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- [00:04]
Andrea
Yeah.
- [00:14]
Katie
All right. The role of humility and healing. Humility and trauma recovery isn't about shrinking. It's about softening. It's ability to face ourselves and our patterns without defensiveness or shame. So often we expect healing to mean getting over something. But what if healing is about learning how to live with the parts of ourselves we can't fully change? Some things, the body image issues, the fear of abandonment, waves of rage or shutdown don't vanish completely. And when they resurface, it doesn't mean we failed. It just means we're human. Real healing begins when we stop asking, why can't I just let this go and start asking how can I be with this right now? That shift takes humility. Not just the humility to say I'm hurting, but also the humility to say this might be a part of me for a long time and I can still have a good life. It's not weakness, it's strength. It's letting go of the illusion that will one day arrive at some perfect state of healed. Maybe we never will. Maybe healing is a verb, not a destination. Maybe the work is in allowing space for the mess to still exist without letting it define us. And maybe humility is what lets us stop striving and start accepting with softness, not surrender. We were taught to strive for perfection, to hide our pain, to fix ourselves so we'd finally be worthy. But this path asks something different. It asks us to meet ourselves where we are as we are and where we are. To integrate rather than erase. To stop waiting for some future version of us to be lovable. Humility doesn't mean giving up. It means showing up gently, again and again. Even when it hurts. Especially when it hurts. So I really feel like I have been very humbled. Well one, just by the impact of my experiences, like the impact of trauma. Like I feel like I just continue to be blown away at just how impacted we all have been. And just in all the very insidious and subtle ways that this, that, that all this stuff can show up and just humbled at like truly how much work all of this is. And you know, as I've been coming to a better place and feeling a lot more regulated and in a lot more self leadership and self energy, I think that I've been able to take a little bit of a step back and fully see more clearly how much I've been impacted by my parents alcoholism over the past several years. It's like I don't think I've really come to grips with just how it's like, it's. It's continuous grief, right? It's just like this perpetual grief of watching my parents slowly get sicker and sicker and sicker and sicker and less involved in my life and trying to heal my childhood wounds simultaneously, and also having these, like, financial ties with them and then feeling the humiliation that comes with that. And the voice of the. Like, I should be further along, and it needs to be more so about, like, truly acknowledging how far I've come and for all of us to acknowledge that we are working to heal things that many generations of our family have avoided, mostly because of how hard this is. You know, this is really hard, hard, hard work. And so I'm trying to really step more into a place of. Of focusing more on just all the ways in which I have healed and grown. I shared on Tuesday about how I've just been having this kind of some grief come up around my parents and that I've also been having sort of this sixth sense that. That I feel. That I feel like there's some guilt and shame on. On their end. And, you know, it was so interesting. I was talking to my therapist today, and she was like, well, how much do you think that they're impacted by your podcast? And it's like the. Here's the fact of the matter, folks. Like.
- [04:53]
Kristen
How.
- [04:56]
Katie
How do you have, like, a daughter that has a podcast that's for adult children of alcoholics and be an act of alcoholism and not, like, have immense guilt and shame underneath the surface, you know, and obviously there's mental defenses and numbing out that occurs with that. But I can't imagine what that must feel like for a parent. Like, that must feel really horrible as a parent. And so I'm able to have compassion for them there. And so after I told you guys about that on Tuesday, I got a text from my mom on Tuesday night that says, can you ever forgive me? And I was a little bit numb when I got it. I did start. I did cry a little bit. I had some tears come up, and a lot of it was compassion for her. And then there was also a part. A big part of me that was coming up was not in just wanting them to acknowledge the impact that they've had on me, but more so really wishing that they could acknowledge all the work that I've done and that I'm doing and just how hard that is, you know, and just how, like, I know that they're. They say that they're proud of me, but it would be nice to have an acknowledgment that they're proud of me as far as, like, my healing goes, you know, and. And so I've just been sitting on it for, like, a few days. And then I had therapy today and just kind of acknowledged all the various parts of me that were, you know, coming up. And I sent her a text back this morning that our. Earlier today that I was going to read to you guys, and I said, I want you to know how much I love you. I don't harbor resentment towards you, but there is a little girl inside of me who feels like she lost her mom. I'm still greatly impacted by having parents who suffer from alcoholism, but I'm the only one that can do anything about that. I'm really proud of how far I've come in the work that I've done to try to heal patterns that have been passed down many generations. But it has not been an easy process. But I'm committed to continue to do the work on myself so that I can live up to my full potential, which has been stifled in many ways. I hope you can sit with these words and know that they are coming from a place of love and the truth of my experience. And so that felt good. And, you know, the big thing for me was, like, how do I speak my truth? How do I show love, and how do I also not say things that.
