Episode 300 - Ian Morgan Cron, "What Happened To You?"

Congratulations, Michael John Cusick, for publishing your 300th episode of Restoring the Soul!

In this episode, our good friend Ian Morgan Cron joins the program to discuss the thought-provoking book "What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing" by Bruce Perry, MDPhD, and Oprah Winfrey. Michael and Ian explore the impact of interpreting one's experiences on their mental and emotional well-being. They delve into the importance of community and conversations in the healing process, particularly within twelve-step programs. The episode concludes with a message of hope and resilience for individuals of all ages, emphasizing the possibility of real change and healing. Join us for a deep and insightful conversation on trauma, resilience, and the journey towards healing.

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Transcript

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Hi, everybody, and welcome back to restoring the soul. I'm Michael John Cusick, and it's been a minute since he's been on the restoring the soul program, but Ian Morgan Cron, welcome back to restoring the soul. Man, it's a delight to be here, brother. You and I have spent an inordinate and delightful amount of time together over the last year for a variety of reasons, but we've not been able to sit down and just have a spontaneous conversation. And this one is pretty spontaneous because just this morning I said, hey, I'm reading this book, and I want to talk about the title with you. So the book is called what happened to you? Conversations on trauma, resilience and healing by Bruce Perry, MDPhD, and Oprah Winfrey. So this is a book where Oprah shares a fair amount of her own story in narrative form. And then she introduces Dr. Perry. He talks about his experience as a neuroscience researcher long before the current neuroscience trauma boom. And then he tells work about patients. And then Oprah tells her story, he tells work about patients. And it's a very hopeful book. But I've been fascinated by the title of this book, what happened to you? And I'm fascinated by it because it relates to so many of our conversations over the last couple of years. What happened to you in contrast to what's wrong with you? And you and I got our first graduate degrees, you in clinical counseling, me in pastoral counseling, and later in counseling psychology, roughly around the same time, a couple of years apart. And back then, there was an emphasis in the field of mental health and counseling on what's wrong with you. It was very much a pathology emphasis. So I think I want to talk about this title in terms of when you think of this title, what happened to you in contrast to what's wrong with you, how does that impact you? And does it shift your perspective as you sit with people who want to have deeper understanding of themselves and their relationships? Well, I mean, it is a provocative title. And just as you said it, what came to my mind was something that a friend of mine once said, which was, what happened to you in childhood is not nearly as important as what you think happened to you. And so, in other words, our interpretation of events, when that interpretation remains unchallenged, it can lead to all kinds of distress. And I think it's true that when we went to graduate school, there was an emphasis on a medical model, right? Someone comes in, they report a problem, you diagnose it using the diagnostic and statistical manual. You slap a label on them, you develop a treatment plan around that particular disorder or problem, et cetera. I'm a lot less quick. I see the value in labels and things like that because you need a shorthand to talk about subsets of the population that have constellations of traits that they share in common with other members of that subset. Right. There's no way around it. Right. That said, I'm much more interested in what people think happens. So, for example, in my own life, raised with an alcoholic and drug addicted father, so much of what I heard, the message I received growing up, was, you are invisible. All the things that a child of an alcoholic and a drug addict hears. And the way I interpreted those experiences mattered more than the. In many ways than the experiences themselves. And I had to reorganize and rewrite the narrative of what happened to me in order to be free of all of the mistaken beliefs that I accumulated around them because of my childhood interpretation of what happened. I hope that was cogent, but that's the idea. Yes, you clarified the question I was going to ask. Where there's some people who, when they hear what you think happened to you, that it might be an invalidation of their pain, of their trauma, like, oh, you're just making that up, but you're really. That's not what I mean. Right. You're talking about the interpretation that in your instance, the fact that you were invisible, the fact that you had to perform in order to get love, those kinds of. You know. I also remember someone else saying to me, you know, Ian, don't take it personally. I know this is harsh sounding, but don't take it too personally, because if it had been anybody else, the same things would have happened. Like, in other words, I had to sort of free myself of this sort of mythology that I had understandably written around my experience growing up. So you said it really well there, I think. Let me give a very primitive