Christine Dickson Revisited: Communication

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Journey On Podcast – "Christine Dickson Revisited: Communication"

Episode Information:

• Title: Christine Dickson Revisited: Communication
• Host: Warwick Schiller
• Guest: Christine Dixon
• Release Date: April 6, 2025

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1. Introduction

In this compelling episode of The Journey On Podcast, host Warwick Schiller welcomes back Christine Dixon, a transformative mentor and international speaker. Warwick emphasizes Christine's exceptional communication skills and her profound personal journey, setting the stage for an in-depth conversation on communication and personal growth.

Notable Quote:

Warwick Schiller [00:44]: "Christine is one of the wisest people I know and one of the best communicators."

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2. Christine’s Life Story: Early Years

Christine opens up about her tumultuous upbringing in New Jersey, marked by an abusive and alcoholic mother with borderline personality disorder. Raised primarily by her grandmother, Christine's teenage years were fraught with instability. At 16, she met Rick, a 34-year-old biker and gang member, who became the father of her two children. Their relationship, while providing a semblance of safety, was deeply toxic and led Christine into a life of running from the law.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [08:03]: "I was dealing with a hyper state of fear a lot of the time. When you're afraid for your life or your animals or any of the things that someone may threaten you with, you don't have a clear mind to make better decisions."

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3. On the Run: Living with Rick

Christine recounts the four and a half years spent on the run with Rick, evading authorities after inadvertently becoming entangled in a federal methamphetamine case. They moved frequently across states like Delaware, West Virginia, and Wisconsin, constantly altering their identities to avoid detection. The strain of this fugitive lifestyle, coupled with Rick's escalating addiction and abuse, created an environment of constant fear and instability.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [24:00]: "It was very lonely. I was only 17, and it was right before my 18th birthday that we went on the run."

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4. Arrest and Transformation

Christine's world changed when federal agents raided their residence, leading to her arrest on multiple felony charges. Spending 15 months in juvenile and women's detention centers, Christine underwent a profound transformation. Through group therapy and personal reflection, she realized the importance of personal accountability. This period was pivotal, awakening her to the necessity of taking responsibility for her actions and setting the foundation for her future path.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [32:16]: "I have been waiting to go back now, with hindsight, I realized he didn't want to go back because he knew a lot more of what was going on than me."

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5. Career in Rehabilitation and Transformation

Post-release, Christine dedicated herself to helping others overcome their personal struggles. She worked at a prestigious drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Los Angeles, serving a clientele that included celebrities and affluent individuals. Her work felt like a counterbalance to her past, allowing her to undo some of the karmic debts from her tumultuous relationship with Rick. Christine's deep empathy and firsthand experience with trauma and recovery fueled her passion for transformational mentoring.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [63:09]: "That's what it felt like. I loved the work, by the way, too. I really, really, really loved the work."

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6. Communication Techniques

Christine delves into her expertise in communication, emphasizing the universal importance of effective dialogue in all areas of life. She introduces the “Mirror, Empathize, Validate” (MEV) technique, a three-step process designed to defuse conflicts and foster meaningful connections. This method involves:

1. Mirroring: Reflecting the speaker's words to show understanding.
2. Empathizing: Expressing genuine empathy for the speaker's feelings.
3. Validating: Affirming the speaker's perspective to eliminate defensiveness.

This approach not only removes the argumentative aspect of conversations but also builds trust and openness between parties.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [79:28]: "Mirror, empathize, and validate coupled with accountability is a superpower."

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7. Upcoming Communication Course

Christine announces her upcoming three-hour virtual workshop on communication, scheduled for April 19th. The course aims to equip participants with practical tools to enhance their relational and professional interactions. Key components of the workshop include:

• Timeouts: Learning to pause and regroup during heated discussions.
• Language Use: Developing non-confrontational ways to express boundaries.
• Body Language: Understanding and interpreting non-verbal cues.
• Boundary Setting: Establishing and maintaining healthy boundaries without confrontation.

Christine emphasizes the importance of practice and consistent application of these tools to achieve lasting change.

Notable Quote:

Christine Dixon [113:34]: "We are going to be practicing with each other in these kind of cool made-up situations."

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8. Closing Thoughts

The episode concludes with heartfelt reflections on Christine's journey and the impact of her work. Both Warwick and Christine express gratitude for the positive transformations she has facilitated in others' lives. Warwick highlights the profound effect Christine has had on his own emotional well-being, underscoring her role as a grounding and supportive presence.

Notable Quote:

Warwick Schiller [126:23]: "Thanks for being a part of the Journey On podcast with Warwick Shiller."

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Key Takeaways:

• Personal Accountability: Christine's transformation underscores the power of taking responsibility for one's actions as a catalyst for personal growth.
• Effective Communication: The MEV technique serves as a practical tool for defusing conflicts and building stronger relationships.
• Consistent Practice: Incremental and consistent application of communication skills leads to meaningful and lasting change.
• Support Systems: Building a supportive community and seeking mentorship are vital components of personal development and healing.

Upcoming Workshop Details:

• Date: April 19th
• Time: 9 AM – 12 PM Pacific
• Registration: courses.warwickshiller.com

For more information on Warwick Schiller's work and resources, visit videos.warwickschiller.com.

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End of Summary

Transcript

[Christine Dixon]

Journey on Magic lies within the trails we ride. You're listening to the Journey On Podcast with Warwick Schiller. Warrick is a horseman trainer, international clinician and author who helps empower horse people from all over the world with the skills, knowledge and mindsets needed to create trusting partnerships with their horses. Warrick offers a free seven day trial to his comprehensive online video library that includes hundreds of full length training videos and several home study [e-mail] shiller.com.

[Warwick Schiller]

G'day everyone. Welcome back to the Journey On Podcast. I'm your host Warwick Schiller and as you guys would know, this podcast sprouted, for want of a better word, the Podcast Summit where we have the the podcast guests come and present in like TED style talks over three days. And that was my wife's idea. She was like, what if we got all these amazing people together on stage? How good would that be? And then my wife had another bright idea here a little while ago is what if we had these people do some sort of a course to share all the magic that they are spreading through the world and put them all in one place. So we now have a course [e-mail] and so my guest on the podcast today is Christine Dixon and Christine has been a previous guest on the podcast and is adding a course on communication to our courses site. And I thought Christine is one of the wisest people I know and one of the best communicators. Christine and I have actually hosted to some retreats together and watching her work with people is just, you know, she's so masterful at the art of communication. So I thought I'd get Christine on the podcast to talk a little bit about communication, about some of the offerings she's bringing to the course. But before we do that, I thought I'd reintroduce Christine to people who may not have heard her first podcast. So her bio says Christine Dixon is an international speaker and transformational mentor who helps people let go of negative past memories and build a creative and connected life of purpose and abundance. Christine has worked with Grammy and Emmy winners and nominees, authors, celebrities, public figures and philanthropists, as well as stay at home mums and budding entrepreneurs. She believes that every single one of us holds a creative spark within us waiting to be unearthed, expanded or shared. And you know, in the start of that bio there, it says she helps people let go of negative past memories. And in my first podcast with Christine, she kind of hinted at, how would you put it? Having a bit of a rough childhood and the possibility of serving jail time. And she didn't really go into it in the podcast, but when she presented at our podcast summit in Birmingham, England last year, she told the whole story. And it's a fascinating story. And it really, you know, Christine, when she's, when she's helping people from dark places, she's not, she's not helping them from a place of, of never having been there. She has been in some dark places and, and experienced some things that, you know, read like a movie plot, like an unbelievable movie plot. And so I thought before Christine talks about communication, I thought we would start out our podcast talking about, well, having Christine tell that, that whole story of her, her upbringing. So pretty heavy stuff, but amazing conversation with an amazing human. Hope you guys enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Christine Dixon, welcome back once again to the Journey on podcast.

[Christine Dixon]

I'm really, really excited to be here again.

[Warwick Schiller]

I'm excited to have you back again and share you with our listeners because, you know, you, I would have talked about in the intro about you doing this course on communication on our course platform. And you one of the many people, but one of the best communicators I think I've, I've ever been around. Like we've done, you know, since you're on the podcast, we've done some retreats here at the ranch. You and I have done two, two, two together. And then there was one we did with, it was, but the other one was with Jessica White Plume as well as you and myself and Robin. And just watching you interact with people who might be, you know, have had some stuff come up or whatever, it's like masterful just watching you deal with situations. So I thought I want to get you on here and share a bit more of that. And you know, when you were on the podcast the first time around, like, the wisdom that spouted out of you was amazing. And it's funny, recently I was in Pennsylvania at a horse expo. I did a horse expo. And then a day later I did a private clinic and I was driving to the, to the place where I was going to do the private clinic. And I was driving along and for some reason I was listening to an audio book. But for some reason I had this intuition, you need to re listen to Christine's podcast, her first podcast again, I'm like, Maloka, I don't know why, but I put that on. And then about two miles later, I had to exit the freeway. And so you're no longer on a state route, whatever number it is. But so I get off the off ramp, and it says, turn left on Christine Street. And I was like, this was too much. I'd been listening to your podcast for about two miles. I don't think I've ever in my life seen a Christine Street. If I did, I didn't remember it. But two miles later, there's a Christine Street. And then I got to thinking, and I'm in Pennsylvania. And your whole. Your whole roots are in Pennsylvania. And in the first podcast we did, you kind of alluded to kind of a pretty amazing life story. And then when you presented at the Journey on Podcast Summit in England, you told the whole story, and it's a moving story. And I thought maybe we could start out this podcast instead of alluding to this story, maybe if you could tell us this crazy life story you've had. Because I feel like you're one of those. Some people who are in the coaching space come from the education of, you know, being educated about heavy in the coaching space. You have that, too, but you also have this life story before that. That just gives it a whole lot more credence. Like you've lived. You've lived the turmoil you've lived in the dark places. And so I just, you know, if you're up for it, I'd love you to share that story again, because I'd love to hear it over again.