- [07:13]
Kristen
Are going to get me hurt?
- [07:14]
Katie
You know what I mean? So, yeah, I'm just feeling sad. I just miss my mom. I just really miss my mom. You know, I told my therapist today, only, like, less than 10 years ago, you know, I called her and I told her everything. So this is a really tragic disease. But I talked long enough, so floor is open for you to talk about whatever you want. Humility and healing or the episode or whatever the hell you'd like to share about.
- [07:40]
Lisa
The part that really stuck out to me is accepting the parts of ourselves that we can't fully change, you know, live with them, and that we don't have to be perfect and it's not going to be fixed. And it just reminded me of my EMDR sessions that I've been doing where, you know, I find, like, my calm, happy place, which is sitting on a surfboard. And a couple weeks ago, I was talking about some traumatic things and just being, like, having all of this shame from different stages of my life, because, you know, my therapist will ask me, like, how do you feel? You know, how old are you in that moment? And I always am, like, I don't every stage of my. Of my life. And so it's just I was in the emdr and I was sitting on the surfboard, and all these versions of Kristin came. There was this girl to my left who was all bruised and beaten, and then a little kid and then a middle schooler, and it was just like we all were just holding hands and accepting each other for us and that I didn't need to be ashamed of any parts of myself and that together we were stronger. And. And that's okay. You know the part about where I was saying, you know, humility and trauma recovery, not about shrinking, but softening, and it's hard to accept that softening is not weakness. Like, I see it now, listening to everybody shared and I. And this reading and just from this group, week after week, that, yeah, I was taught that strength is something completely different. And my weaknesses, what I thought were my weaknesses are actually my strengths. I totally. I feel the. When you said how you miss your mom, like, I felt that as well, too. And I've been going through that whole grieving process, and it sucks. It's like I had the. My therapist described as. I've been at anger stage for the last two years from when everything happened and when I went no contact. And it's like that's finally gone away. And then it's just like that. Just overwhelming sadness, you know, and just. Yeah, it sucks. It's really, really hard. And yeah, she was like my everything. I. I mean, I talk to her every day, several times a day. And then going from, you know, that to no contact, which was the best thing I had to do. It just. I know it's the best thing for me, but still sucks, you know, just. Yeah, so I'm, you know, I'm turning 40 this year, and it's going to be the first milestone birthday without my mom. So that's really hard. But also, I don't know, maybe can be like a new. A new chapter instead of making it sad, you know, but that's always easier said than done, right?
- [10:09]
Kristen
Thank you.
- [10:11]
Nick
So when I read this. This post earlier this evening, I read it to my wife and she's like, yeah, you gotta go tonight. You gotta. You gotta show up again to yourself. She understands. And I understand that I'm never going to get over this, right? If I'm never going to get over the abuse, the trauma, all the. That I've dealt with and kept it a secret for 30 years. Right. You know, I was always the strong one. No one knew. No one knows what people go through. Until you have that thing that Kristen just said. Turning 40 at a midlife crisis at 39 years old. I went and bought a boat. Just went and bought it. Used boat, 1988. Barely ran and I still got it fixed. Spent a lot of money and hours fixing this boat. They use it three times and sets in the driveway. So coming up in about a month, I'm getting ready to try to sell this at an auction and I only use it three times. And so I've always been hard on myself regarding purchases, expenditures, having my. I self deny myself all the time of things that I deserve. And at the time I was like, I deserve a damn boat, right? So when we have these aha moments of oh shits and doesn't let us define us, right? It doesn't let us be so hard on ourselves. And then we kind of up of spending a lot of money on a boat. You never owned a boat before. And so I always try to do these hobbies and keep myself busy and occupied trying to fix myself and try to hide that trauma. Whether it be the hobbies that I obtained learned be involved in distractions and actually not doing the work every week that we're supposed to be doing and actually being mindful of myself and, and trying to take care of that little one that's inside me and trying to make those connections that are. That is the hardest, especially when it hurts. That's when it's. That's when it's hard.
