't help you. Um, but then it would, I would have to take the rest, I would be very exhausted afterward because that much adrenaline is exhausting and overloading to your system. Um, just seeing my parents would be very upsetting because I was very mad at them. But yeah, time really heals. I know that stinks to hear, and some of you are maybe six years into this, and you're like, I'm still angry. I know. Over time, though, I got tired of being angry. I got bored of it. And I was like, I don't want to be angry anymore. And the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. And now when I see them at my kids' sporting events, I don't look at them, and it's not like, oh, I'm gonna snub you. It's just like I don't, I didn't invite you here. One time I walked into my son's basketball game, and my mom was like standing at the registration table, and I remember she's standing right next to my ex-mother-in-law. They're like best friends now. Go figure. It's so funny. It should be like a Netflix series. Um, and my mom just goes, and we hadn't talked in like a year and a half. She just goes, Oh, there she is. And I just looked at her and I pointed my finger. I said, Don't speak to me. Because I had set a boundary. When I went no contact, I sent them a very brief statement. Because it does know I had typed out this long list of transgressions and this, and how could you do this to me? And how could you betray me this way? And what is wrong with you? And how dare you! And just like good old Abraham Lincoln, I threw it in a drawer and was like, it's not gonna do any good, but that felt good to write. Um, and I instead just sent a statement that was like, You'll always be my family. I'll always love you, but I basically gotta walk it by myself now. Peace. Not literally, but it was like a few sentences like that. I sent it to my dad, my mom, my brother, block, block, block on everything. We're done. You can't get a hold of me, you lost access. Not because I'm better than you, but because you can't behave, not by my standards. And my standards are not that like at the time, they were not that crazy. Anyway, so you know, read that's reactive abuse too. Like, these people don't realize what they do is ridiculous and abusive. But reactive abuse is when someone creates a ton of issues, and then your reaction becomes like, oh my god, look at you, you're crazy. So I remember I walked in, I see my mom, and she's like, Oh, there she is, and I said, Don't speak to me. And then she looks at my ex-mother-in-law, like, oh, did you see? Kind of like, did you see the way she treats me? It's just like, I don't give a shit. Sorry for cussing. I don't care. You know who you are, you know that I know who you are. Don't talk to me. We do not have a relationship. I did not invite you here. Do not act all friendly and like everything's fine. My mother used to love to sweep things under the rug. Oh my god, can it just be water under the bridge? She used to love to say that. What? It's water under the bridge. No, it's freaking not. Isn't that convenient for you? Isn't that nice? No, we don't do that anymore. I don't play that game. Don't play in my face. I have no problem telling you to back off and to get away from me. But even now, um, I haven't seen them in a while, but I see them in traffic. Like my dad passes me all the time and he doesn't see me. And I just I'm just like, well, there they go. And then I just go on with my life. And I think I'm so proud. And maybe you don't live in the same city, or maybe you have to move away. I know there's all different levels and types to this. I was lucky that I didn't get harassed, I didn't get followed, you know, there's all kinds of crazy out there. Um, so whatever you're going through, I believe you, and I'm sorry, and you don't deserve it. But I started to feel better because I really started to see an improvement in my health. Um, it going no contact with my parents also led me to end some other friendships that were hanging on by a thread. So for a while it was rough. For a while I had nobody. You guys know that. I walked it alone. I didn't have Tony yet. Um, and I had to show up for myself. So this phase is like a masterclass in do you trust yourself? Do you love yourself? It's a masterclass in most in emotional intelligence. Can you trust you to have your own back? Can you trust yourself? Um, and the answer is yes. You'll prove to your, you'll prove yourself right and you'll you'll see what you're really capable of. Um, but it isn't, I I did a lot of a lot of intentional healing work. I did a lot of breath work. I tell you guys all the time, go do breathe with Sandy. Um breath work, regular exercise, whether it's the gym, you must go for a walk every day. If you're not sleeping, you need to get movement. You can't be in your head all the time. Even if you have kids, you need to have a partner who's supportive, who understands you need to go move your body. Um, even stretching, I know that sounds silly. Like, I needed to move my body. Sometimes I would dance in my kitchen to the 90s music that I used to