[Christine Dixon]

Well, I'll try to live up to that amazing intro. And, you know, it's funny because your whole podcast is based on going in and getting people stories. And so when I was going to be on the first time, I was, you know, I was stressing and struggling and trying to figure out, you know, do I talk about all this stuff? Is he going to get it out of me? Where is it going to go? It's funny because our conversation just never really went there. Then it felt like this big bomb to drop at the end, because with the questions that you have people answer at the end of the podcast, or you were having them answer one of them, my answer alluded to the fact that I had been to jail. And your eyes got really big, and it was the end of the podcast, and so it kind of left on a big question mark. So, yeah, I can definitely attempt to put this together in a way that makes sense, because there's so much to it. And at this point, I look back on it, and it almost feels like I'm talking about a movie I once saw, because it's so surreal to think that that actually happened. But, yeah, you know, I had a mother who was just not mentally or emotionally able to be a good parent. In fact, she was probably quite dangerous as a parent. And so I grew up with my grandmother. But through a series of events, I ended up living with my mother as a teenager. And, you know, I don't know how far I'll go into the idea around having a pathological parent. My mother was definitely borderline personality disorder and an alcoholic. So that's like having a fire and then throwing gasoline on it. And she started taking me out to biker bars as her drinking buddy when I was 16 years old. And so I was pretty lost at that time. And it was. It felt like. It felt exciting in some ways because it was like the forbidden thing. But it led to me meeting my kid's father. And I was 16 and he was 34 at the time. And this. This was the father figure that I never had. And I ended up falling madly in love with him. I would have definitely followed him to the ends of the earth to have, you know, you've talked about that whole thing about. I'm going to forget. Maybe you can remember what the phrase is about being seen, feeling felt, getting got.

[Warwick Schiller]

Being seen, being heard, feeling felt, getting gotten.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, well, that's how I felt with him. I felt like. Like this person saw me. They. They saw so much value in me. And. And I felt safe. And I felt safe partly because he was kind of a scary dude.

[Warwick Schiller]

So was he a biker?

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah. Yes, he was.

[Warwick Schiller]

He was lifelong, like, gang member. Like, like, you know, like an organized motorcycle gang. Yes. Okay.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. I'd rather not say which one.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. But.

[Christine Dixon]

But yes. And one that would make the news.

[Warwick Schiller]

That way was, did he have a, you know, did he have a position? Because I know they. A lot of times they have positions. Was he like a sergeant at arms or any of that sort of thing?

[Christine Dixon]

He was president chapter.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, okay. So, yeah, fully full on biker dude.

[Christine Dixon]

Full on biker dude. But one of those, you know, he reminded me of, like, what is Dr. Evil? You know, from. What is the. Mike Myers?

[Warwick Schiller]

All right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yep.

[Christine Dixon]

Right. Because he was also brilliant. He was, like, very, very intelligent. But I would joke sometimes that he wasn't a nice guy with a mean streak. He was a mean guy with a nice streak because he was a very complicated person. And fast forward to what would happen. Is that the way our relationship evolved? I had actually quit school when I met him because it had been impossible for me to maintain any type of normalcy while living with my mom. But what's funny about that is her taking me to bars for half of that. The second half of that year, I quit school in, like, January. I decided I was going back to school because I saw so many people that had lives that I did not want. But the way my relationship with my kid's dad, his name is Rick, so I'll say Rick. That relationship with him would involve him picking me up on Friday, and we would. I would stay with him for the weekends, and then he would drop me back off on Sunday to go to school for the week. And a lot of those times involved drives upstate or we would drive to places. I never went into homes or into the places really that he took me. We would stay in hotels, whatever. Now I do have to backtrack a little bit.

[Warwick Schiller]

Can I just ask a question? So you said you didn't go into home. So what, you'd pull up outside houses and he'd go in the house and then come back out of the house?

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, he would go in, but not like in and out. He would go into a house and be in there for maybe an hour or two, and I would wait in the car and then that would be it.

[Warwick Schiller]

And did you have any idea what he was up to?

[Christine Dixon]

No, no, not at all. But I do have to backtrack for a second because when I had quit school and my mom was taking me to these biker bars, my mother also introduced me to method. And so part of these weekends that were spent with Rick, there'd be lines of meth. He would stay up all weekend, and then I would head home on Sunday. And on one of these said weekends, I was driving back to Philadelphia and we had been up in the Poconos, and I didn't have a driver's license, but he would have me drive a lot on the highways and stuff. So I'm driving into Philadelphia and he is next to me passed out. And I'm scared because now we're going from big open highways onto a road called the Schuylkill Expressway, which is a crazy road without shoulders, really, and all this traffic. And I'm driving pretty slow and I'm trying to wake him up, but he's crashed out next to me. And I guess a couple Philadelphia cops saw us and said, hmm, that's a very weird looking couple. Me, who probably looked like I was 12 at the time, and this burly, rough guy in the passenger seat passed out, driving slower than traffic. So they pulled us over. And so it turns out that there was five pounds of meth in the Trunk of that car. I did not know this. All I knew was that I was driving without a license and I thought that I was being arrested for that. And so I went to the car.

[Warwick Schiller]

They get you out, they search the car, but you don't know what they found in the car?

[Christine Dixon]

No.

[Warwick Schiller]

So they fire five pounds of meth, but you think you're getting arrested because you don't have a driver's license? Yes.

[Christine Dixon]

And then I found out that my mother had. Had registered me as a runaway at one point when I had run away because she had been very drunk and very abusive and I ran out of the house. So she never took that off. So not only was I driving without a license, but then I found out that I was still listed as a runaway. That's why I thought that I was getting arrested. But while we were sitting in the police station handcuffed to chairs, the police were running back and forth outside and in and laughing and high fiving each other. And I still didn't know what was going on. But he looked at me and said, listen, you're going to hear a bunch of stuff, just don't say anything and, and you'll be okay. I'll look out for you. Don't worry. I had no idea what he was talking about. And then they took him away and I went to juvenile hall and it wasn't until the next day that the women running juvenile hall started talking to me about my charges. And it was like possession with attempt to deliver, like all these crazy charges. And I had no idea. So I got out. Eventually they wanted to certify me as an adult, so I went on the run. The idea was that he was going to keep going to his court cases and we would wait it out because initially back then the search was considered illegal because to search a trunk you have to have a warrant because it's locked property. And they didn't get a warrant. So he, eventually, he had won the case in suppression under that idea. But what then happened is they appealed the suppression and they won. So he kept going back and forth. So while we lived on the run for four and a half years.

[Warwick Schiller]

Whoa, back up. Yeah, back up. So you got out on bail?

[Christine Dixon]

I got out on my, my mother signed me out because I was a juvenile. I was 17 at the time.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, and so he's. He's out on bail.

[Christine Dixon]

He's out on bail, yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, and then you two decide to go on the run?

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. It's like a movie because they were going to certify me as an adult. And if I got certified as an adult, then I could have gotten in a lot of trouble, even though I didn't know about what was in the trunk or anything. So the idea that his idea was to keep me away, I was still considered just juvenile and then. But he would go to court to try and clear because if he won, then everything against me would be dropped because there'd be no case. That was, that was the thought.

[Warwick Schiller]

So he would go to court, but you guys are on the run.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes, he would go, he would, we were on the run. He would fly back to Philadelphia for his court cases and, or drive or what, I can't even remember. But yeah, he would go back and go to court and then come back to wherever we were living. We lived in Delaware, West Virginia, Wisconsin. We moved around quite a bit.

[Warwick Schiller]

For those listeners, and I'm including myself in this, who have never, I don't know, lived on the run from the, from the Federales. What does that look like?

[Christine Dixon]

It's very lonely. I was only 17 and it was right before my 18th birthday that we went on the run. So, you know, I didn't feel like I had any other choice. My family didn't know anything about court cases and lawyers, and they certainly didn't have the money to hire lawyers for me. And I felt responsible and bad about having brought this to my family, especially after all that, my mother, all the trails she had blazed over the years. So I listened to him. Yeah, I listened to him about pretty much everything.

[Warwick Schiller]

And, and, and it was a plan, like you said. So what we are gonna do is we're gonna go on the run.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes, that part was a plan.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so what does on the run look like? Like, do you stay in one place or do you have to keep moving around? Do you, do you, do you have different aliases or how does all that work?