- [12:16]
Lisa (continued)
Hardest.
- [12:17]
Nick
So thank you guys for showing up tonight.
- [12:19]
Kristen
So thank you Katie for sharing and thank you Andrea for sharing. And I read the first line of this again because I have it in front of me and humility is trauma. Recovery isn't about shrinking, it's about softening. And I think for so long, I mean my entire life I just felt like I couldn't be soft. You know, being soft was a sign of weakness and I had to be tough and I had to be hard and I had to be able to handle it all. And I couldn't let anyone see who I really was because if you saw me, you'd know the truth. And it's just been, I don't know, like the humility for me is just the idea of being able to be okay for the most part, you know, not every day, but for the most part to just be okay, which who I am on any given day and to be able to come like on here and to be able to, you know, share things that about myself, about how I'm feeling, just things that I wouldn't normally want to share, wouldn't want to let anybody see, wouldn't want to even know myself, admit to myself, you know, because it's the, it's not even, you know, it's, it's a big part of it obviously is what I allow other people to see, but part of, part of the humility for me is just allowing myself to see me, if that makes any sense. Like just allowing myself to see who I really am and still be okay and, and still give myself a break and remind myself that I'm not perfect and I don't have to be perfect and I'm human and it's okay to be human and, and I'm going to be loved and appreciated despite. And because of my flaws and my imperfections. You know, I listened to both of you share about your experiences. And I have to say, like, there's a part of me that just that wishes. I received a text from like my dad telling me he's, you know, thought about life and everything and he wants to change and, and I know that'll never happen. I had this conversation with my therapist like last week, I think a week and a half ago, you know, she said, do you have hope? Do you have belief that your dad is ever going to be like, is he, that he's going to reach out, change, have willingness to look at himself? And I mean, the reality is I know that that's not going to happen. I know it won't happen. But I would be lying if I didn't say, like, there's a little part of me, the little girl, that just wishes it would happen, right? That wishes I could be heard and I could be understood. I used to feel there was a point in time where I, when I wanted to be heard or understood, I felt like it was so self centered of me, you know, like, can't you hear me? Can't you understand me? And I told myself that I didn't need people to hear me or understand me. I told people that. I told myself that it wasn't important. It was more important to understand others than for other people to understand me. Right? And, and that was a big fat lie. That was a lie. And you know, I do want to be heard and I want to be understood. And I'm not ashamed to say that today I listened to your podcast. Today I listened to half of it. You had just started talking about Step five and I just, I sent it to my sponsor, my other program, because she really doesn't understand what we do here. You know, she still sponsors me and. But I don't do step work in that program anymore. And she's been willing to go over, like, step work with me using the yellow book. And I'm like, you know, I'd like to let you see what's going on, but I just don't think that's gonna work. But I think for her to have an understanding of what this is all about, because true humility for me is just being honest about everything if I'm able to and feel okay being honest about everything. Not trying to hide any part of me. Yeah. And I wouldn't have any. Like, this is. I wouldn't have any of it if it weren't for being here. I wouldn't have any of it if I didn't feel safe and have, and feel that I could trust all of you. I just wish that I could see all of you in person. That's all. That's all I have. Thanks. Buying a car in Carvana was so easy. I was able to finance it through them. I just. Whoa, wait.
- [17:08]
Katie
You mean finance? Yeah, finance.
- [17:10]
Kristen
Got pre qualified for a Carvana auto loan, entered my terms and shot from thousands of great car options all within my budget.
