The Superpowers That Protect Us… And Hold Us Back

I don't know if your first podcast you did this, but I, I woke up a couple nights last week scared that I said something on to your six viewers about Matt. That. And that's going to be mad at that. I shared.

Oh, yeah. What did you find out?

Well, I don't know, because I don't know what I said. I just know that I said a lot.

Well, that for me, that's a bigger question about you and Matt. Like, what is Matt like, what's Matt expecting or what does Matt think in general? He he knows.

He would be fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The way I would say it is, Rebecca is always the hero of my stories. Like, I just I'm really careful to make sure that she doesn't get, Well, that's.

I don't I do that by design. Yeah.

Yeah. And then if I do slider, I just make sure I tell her in advance. I'm like, hey, by the way, this last thing I did, you might not come out looking so good, but, you know. Yeah. I don't think overall it's a big deal.

Okay. So you didn't you didn't pick up anything that was like, oh, shit, you shouldn't have said that.

No, no. But also, I love Matt. I love you both.

I think it's so funny to me, too.

You probably remember this, but, I don't know if people if there are enough people listening to appreciate this, but you guys are the. I told a story about you guys one time where I was in your kitchen. Yeah. And you had this, like, really artful argument literally right over me. Like you were. You were in front of me at the kitchen sink and he was behind me at the pantry, and I was like, oh, what's going to happen? What's going to happen? So, you know, I don't I think he can handle it. He's a big boy.

Yes, he is a big boy. All right. What are we talking about?

Lots of things in particular. You were so adorable. You're like, hey, I need to clarify some things I said the other day. Because, I love that you, like, are. Think about it. I do the webcast, and I turn it off, and I'm like, okay, on to the next thing. I know, it's just. Yeah, it's smooth, but you you had things that were on your mind like, I'm interested to hear about them. Do you remember what they were? Because I put it up for you. If you don't.

You ask me, like, what do I say about marriage, its role or whatever. And so regardless of what I said, the two other thoughts I had is we typically marry. I see a lot that way. The couple like, will marry somebody. We want to borrow something from. And the example, like when I think about meeting and falling in love with Matt, I was he was so spontaneous and full of risk and I was living a very small life. And I remember he went and bought he found all the authors that I like to read, and he bought the books, and he put them next to his nightstand to make me think he read them. And he still hasn't. And so I have to believe there's a depth and a slowness to me that he wanted to borrow.

Yeah.

So that was one of them. And I see that a lot in couples. The divine setup pieces meaning like in marriage. Then you have the chance to, like, borrow that. If I'm going to borrow something from you, then I'm actually going to grow and heal. And now also I'm going to become more of me and hopefully be married to more of you. But a lot of times we we crash into that transition. And I think I used an example of somebody that, I mean, all of us, like we have to. It's like I might have said this before, but I say it all the time in my office. You know, when we grow up, it's like we're handed this map of how to do life, and we take that map with us, and then we find a place where that map works, right? And in marriage, we have the opportunity once we heal and we grow to expand our map. Right. So that was one of them.

Is it the same as like sometimes the not it's not quite a metaphor but the, the way I think about it is like you, you, you grow up and you like, you come from this culture and then you have this person that you meet and they come into their culture. And then the two of you get together and you have to create this brand new culture. And it's not so much that it's out. It's from scratch. It's literally like, you got to take what works from your side and work from your side, and we match it together. And maybe that's the new map, or maybe that's the map. It kind of becomes the next thing. Is that similar to kind of.

But like I think I talked about chemistry last, last week. That's where it got all like I have. So many thoughts, but it's like I can't really sum it up. But like in order for me to want to join you in your culture, I have to have some elements of my culture that already exist in yours, because I know how to do my culture. It's unrealistic to think. I'm just going to spontaneously go. I'm not going to feel safe enough. Like so. You know, I have a couple who. But actually, this is this is very common where one of the spouses wants needs to hide, you know, they have found they found safety and hiding growing up. Right. Like I it's not very safe bringing who I am to the table.

It doesn't either work in our family or I've just gotten the message. There's no room for me in this family. So I'm at a hide, a little bit of what? A lot of who I am. They often marry somebody that, takes up all the space. And the person who grows up that takes up a lot of space in the house has to go find somebody. They have to marry somebody that let some take up all the space.

Interesting.

They can't not in order to get married. And it's usually not a very easy and kind process. And once you're married to go, okay, let's just look at our maps and see how we can expand one big map.