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, this is, this is going to sound crazy. So remember that this is, this is, gosh, what, 1987, I guess, or these six. 86 that we went on the run. Yeah, it was 1986. So things were very different. You know, things weren't all on computers the way they are now. So the driver's licenses didn't look as professional as they do now. They were all in this huge national database. So Pennsylvania had really flimsy looking licenses, driver's licenses that went inside this little, like, clear plastic folder, this little folder that you put the actual license into. The license wasn't even hard plastic, it was flimsy. So he had this, you Remember the old blinds that you pull down? The, like, vinyl, white vinyl blinds?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah.

[Christine Dixon]

Well, he had one of those that looked like a driver's license with a square cut out, like, empty square for where your picture would go. So you would hang that on the wall. You would use, like, the letters and numbers, stickers that you would get at, like, an office supply to change the names and addresses and stuff like that on it and the information. And then you would stand against the wall with your head in the part that was blank. I know I laugh now, but the head in the part that was blank. And then you would have to aim it so that you took the picture so that when it. With a Polaroid. So you would take the picture with a Polaroid, and then you would see. Did you have the right amount of distance to make it turn out the right size for the license? And then you would cut it out and you would slip it into one of those little clear plastic cases. Then you would take that to Virginia. You would drive down to Virginia because the state of Virginia did not have an agreement with the state of Pennsylvania, so they didn't share information at the time. The state of Virginia also gives. You Would give you your driver's license that day. The actual hard driver's license. They didn't mail it to you. They gave it to you at the dmv. So you take your fake Pennsylvania driver's license to Virginia, and then you turn it in. We would just pull out the yellow pages and. Or white pages. And for younger kids, that's addresses and phone numbers for people who live in the area. And you would pick an address, and you would use that as your address when you filled out. And then you turn it in your fake id, and you would actually get a real id, so now you have a real id, and then that's how you would live on the run, because you would live under that new ID that you created that new identity.

[Warwick Schiller]

I'm just gobsmacked. He had a blind that looked like a driver's license that you stood in front of. So how long were you guys on the ramp?

[Christine Dixon]

4 and a half years.

[Warwick Schiller]

How many aliases did you have in that time?

[Christine Dixon]

Oh, God. You know, it's a funny question. The funny thing about that is that in order to be in touch with my family at all, we would only call. I would only call home from a payphone once we traveled far from where we were actually staying, or mail a letter from another state. And I always thought that he was being overly dramatic sometimes about that type of thing. One time I sent my mother a letter, and I made up the return address on the letter on the envelope as Carol Miller, because I just made up a name. When I was finally arrested, one of my aliases was listed as Carol Miller.

[Warwick Schiller]

So they were checking the mail. They were. They were looking for you. You weren't just like, missing, like you. Yeah.

[Christine Dixon]

And, you know, I have to say there's more to tell. But I just want to say that a lot of times now when I see couples being arrested, I always wonder how much the other person was actually involved or how wrapped in the web that they. That they had gotten. Because not long after we went on the run, he became abusive, both emotionally and eventually physically. So an extra layer got added of fear, fear of leaving, fear of staying. Like, I was in a hyper state of fear a lot of the time. So when you're afraid for your life or your animals or any of the things that someone may threaten you with, with breaking your kneecaps, let's say, or cutting off your fingers or any other kind of threat, you don't have a clear mind to be able to make better decisions. And, you know, when they talk about people who leave these kinds of relationships, they say that the. The time that they're most in danger is when they go to leave. And I did try to leave eventually, but I was terrified. I actually imagine this. I left him, loaded up the car, left him, went to a hotel, sat there crying, not knowing what to do, and then called the one person that I knew would understand, and that was him. I called him to help me, and of course he said, what are you doing? Come home. We'll work it out. It's very, very toxic. And I honestly, I know we haven't gotten to this part, and I'll try to speed up the story a bit, but I don't think if things didn't go the way they went, I have no idea how I would have ever gotten out of.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so the getting out of it was actually getting arrested.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. So I'll go ahead.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, I was going to say, you've told me the story about how that went down. You want to share that with us?

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. So after having two kids under aliases and all of four and a half years worth of fear and feeling trapped over that period of time, what he did start doing, and I did know this, is he started making meth in order to support us financially. So like I said, he was very brilliant. The person who discovered methamphetamine is a German who created It. So the Nazi troops could stay awake during the war. So the. He found the actual chemical recipe for it in German, bought a German to English dictionary, translated it himself, built a lab, like with a. With a reactor and centrifuge and I mean the whole thing, and started making pharmaceutical grade meth. So there's a reason why I'm. I'm telling you that. Because what ended up happening is once he won his case, I was like, that's it, I'm moving home. He didn't want to. I kind of.

[Warwick Schiller]

So while you're on the run, he's won his case, which means. Yes, that would mean yours is dropped. And so you don't have to be on the run anymore.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. And so I have been waiting to go back now, you know, with hindsight, I realized he didn't want to go back because he knew a lot more of what was going on than me. I was just, you know, I was living under the idea that once this was settled in some way, then we would move home. So we did end up moving back. What happened was one of his friends had turned informant on him. Five pounds of meth in a car is also a federal offense. So he won his state case, but then the federal government picked up that case, indicted both of us on that case, sealed the indictment, and then began investigating. So sealed the indictment mean.

[Warwick Schiller]

I've heard that on cop shows, but what is the seal? What sealed the indictment mean?

[Christine Dixon]

It means it's not made public. So they don't want anyone to know to get a tip, to get tipped off that they're coming for you again. Right. So. So what ended up happening is we. I'm starting to notice. Well, one. I have to backtrack for a second again, too. When he started making meth, he started getting addicted to it because it'll go through your skin. Once he started to feel it through his skin and get that sensation, and then he would want more. And so now I'm dealing with that aspect too, is that he's becoming more and more erratic.

[Warwick Schiller]

And have you had your two children by this point in time?

[Christine Dixon]