- [17:16]
Katie
That's cool. But financing through Carvana was so easy.
- [17:19]
Kristen
Financed. Done. And I get to pick up my car from their Carvana vending machine tomorrow. Financed. Right. That's what they said.
- [17:25]
Lisa (continued)
You can spend time trying to pronounce financing, or you can actually finance and buy your car today. On car finance financing, subject to credit approval. Additional terms and conditions may apply. I hate when the tears start to fall before I've even opened up my mouth. I had an incident happen the other day. It just showed me the, just like the, the level of hyper independence that I still have and, and how, you know, I, I, I truly do love people. I have a lot of compassion and empathy for people, and I want to be there for people. But I, I want to be the one that is like, I want to be the soft place to fall. I want to be the person that's helping. Because when it's reversed and I have to be vulnerable and ask for help, that still is, Is so scary. And the other day I went to the, this park nearby, and it was, it was the first time I'd been to this park and I was walking with my, my older son, the one with disabilities, and we got to this, this area of the park where there was this grassy hill, and I was overcome with this desire to be like a little kid and go over and roll down that hill. And so we went over there and I said, now this is, you know, this is going to look silly, but mom's going to roll down that hill. And he's like, yeah, go ahead. And it was fun. I got vertigo, whatever. A little bit of joy out of it. I was glad I did it. And we finished our walk and got back to the truck. And I went to open the truck door and nothing, because my key fob had fallen out of my pocket when I was rolling down the hill. And in my mind, I'm like, okay, I know exactly where the hill is. We'll just go back there and get it. And, you know, I know exactly where I rolled. It's, you know, no big deal. And got back there, and it was a big deal because there was different patches of clovers, lots of areas for a key fog to get hidden. And I was like, okay, I'll just go line by line. You know, I got this. You know, I'll get it figured out. And I couldn't find it, and I couldn't find it. And then I started to get nervous and realized I focus, you know, so much on making sure that all my ducks are in a row and everything is organized and everything is planned for and every stop gap is taken care of. And I just, I thought, I don't have anybody to call to help me. And then I just started praying, and I just asked my angels, I said, please, please lead me to my key fob. Improbably, I'm not kidding. And I'm not surprised by this because this has been a recurring theme in my Life. But about 30 seconds after I just said, please lead me to my key fob, my son was standing probably about six feet away from me, and he said, mom, Mom. And I looked over and he's pointing down, and the key fob was right there by his foot. And I was like, oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. And then I just realized that I, I, I have to start allowing people in. And that seems so scary because immediately I, I go to the past and I'll run through my mind every single time I've ever, you know, trusted or allowed people in, what happened. And then I take that and I apply it to my future as to, you know, all the terrible things that would happen. And then I just end up being this one woman show still. And it works. You know, it works until something comes up and I need help. And sometimes it's hard to not, I don't know, it's not really, like, feel sorry for Myself, but it's just the realization that I don't have. I don't have a family. I have a family. But in order to be part of that family, I have to fulfill the role. I have to be under the thumb of who they determine me to be in order to have a family. And I'm not willing to do that. And I'm all about, you know, I agree with, you know, you don't have to go with your family of origin. You can create your family of choice. And I just think in that moment of realizing that I had nobody to call to come help me. And it would have been a big deal. It would have been a tow charge. It would have been. It just. It would have been a really big deal had I not found that key foam. And that fast forwards me to the shit show where I. I did not know that there was still so much inside of me that needed to come up. I thought I had done. I have done a great, great deal of deep healing. Deep. Did not know that there was so much more there. And the shit show has so lovingly helped it percolate to the surface. And it's been scary and debilitating at some, at times. But I think I want to echo a little bit on just some of the things that Lisa said about having family here and finding a belonging and I guess for the first time in my life, not being afraid of you seeing me. That behind the one woman show, behind the hyper independence, behind the, yes, all my ducks are always in a row. Behind all of that, there's still many parts of me that are carrying a lot of woundedness. And so I think, I think it probably is part of humility to be able to step into a space and say, I need other people and I need to allow myself to be vulnerable and be human. And I need to allow myself to maybe get bumped up a little bit and then figure out how to relationally get through that, how to communicate my way through that, rather than saying, oh, nope, you know, here it is again, I'm going to get hurt, so I'm going to bail and that has to change. And I think that that is. Is something that's going to require humility and trust and willingness and all of the things that I know that I possess, I know that I have. Okay, so that wasn't so bad. I'm grateful that once again my angels showed up for me and the key fob turned up. And I'm grateful for that, that whole scenario, because it helped me see what I needed to See. And thank you for letting me share.