love, and just wiggle it out. You gotta like an animal shaking off stress after being chased through the woods and surviving, they shiver, they yawn, and they release. Humans forget to release. So, you know, that grief hip shaking exercise I did that went viral and ended in some weird marriage proposals. That was not my goal. But if you watch that video, the the shaking of your hips, you know, the body holds on to trauma. I was doing everything I could to release and explore and be curious. I was journaling three pages a day, I was meditating, I was really focused on my future. Like, I don't like this scarcity lack experience that I'm in right now. This stinks. What does a bright future look like? And at the time I didn't know it would be through talking to you guys that I was gonna build. My new business, whatever this is. And it was, but I had visions of speaking on a TED stage. I know I'm going to give a TED talk one day about all of this, about how without repair there is no relationship. Yada yada. I know I'm going to write more books. I know I'm going to host events. I didn't know it was going to be this stuff, but I would meditate. And you, if you can't envision your future, you don't have to know how you're going to get there. But you can you can envision private planes and luxury vacations and believe that that's not selfish and believe that you deserve a wonderful life that's full of all the resources because you guys, there's plenty of money in the world. There's plenty of money. There's still plenty of rich people. I know the world is evil. You deserve to be well taken care of, okay? Spending time imagining. I've imagined the house and the condo the kids and I will have, the vacations that we're gonna take. I've imagined people waiting in line to meet me. I never knew how. But isn't it kind of funny that we're here now, like doing this? It's not, it wasn't even to be famous. I was like, I just know I can do so much good in this life. And I'm gonna do it. I don't know what it is, but if you can't imagine the future, you're gonna feel stuck. You're gonna feel grief-stricken, you're gonna be like, oh no, poor me. This is so bad. Why does this keep happening to me? And I feel guilty that my parents basically put themselves in time out. You know, that's that's a that's a I'm gonna I'm gonna say this with love. That's a loser's mentality. But I was there too. That's why I've earned the right to say that to you, to kind of like jerk you awake, like, hey, you are worthy of real authentic love in this life. It's just not gonna come from your family, and that's okay. You're gonna be okay. Um, other people are gonna love you properly, they're just not here yet. So while you're waiting for the new right people to come in in your life eventually, let's work on you. Let's work on like healing your nervous system. I did a lot of Reiki healing, highly recommend. It's not woo-woo stuff, you guys. That stuff works. I did hypnotherapy. I was doing cold plunge and sauna. Those are both also really good ways to kind of reset your system. Anytime I got into an ice bath, I'd be like, oh my god, I'm so proud of myself. I finally stood up to my first bully. I finally stood up to my mom. It's uncomfortable, but um, I was trying everything. I did acupuncture. Um, and I had a lot, I was doing a breathwork um exercise one day, and I remember feeling a popping in my chest and something released, and I started crying hysterically. I was not in pain. It was not that kind of a cry. Something released, some kind of trauma. I'm not making it up. Trauma is stored in the body. And you gotta be willing to shine the flashlight on yourself so bright and be vulnerable and be like, what are all the parts of me? What are all the wounds? What are the patterns in my life? What are the types of people I keep attracting? Then get on ChatGPT or Google if you can't afford therapy and be like, hey, why do I attract broken men who want to use me for all kinds of things, but they don't care about me? And then you walk it back. I know that like AI gets a bad rap, but I got pretty far with Claude and ChatGPT just being like, I'm having a bad day today. And it's like, okay, what's going on? And just talking it through. If you're alone right now, it's okay. You got you, but I know what that's like. It feels very naked, it feels very vulnerable. This was where I found my values too. This is part of the course that I'll be I'll be teaching you guys. I help you find your values because finding the words that you live by helps you have peace with why you had to end certain connections. So for me, one of my values is psychological safety. That's when that means when you can be authentically yourself and you don't worry about judgment from the people around you. Like you feel like it's a safe environment where you can truly be yourself, and the people you're with are like they love you for it. They would, they wouldn't judge you. You're a silly, fun, great person. I did not have that with anybody in my family. I grew up in a family that teased. I grew up in a family that