Yes, and I had stopped doing that was also another source of contention with him was that I had stopped doing any kind of drugs when I was. When I think when I turned 18, around 18, I was like, I don't. It was never really my thing. But did it. Because it was his thing. But I stopped. So that was also a source of contention because he wanted me to do it with him, but I didn't. So. So we're living in upstate Pennsylvania. He is addicted to meth to the point where his biker friends are trying to talk to him about it and he's shutting them out. He's becoming more and more abusive. I start to notice also that there are planes and helicopters constantly flying over our house. Weird things start happening. And then one day he left to take his oldest daughter, who was 17 at the time, to school. She had been staying with us. And I was home with my two children. My daughter was 4 and my son was 15 months old. And there was a knock on the door. And I went to the door and there was a state policeman standing there. And he said, we have reports of you dumping trash down the street. Can you step out of the house? And I was so confused because I was still focusing on this idea of me dumping trash down the street. And I was like, what? Like, what do you mean? And he's like, step out of the house. So I did. And then, oh my God. Agents came out of the woods. They came out from behind my barn. All of a sudden there was just cops everywhere. There was the dea, the atf, the FBI, the actual Pennsylvania state attorney general was there, major crimes, the state police. I was hysterical. I didn't know what was happening. And I made arrangements for my kids to go to a family member. And they drove me down to Pick, which is in Philadelphia, which is this hardcore women's jail that nobody wants to go to. And I found out that I was facing 20 something felony charges. The police were joking that I wasn't going to see my children again until they graduated from college. And the crazy thing, outside of my kids, you know, that's the part that, that's the part that's the hardest to talk about. But I can say that that first night that I was in jail, I remember feeling, thank God it's over. I've been saved. I was saved. I had no idea what I was in for, but I thought, I'm never going back. I'm never going to be back in a situation like that again. And it took. I was in jail for 15 months because obviously once you have proven that you can live on the run, you don't get bail. So I had to stay in jail until we were going to go to trial. And I remember at one point being on the phone with my grandmother and telling her that long term, this was the best thing that could have happened to me because it made me wake up. It made me wake up that I was living in this like dreamland where I wasn't Being accountable. I wasn't taking responsibility for myself. I still felt like, I mean, I was very young and I still felt like a kid when I was following the adults. And I couldn't afford to do that. And I could have given my life away and felt like a victim for God knows how long if it wasn't such an intense, terrifying slap across the face moment where I realized, like, I'm going to lose my life. You know, the first time that I ever experienced manifesting was when I was in jail because all I repeated over and over again, all I held in my head was, I'm getting out of here and I'm getting back to my children. I'm walking out of here. And I don't think my lawyer believed me. I don't think anybody believed me. I did not. I did not testify for the government, didn't turn state evidence, or I guess it's not state's evidence when it's federal, whatever you would call it, because I did not want to look over my shoulder. I had no idea who was involved in all this. I was not going to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life or put my kids in that position either. So when the government started coming and they decided they didn't want to go to court because the person who was going to testify against him changed his mind, he backed out. Now they'd have to put the whole case together without an informant to tell the story. So they wanted to do a plea bargain. And the first plea agreement that they came with was eight to 10 years. And I said, time served. That was my response, time served. And my lawyer was like, okay. And he went back to them and then they came back with five to seven and I said, time served. And then they came back with three to five and I said, time served. And they agreed, they agreed that if I pled guilty to 25, 26 felonies, that I would get time served because he would get 10 years. He was willing to plead guilty. And this is how, in the end, he did show up. Because he would not plead guilty ever, for his own stuff. He would love to fight everything, but he pled guilty to get me out. And I look back on that and go, where did that come from? Because it didn't even feel like it was coming just from me. It was like a knowing. It was like this holding, this vision that I felt in every cell of my body. I am getting back to my kids time served. And that's when I realized that this part was over. But now I'M getting out of jail. I have two small children, no formal education, no money, no home, no job. And I had to. I had to start with less than zero and. And build it up. It took a long time. Took a long time. You know, funny story. I truly believe that the universe sends us angels in the form of other people all the time. And I got moved 12 times during the 15 months that I was in jail. And every time you move, the thing about moving is every time you move, no one knows where you are. You have no, what they call money on the books, because you really don't get given the things that you need to survive. You need to have money to get a real hairbrush and, you know, shampoo and conditioner and deodorant and things. So every time you move, it's. It's stressful. And I had picked up smoking again when I went to jail. Surprise. But they moved me to Lehigh county, and I had a cellmate who was a heroin addict prostitute named Lori. And Lori was one of the wisest people that I've ever met. And I think she took pity on me and saw how messed up I was in my head and trying to figure this out. And she really pushed me to go into the group therapy that they had at that jail. And I did. And let me tell you, those women handed me my ass. They did not care that I was 16 when I met Kate, Rick. They didn't care about anything. They said, everything that has happened to you is your responsibility. They were your choices. You made the decisions that led to this. And whether it's fair or not, hey, life isn't fair. And I needed to hear that. It just clarified. I remember sitting there, like, stunned, but it just clarified for me. It doesn't matter. Sure, it's not fair. Sure, you could say a million things about that, but what else could it be other than my responsibility? It can't be anybody else's. You know what's funny about telling this story is that I was so terrified to go on your podcast the first time because I was afraid that we were going to talk about this. There are people that I know that still don't know these stories. There were people that I knew for 10 years before I would tell them any of this. I was so afraid of being judged and, like, having the scarlet leather on my chest. And it still feels very, very strange to be telling them now. Like, all of the little sirens are going off in my head, like, what are you doing? But I tell it because when I work with people A lot of times, the way our brains work is it looks for the ways that we're different. Right. So if someone tells you, look, you know, you need to leave your toxic relationship or you need to go back to school, or you need to. You need to change the way you're spending your money or anything like that, people will look for ways that your situation is not as bad as their situation, so you can't understand what it's like to be them. So I know that there are people with far worse stories. It's not a competition. I just tell it because I go, if I could live through this, if I could scrape and claw my way back to providing a home for my children and building myself up slowly over years and years, then anybody can do this. Anybody can face the things that they are avoiding or feeling like nobody understands or nobody gets it, or believing the voices in their head that says they can't do it. You do it by showing up and doing it. And most of it is very anticlimactic. It's just the little choices you make day after day that start to build up a foundation under you, and then you can start launching yourself from the foundation, but it's not glamorous. It's not usually something big. You can build up to something big. And we have those big moments and they come, but they're almost always because you took the little boring steps to get there.

[Warwick Schiller]

That's where it's like training horses.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, that. What that's saying. Slow is fast, and fast is slow.

[Warwick Schiller]

Slow is smooth, and smooth. Fast is. It's got the word smooth in it, doesn't it?

[Christine Dixon]

I don't know. I. I didn't hear the smooth one. I heard the. The other one.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. But. So thank you for sharing that. I mean, I've heard it before, but it's still. Still amazes me because I knew you before I knew that, and I just cannot put those two people together. Actually, I was in. When I was in Pennsylvania recently at that horse expo, went to dinner with a previous podcast guest, Tick Maynard, and someone else came to dinner with us who has actually been out here. She knows you. You know her. She's been out to some of the retreats here. She actually was at dinner with us, and we were talking about you, and we were trying to tell Dick that. So we. We. We told him some of your, you know, the very short version of your. Your story. And we're. We're trying to explain to Tic that if you met this woman, you would not have any idea you, you couldn't even fathom that's in her background. Like you're, you're a transformational coach, but you are the. You're walking transformation. I mean, and it just hit me again. I think you might have told parts of that story that you had, like, embellished a bit more. So I know more about the whole story. But yeah, it's like you're a walking transformation to, to go from that to, to where you are these days. And like I said at the start, some people I think that are coaches or maybe therapists or whatever, you know, it all comes from education. Whereas you've got, you've now had education on, on the coaching and all that sort of stuff. But you've got this background of having lived in the, in the muck, lived in the dark places. And so it's almost, you know, like you're more qualified than most because you've been there.

[Christine Dixon]

Kind of reverse engineered it. Had to go down and experience all of the things and then get the teachings and the learnings and more education. You know, a lot of it was following my own quest to understand better. You know, I remember the first time I read a book called Stop Walking on Eggshells, which is about borderline personality disorder, because I had always just thought like I could never understand my mother. And you read a book and all of a sudden I read that book and all of a sudden I realized, oh, this is a thing like this makes sense. It's not just she's this anomaly, this person born missing a chip or something, you know, this is an actual thing that's been studied. Other people have this to different degrees, and there is different degrees. One of the, one of the key ingredients or markers, let's say one of the key markers for someone pathological, which would be, you know, borderline personality disorder or narcissism or any of these things, is a reduced sense of compassion. And that's what she had, that's what Rick had. You know, I repeat, I repeat it, because I went out and had a relationship with a man who basically was my mother in many ways. So I, of course, made more mistakes even after getting out of jail, but none, none like that. But every time I feel like I. I grew in my understanding of myself and in my understanding of other people and what, what motivated them to be the way they were. Because a lot of people who have these kind of pathological issues, they come from a really, really deep sense of being unlovable. And that feeling of being unlovable has bred all of these manipulative, you know, toxic traits to try catch people and keep them, but they are blocked from ever being able to actually feel loved. And while it's important to have compassion in that way, compassion shouldn't become an excuse. So I have a lot of compassion for my mother, but I don't, I cannot have a close relationship with her because she still does the same, she runs the same game still. And I look at her and I go, but for the grace of God go I, because thank God I didn't get what she had. I think that, you know, what we experience in our own life as kids really informs what we do as adults. And a lot of therapists and mental health workers and psychiatrists, most of them come from backgrounds that had a lot of challenges around mental health. And in their desire to understand, they go into those fields. And I think that that's true for me as well. And watching and kind of studying the things that always stood out to me as a kid that caused so much drama was, you know, around the ways that I watched my family communicate, which was through sarcasm. And I mean, you said, I think you said to me that Australians take sarcasm to like an Olympic level or something.

[Warwick Schiller]

I said, it's a. Sarcasm is an art form in Australia. You know, in Australia, your worst enemy's a bastard and your best friend's a bloody bastard sort of thing. You know what I mean? And yeah, it's interesting you just brought up communication because that's really what I want to get to talking about, you know, your part about your upcoming course. But you, like I said earlier, watching you interact with people like in a, in a retreat type setting, your communication is masterful. It's, it's, it's. You know, I remember Tyler and I went to San Francisco one time to watch Slash, so the guitarist from Guns and Roses play. And watching somebody do something at that level, whatever it is, it could have been a cellist, you know what I mean? Like, it's just fascinating to watch some of that level of mastery and watching you interaction with, interact with people at the retreat, especially when people have been having challenging times, just watching you interact with them is like, wow, that's incredible. And you know, the whole thing, it's just so incredible that you came from there and now you have this mastery. You. I want to back up a little bit. So at some point in time, you. We talked about this in the first podcast, but you ended up working at a big time drug and alcohol rehabilitation place in la. It's interesting you ended up Somewhere like that, coming from where you came from, and correct me if I'm wrong, but the place is like, it's a private thing, so it's pretty expensive to go to and you get the rock stars and the rich people and that sort of clientele, isn't it?

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. It's typically. Either you have amazing insurance or the person is pretty affluent to be able to go to that place.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah. And how long were you there?

[Christine Dixon]

I was there for three years.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah.

[Christine Dixon]

Do you know what's funny about that is that I really. I really felt that part of that work was a counterbalance, like making up for the drugs that Rick was making. That my. My connection with. Wondering about, you know, the people that were affected by that, you know, like.

[Warwick Schiller]

Providing kind of undoing some of your karmic debt sort of thing.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. Thank you for saying it better. Yes. That's what it felt like. I loved the work, by the way, too. I really, really, really loved the work.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know what? I don't think we talked about this on the first podcast. So for you listeners, Christine, when she came on the podcast the first time, I met her a number of times. Whatever. And then you came to watch a clinic. I did in la. And after the first day of the clinic, after the Saturday was over, you and a few other people were hanging around at the end there and I was talking and eventually people left and eventually it just ended up being you and me. And we chatted for quite a while. And after that I was thinking, wow, I need to get that later in the podcast. But you told me a story that I don't think we talked about in the first podcast, which was some sort of. I forget what it was when you worked there, but someone you worked with said, hey, you've got to do this thing. Thing. What was the thing? It's.