- [23:41]
Andrea
Hello. Hello.
- [23:42]
Nick
Wow.
- [23:43]
Andrea
Take a breath for a second because this so much so, so many things just being learned this week from everywhere I look and Even the past 1015 minutes of listening to the shares, it's pretty amazing. This, the, the theme of this past short little while for me has been acceptance and this topic has kind. Well, as of right now feels like the icing on the cake. Tomorrow it'll probably be some more icing thrown on there, I'm sure. But I feel like I need to tell a little bit of story about what happened to me this week. And it all started with asking for help recently and I was directed to some Al Anon slogans that I've just been kind of studying each day and for some odd reason one that sticks in my head is let go, let God. And meditating on that saying for a couple days. And it turned into me writing out a prayer yesterday that if you know me, that's not what I do on a regular basis. I don't sit down and write prayers. So it's a pretty big deal. And it included a line that just was like, please guide me to this path of joy that other people talk about, whatever that word is. I've. I've met a few joys in my life but never felt this emotion that people are talking about. And ever since I did that, I mean it's. I feel like I've just been. Some divine things just keep on happening in my life and I keep on being these synchronicities keep showing me some, some steps to the way and this, this topic is another one of those things. But I too had a therapist appointment today I guess must be shit show Thursdays at therapist office. But we had a conversation in there and I was talking to her and I was like, I don't understand. Yesterday I had such a great day. All of this stuff was synchronistic and I'm explaining all these positive things that had happened and then one little event this afternoon just makes that all disappear. And I go down this rabbit hole of self pity, thinking, feeling sorry for myself, shame spiral, hating myself, nothing's ever going to get better. And I'm sitting in this emotional pain and trying to do breath work, trying to did some yoga, went to the slogans and studying the slogans and believe it or not, the slogans actually did start to slow my mind down and I started to actually have a conscious awareness that wait a minute, I got to this, these feelings by going through the same fucking couple of Thoughts that I go through all of the time. I'm a piece of shit father. What should. I'm no good. And it's just like Nick made me realize that there's something that I'm resisting. And the topic got brought up in my therapist appointments is what I was like is me doing breath work and doing yoga and trying to stop these triggers. Is that the act of actually doing the resisting? And as I've said that out loud, I realized, no, that's not. That's not what that is. What this goes back to is just like the reading says, it's not accepting that those thoughts are always going to keep coming up. I can't make those thoughts go away. The acceptance is. Or the resistance itself is wanting those thoughts to go away. So kind of putting everything together in my mind. I had the idea when I was sitting there that actually she mentioned something about showing myself some compassion and grace. And I once again, I'm like, what the fuck is this? Everybody keeps saying, telling me that I need to show myself some grace, and reminded of the fact that I was never taught what that looks like. I was never showed compassion. I was never showed grace. So I have to accept that I don't know what that looks like right now. So I did. For the second time in two days, it came to me to come up with a prayer to use. Instead of going straight to breath work and straight to yoga and straight to everything, to stop making these thoughts go away and just simply say, God, will you please show me what compassion looks like right now? And when I do that, I do feel a little something right here in my heart. And it's definitely scary right now, but it's also long overdue because I'm reminded of a story that I read a long time ago in the book the Four Agreements. I actually was teaching it to people in recovery when I was teaching meditation, I would so. And I just blocked this out of my mind. But the story goes something like this, where God created humans. And immediately he's overwhelmed because after creating humans, he's just has no time to himself anymore. Humans are so needy and they just keep on asking him for things. And he spends his entire day just servicing all these humans needs and wants. And so he asked for some guidance from his advisors, like what, what do you think I should do here? How do you think I should proceed with this? And first one tells him that he should just when he needs a break to go to the bottom of the deepest ocean and they'll never be able to find you. There. And God says, no, no, you don't understand. I've made these humans very resourceful, and they will figure out a way to find me down there. So somebody else comes up, says, I got it, I got it. You know what? You just go to the top of the highest mountaintop. There's no way they'll be able to climb up to the top of that mountaintop and find you there. And he's like, nope, nope, you don't understand. They are very resourceful. They will figure out a way to find me. And just as God's about to give up and just regret making us humans, his eldest advisor comes up and he whispers in his ear. And God smiles. He says, that's it, that's it. I'm gonna hide a little piece of myself inside of every single human, and they will never even think to look there. And when she reminded me that I used to recite that almost on a daily basis and that I completely forgot about it over the past year, it was God's way of reminding me that I'm right back to where I need to be and I just need to get out of my own way. And that, to me, is acceptance. So thank you for listening.
