Why You’re Still Not Free After Sobriety: Healing the Trauma Beneath Addiction with Ann Taliaferro

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Before we hit record on thisepisode, I had a moment.
I looked across the screen atthe woman who five years ago
held space for me when I walkedinto treatment, and now I'm
sitting here as the host of apodcast about healing.
That alone should tell youeverything about the full circle
sold deep conversation you'reabout to hear.

(00:22):
Because here's the truth,getting sober doesn't mean
you've healed.
Understanding your traumadoesn't mean you've integrated
it.
And just because you're notusing it doesn't mean you're not
still running from yourself.
In this episode, I sit down witha licensed counselor and a
certified sex addictiontherapist and Hall farro to

(00:43):
unpack why we stay stuck in thesame emotional patterns even
after recovery, the science ofaddiction and how trauma rewires
the brain.
The difference between talkingabout it and actually healing
from it, and how to reclaim theparts of yourself that survival
told you to abandon.
This isn't just a conversationabout addiction, this is about

(01:06):
the human experience, about howwe cope, how we protect, and how
we fucking rise.
So if you've ever wondered whyyou're still not free, even
after doing all the rightthings, this one's for you.
So let's dive in.
Welcome to Embody this, the NOBS Healing podcast for women who

(01:28):
are done playing small.
I'm Lauren Michelle Jewel, asingle sober business owning
badass who has been humbled ashell by healing.
But I'm not just someone who'slived it.
I've studied it, coached it, andhelped women walk through it for
over seven years in mind, bodyhealth, gut brain science, and
nervous system healing.
I've worked with women who havetried everything, therapy,

(01:51):
diets, supplements, self-helpwork, but still feel
disconnected from their bodies,their health, and their truth.
Because here's the thing,healing isn't a trend.
It's not aesthetic.
It's not an identity.
Healing is embodied, and let mebe real with you, it's hard as
fuck and it's also rewarding asfuck.

(02:13):
I know because I've lived it.
And along the way I realizedsomething.
Modern healing methods arefailing us.
Everything is compartmentalized.
Go to therapy.
They say, take the supplements,do the inner work, but no one
teaches you how to actuallyintegrate it.
All this show is for you ifyou're ready to rethink healing.

(02:36):
It's not about being perfect,being a wellness influencer or
having a PhD in biohacking.
It's about undoing, unlearning,and finally coming home to
yourself.
Quick disclaimer, this podcastis for educational purposes
only.
It's here to expand your mind,challenge old narratives, and
empower you with knowledge.

(02:57):
It's not a replacement formedical advice.
Always consult a professionalwhen making health decisions.
If this episode hits home,follow the share, rate it,
review it, share it with someonewho needs to hear it, because
you never know whose life youmight change.
Now let's fucking go.

Lauren Jewel (03:19):
Alright, loves.
Today's episode is deep.
I'm sitting down with someonewho has spent over a decade
helping people untangle theirroots of addiction, trauma, and
emotional pain, and not from apedestal, but from inside the
trenches.
And Farro is a licensed clinicalprofessional counselor, a
certified sex addictiontherapist.

(03:40):
And on a deeply personal note,she's the woman who actually was
there when I chose to go intotreatment.
And long before that Herapproach to healing is grounded,
compassionate, and no bs.
She's not here to slapaffirmations on your trauma.
She's here to help you rewritethe story at a cellular level.
One of our core philosophies,and it's a quote that gives me

(04:02):
chills every time, is that it'snot what's wrong with you, it's
about what happened and how wefind the strength to rewire and
overwrite the old messaging.
And that's exactly what we'rediving in today.
We're turning insight intointegration.
Anne's work is rooted in CBTmindfulness, and what makes her
stand out is how she weavestogether neurobiology, trauma

(04:22):
recovery, and sacred rebuildingof self-worth after substance
use, loss, and deep emotionalpain.
In this episode, we're unpackingthe real reasons why we numb out
the difference between sobrietyand true healing, and how we
start reclaiming the parts ofourselves that we've long
abandoned.
So if you've ever done all thethings, all the right things,

(04:42):
therapy, the books, therecovery, but still feel
disconnect from yourself, thisepisode is for you anne, I'm so
excited to have you on.
The universe really works inmysterious ways.
Who would've thought five yearsago that I'd be sitting here
having this conversation withyou on my podcast?
Honestly, it's pretty surreal,and I'm beyond honored to share

(05:03):
this space with you.
So welcome in.
Anne.
How are we doing?