um, if you messed up, it was an inside family joke forever. There was no really building up of each other, there was only like poking and picking at each other. So sometimes it helps with the emotional guilt to say, hey, guilt, I see you, I get you, but also what are you feeling guilty for? Because these people are not values aligned with us. It almost like puts some logic to the chaos that can be emotion. And we need our emotions. Emotions are not bad. Feel your feelings, they are not wrong. They are trying to tell you something. But you should ask yourself, is the guilt of ending the relationship truly yours? Or is it your mom's voice saying, How could you do this to me after everything I've done for you? You know, they had us very well trained, very well groomed. And it's okay to say, go away in your head and say to that voice, go away, don't talk to me like this. I respect myself now, and this person doesn't treat me with respect. So, whatever voice this is, I did not ask you to come here. You must leave. And that simple exercise of seriously casting away the negative voice will slowly retrain your brain to stop hearing it. I mean, I'm not gonna lie to you guys. I just I I definitely tumbled down poor Me Mountain. That's an important phase, but some people do that tumble forever and it becomes their identity. You don't want to have a victim mentality for your whole life, you're gonna be a loser. I say this because I was headed down the same path. I at this point even take accountability that I let my mom in my life for too long. I stayed in my marriage for too long. I take full accountability that I let people have too many chances because I was projecting my own goodness onto other people. You you graduate, if you're paying attention, into higher levels of consciousness where you're more peaceful and you're more able to see, yeah, like two things can be true. I do love this person, and I can't have them in my life because they hurt me. And more time goes on, and like read books, that's another part of my healing. I was not brainwashed by anyone. I read books by real psychologists, like daughters of narcissistic mothers, like complex CPTSD. When you can read in books what has happened to you exactly, it's kind of like what my content has done for all of you guys. You're like, oh my god, I'm binging your content. I feel so seen. I'm like, I know, because I finally woke up and realized it wasn't just me too. These books helped me. Do whatever you can to find the best right answers for you. But healing is messy. Don't think you're gonna magically wake up one day and be better. I think a big part of my healing was getting to be so visible by all of you, and you came running. You guys healed me right back. You know, you've given me the strength to keep going, and now it's like fun. Now I'm like, oh, we're all in. This is what we're doing, this is what it was all for. But the pain can be transformed into your purpose. You don't have to make toxic family dynamics your purpose, but now with this new discernment, it doesn't, you're not gonna like have to go lead workshops and host events like me. But you were taught to love yourself. So now with that newfound time and energy that you're not leaking all over the place trying to have a relationship with people who've shown you a million times they don't want to have a relationship with you, they want to manipulate you and control you and keep you small. What can you do with all that energy? You know? What hobby have you been putting off? What passion or interests do you have? Maybe you are obsessed with gardening and you can finally go start that YouTube channel. Guess what? Guess who started with no microphone, just lip syncing on TikTok in 2020? Me. The first time I made a video with my voice, I was shaking. So if it scares you, good, do it. I was not always this confident. This came from choosing myself over and over and over again, and making videos that flopped, and making videos that didn't perform, and just like, okay, what can I learn? What can I learn? How can I get better? Figure out what you love doing and then find a way to make money doing it. Um, it's funny to me that this has all fallen into place the way that it has. And my whole life I've been told I explain things very well. Maybe not on this podcast episode. I forgot what I was saying halfway through. But in corporate environments, I was often the person who was doing onboarding, and I was often the team lead because I'm really patient with people and I have empathy, and I can catch when they're not understanding something, and I take, I take it on me that I must not be explaining it right. So that my whole life I've been kind of pacing and tracking towards some kind of role where I help people understand things. You know? I but I was also always the voice on the phone at the company I worked at. Like I always loved, I was very shy, but I loved opportunities to get attention by like I worked at a company called HHS, so I like recorded the hello, thank you for calling HHS. Like, we're sorry we missed your