- [30:24]
Unknown (possibly another group member sharing)
I could say something in the context of what's going on in my life right now and a little bit about the reading. I don't quite have it all sorted, but on Monday I went to a lecture about dementia. And they mentioned that when you show a movie to see people with Alzheimer's, you can ask them three hours later whether or not they saw a happy movie or a sad movie. They won't remember the movie, but they'll remember the experience of what either it was happy or sad. And so that was kind of interesting. And then Tuesday, I got a call from my son that my mom was.
- [31:09]
Kristen
A bit too much.
- [31:12]
Unknown (possibly another group member sharing)
And it was the first time since memory care rejected her that the plan was put into place, that if it was too much for him, he would call. And usually. And so I have to make like a two, two and a half hour drive into a urban area to help him and let. Give him a break, let him get out. And I come in and in my mind is usually these, like, the resentment that she never made a plan for this early in her disease. She never chose me. She only chose what was convenient for her for what she wanted. I have all these, like, embarrassments. She's difficult. She never made the plan. And so now I'm inconvenienced and I'm. Everything kind of lands on Me. So I'm like, resentful. But then I was thinking about that lecture on Monday about the. The way the emotion is what they take in and what they remember. And I feel like I was humble. Like I made that choice to kind of go, you know, if I come in with a defensive attitude, that is just going to make things worse for me for the whole night. So when I arrived, she was at the door. My son had told her I was coming. She didn't necessarily know it was me. She called me by the wrong name. But I was sort of like, okay, this is me protecting my son and I'm in for whatever's coming. So I was like, humble. And there was the elements of craziness that are kind of always there. But I'm like, until I make a better plan, this is my choice. This is what I'm doing. And it wasn't so bad. It was fairly pleasant. There was this request from her to go for a walk at like 9 o' clock at night, which is not my cup of tea around the urban area, you know, but for the most part, you know, a few walks around the neighborhood and we had a nice time. And then I. I go back to what you said at the beginning, Andrea. It was like, you miss your mom. And I started to sink in to that feeling more. It's like, I'm going to miss my mom. I'm going to miss walking around her neighborhood with her. I'm going to miss listening to all the stupid things. Even though she thinks I'm either a friend of hers or a sister of hers. That's why she's treating me so well. I'll miss those moments when she can still walk and I'll take her for whatever she is at this point. And I don't get that too much because I'm usually managing her finances or she's goofed up something, or she's called somebody or she's fallen for a scam or whatever. So the bulk of what I do with her is very difficult. But if I kind of live in the humility of what my life is right now and own it and parent myself, there's a lot of parenting myself that's come from being in this group, you know, by the next morning, I got the groceries, I had fun talking with some old neighbors, and I was able to get out of there. And she didn't necessarily know that I had ever been there, but I was on my terms and was compassionate and graceful and, you know, not a bad 24 hours for what I've been living with for six years it's.
- [35:09]
Andrea
A whole holding on to just let it all.
- [35:12]
Katie
Go what's making you small now?
- [35:16]
Andrea
Let it all go what you got to do yet?