Yeah. That's interesting. I'm chuckling to myself because I'm thinking about this one client. And I told her, I said, I'm going to talk about you tomorrow. And she goes, you better not. And I go, oh, I'm going to wait.

Is that consent? You better not.

And then, I asked her at the end, I said, are you going to be mad at me if I, if I don't if I talk about you? She said, yep, that's okay. But here you are. I mean, this is a little bit of the situation that I actually do want to ask about because there's this collision of, in this particular relationship, there's this collision of someone who's kind of, takes up a lot of room and someone who is trained to, not literally to to disappear and, and be invisible and unseen. And so, anyway, that's my that's my not so subtle nod at this at the shift you want to make. But, part of why I want to talk to you overall is because you have a perspective on trauma that I don't have, and I'm interested in. And so can I just pick your brain for a little while.

Pick it.

Well, here's the beginning. And it's again, it's a little bit of an inelegant transition, but I'm going to hover around this kind of one case study that I've been thinking through. But the first thing I want to ask is, like, what is the difference between okay, hold on. Right now in the world, trauma is a big buzzy phrase. Everybody's got trauma, everybody's talking about their trauma. We've got to deal with our trauma. Your trauma classroom. Here's capital T trauma. There's little lowercase t trauma. I think I've come to terms with, like one story in my own life that I can call my trauma. And it's actually relatively benign, like, on the scheme of, like, disruptive things that happened to people.

It's probably like a four out of ten or something. But it's a big deal to me. I think it's it shapes a lot of the way I think about being in particular in relationship with Rebecca. So I want to just acknowledge that, like in talking about trauma, I'm not trying to do, like, the trendy sexy thing.

Yeah, I got you.

Let's talk about the the thing, the topic of du. Your. But there is a question that I legitimately am interested in, which is the difference between what we might call trauma and what you have often reference, which is complex trauma. And I don't know if I can like, thoughtfully articulate the difference to anyone, least of which my clients. But when you think about trauma and in particular complex trauma, how do you how do you make it? Like how do you how.

Do you distinguish. Yeah.

Like, yeah. How do you do it.

So trauma how we know it and the world knows it. And that what you're describing is a four out of ten in comparison there's a clean before and after. Right. So if I'm going on and I have a worldview and I'm developing and then something big happens and then life is different.

Yeah. And in my case it's like it's a probably like 90 days. Like it's a clean before and after of about about a three month period.

Yeah. Yeah. But you can clearly look back and go there was a before this thing happened and then I was different. Complex trauma has a lot of definitions. But globally if we hold it loosely we all have it because it looks at its long term, it's pervasive and it's always been. So before memory I know the kind of the layout of the land and the little culture I'm growing up in before I even have language and memory.

Can you attach that to the map.

Yes. Like I already have before. I have memory which involves language. I'm already exposed to this culture and I'm learning the general, the land that I'm living in. And then I'm being handed. Either being handed or I'm creating a map on how to navigate this world that I'm living in called family. Right? So it looks at the effects of where I wasn't free to either be who I was, or say what I saw or feel how I feel. So as a kid, like. I want to be able to bring who I am to this micro chasm of a family. And eventually we, who our kids are, helps expand who our family is. And that I had a big dilemma when my I remember was Sammy, one of my twins, when she was like 14 or 15, I was like, hey sweetie, we don't do that in this family. And I was like, wait a second. But she does this and she's in our family.

Right. Because eventually they have to individuate and become their own and have their own relationship with self, God, their God and others. And like and there's a, there's huge like that doesn't happen when you go to college. It starts to happen. You know. Can my kid influence what we're doing. You know we start as like you get to pick what we're doing Friday night. You know you start small but like, complex trauma looks how safe for you to bring who you were, how. And it looks at how afraid were you to bring your needs or your fears. To the people that are supposed to keep you safe. Complex trauma, is it? There's a clusterfuck there. Like shit. I am afraid of you. And you're supposed to be keeping me safe, so I have nowhere to go.

No.

So I have to go internally and find resources. I got a backup and adapt. I mean, complex trauma looks like an adaptation. So I adapt away from my true self, Well, helpful.

Yeah. I mean, except that I have now a million more questions. Which is this? Even though I'll start with the thing you just said, like, how do you know? Or how do you what's the true self like? I have to adapt away from my true self, but here I am in this environment, forming myself in real time. Like how does that.