call. Please choose from the following menu. I was like, I want to do it, can I do it? And those moments would always like kind of shock me, like, why do I want to do this? I'm that would that this makes me so uncomfortable. But I've always been progressing toward this version of myself now that is super confident, very comfortable on camera, has no problem running around in wigs, but like this was a gradual exercise that's taken years, and you don't even realize the gradual exercises you've been on. So listen to your intuition. One day I just thought, wouldn't it be funny if I put on a wig and pretended to be a an unhealed boomer mom and that video went viral? So when you get the hint or the urge to go do something, listen to it. You're probably having some like divine guidance in the moment. We often don't listen to our gut because we're afraid of looking foolish, or maybe it's a half-baked idea. Who cares? Oh my gosh. And you don't have to be making content. I threw out a YouTube channel. Maybe I don't know what it is that you're gonna be doing. Maybe you're gonna quit your corporate job and finally go build workbenches and build a business where you show up and do what you love, which is working with your hands. I don't know. Maybe you're gonna be a bird guide. I don't know. Maybe you're gonna go work at the zoo because that makes you happy. Maybe you're gonna become an astronaut. I'm not kidding. Who cares? It's a video game, you guys. Life is real, but also I have never seen more clearly than right now that you are just a few decisions away from a completely different life. And you don't have to know what comes next, but you have to follow the breadcrumbs of what makes you happy and excited and keep working on that skill, that interest. Find time to do it every day, even if it's 20 minutes, take it as far as you can and show up every day, and eventually it will become your job. If your job is soul sucking, if your relationships are soul sucking, get rid of the people who don't treat you well, get rid of the people who can't repair, get rid of the people whose name freaks you out when their name pops up on your phone and you're like, oh God, here we go again. What did I do now? Stop it with those people. They're hurting you. You're choosing something that's reenacting your childhood. Figure out what your childhood wounds are. You have a mother wound, you have a father wound, you have both like me. Great. Let's work on what those are and start noticing the patterns in the people that you choose. And stop it. That's, and we don't have to be perfect at it, but like we gotta start, you know, if you if you keep making the same decisions every day, you're gonna have the same life. I definitely fell into a groundhog day where I was like, okay, well, we can't just like mope and grope and be like, no, this is hard forever. But at some point, you gotta get sick of your own, your own BS and be like, no, I'm the main character of this story. What do I want my life to look like? What are the steps I need to take? I need to stop doom scrolling. I need to go to the gym. You start acting like the version of you that has it all, you will slowly start to bring in abundance and all of it that you imagined. It's so funny to me that I was imagining a TED stage, and for the this was only like two years ago. I was like, how the heck am I gonna get on a TED stage? What am I gonna talk about? And I had a LinkedIn following of like 12,000 people, and I was talking about corporate, I was basically doing this, but for corporate. And I was talking about how messed up these organizations are and how we need to do better. And I had I had a following there and I was building a business around it, but it wasn't bringing me joy. And so I remember being like, I'm not gonna give a TED talk about this. I keep losing my spark for it, but here I am now, and thank God I followed the urges to do silly, playful things because that was my inner wisdom, that was my inner guidance. Don't ever judge your whimsy. Your whimsy loves you. Your whimsy's trying to get you to remember who you are. Um, but for the people who are just like, how long does it take to feel better? Well, how long are you gonna keep punishing yourself for things that were done to you? How long are you gonna keep punishing yourself for feeling unlovable by people who aren't capable of loving themselves? Do you see? Why are you doing that to yourself? I know that doesn't feel very good. I know it's your mom, I know it's your dad. Whenever you're ready, you can stop with the fantasy that they're gonna be this incredible person because you're the incredible person. You can trust you. You've got this, you're going to be okay. Feel the pain, but the pain is not defining you, it's forging you into a new version of yourself. Seek out new connections where people pour into you. I tried that for a while. I couldn't meet like anybody, so I was like, okay, I guess I'm still in time out because I hadn't gotten on social media yet. Everything for me was blocked until I had this breakthrough with you guys. Now