[Christine Dixon]

It's constellation.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes, yes. That story is insane. Can you tell us that?

[Christine Dixon]

So you have to understand, I grew up in New Jersey with a very sarcastic Irish Catholic family. You couldn't get further from woo woo stuff than my background. And I have always been really open to things and, you know, not judgment. I think that there's a difference between having a healthy amount of skepticism about something, because skepticism means that you're. You're interested. You just need more information to decide what you think about it. Whereas I grew up with cynics. Right. Like cynics, their minds close. It's all crock, you know, like there's. There's nothing like that. So I am not. I. Even though whatever Woo woo stuff I do, I still don't see myself as a woo woo person. So this is what I. One of my colleagues, Lisa, she was trained in doing constellation work. And if you don't know what constellation work is, it's a type of therapy where you as a person. If I was the person getting the constellation done, I'm coming with an issue, right? Maybe it's my troubled relationship with my mother. And there is a facilitator and then there are other people in the room and you assign a role to each of the people in the room because they're going to stand in the energy of that person or that emotion. So a person could represent the mother, somebody could represent a sibling, someone could represent guilt. The people that are actively participating get the label and then the facilitator starts and you kind of use those people as stand ins to be able to communicate. But what happens, which is the trippy part, is that the people that are representing for you also can get, for lack of a better word, downloads. They can get inspired things to say that they feel like don't come from them, but they're picking up on something.

[Warwick Schiller]

So have to have that ability before this work. Do they?

[Christine Dixon]

No, not at all.

[Warwick Schiller]

Like they're okay, okay.

[Christine Dixon]

No, not at all. It's random. Some people obviously love this work and do it a lot. But. So Lisa had come to me and my other colleague Denise and said, hey, there's somebody that we work with and they want to do a constellation. Would you guys be willing to be a part of it? And I was like, sure it was going to happen after work one day. And I was like sure. And they were, and they were like, oh, cool. Because I had never experienced it. So they were excited that I would experience it. We had probably planned it at least, let's say at least a week in advance. So after we made the plan, we were going to do it after work on a Tuesday. I forgot about it now. The night before we're going to do it, I get a text message from Lisa that says, hey, we're doing the thing tomorrow. You know, be sure you eat something, wear comfortable clothes. Whatever it was, it was this whole thing. And I threw my phone down. Like I had this like visceral reaction and threw it down. And then I was standing there going, what was that? Like I was like annoyed or something or it was just bizarre. That was the first bizarre thing that happened.

[Warwick Schiller]

And so you had a, you had a reaction, you know, like you threw the phone away. Yes. And then you kind of went like, what did I just do? Why did I do that? You didn't. Yeah, okay.

[Christine Dixon]

It made no sense to me why this message caused me to respond in such a, like, ugh way. So the next day at the place in Malibu where we were working, I'm seeing clients all day as the day is going. My body is vibrating more and more as the day goes. I mean, that kind of, like, there's butterflies in your chest. Like, maybe you drank way too much coffee. And I don't know what the hell is happening to me. So I have my last client. They leave some of the other therapists and stuff that were gathering in the little living room area of the house we were working out of. I look out there, they're out there. I see Denise, who is the queen of woo, let me say, like, she is. She loves all that stuff. And I'm like, waving her into my office. I'm like, come here, come here. And then she comes in my office. I'm like, listen, I don't know what's happening to me. Like, I have been. This is what's happening. I'm telling her about. And she's got this grin on her face and she starts giggling and she's like, once you commit to doing this work, the magic starts then. And I'm like, you shut your mouth. Stop talking this crazy stuff to me. I don't know. This is weird. Denise. She's like, don't worry. It's going to be fine. So by this time, everyone's starting to gather in the room that we're going to do this thing. I have my arms wrapped around myself because I feel like I'm going to fly into a million pieces. I sit down on the chair and I'm kind of almost rocking a little bit, trying to calm myself, trying to not be so freaked out. Lisa starts leading. Can I ask?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes. You're trying not to be freaked out by this sensation, but it's not a bad sensation, is it? It's just your interpretation of the sensation. Like, what's my body doing? But yes, you're basically buzzing all over it.

[Christine Dixon]

Exactly. It's not a bad. It's not a painful feeling. It's nothing like that.

[Warwick Schiller]

It's just like, what's happening.

[Christine Dixon]

Imagine if your arm just started swinging around for no reason. You would be freaked out. Like, what is happening? So they start the process of naming people and what they're going to represent. And the woman that's getting the constellation done ends up pointing to me for who she wants to represent. Her. And Lisa tells her. The first thing that she tells her to do is to say something to me as her. That was kind.

[Warwick Schiller]

So she's talking to you as herself? Like, she. She. Yes, she's like she's speaking to herself. It's almost like she's looking in the mirror. Okay.

[Christine Dixon]

Exactly. And I don't remember the actual words that she used, but she said something like, you know, I don't know, I love you, or I forgive you or something. And it was like. The only way that I can describe this is if you've ever seen the movie the Exorcist, and there's the part where she's vomiting pea soup everywhere. Well, it felt like that, except energetically coming from my root chakra up through my body. And my mouth opened, and I was making this noise and crying so hard, just sobbing. And it felt like all of this, like, heavy, dark energy was just coming out, coming out, coming out, coming out, coming out. And then it was almost like someone turned off a faucet. It was just, like, done. And I was exhausted.

[Warwick Schiller]

And how long.

[Christine Dixon]

How you would feel.

[Warwick Schiller]

How long did you for. Was it 10 seconds, 30 seconds?

[Christine Dixon]

It felt like forever, but it was probably 20, 30 seconds. You know, it wasn't a huge amount of time. It was just very intense. And then. I mean, people were. And then I'm seeing. Also, understand, in my peripherals and stuff, I'm seeing people looking at me with their eyes the size of, like, silver dollars and their mouths open, like. Like, so they're saying crazy, and they're. And then they're rubbing my back. And then. And then when it got turned, when the spigot turned off, I'm just, like, slumped in the chair, like, dazed. And I don't think I was really involved in much of the rest of it. I just kind of sat there. At the end of it, everyone's up and leaving, and Lisa and Denise come running up to me, and they were like, oh, my God. I have never seen anyone channel like that. That was insane. You got to train in this. You got to do this. And I looked at them and I said, listen to me right now. I don't know what the freaking hell that was, but I am never, ever, okay? Never. And I didn't. I didn't. I did it. Six months later, I had a client that I loved. I love deeply. He was. He was so there to do the work, and he was such a really good person, just lost. And he wanted to do the constellation work, and he asked me if I would be Part of it. And I couldn't say no. And I know that it would make him feel more comfortable since we had a really good working relationship. I will say the same thing happened, but not quite as intensely. I mean, to the point where I was. When he was going around the room to pick who would be him, I was staring at the floor because I didn't want to influence him in any way to pick me. And I still got picked. So.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, but you do realize that's a bit like doing the same thing. So a cat doesn't sit in your lap. And where's the cat gonna sit if you have that posture?

[Christine Dixon]

Oh, everybody that doesn't like cats is the first person the cat's gonna try to sit in their lap, too. And so, yeah, so that was. That was so trippy. And the thing is that I just couldn't. It wasn't who I saw myself as. I remember talking to somebody and going. But I've always been, you know, the thing that. One of the things that people have shared working with me or my friends is that they've. One of the things that they have said they liked about me was that how grounded I was that I felt. They felt like I was a grounding force for them. And I don't know who this person is. I feel like I've come to terms with it a lot more and have an understanding of it. And like, maybe one day in my life that will be something I'll look into more. But. And there's a lot of intuitive. A lot of intuitive work that goes into, you know, the way I like to work with people anyway. But that was just. I don't know, that was one of.

[Warwick Schiller]

The freakiest things you do have, that grounding energy. Because, you know, my emotional breakthroughs have been few and far between. And I would say the person who's been there for the most of them has been you. You know, we had a bit of an incident in Costa Rica a couple years ago, and then there was another one here at one of the retreats when we were in the fire pit that night. You know, and there's been. You've been in the audience at. At some of the podcast summits where I've, you know, talked about something that caused me to get quite emotional. So, yeah, I'd say you. Out of anybody on the planet, you. You've probably been there for the. For the mo. For the. For the most of mine. So that's. That's got to have something to do with your. Your grounding energy. You I don't know, you feel like a safe space. And like I said before, it's been so cool watching you at these retreats deal with situations and stuff. And that's why I was kind of excited to have you back on the podcast. I wanted you to tell us your whole story. But what I really wanted to get to was you're going to do this course on communication and you, you're a masterful at this communication stuff. But there's, and there's been some things you've said at some of these retreats that we've done together here that have been like, oh my God, that is amazing. This one, I remember the first time I heard you say it, I'm like, oh my God, that's amazing. And it's this three step process to, so it's called, you know, mirror, emphasize and validate. And I'll have you, I'll have you explain it. But first, can you explain when would you use this particular thing? Like what sort of scenarios would you use this thing in?