Well because typically the parts of us that are not allowed in our house either there's no room for them or and most of our parents, most of the people that have a fair amount of complex trauma, you got to look at intent versus impact. Like I triggered the crap out of my mom. My mom didn't know how to have relationship with people that were other than her. So any time I was by myself it triggered her abandon whatever. Right. And so she would get big and scary. Her intent wasn't to scare me her and like her intent was to protect herself. She would get triggered. And she would go big. Not on purpose to scare me, but the impact it had is scared the crap out of me. So I had to back away and start hiding the parts of me that were trying to come out on scene, the part that. So I learned how to hide.

Like I'm not going to bring who I am if I can't bring who I am in front of the people that are supposed to teach me who I am and keep me safe, I'm not going to go. That's not going to change when I go out in the big bad world. Right. So the the true self, it looks at vulnerabilities like in my case and your case, I would I would say when you have superpowers, that's an indicator that you have a fair amount of unhealed complex trauma, which is relational trauma.

Say more about superpowers.

Superpowers are like, what my superpower. They're character traits that are maladaptive, but they're productive. They're maladaptive because they're feeling like they're filling roles. So. Mind if I think of. Okay, part of my character traits is I was born as somebody who had intuition, and I'm also born as somebody that's pretty flexible. So those two things, those were two of the character traits that I needed to use to keep me safe so I could read the tenor of the house and adapt and be flexible. Right. And then I bring those into the world. But those two character traits are keeping all the other parts of me safe and let me keep if I'm at risk, if I can't make mistakes, if I can't laugh out loud, if I can't be who I am, say what I see. It's hard when you have. I have a whole lot of person.

Probably half of my practice has a Christian faith to it. And that's a tricky thing. Like, how do you how do you expose your kids to a, religious worldview? But at the same time, let them let them cultivate their own faith, right. Like somewhere in there, we're not doing a good job saying, okay, well, as a kid, we're going to tell you what to believe. And now you're an adolescent, and we're we're kind of like, let you start to figure that out and cultivate your own faith. It's more, you know, we don't do that in our family or this is what our family believes or this is what our religion believes. That's going to communicate to me that I'm doing something wrong, trying out things.

That's intriguing. I wonder if it's attached to this thing that I sometimes say about people who are church, or who come up in the church. Is that everyone I know, everyone I know, who I whose faith I respect and appreciate, found it after they left their parents church. Like there's this.

That would be true about me.

Yeah, well, of course you're on the list of people.

I just didn't know. Like, I was like, I don't know if you like. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, so here I am. I've been. I've been, born into a world with my gifts and my my superpowers.

And your traits. Like your gifts and your traits and all of that. They become superpowers when you use them, when they get a lot of heavy lifting, they're like muscles. So if I have a couple character traits that I use to keep me safe from being embarrassed or shamed or messed, then they're going to get a lot of a lot of time at the gym, right? Yeah. My other character traits are going to get atrophied. That's what I mean about true self. There are parts of me that had never seen the light of day because I never expose them to sunlight.

Because I use my intuition and my flexibility to hide, to keep those parts of me really, really safe. So I'm not going to go out in the big, bad world and then open the trap door and let all those unexposed parts to the sun without sunscreen, like, I'm just going to keep. And that's that map. So I'm going to find somebody that I'm going to spend the rest of my life with. I'm going to find friends. I'm going to find a, a job that lets me get paid for my superpowers.

Okay. So you wrote this sentence in the last email you sent me, and I think this might be where you're headed, but we tend to marry someone who answers. We tend to marry someone who answers our latest question and or meets our greatest needs at a given time. Is this the. Is this what you're talking about when you talk about, oh, okay. So speculate about that.

So I would say I think if most of us were honest and we've been married for more than a decade, we're different people. And we would look back and go, would I marry? That same person with who I am today? I'm not sure. And so there's red flags with all of us, but we're not going to we're going to kind of I mean, that whole love is blind. It's typically like Matt offered me something that bypassed my superpowers. Like I always wanted an extravagant life to live out loud, to have adventures. And that's who I married. I mean, he he I don't know if you remember this, but in Seattle, he wear bright orange jacket, and I'd be dressed in gray and black, sitting by a fire. Right.

Like we're in the uniform, right? Today.

Yes, yes, the uniform. So, like, I, I survive by keeping my world very small. And I married somebody who had a very big world. And that that got my attention. And I wanted what he had right. And that was the biggest need at the time. I, he also had a job and I didn't have any money. And I grew up without him. I grew up without electricity every summer. Right. Yeah. And so looking back, I'm like, oh, that made a lot of sense to me. Wow, this guy has a job and he has a car. He's got health insurance and he likes me and he's fun. Yeah, I didn't have any of those. And I wasn't fun. I was deep.