I see that my life can be expanded, but I I couldn't have new connections in my life because it would have taken away from me and my creativity. I wasn't ready. So if you're being blocked, like then just keep spending your alone time. I now love being by myself to a dangerous level. I was this healed my codependency. I always felt like I needed to have a boyfriend or a relationship. I don't feel that way now. It would take a very convincing proposal for someone to even try to get me to risk my mental health to be in a romantic relationship again, but I believe it's possible one day. If you pour into yourself and you learn to love yourself and you learn to talk to yourself and not believe every thought that you think because it's one of those limiting voices, you're gonna change your life. And I still have days where I have to be like, oops, that wasn't very nice. Don't talk to me like that. And that is my voice. That's my inner child being like, we're so stupid. And I'm like, no, we're not. You are so lovable, you're fine. Be gentle with yourself and stop believing this merry-go-round of negative inner monologue. And you're gonna be okay. I think that's the biggest takeaway. You're gonna be okay, and you're doing great after everything that's happened to you, after all that betrayal, after all those misunderstandings, after they told you and played in your face and said, You're the problem, you're gonna be okay. You're so tough. It stinks to be misunderstood. But you've been talking to the wrong people. Life is long. It's not forever. But it's life is short, but it's long enough to like wait, life is long, but it's short enough to be ruthless with who has access to you. I promise you, that's what successful people do. Sometimes you gotta say, I love ya, but I don't love what you do. You gotta get away from me. And just trust that you don't know what happens next, but it's gonna be good eventually. I promise you. Choosing yourself has never gone wrong for me. But I definitely had dark, dark nights of the soul. Those are nights where I really had to be there for myself. Those are teaching nights. Don't leave this earth like my brother did. Don't think your life is falling apart. Don't let addiction or debt or any kind of mistakes or feeling like everybody's gone cause you to rip the console out of the wall. There's nothing wrong with you. Something happened to you. We need to sit with ourselves in those dark nights and say, I don't know how I'm gonna get through this, but I know it's gonna be okay. I'm gonna make it through and I'm gonna wake up tomorrow. Please don't do what my brother did. I forgive him for what he did. I understand why he did what he did, but he was so close to a breakthrough. Sometimes you need to have a breakdown to have a breakthrough. It's not the end. It's the end of the old version of you. You're having an ego death. It's a lovely, beautiful, painful, terrible, incredible thing. An ego death is when you're letting go of an old version of yourself. It's painful. Keep showing up every day. And I even put a sticky note on my mirror that said, I love you, every day. And I would see it and be like, Okay, it's gonna be okay. I love you, I love you, I love you. You gotta love yourself. You are worth loving. And for you to attract in healthy relationships and all the abundance and all the purpose, you have to love yourself. You have to choose yourself unapologetically. Let go of anyone who makes you doubt your worth, makes you question your reality, makes you wonder if you're too much. Those people have to go. And I know it's your best friend from high school. I know it might be your spouse. I know, but those are big realizations. Whenever you're ready, the life you've always dreamed of is waiting for you. But the people who were in your life and maybe are in your life right now, they can't come with you. And that's okay. You are bound for greatness, for whatever you want. Whenever you're ready. Okay? I hope I answered the question properly. Oh, shoot. I need to wish happy birthday to Charlotte's son. Charlotte's one of my favorite, like longtime followers, and she was with me since the very beginning. Charlotte, I meant to do this at the very beginning. I'm so sad and sorry. I just saw my note to myself. I'm sorry. Happy birthday to your son. I was supposed to do that at the beginning. I love you guys. I read all your DMs. Um, Charlotte, you're awesome. You've always been like telling me I'm great before even I believed it on social. So thank you. Um, I super love you guys. I feel like I have been given a great responsibility, and I'm gonna do my best to keep showing up for you. Try to not respond to the hater comments and let you guys clown on them if you want to. I'm gonna try to stay out of it. Thank you for protecting me. Thank you for seeing and believing me and what happened to me. Thank you for showing up for me. You guys have really changed my life, and um I will continue to do whatever I can to make an impact on yours, and I think you're great. So just keep going, okay? Okay. I love you. Bye-bye.