[Christine Dixon]

Well, when you guys offered about creating a course, right. I, it took me a while to land on something because I wanted it to be something that was universal, that had clear tools and things that people could apply and that would be something that impacts everyone's life in such a huge way. And communication is a cornerstone of every aspect of our life from our personal relationships to business to our career. So, and this is like a perfect example of a type of tool that you can have and use in certain situation situations. I used to do group group therapy at Passages where I worked. And one of the things we talk about is that people who go to treatment, when they finally go to treatment, you know, things typically got really bad at home in their life. So the last time the people in their life saw them was when they were maybe getting poured into a cab, headed to the airport, going off to.

[Warwick Schiller]

Their airport into a cab, meaning they're drunk off their ass and could barely walk. And they, yeah, put this drunk person, staggering drunk person in a cabin. Off they go to rehab.

[Christine Dixon]

Off they go. So now the person, then they detox, their mind gets clear, their body's getting good food, they're getting good sleep, they're starting to talk about the issues and their pains and the things that they're self medicating through drugs and alcohol, they're starting to get enlightenment in their life. They're starting to get some kind of maybe spiritual practice. And so by the time they're leaving, they're feeling really good. But the people at home. There, they have not gone on the journey with you. They remember all the chaos that was created before you left. So I tell, I give people leaving treatment this tool to help themselves and to help the people at home too. Because a lot of times people go home, they're all feeling good, and then somebody says, yeah, we'll see. We'll see how this goes. We've been here before. And then they get all activated, like, you don't support me. And you know, they lash out, get defensive, and then now we're going back down the same road with our grievances and all the things that might have made us self medicate in the first place. So to mirror, empathize and validate coupled with accountability is a superpower. But you can only use it if your intentions are for repair and true connection. If you try to use this to win or take power, people will see right through it and you'll lose a lot of trust. So let's say this person went home.

[Warwick Schiller]

Can we, can we role play this?

[Christine Dixon]

So, sure.

[Warwick Schiller]

So you've been to rehab.

[Christine Dixon]

Okay, I'm the person that's returning home.

[Warwick Schiller]

You've been to rehab. And the last time I saw you, you were a drunken fool and you've, you've been screwing up and we're sick of you and you off. You went to rehab. And so you come back home and you're all like a bed of roses. You're like, it's all good. And I'm like, yeah, we'll see. You've been to rehab before. I don't, I don't believe this is going to be any different than last time.

[Christine Dixon]

So now what I wouldn't do is I want a mirror. So I'm going to say so. So what I hear you saying is that you don't really trust that this is going to stick. Because before I've been to rehab and I've relapsed before. Is. Is that what you're saying?

[Warwick Schiller]

That's exactly what I'm saying. You've been four times before and you come back and you're just a big. As big a dick as you were before you left.

[Christine Dixon]

You know, I can see how you would feel that way. It's true. I, you know, I, I have relapsed before. Relapse can be a part of recovery. But I do understand why you would feel that way. In fact, if I think about it, if I was on the other side, if I were you right now, I would probably feel the same way about me that you do. From your perspective, I would feel the same way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Did you just do the last two, then you put them together, then I.

[Christine Dixon]

Did empathize and validate.

[Warwick Schiller]

So the whole thing, it's the three step thing, is you mirror them. First you say what I hear you saying is the second step is you empathize and you say, I can understand why you would feel that way. Or no, no. Or is that validate?

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Empathize is. Empathize and validate are similar. But empathizing is saying like, yeah, I can totally understand why you feel that way. You're right, it's true. I did relapse. I did drink again. I'm sure you got your hopes up. And I. And I. And I relapsed. I understand and I get it. Right. In fact, the validation is. In fact, if I were you, I would probably feel the same way if I was sitting on the other side of the table.

[Warwick Schiller]

And the way you've described it to me before is that it takes the argument out of it because you're agreeing with them, you're not disagreeing with them. There's nothing to, there's nothing to argue with.

[Christine Dixon]

Well, that's. This is where the accountability piece comes in. And we all do this more. At least I'll say most of us do this. I don't know everyone in the world, but most of us do this where we go into defensive mode. We want to defend. We feel like that's sticking up for ourselves. And a lot of times we defend things that we actually did or we're not even willing to hear another person's perspective. And we think that that's strength, that that's power. And it's the exact opposite because everyone sees what you're doing and everyone. You're not changing anyone's mind. You might win to shut them down and have them stop trying to communicate, but everyone sees you for what you're doing and it's not strength. And I'll use an example because if you've ever seen the movie 8 Mile with Eminem, there's a scene and if you have, I'll set it up. If you haven't seen the movie, there is a scene where he's doing a.

[Warwick Schiller]

Wrap off and this is the very end of the movie, isn't it? Like he's been this. Yeah, he's been wanting to be a rapper the whole time and he keeps bombing and he, he keeps. Have these, they have these rap battles to where I rap and I put shit on you and then you rap. You Put shit on me just to set the whole scene. But this is the end of the movie, like. And he, he hasn't succeeded yet, has he? No, no. Yeah.

[Christine Dixon]

No, no. And that's the whole idea of the wrap up is that, you know, it's kind of like that sarcasm to a whole other level. It's. It's looking at the other person and tearing them down in a way that is funny and accurate and makes people laugh. So he's the only white guy at this event and he has to go first, which means that everything that he says and does is going to be critiqued by the other guy and used against him. So what he actually does is he goes out and he owns every single thing that the other guy could say about him in a way that's funny and rhymes and tells a story. And he's white trash from the trailer park. Mom, spaghetti, the whole thing. When he's done, the other guy's left standing there with nothing. He's got nothing because he owned everything that that guy could say about him. And that's true power. That's where real strength lies. It's not in defending, it's in going, you know, you're right about that. I did snap at you. And there's a better way for me to, you know, there's a better way for me to talk about this. I think that right now I'm just really still activated. So can we talk about this again in an hour? I'm just going to go for a walk and try to ground and let this go. That's real strength.

[Warwick Schiller]

So something you just said in there about the, the want to take a bit of time, you know, like we're having a bit of an argument. I would, I want to, I want to come back to this later, but right now I need to go for a walk or whatever. That sounds like something that Terry Real would say. I know I was introduced to Terry Real stuff by you. You're quite the Terry Real fan. And he is a. What do you say? He's a. Is he a marriage and family therapist? Is that what he is?

[Christine Dixon]

He's mostly, I think, a marriage counselor. Relationships.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some of his stuff is. All of his stuff is. Is absolutely amazing. And I'm not sure if you told me. I think you told. You did tell me this. I'm not sure if it came from Terry Real, but I remember you saying one time that we don't we. Because you mentioned the word repair before and you said we. Our parents tend to argue in front of us, but repair in private. So we get modeled how to argue. We just don't get modeled how to repair. Was that a Terry Real thing? I know that came from your wisdom, but I didn't know if it was a Terry Real thing.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, that was a Terry Real thing. And you can look at it another way is what we don't get modeled is vulnerability because repair involves being vulnerable. So you see people argue and defend, but you don't see them be vulnerable. Will our parents. So that's why I talk about communication. Like really good relational communication and non confrontational boundaries are so important to deepen our relationships. People are so afraid of being better at communication or boundaries because they think it's going to drive people away. And then they, they learn good ways of doing it and they find out, oh my God, my relationship with my mother is so much better. I just had a client whose mother comes to town every year and stays with her for a really long time and it's too long. But she never felt like she could change it because she had all these stories in her head that her mother would be upset or mad at her or who you think you are, all these things. Right. So she suffered through and the rel and the visits would be agonizing and nobody was happy. And when she finally gave herself permission to be honest and say, hey mom, how about we try it for six weeks this time? And because I have a lot going on, does that six weeks, is that.

[Warwick Schiller]

Longer or shorter than the normal stay?

[Christine Dixon]

Shorter. She was three months.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh, okay, okay.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah. Because they were staying three months, so six weeks was shorter. So her mother agreed and they, it took all this pressure off of her and she realized that she could actually share things she felt and people wouldn't scream at her or freak out. And she and her mom had the best time. In fact, to the point where when her mom was going home, she goes, I almost didn't want her to leave. So yes, this stuff, this was the stuff that is so powerful. And there's tools. I mean, Terry Real talks about having soft power in your communications, which means basically you keep the loving language. You watch how your body language is, but you speak truthfully. You don't speak in these ways. That's like making the other person pull things out of you or deflecting or anything. You speak clearly and if you get your nervous system activated, then you take what is a timeout. And what I realized from him is that I knew about taking timeouts, but I was missing a key piece. And that key Piece is I could go, look, I need time. I need to walk away. I need to go relax. I need to think about how I want to address this. But what I wouldn't do is give a time of coming back. That can feel like you're abandoning the person in the conversation. If you're like, I can't do this, we're yelling, I gotta go. That can feel like you're just not available and you're abandoning. So if you feel like the other person is too activated to have this conversation or you're getting activated and you're not going to be able to have this conversation, then it's still your responsibility to go. Look, we need a timeout. Let's take some time, but let's come back in an hour or let's come back later today or. Or let's come back. I love you. Right. But we need a minute.