Yeah.

But what happens then when that question gets answered or that knee gets fulfilled? This is where I really identify with what Sky said on your boat night talk. Was he's married. He's on his fourth marriage to a same wife. Because once that night is filled or that question is answered, we're different and we have to go. What do we do with this difference? Do we leave the marriage or do we leave this marriage and birth out a different marriage with the same person?

Well, it raises a question for me that I think is about an around like whether or not our spouse is meant to heal our trauma, our complex trauma. Like is it too much pressure. Is it, is it the wrong question. Like what's the what's the role of the spouse now that you've found them and you've said, okay, you've got parts of the map that I can attach to, and I can make sense of this right now, and you fill some gaps for me. You how does how do you see that playing when you know, now have shifted this one family. And now I have this other family of the new family that now we've created. And, what do you think?

What's the end of the after 26 years of marriage? Would I have would I marry Matt? With who I am now? Back then.

No, no, no. What do you know now? Yeah.

Like I am who I am. If I met Matt of who he was 26 years ago, I would not have married him. However, I can't. I am who I am today because of being married to him, so I can't. Yeah. And so it's more what do you do with that? Like it fills me with gratitude. Like, is it his responsibility to heal me? No. I think it's a byproduct. An opportunity that can happen in marriage. Because a lot of our fights early on, I mean, came from my terror. I just remember being in the first week of being married to Matt, driving across country. I was mad at him 100 times, 100 million times. I've never felt mad at my father. I'm like, I'm going to. That's data. I don't know what to do with that data. But like, that's something. But, you know, I can marry a guy who puts me in a place of dependance. And that was tricky for me because I had survived by becoming independent. And he's trying to say, depend on me.

Not that's a tangent, but I'm like, is it his responsibility. No. Is it my responsibility. No. But it's my opportunity And then complex trauma and counseling. It does. I remember around saying this like it's really hard to heal from trauma without being married to a good person.

Like a.

He was talking about sexually abused women, right? Like, and the merit to that is they offer you a, they can offer you a corrective experience. So my map is going to tell me some things. I know something about the world that's true to me. And in marriage, I get a rewind press play and it if it has a different ending, then I've healed some, right. I see that in like, counseling people like, if every time somebody gets mad at their person, they leave and they're my client and they got mad at me and I stayed, that that provided there's a different outcome when you have a fair amount of complex channel, it's you have like a true false test and you want to you want to have multiple choice.

You want to have different outcomes. You don't want to say, well, I know how that goes and this is how it goes. Every time. So in counseling somebody with complex trauma, one of the key things is you're offering them a corrective experience where they're rewind it, they're coming in and putting their map and trying to make it play out in your office. And you welcome that map. But you give them an alternative ending, you build a different road.

Yeah.

Same in marriage, right?

Yeah. Okay, so I hear you. And so now I have this other question, which is it's hard to recover from complex trauma if you if you don't if you're not married to a good person, I think that's what you said or that's what you said. Allander said. But, Yeah. If if you have been, subject to an environment that makes you feel unsafe and the people around you aren't good, how do you learn or can you learn to let your partner be good? Like, is there a yes? Is can they be good for you or do you not have that skill, or is that something you cultivator.

I can say yes.

Yeah.

So I'm married a really good man a great man. However I couldn't handle it. I was, it's called, I was outside my threshold of tolerance. So I was in a panic for the first 15 years of my marriage. I remember going, okay, I did an experiment in my brain. It was, it's some, it's some, What is that? It's a story about some Indian and some cheese and the.

Monkey about ran experiments. Because I got one that I want to follow by you to see if it works. But go ahead.

And basically it talks about having the chief tells the Indian, you know, you have to, wolves.

The wolves.

Shoulder. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and once fighting for good ones, fighting for evil. And, and the Indian says like, which one wins because it's the one that you feed. And I got that, that got my attention and so I, I was like okay any. I have a confirmation bias because I need to have it. That I interpret Matt Matt actions as he's not safe. He's not a good person. I have to, but in order for me to stay married, I have to believe he's bad because I know how to do bad. All right, so for one week, listen to Matt like he's a male client of yours because you crush it at the office. They really do with my clients. Just listen to him.

And after a week in a day, you can go back because I was like, well, for a week, nothing bad, I can't die. Nothing dramatic is going to happen. So I'm just going to listen to him with a confirmation bias and look for the good instead of proving the bad. And I've never gone back. So it's not like.