Ann T (05:07):
Thank you.
Thanks, Lauren.
It feels the same way for metoo, and I, it is the it is the
reward for the work.
When you get to come back intoconnection with people and see
them not just surviving, butthriving.
That's such a

yeah, I know.
And it takes so much patienceand.
Trust and compassion because forme, I know that I wasn't just a
straight shooter.
Yes, I am lucky enough to saythat I went one time for maybe
24 hours and left, and then Iwent a second time and I was
able to continue with my ownhealing journey afterwards.

(05:49):
But I know that in this line ofwork, you have to be
compassionate with people andunderstand that it's not a five
step process and then we'redone, so tell me a little bit
about what you do.
I know I, I listed everythingand all the labels above there,
but tell me if the heart of whatit is that you do and why you
chose to do this work.

Ann T (06:13):
Oh my gosh.
The heart of what I do currentlyis is rooted in the addiction
recovery process, but my.
Focus is getting underneath whatdrives those compulsions and
those obsessions.
What hap I, I really believethat at the core of most

(06:36):
compulsive behaviors is somesort of trauma.
And our understanding in ourdefinition of trauma is, has
changed thankfully over theyears that I've been in my own
personal recovery andexperienced things and uncovered
things.
And it, I didn't fit the mold ofwhat was happening in trauma

(06:59):
research, but I was experiencingevents that definitely impacted
my ability to function.
I got into addiction.
I.
Treatment work from It was asecond career change in, in,
again, in my own personalrecovery.
Just came to a place after about30 years of needing a little bit

(07:21):
more purpose, a little bit moredepth to, what I was doing.
I had a very great 25 year runas an artist, commercial artist
and subcontractor, and fun withpower tools.
And then got into a I'm 40 andclimbing ladders and scaffolding

(07:41):
and just starting to put somewear and tear on my body.
So as a result of some traumaticexperiences in my family, I went
back to school.
I got out of what I was doing,and I went into working in
inpatient treatment and loved itfrom day one, like felt I
believe, that there are thosemoments when you absolutely

(08:05):
connect on every single leveland you feel like you're exactly
where you're supposed to bedoing exactly what you're
supposed to be doing.
Like the universe lineseverything up and your nervous
system just goes, oh, here I am.
Yeah.
And that's what it felt like.
It super chaotic working in atreatment facility and my
nervous system left.

(08:26):
It

isn't that the way?
We thrive in chaos.
Yeah.
We thrive in chaos.

Ann T (08:32):
The shift was, I'm not creating chaos anymore, but I
will step into yours with youand let's go.
I am not afraid of, and I didthat for gosh, about 13 years,
went back to school.
I'm a high school dropout as aresult of my addiction and A
GED, even a college dropout.

(08:54):
It wasn't until.
Crashing and burning in thatpart of my life that I stepped
into recovery and it was veryungraceful and difficult.
And in my forties and fifties,I'm going back to school to
finish a two year degree, to geta bachelor's degree.
I, I completed my master's at 60and that was hard working

(09:15):
full-time and, raising a childand being a wife and, full-time
employee and but again, it waslike, I could see it, I could
feel it.
I could just, I could embodythat vision in the way that they
talk about, create that visionfor yourself and move.
There had never been anythingthat I felt that I.

(09:36):
Strongly about this is what I'msupposed to do.