example. You grow up in a home like that, terrible things happen. And because we're narrative creatures, we have to create a story in our mind to explain why did that happen? Right? And I came up with things like, well, because I'm a bad person, right? I'm just not a good kid. I'm not a good kid, and I'm clearly a disappointment to my father, who, if I wasn't, he wouldn't need to drink and take drugs. All right? So that's a narrative I wrote. I dragged that narrative into adulthood with me, and I continued to live by its dictates. Now part of the journey of healing and freedom is untethering yourself from those old, mistaken beliefs that continue to govern your life from the shadows, the way that you act, the way that you think, the way that you feel. And you have to interrogate those beliefs and you have to push back against them to reclaim yourself. And I think so much of the journey for me has been a journey of editing and rewriting and re narrating the story I told myself about who I am and the story I told myself about how the world works. And that took a minute. And it takes a really long time, doesn't it? I'm going to turn 60. You're 62. And, man, we've been at this for a long time. It takes a long time, but it's worth it, isn't it? Oh, my gosh, yes. And it's part of the human adventure. Like it or not, it's part of the human adventure. So an investment in one's own spiritual, emotional and mental development and reaching out beyond the confines of oneself to another self is just an amazing, painful, wild, joyous undertaking. As I say, it's worth it. I used to think about it being worth it, meaning healing or getting to the other side of this was the absence of pain, the absence of anxiety, the absence of insecurity. But you and I were recently talking with a group of about seven men in leadership, and you shared something that I had shared with you. You reminded me of this, but you had said that I shared with you that a therapist who's now 93 years old, Dr. David Donaldson, who was my therapist and mentor, he said to me, when I turned about 70 years old, I woke up one morning and I said, I think I'm whole. I finally feel whole. And you were sharing that with these men. And it was a moving moment. But I feel like I'm starting to get close to that, closer than ever before. And there's times where I've woken up and I've lived in this life of three decades of trying to figure out what happened to me and trying to do the work to get here, but that sense of, oh, I'm not defined by that anymore. I'm not controlled by the brokenness inside of me. And you commented about how you've been in a season where you're experiencing that, where things are really deeply. Okay, talk a little bit about that. Yeah. It's so funny. This is the third conversation today I've had around this very topic. Well, that's why I want to talk about this, because I think that this is something people are hungry for. Yeah. So as you know, and I'm very open about it, I am in a twelve step program for people recovering from alcohol and drug addiction. And I was talking to a fellow recovering addict alcoholic this afternoon and he asked me how I was and I said, you know, I find now these days more days than not. So the majority of my days I wake and move through the world with this low frequency of contentment that runs like a drone at the bottom of a well in my heart. It's just this of, it's okay. I am okay. Whatever life throws at me today, it will be okay. And just this feeling of solidness and peace, resolution. Enjoy. And it's not like ecstatic, but it's actually better than ecstatic. Right. Because those are spikes of something. This is more of just an ever present feeling of gratitude, joy, healing, hope, love, trust, faith. And I would say that I obviously had a lot of therapy and been a lot of counseling done, a lot of work. I'd say that my twelve step experience has really accelerated the journey toward my enjoying that kind of sense of being in the world. Yeah. And I've had the pleasure of seeing that happen in you. And I think back to when we were in our twenty s and thirty s. It's been 35 years since we've known each other and how back then we would talk about these things, especially as therapists, like, right, we've got this jump on everybody else because we kind of have the secret and everything, but we would talk about these things as if we were in this place of deep contentment and joy and living in this river that's there and flowing and vibrant within us and compared to where I am now. I say this with no disrespect to my younger self, but I don't think I had a clue that this was possible and I'm just beginning to get to the edge of it. But I guess I'm not surprised when you say that this is the third conversation you've had. Because when we're willing to have conversations that go beneath the oh, I'm fine or I'm doing pretty good, I think people are really hungry to know that this kind of peace, contentment, joy, that it's actually possible. Because every meme and social media program or influencer is trying to sell some version of hope. Right? Yes. Or a technique. Right. And it's just so much more complicated. I think I said this when we were on that weekend with those guys. I said, my current mantra is, it's going to take a minute. This is going to take a minute. So when a new person comes into the rooms of recovery and maybe they've got two days without drinking or something and they're just a mess, their brain isn't online and you just have to say it's going to get better and it's going to take a minute. And so when I talk to 35, 45 year old people and they're in the midst of the battle, I just very tried with gentleness and kindness to say, it's going to get better and it's going to take a minute and it will be worth it. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you what you would say to people in their twenty s and thirty s. So thank you for that. The subtitle to what happened to you? Conversations on trauma, resilience and healing. All four of those words strike me and this is a shout out for the book. I think it's a really compelling book. You know that well, both of us, we read a lot and widely. I can't read books cover to cover. I'll skim them and get all the big ideas out of it, but I can't read books cover to cover unless it's really compelling. And I found myself reading every word on every page. But first of all, conversations. So much of healing, of what happened to us, happens in relationship, right? AA and the twelve steps are there for a reason. Because it's a community, it's a place of gathering, it's a place of belonging, it's a fellowship for a reason. We can't heal on our own and we can't heal without conversations. So talk about the importance of that in your work, both as a priest, a caregiver, a therapist, an educator, a spiritual director, but also as somebody who's on the journey. Yeah, we sometimes say in the rooms, right? That we get sick alone and we heal together. I do believe that the opposite of disintegration happens in the context of community, right. When we come together with others, sometimes I'll go to meetings or spend time with you or with others. And I'm reminded that we're such social creatures and I need a community of people that is similarly motivated to move toward a place of greater wholeness to work it out. People who don't attend twelve step meetings, just so you know they are self supporting. So generally everyone puts a dollar in the basket, right? We pass a basket around at the bottom of the hour and everyone just pays for the lights. And I laugh because I've oftentimes said when I'm sharing in the group, oh my gosh. I've heard so much amazing stuff today, and it only cost a buck. I got all this for a dollar. And I've got, oh my gosh. No insurance, no nothing. All I needed to do was show up to this circle of wisdom. And I hear stuff that I kind of roll my eyes at internally periodically, but more often than not, I leave meetings with some nugget of truth. Because what happens isn't also, it's not just what's said in the meetings that matters. It's the spirit of grace, compassion, forgiveness, understanding. It's patience. It's all in the air. And it creates the natural climate in which people can change and grow and move into becoming what my sponsor recently said about himself, he said, I feel like I'm the best version of myself yet. And I'm like, I kind of feel that way too. Now, I'm not saying every day I get up and I move to the world like a saint, but I do. I kind of feel like my best, most authentic version yet. And I credit the rooms. And I credit the rooms largely for a lot of that. Yeah, the recovery rooms. Well, just as you shared that most people know about your recovery journey, I've shared half a dozen times on the restoring the soul show about my journey over the last year and a half with compulsive overeating and my journey of gaining a lot of weight heavier than I ever was. Losing that weight. In my forthcoming book, I actually tell the story of us hiking together in Aspen, Colorado, and you kind of loving me into, hey, why don't you go to treatment for this? Long story short, a year and a half later, I've experienced some really significant healing and freedom. But over the last month, I have not binged on any of my quote unquote alcoholic foods, but my volume and the sheer amount of food that I'm eating has gotten larger and larger and larger. And I was talking to a fellow in my recovery group in the last two weeks and they said to me, Mike, you are in the throes of your addiction. And I'm hearing all over the place, self will run riot. And both of those phrase are right out of the big book, Valkylks Anonymous. So they had me do an assignment. I listed all the things that started to become different about six months out, and here's why I'm telling you this. Went to my weekly meeting last night and I attended online and I had every intention of sharing that I had relapsed from my food plan and that I was no longer abstinent in the sense of that I am now involved in compulsive eating. And after the timer went off, everybody gets to share for three minutes. People start clapping. And I just melted. And I was like, I was terrified to come here because I kind of see myself a little bit as I'm a therapist and I'm articulate and I can lead the meetings and everything. So there was a great humbling of me to have to come and talk about, I don't have this, I've got no game. I really am powerless again. And to come and to expose myself like that and to have people clap, not out of, oh, great way to screw up, but clapping for coming forward and sharing this in the meeting. And it was just beautiful. And I thought to myself, that's how change happens. Not by white knuckling and trying really hard not to overeat, or in the case of other twelve step groups, not to indulge in the unwanted behavior, but by