Did it cost you anything? I mean, I don't.

Know, I had all these false beliefs that I knew were true. We were talking about one the other day. I used to think that I could never thank him or affirm him when he did something around the house, because my map told me, if you do that, they'll stop doing it. So I have to, like, withhold any gratitude or good like affection. An order. I got to keep the iron to the fire to keep them doing things around the house. And really was great. I remember telling him that and he's like, it's actually quite the opposite. If you think me, I'll actually do double. But I didn't know that in my bones I had to learn that my body didn't know that.

Well you had to let him teach you that right.

Yes. And so how do you do that? It's it's more because if I grow up, it I'm, I'm going to surround myself by people. That let my mat work. So chances are we are going to be around.

Yeah.

Folks that allow us to relate how we've always related. Right.

Yeah, yeah.

All right. So what we can ask me.

Oh I'm into okay. So it's this is not a, this is not a super tangent, but it is kind of I'm into this thought experiment thing. Like I want to have this like a story that I tell all my clients right now. It's about Abby, who was the morning lifeguard at our pool, last summer, and, train, and I don't know, I guess I don't need to be quick, but, she had to get there early, put the lane lines in, get the dots swimming on time so the adults could get out on time. So swim back is start on time, blah, blah, blah, like the whole bit. So on a Monday she overslept and she didn't get in on time and she, you know, got in trouble. She had a slap on the wrist and she was felt really bad. And then Tuesday she woke up early. She got coffee, she took it into her people.

She apologized, like, got the lane lines and all that. And then when one of the guys was leaving the pool, one of the swimmers was leaving the pool that morning, Tuesday. He said to her on the way out, thank you for showing up this morning. Abby decided that he was being condescending and rude right.

There it is.

And yet ruined her day for like yep, ruined her whole day. And she fretted about it at her day job. She talked to me about dinner. She had this whole thing where she, like, just spun out, and I said, Abby, you know, maybe he was being condescending and rude, you know, maybe he was being thankful and kind, you know, your decision really doesn't change him at all. But if you decided that he was being kind, you could have gone on with your day and been fine. We still don't even know what his intention was. But you decided to internalize this message. So she and I practiced all summer sort of changing the message like she got an input and she went dark about it and she was like.

And I was like, what if you didn't? What if you picked this other thing like that for you up to do some stuff and, you know, she's 22 or 21 and just a lot more malleable mind. Like I said, her brain hasn't been training, so she's got a.

Lot more of that sort.

Of flexibility in it. But, you know, here I am, I'm 40 years old. I've got all this practice telling myself that, like, this is the way the world is organized. This is the way that things play. This is how people are. This is this is confirmation bias all the time. This person is being condescending and rude to me. This guy doesn't love me. I'm not lovable at all. Anyway. So I've been really toying with and playing with this. Like, what are the options? And I found a lady. Her name is Jane McGonigal and she is a futurist. She's a game theorist and features. She teaches Ted talks and stuff, and I've just like, obsessed with their work right now.

But she talks about kind of like future tripping a little bit where, yeah, this is the experiment where she says, imagine waking up tomorrow. Imagine just being in your house and waking up and create the scenario you. Right. So you and I can do it like I'm going to I know what bed I'm going to wake in. I know about what the light's going to be. Rebecca's going to be next to me. This is probably what I'm going to be wearing. This is where I got to do in the morning. Like, this is where my head's going to be at. And then she says, okay, now do that same thing. But a year into the future.

Well.

And see if you can do it. So I'm not moving like I'm going to live in my house in a year so I can still do the same kind of thing. You move around a little bit, you move around, play. Maybe you're gonna be in the same house, maybe you're not. But then Jane McGonigal says, now do it ten years into the future. So if you can imagine, like what? Where you are, who you're with, what you know, what's the deal? But she's basically saying, stretch your brain and see if you can create a world in which like and that's the thing, she says. In a world where Annie is happy, where Annie is loved, a world where, you know, this is how dystopian novel is get written in a world where.

One.

Available or in a world where, you know, the government has decided to, move to Mars, like, and then things get written. But but those novels get written because people get outside of their really rigid thinking. Yeah. And that's really cool. I can create this really cool, create a board game, I can create or whatever like that, but can you create a different future for yourself? Like a future, I would.

Say, or.

Your loved or your lovable or or.

Wouldn't you like how you actually help you change your present? If I'm able to pitch.

This is the question. Yes.

Okay. Yes. I thought you said change your future. I was like, yeah.