Energy giving.
It's energy giving.
Yeah.
The energy's not just fromsleeping and food, like it's
when we're aligned and we're the

Ann T (09:46):
flow that flow state.
This was my flow state thing.
What I found working insubstance abuse was I could have
this much of the conversationbecause I was only certified, so
I could talk about addiction andI could talk about recovery.
What I knew to be true, havingtalked to thousands of addicts,

(10:08):
both in and out of recovery, wasthat the conversation was this
big and it involved trauma andit involved, all the ins and
outs and the things that youtalked about, those maladaptive
behaviors that are actuallyprotecting us.
We think that they're helping,they are helping us in a way.
And then they start to exact aprice after a period of time.

(10:31):
It's the, the armor that webuild, the way that we socially
construct ourselves in veryspecific ways to survive.
And then getting to a point inlife where that no longer works.
It's actually working backwards.
And that's the, my bestdescription to people who aren't
addicts is that it's a verybackwards thinking brain.
It's not gonna make sense toanybody else.

(10:54):
But in, in my head, there's aabsolute logic to it.

Yeah.
Yeah.
And now ties back to, as we weresaying, with the trauma, it ties
back to childhood and with theimprinting of our subconscious
mind.
And we're not conscious of anyof this stuff until we become
conscious of it, until we bringawareness to it.
Which that's where I find, wehave resistance to, because we
have to look within.
I know that when I.
One of the things that happenedto me when I first got sober was

(11:21):
I wanted to save everybody.
But it was just me projectingout and I wanted to do it when I
wasn't sober.
It was just me projecting out,seeing all these reflections of
what I had experienced myself,not realizing that it was just a
protection of what I needed toaddress within myself rather
than allowing other people tolive their own life.
And then for me to look withinand see how can I recognize that

(11:45):
pattern?
Why am I so feeling so stronglyabout what other people are
doing or why they're doing it?
And it's such a fascinatingexperience to witness your own
adaptive behaviors.
So what do you see?
What do you commonly see acrossthe board?
I know that you are specializingin sex addiction.
Why don't you talk a little bitabout that?
What brought you to sexaddiction?

(12:08):
I.

Ann T (12:09):
I was I was getting out of, I'd gotten my license.
I'd actually, right when thepandemic shutdown happened, I
was transitioning to a new jobworking an outpatient, and then
the job went away because of thepandemic lockdown.
So I scrambled a little bit andthen I found some people that I

(12:29):
opened an outpatient, I open anintensive outpatient clinic
with, and I did that while I wasfinishing up my degree.
And in the very last little bitsof it I decided that I really
wanted to get out of managedcare.
Contrary to what, is marketedout there, the biggest barrier
to treatment, in my opinion isinsurance companies and managed

(12:52):
care and having to begproviders.
To allow me to treat people fora certain number of days on,
very, it just, there's lesstreatment that is, that happens
than what I wanted to be able todo with people.
It was jumping through hoops andchecking off boxes and a lot of

(13:12):
paperwork that, took me awayfrom actually really being in
that connection with somebody.
I had a friend that I workedwith previously in a treatment
facility and she reached out tome and said, Hey, why don't you
come and talk to my boss?
And I went in and we had a, whatwas probably slated to be 30
minute conversation turned intotwo hours.

(13:33):
And what he talked about was, hehas all of the people that he
hires go through a veryintensive training process in
sex addiction therapy through anorganization called iap.
And they've been around for avery long time and really have
done all the deep dives onsomething that there still isn't

(13:53):
a diagnostic code for.
There's still a good portion ofthe population out there that
says this doesn't exist.
This is not an addiction.
But when you are compulsivelyusing sex to self-harm, which I
have done and I have seen, Idon't know what else you call
that.
In the realm of all the otherthings I, people were as much of

(14:16):
a drug for me as any substancethat I put in my body.
And I knew that.
So this was that like, oh, I canhave more conversation.
And then along with that,there's a lot of training in
this IAP organization abouttrauma.
Oh, I get to have more of thisconversation.
And there's a, DHD is a reallyhuge component in a lot of this

(14:37):
stuff.
And, oh, I get to have autism.
I get to have more.
I just came off of the, theyhave the big conference out in
Arizona every two years, andthis was the first time we as a
team got to go and meet some ofthe people that we, that trained
us and meet some of the peoplethat are in the, forefront of
researching and writing anddoing all of these things.