[Warwick Schiller]

So it's not a no, it's not yet.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes, yes, yes. And look, once your nervous system is activated, once you're in the sympathetic, your body goes on autopilot. So you don't have access to your tools or your wise mind. And autopilot is what you saw your parents do. Autopilot is all the old neural pathways that were put there that you didn't choose. So it's really important to get good at starting to recognize when you feel that thing starting in your chest or in your belly where it's starting to write, you're feeling that activation that you stop there then, because then you still have access to that wise mind to be able to stop. And you know, another thing, another thing is ask questions. We don't ask questions. We hear something and. And instead we fly off the handle of our interpretation. We don't ask for more clarifying questions.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. Well, that's the mirroring you said before, isn't it? So what I'm hearing you say is, and if you're not, if you're getting it wrong, they go, no, no, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying, you know, so. Right.

[Christine Dixon]

And then you can say, well, what is it?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, yeah, so it's that mirroring thing.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah. And you know, to just for a second address the nervous system aspect. If there are areas, you know, Eckhart calls it what, our bruises, you know, we have our pain body. If there are areas that are really hard for you to have conversations about because they activate your nervous system, that's where something like IEMT can be really helpful. Because IEMT stands for integral eye Movement technique. What it does is it takes these past memories that you have that created that activation. Right. And that past memory will be connected to your amygdala, to your nervous system, to your body. So anything that looks like that past memory, boom, it triggers the body. And now you're going to have a hard time being able to be present for that conversation. I am. T is a way to dial down or completely get rid of the connection between the memory and the body. So you still have the memory, but now you have better perspective and you're not. You're not flooded every time something close to that memory gets touched. Does that make sense?

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes. So this IMT is something that you. You do quite a bit of it now.

[Christine Dixon]

I do. I do. It's really amazing because especially working with people long term, to be able to use IEMT to kind of start to pull those threads and tease out the weight that they've been dragging around from past experiences that kind of has shaped them that they didn't choose. And then also using hypnotherapy to be able to make suggestions to the subconscious to reinforce the things that they do want. So you kind of have this releasing side and then this creating side, and the two work just magically together. And it just is a way to have this, this way to reinforce everything that you're doing.

[Warwick Schiller]

What I find is amazing is that you, you know, you do the hypnotherapy, you also do the imt, but it's not like you just know those things. I keep getting back to your, I don't know, your wisdom and your communication skills. Um, do you want. Can. Let's. Can we talk a little bit about your course? What, what sorts of things you're going to have in your course? Because I'm. I think, you know, I think it's one of those things that, you know, it's not. It's not like it's a freaking college course or something where it's huge. It's kind of like you've condensed, like the. The core things this, the things you need to know. Can you talk a little bit about the cause?

[Christine Dixon]

Yes. So because the work that I mostly do is very individualized for the person because whatever they're trying to shift or create in their life, they're going to have their own specific blocks, needs to shift areas to create. I had to really think about, well, what can I share with people in a relatively short amount of time that would be valuable to them, that would be something to give them hope around some issues. That they're struggling with. And communication is just. It's just one of the core pillars of our foundation in our relationships and our business and everything. The thing about communication and boundaries is that the smallest improvement can create huge positive effects. So it's not about. We go back to that slow is fast and fast is slow thing. It's not about doing a bunch of things all at once. It's about starting slowly and practicing one tool. Once you feel like you've got that one, you can add another one.

[Warwick Schiller]

See that right there? That is. That is so important. And people tend to do. The. People tend to do not that in life, but people tend to do it with their horses, too. So that's what I think from the horse perspective. But what they do is they teach the horse something. And then now the horse did it. So now they go, now I'm going to teach him something else. But they didn't teach the first thing till it sticks. You know what I mean? It's. It's kind of like three years ago, probably seven years, eight years ago now. I started a Facebook group up that was called how was it how to eat an Elephant. There was a book. There's a. There's a book. And it's 52 mindfulness practices. And what you're supposed to do, it takes you a year. And you do each mindfulness practice for a week. But the whole point of it is the mindfulness practice that you do in the first week, you keep that practice. When you add the second practice in the next week, like, the first one might be something like brushing teeth with your left hand or something or other just something to. But then I think maybe the second one is find a. Make a room in your house to where you get that room spotless. And your job is to. Every time you go in that room, when you leave, it's got to be still spoilers. And then. But. But in the end, instead of doing 52 different practices for a week, by the end, you've got 52 new practices that are instilled in you. And. And that's a. I think that's where. I mean, I do it too. Everybody does. It is when you start changing things. If you, you know, you'll change one thing and then you change another thing, but you end up only changing one thing because the first thing drops off. And the whole point you're trying to make here is create this communication skill until it's solid and then add another one, which means you've still got the first one. And after a While your communication will change over a period of time, won't it?

[Christine Dixon]

Absolutely. And you'll get also you get the positive feedback of seeing how one thing can create positive results. More clarity, more ease, more ability to have the freedom of saying what you're available for and what you're not in the boundary setting part. Right. So this, you know, I think about my whole goal is that it took me decades to figure some of this stuff out and learn it and practice it. I want to be able to share it with people so it doesn't take them decades that they don't have to take 10 years to learn one thing that probably took me 10 years to learn. So, you know, everything flows out of communication. The ability to listen, the ability to share, to relate, to, tolerate. I mean, this is a big one. Can we tolerate hearing someone with a different perspective? Do we have the ability to compromise? Do we know how to make repair? What is the language that we can learn? What is a way to, you know, take that pause before answering a question? Giving ourselves permission to not have answers to questions when we're asked. You know, we can get into the habit of giving answers because we feel like we have to have one when the answer we gave we aren't even fully committed to or invested in being able to really take in and listen. To understand versus listen, to respond.

[Warwick Schiller]

That's a big one.

[Christine Dixon]

You know, there's a lot of studies right now.

[Warwick Schiller]

I'm sorry, no, that's. Yes, it is a big one.

[Christine Dixon]

And I, please, I catch myself doing it all the time. You know, it's a practice. All of this stuff is a practice. You're not going to go out and just be different. You're going to practice and play with these things. And one of the studies I was reading recently was about how social media is really eating away at our ability to communicate in person. And it's changing the way we communicate and not in the best way. Because on social media there's not body language, there's not feel, there's not energy, there's not tone of voice. And when you put just words on the page, it can be taken 50 different ways. So our real in person relationships are more important now than ever. And I think that being able to really deepen them and let go of the stories that we've been telling ourselves about what we can and cannot say or do just allows for so much more possibility. And it is, does feel lighter. It does. It is a type of freedom to have that.

[Warwick Schiller]

You know, it was interesting you were talking before about your mother and you thought she was this person who was a kind of a one off. And then you started reading about borderline personality disorder and you're like, oh, it's a thing. And so that kind of changes your perspective of that. And it's the kind of the same thing with yourself. Like, you know, the I. I've talked before about when I first started reading Brene Brown's books, I'm like, she's been inside my head. Like, I thought I was the only one who thought that way. You know what I mean? And it's, it's a little bit like that to where. And same thing with communication. We all tend to make, I think, the same communication mistakes because communication is probably not modeled to us. And something else I wanted to mention to you, and I read this somewhere recently that would make a lot of sense why you are so good at what you do, especially in person, like seeing you work in person with somebody else. But this thing I read said something about if you grow up in a environment where you don't feel safe, you become very, very observant of people's. Because you just mentioned body language. You know, you become very, very observant of people's body language and you're looking for the little signs of things starting to go in the wrong direction or whatever, or, you know, for your safety. But then it almost becomes a superpower later on because you can read subtle things in body language. You're so much better at reading the whole conversation. Do you feel like that's a fair statement?

[Christine Dixon]

Absolutely. So we're talking about high levels of empathy. You develop higher levels of empathy and you develop a way of reading people. And I think that, you know, I do hear people sometimes say about how they feel affected by other people's feelings, right? That they, they feel very empathic and they feel affected by other people's feelings. I like to look at it as, instead of taking it on, being able to better relate to that person. Because if I can feel that this person is nervous right now, I know how to adjust my tone and my body language, how I need to speak for them to be able to hear me. I can dial in in that way. And that's really important in your personal relationships, but it's also really important in your professional relationships. Because being able to sense when somebody is feeling nervous or feeling put on the spot or there's a lot of eyes on them and being able to relate to them or talk to them so that they don't go into their nervous system and check out and keep supporting them in that moment. People, that's probably one of the kindest, most. I see you and I'm here for you. Moments that you can do for a person is remembering to check in, to check in with people and look at them and notice how do I think that they're feeling right now? Let me put myself in their shoes. Okay. I'm, I'm in a boardroom and I'm looking, all eyes are on me and I'm new. Right. How might the person feel? So how can I support them in feeling safe right now so that we can hear what they want to say? Because we hired them, it probably would be good to get their input because we paid for it. If we put them into the sympathetic, they're not going to share. So every situation it's always better to be able to know how to support the person so that they, they can say and share what they meant to say and share or they can feel that they're free to try something new or to express themselves. That makes sense.