Okay, right. But what I mean is, like, if if you can create that world, does it change your future through the present? You know what I mean? Because I finally create space to imagine something that I couldn't imagine before, meaning that someone loved me or that I was safe for better or whatever this scenario is.

Yes, it gives you hope and you start. You start living as if, yeah. Again, I used to say that I don't. You made it up. But it's the already but not yet. And I think folks like us live with the. Not yet.

Yeah.

But if I just knew that I would I'm like oh that could change how I live today right.

Yeah.

It's the difference between being in a groove and in a rut. Thank you for the New York Times crossword puzzle. Three letter word for groove is rut. And I'm like, they're not the same because a rut. You need help. Unless I'm right. But that could get me out of a rut if I. If I lived today. As if that thing is going to be answered tomorrow, it would unleash something right? But back to Abby. I actually think what's also helpful. Because you got to do some mental gymnastics and almost like, not trust your gut if you're a woman.

Yeah.

To like.

Yeah.

What also is helpful is, okay, so what if you did think that. What if it was sarcastic? Because the thing is that says so much about him and little about you.

100%. This is what I kept telling you. I was like, yes. I was like, maybe he was. But you either you're outsourcing your power yourself to him.

Yeah, yeah.

Or you're not. Yeah. Like so I think I've been using this phrase with clients a lot lately, which is if I need, let's say, how does it go if I need someone's love to make me feel good? That's just the other side of the coin of when they don't love me, I feel bad or something like, yes, whatever. So yeah, but I but in both cases I'm outsourcing my self-esteem. Like I'm outsourcing to myself, right? I yeah, yeah. So where does like self-esteem come from that belongs just to me or where can it come from or should it come from. Well particularly if you're, if you're out of a complex trauma kind of scenario where your whole life is telling you that you're, you're a piece of shit.

If you take self esteem and change it into your sense of self. Right. Because I think in AA like one of our phrases is if you want to good self-esteem, do estimable things. But that is still externalize.

Right.

That I'm looking for the world to confirm that what I did was good. So I feel good about myself. Right. But and complex trauma it's expanding the sense of self. Right. It's it's finding where did I adapt. Far away from who I was born to be. Like, where am I hiding and still protecting? Because the thing is, Zach, I, I use this with clients. We tend to protect the gold. Right. Take it. If we're protecting a part of ourselves, that means that there's that's the that's, like, really important.

You did say that to me. Once we protect the gold, we don't protect the silver. Okay? Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's like you can have the silver with this. You can't have.

Yeah, yeah. And so I think a sense of self is finding coming home to like, who I am, who I was created to be.

Man, this is a floating one for me. I haven't I haven't figured it out because, of course, you know, having grown up in the church, I have all of these little mantras. And I think maybe I said this last week, I can't remember, but I have all these things like that. Every hair on my head is numbered and I'm beautifully and wonderfully made. And I have all this I've internalized these. Yeah, like estimable messages that come from on high. I come from the. Yeah, kind of like the, the universe or from God himself, you know, but if you don't have that or if, you know, if you can't believe that because maybe even your church harmed you, you know, maybe, like, all of those messages are coming from a place that was dangerous for you. I'm I'm still trying to cling to and actually give away. Like, where does this steam come from?

You know, it's interesting. We have I just had a, an insight that you and I might have the flip side of the same coin, because where I went to with those over here, I'm like, okay. Yeah. So we matter. Right. With my therapy ten years ago it was I had it go all the way to like I matter. That wasn't working. But I made up of matter. And so I get to fill the space that I'm in. So last week you said I am the world's best kept secret. I'm like, well, I have a lot to do with that. Because some of it is. I don't know how to matter. I was taught that I didn't matter, and I think, I don't know that you got the memo. I don't think from what I know about you that it was a very clear message to you that you really matter in a good way. But how we handle it is very different.

I think for me, it is a little more like I mattered too much.

Yeah, that's true too. Yeah, but no, you matter too much to somebody.

Yeah.

That's not you mattering for you, right?

Right, right, right. Yeah.

And so you I don't envy. I'm like, God, I just wish I had an ounce of what you have. Like. And I'm like, I don't have the right to take up the space that I'm in. Right? That's why I enjoyed last week so much is because I'm like, oh, you invited me into a space and I. I helped you fill it up.

Yeah. You did. Well I'm glad that you did. And I've learned a lot today. I think it's going to I will not turn off this recording and move on and not think about it again. I'll spend a lot of time thinking about what you said, and, and I will look for we have one more visit.