(14:59):
And it was really.
It was so powerful and mysystem, by the end of it, my
system was like overwhelmed withall of, the, just the fire hose
of information.
But there were workshops like,why are men afraid of women?
And yeah, going to that one.
Yeah.
Gaming, the gaming industry andthe connection with compulsive

(15:21):
behavior and pornographyaddiction, which for a lot of
young people is, we are nottalking about these things, but
I, oh, common.
See, it shows up in my office.
Like we're such an isolated I,my heart goes out to young
people who are so connected toscreens and devices that there
are college courses on how tointeract with humans.

(15:47):
I just read something down.
I was like, wait, what?
We're there, we are there now.

And we're craving intimacy.
And so this is where it's likethat roundabout way because from
that craving of empathy, likeconnection, belonging, being
seen, being heard, when thoseare not happening, these coping
mechanisms show up and theseadaptive behaviors show up.
And so it brings us in this loopof like, why am I not getting

(16:16):
what I want?
I'm a alone, this, that, and thethird.
Okay, let me go play a game.
Let me.
Go look at some porn.
Let me eat some food.
That's what I primarily havebeen working with a lot of
clients with is food, because wehave to, we can't just say, I'm
not eating anymore.
We have to change ourrelationship with it, and then
we have these experiences and weare such a shame based.

(16:36):
Society that we shame ourselvesand then we guilt ourselves and
then we hear our parents orwhoever, our caregivers, were
talking to us.
And all of these things are justbuilt on top of each other.
But when you can look at it andsee it as like really the gift
that it is.
'cause if you're looking at whoyou are, Anne, and like what you

(16:58):
went through, yes, like youexperienced addiction, but if
you're anything like me and Ithink you are like, I see it as
such a gift to experienceaddiction because I would never
have the perspective that I havenow.
And it brought me to my dreamand my like passion just like
you where I'm like, I wanna goto the depths with people.

Ann T (17:18):
Yep.

I wanna help them see themselves and feel
comfortable in their body andtheir mind.
And it's such a gift.

Ann T (17:28):
Now my, my thing that I really like and it makes people
laugh because.
Somebody asked me this at theconference and we're like what's
your niche?
And I'm like the angrynarcissist.
There's a lot of'em.
There's so many.
Yeah.
I like the angry entitled,really pissed off because like

(17:50):
you said, I see it as a giftnow, but at 19 years old I did
not see it as a gift.
And the first gift that did comeout of it for me was getting in
touch with my anger.
I was not somebody who presentedas an angry girl.
I was a party girl.
And I very carefully, sociallyconstructed myself to look like

(18:12):
I was having a great time.
And you would never have knownhow truly pissed off I was
running underneath all of that,and how out of control and
pissed off it made me.
And being able to look back onthat.
A lot of times I would work withparents in family sessions and

(18:35):
group sessions and explain tothem that oppositional defiance
is somebody who feels so out ofcontrol and powerless over
anything.
And they're so pissed off thatother people are making
decisions for them and aboutthem that they will make a wrong
decision just because they can.
And that was totally me.

(18:55):
And sometimes I knew, I know I'mmaking a bad decision, but it's
mine.
Dammit, I'm gonna take ownershipof it and I don't care what
anybody else thinks about it.
And it, and the opposite end ofthat is this person who has no
tolerance for the disappointmentof others and is disappointing
everyone, including myself, butcould not, like I would do

(19:19):
anything to avoid, run away fromwhatever, but I always failed.
So then at some point I justthrew everything out the window
and went, I'm just gonna fail.
That's gonna be my goal.
And it took years in recoveryto, and working in therapy, it
was like, where do you thinkthis, fear of failure comes
from.
I'm like, I'm not afraid tofail.
I fail all the time.
I'm super comfortable withfailure.