[Warwick Schiller]

Oh yeah, I'm, I'm just fascinated. I'm just listening to. I can't wait to, I can't wait to see this, this course. When does you, when does your course kick off and what's the structure of it?

[Christine Dixon]

So it's a three hour virtual workshop and it's on April 19th, the morning of April 19th, at 9am Pacific. So nine to noon. And so the structure is, is that we're going to do. I'm going to introduce you to what we're going to go over, why it's important, we're going to delve into the communication parts. Learning things like the timeouts. Learning things like what language should I be using? How should I address a prickly conversation that I need to have? How do I, what is the language for accountability? How do I practice that? We are also going to be practicing with each other in these kind of cool made up situations. We're going to learn body language. We'll practice doing things and you'll see things on the screen and then everybody will weigh in on what's their interpretation of that body language. How are we using our empathy? And then we'll go into boundary setting and what boundaries are and what they're not. Because you hear a lot of people say, yeah, I tried to set a boundary but it didn't work. And there's no way for a boundary to not work. But usually when someone says I tried to set a boundary, it didn't work is because most of us don't like confrontation, we avoid confrontation. So when we set a boundary, we wait until we're angry and then we set a boundary and we say, you can't talk to me that way anymore. So what we just did is we told the other person, I have a boundary, but you're the one that's going to enforce it. It's up to you to enforce my boundary. You can't talk to me anymore that way anymore. And when we do that, we're totally vulnerable to our boundary not working because we haven't made it about us. But if I say, look, I love you, but I'm not going to be available for conversations if you're going to use that language with me. So I know we're both activated right now. I'm going to take a break, let's come back and try to talk about this later, at this time, whatever. And then you hold your boundary, which means when you come back, if that language comes up again, you do the exact same thing. Hey, you know I love you and I'm here for this, but I'm not here for this language. So let's take a break again. And most boundaries, all the work is front loaded. It's in the beginning, it's sticking to it. Don't set a boundary that you have no intention of keeping because then you teach people that you're not a person of your word. And whatever you say doesn't matter because you'll change it the next day anyway. If you're not committed to it, don't do it. But if you commit to a boundary, it has to be from you. You're changing what you're doing, the way you're responding and the other person, that's their work. But you're not going to be available for that way of speaking. Right? And you're going to keep doing that until, until you can have a conversation. And that doesn't happen.

[Warwick Schiller]

So that's an important distinction, is not telling, you know, the boundary is not for them to do. It's, you've got to model the boundary. So yeah, I think a lot of us would make the mistake of saying, you, you have just crossed my boundary. And that's not.

[Christine Dixon]

And that is, that is the most non relational language you can use. You never want the word boundary coming out of your mouth. You're never making a declaration. I'm setting a boundary.

[Warwick Schiller]

Okay, so you don't. Boundaries are not about saying the word. You, you do the boundary, you don't say the band, you don't Say the word yes.

[Christine Dixon]

It is an action, not a declaration.

[Warwick Schiller]

It is an action, not a declaration. I love that.

[Christine Dixon]

Yes.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yeah, that's awesome.

[Christine Dixon]

Because to say, to say I'm setting a boundary is saying, I'm breaking. I'm making a demand. Right. It's, it's. And it's almost like a person throwing their arms up at somebody else. I'm setting a boundary. It doesn't. The reason that people get aggressive like that is because they have anxiety around doing it. So they're trying to deal with their own anxiety around. This is confrontational. So now I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it this way.

[Warwick Schiller]

Like a passive aggressive sort of a thing.

[Christine Dixon]

Yeah, it's almost done. Sometimes as like a retaliation. And it can never be that.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right.

[Christine Dixon]

You need to make a boundary. You need to practice your boundary. When you're not activated, you set the boundary in your mind. You decide what you want that we are available for, what you're not available for, whatever the boundary is when you're calm. Because if you do it when you're activated, it's probably going to be bigger than what you'll actually follow through with anyway. So you have to have the clarity of having a calm nervous system, thinking about really figuring out what is the issue, nailing it down, and then just working on that.

[Warwick Schiller]

As you would know, I wrote a book called the Principles of Training that aren't just about training, but that would be the principle of create a tool before you use a tool. That'd be the principle.

[Christine Dixon]

There's so much crossover.

[Warwick Schiller]

That principle would be the need to know the answer before you ask the question. So you need to know what you're going to do before it. Yeah, it's all about preparation. Yeah.

[Christine Dixon]

And we're going to practice this stuff because, you know, a lot of times, like, like with horse training, you can hear something and intellectually go, oh, yeah, that makes sense. Totally. But doing it is a totally different thing. And then all of a sudden you're like, but wait. How am I supposed to wait? And then how do I do this? And now that I'm doing it, like, I have way more questions. So none of this is theory. Theory's great, but theory doesn't change anybody's life. Taking action.

[Warwick Schiller]

It's interesting that you said, when you're talking about the course and talking about, you know, teaching you how to negotiate prickly situations and stuff, and I was thinking, you are my wife's go to person for that. I know there's been a number of times where she's had a prickly situation. She's like, I'm just going to call Kristen and ask her what I should do here. I mean, you, we've been on the phone with you a bit with prickly situations with, with different people. So, yeah, you're the, you're the expert and we feel like you're our expert in diffusing prickly situations. And it all really comes down to this course. What you're teaching in this course is communication. How to, you know, how to respond to those prickly situations to bring it to a peaceful resolution rather than causing it to escalate.

[Christine Dixon]

Exactly. Peaceful resolution.

[Warwick Schiller]

I'm excited about this course and you know, think about however many people. I just love the whole knock on effect. But how many people are going to learn this stuff in this course and then how it is it going to affect them and the conversations they have on a daily basis with their family, their workmate, you know, like. Yeah, it's, it's. Yeah, I'm excited for the, for the knock on effect of it. So that's coming up April 19th. What about how do people contact you? And so that would be on. It would be. I think it's on courses.orgshelley.com.

[Christine Dixon]

I think so.

[Warwick Schiller]

I think that's what it's on. Yeah. What about finding you. How do people find out more about you and the work you do and what you offer?

[Christine Dixon]

I got a new domain name. So what's interesting is that there is another Christine Dixon in California, she's up in San Fran, who is a therapist who in you know, in general ways we look similar. We both have longer, you know, kind of dirty blonde hair. And she actually is a funny story. She actually reached out to me because so many people were reaching out to her thinking that she was me or that they saw her on your podcast and she's like, I've never been on his podcast. So we had this great conversation. We're both from New Jersey. It's like trippy really. And so she has done a lot but she's Christine. I think it's Christine E. Dixon spelled exactly the same name but she's done a lot of stuff on YouTube and different things so she really comes up. But I got Christine Dixon mentor dot com. So I'm, you know, my old one still works which is on the path coaching.net but Christine Dixon mentor.com and it Dickson is D, I, C, K S, O, N. I know a lot of people spell it with an X, but yeah, so it's one piece that I Got. And that's one of the reasons why I named my business on the path because she already had such a huge presence that I was like, if I just go by my name, I don't know if this is going to be. It's going to be very confusing.

[Warwick Schiller]

Right. Especially being in the same kind of the same line of work, same state.

[Christine Dixon]

Same general line of work. Yeah, the whole thing.

[Warwick Schiller]

The whole thing. Well, thank you for so much once again for joining me and sharing your story. It hit me in the fields probably more this time than it as any other time I've heard it. So, yeah, thank you so much for joining us.

[Christine Dixon]

You know, I recently wrote a comment about how grateful I was that you started this podcast during the pandemic because it really kind of became a lifeline for me, for my own sanity to hear your journey and then hear from the people that you had on. It just, it was like having those great conversations that we weren't really having because everybody was so separate. But and it was also in so many ways, all the things that I wanted to talk about and all the conversations that I would love to have and get to live them vicariously through you. So thank you and Robin for that. And the fact that I not only got a chance to be on, but also now have a chance to be on again, it does leave me feeling a little bit giddy about it. And I'm just super grateful. I'm so grateful to you and Robin and everybody, everyone that I've gotten to meet and become friends with and collaborate with through this community that I was looking for and didn't know I was looking for until you created it.

[Warwick Schiller]

I think it just, it just found us. It was out there. Well, good job. You know, it was like, it was like Elizabeth Gilbert stuff. It was out there. I was just looking for a place to land and this is where it landed.

[Christine Dixon]

It came through you and it came.

[Warwick Schiller]

Knocking and we answered the door.

[Christine Dixon]

The muse is now living in your house.

[Warwick Schiller]

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Once again, thank you so much for joining me. It's been great chatting with you again. And for you guys at home, thanks so much for listening and we will catch you on the next episode of the Journey on podcast.

[Christine Dixon]

Thanks for being a part of the Journey on podcast with with Warwick Shiller. Warwick has over 850 full length training videos on his online video [e-mail] Be sure to follow Warrick on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram to see his latest training advice and insights.