again and again and again, coming and showing up and being known as I am, letting wisdom speak into my life and letting people see beyond the addiction and the compulsion. So I know that's not what we're talking about, but I shared it. Well. I'm writing this new book. It's titled the Fix how the twelve steps offer a surprising path of transformation to the well adjusted, the down and out, and everyone in between. And there's a story in it that I know you've heard, but I'm going to repeat it for the sake of people listening. I was at a twelve step meeting in New Canaan, Connecticut. Beautiful white congregational church in New Canaan. And a woman. It was a speaker meeting. And at speaker meetings, what happens is a person shares for 30 minutes about their life story and what happened before they got sober, how they got there, and what their life has been since. And this woman stood up. And she could not have been more different from the other hundred people in the room. There's about 100 people at this meeting. She was clearly not a wealthy, white upper class heiress, which seemed to be most of the room. And she told a story that was so hard to hear. It involved alcohol, meth, selling her body to get drugs, losing her children to the foster care system, going broke, living in hotel like fleabag hotels. Just the worst. And this group, when you normally at the end of when a speaker tells their story, it's terribly vulnerable. And this person is sharing the story. And it was so bad, it brought the room to silence. And normally, when a person ends their story. The room applauds, as you just said, but everybody was just brought to silence, you know what I mean? And the poor woman, I think she had 30 or 60 days of sobriety. So at the end of it, she says, okay, I guess I'm done. Silence. All you could hear was the. Of the fluorescent lights. That's it. And there was an old woman at the back of the room. Her name was Joni, and she was about 85 then. And she actually knew Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, and Dr. Bob. She was in the very first round of people who came into Aa. She had, like, 50 years of sobriety. And this was in the late 80s. Right. So that gives you a sense. Right. And none of us knew what to do. I mean, it was just like we were just a gog in the back of the room. You hear Joni go. She had this whiskey, old voice, cigarette voice. She goes, the word of the Lord. And of course, out of force of habit, all of us went, thanks be to God. And then, of course, then there was applause, and there was cheering. And then the women got around this woman in a big hug, and it was just a love fest. But this woman told the most horrific story about her own behavior and her own life and how desperately things had gone and that she was 60 days sober. Where else can you go and get a round of applause for burning your life down to the ground? Right? This is why we oftentimes say, I wish everybody had a need or a place to go like we have, where we can go and share the intimate details of our lives and hear words of hope and encouragement, and we believe in you and we love you, and we're here for you. Here's my phone number. Call if you need anything. It's a long winded way of saying, if you don't have a community of healing, a community where you can go and tell the intimate details of your life, you are impoverished. Wow, that's a big statement. You are impoverished. Yeah. I think it's true, though. I'm absolutely convinced it's true. But it has to be a community in which there's openness, there's honesty, and a spirit of, we are in this together. We can do this. Yeah. I've had connections like that with people in twelve step groups, and I realized at one point, like, I don't even know this person's name other than their first name. You can both know about people in the context of their brokenness, but also really journey with them over time, but you don't know if they have kids or how many or what their last name is or what they do for a living, because everybody's on the same page, man. That is a huge plus. Sometimes our names get in the way of the truth. Yeah. I've experienced the blessings of anonymity any number, any countless times. Yeah. I never expected myself to be in twelve step recovery when I started at 57 and now almost 60. I've had other addictions in my life where I really danced around the edges but thought, I don't need this. But I really came, thanks to you, in large part, to see that I needed this as a part of my life. Because in relation to food, I am powerless. And my life becomes unmanageable when I don't heed that powerlessness. And so I just want to say to people, if you're in your teens, twenty s, thirty s, forty s, fifty s, sixty s, or even seventy s, and beyond that, healing is possible. And at restoring the soul, we've developed a phrase around here called stubborn hope, real change. And I believe that God or our higher power has stubborn hope for us. And wherever you are on your journey, this is not a commercial for restoring the soul right now, but it's a shout out for those who are struggling to have hope that healing is possible. That between trauma and healing, there's this phenomenon known as resilience, which I believe God made us to be able to come back and to have our stories rewritten. So, Ian, thank you for taking the time today to share great stories. But as we say in the rooms, your experience, strength and hope. Michael, my pleasure.