(19:41):
It's so familiar to me.
I can't see anything else.
And then it clicked.
It was like, oh, I'm actuallyafraid to succeed.
Yeah, I'm actually terrified.
I start thinking and obsessing,I could do this thing and then
everyone will expect me tocontinue to do it and be good at

(20:01):
it and continue and I'll have toshow up for it.
Every single, nah.

Yep.
How would you say that youstarted getting in touch with
your anger?
Because this is such animportant topic because so many
of us.
Yeah, we are have all I thinkthe weight of like emotion is
starting to change, like thenarrative around that, of crying
and feeling your feelings.
And people under, not everybody,but most people especially who's
listening to this podcast,understand that our emotions are

(20:30):
connected to our physicalhealth.
It's connected to any of oursymptoms in your body.
Yeah.
It's all, it's a biochemicalreaction.
It all loads up in the body, sowe know that.
But anger specifically, this isone of my favorite topics, so I
would love to know, what wasyour experience when you started
to explore that?
What wisdom did you get out ofanger and how were you looking

(20:53):
at it prior to that?

Ann T (20:57):
I think I was terrified of my anger.
I was terrified to let it out.
It would come out at times Iremember in high school I was.
Really attracted to theater anddrama and consequently, and I
had that, like in my family, itwas like, oh, it's, Sarah

(21:18):
heartburn, I was calledsensitive and dramatic and too
much and all the things rightthen, and not said in a
complimentary way because I amsensitive and it's a freaking
superpower today as a kid, itmade me doubt everything that I
did feel.
It made me question everythingthat I did feel.

(21:38):
And that's the basis for me ofthat under understanding of not
being allowed to live in yourbody and give credibility to
your intuition.
And I think it's a.
A systemic thing that we aretaught.
I also think the anger thing isa systemic thing.
And I say it a lot.
I say it a lot.
I work with a lot of men.
I have more men on my caseloadthan women, and we have this

(22:01):
conversation about gendering ouremotions, this misalignment of
gendering our emotions.
And we give men anger and webuild them stadiums and boxing
rings, and we make money off oftheir anger.
But don't be sad.
Don't be depressed.
Don't cry.
Don't.
Don't be a little bitch.
Yeah.

(22:22):
We don't give women that whenwomen are angry, and I would do
this in group, I would say, whenwomen are angry, what do we call
them?
And the men would all go crazy.
Psycho bitches.
And we're really just expressingthe same feeling you have.
We could be sad, we could be,there, there are these
statistics, there, there used tobe, I hope they're changing.

(22:44):
But there used to be thesestatistics when I was in school
that statistically more womenare depressed than men.
And I would go, that's not true.
That can't be true.
But then on the other side, thestatistics of suicide are higher
in men than they are in women.
What do you think is going onthere?

(23:04):
Somebody's been going andgetting help.
Somebody's not, doesn't feellike they can because to go and
admit that I'm depressed feelsweak.
I.
This is, years ago BesselVanDerKolk started doing work
with veterans and talking aboutthese things and talking about
PTSD and talking about theimpact of, in recovery this

(23:25):
thing I used to always hear wasdepression is anger turned
inwards.
Start there with I'm definitelydepressed.
Is that just my anger and I'veturned it inwards?
Yeah, because my addiction is,the world has hurt me and I'm
gonna punch myself in the facerepeatedly.
Let's do that.
'cause I can't I can't speak itto the people who are hurting

(23:48):
me.
They're not hearing me.
They don't they're turning awayfrom me.
So I'm carrying that.
I had some bullying go on when Iwas in high school.
My parents moved here from buoyand I, and I.
It just didn't go well for me.
Some traumatic experiences inthe entering a new high school

(24:09):
environment.
And and that's when I shut down.
That's when I know that, likethat part of me that was open
and trusted and would givepeople a chance kind of thing
that shut down.
And I became a really goodactress, which was, part of that
being drawn to the theater.

(24:29):
I went to Verna Park, which ifyou lived in Cape Sinclair was
not a good thing.
Apparently it was like otherside of the tracks weirdness
that I didn't know about.
But I felt it in the environmentthat I was in.
And I remember doing a scene, Idon't remember what the scene
was, but I had a great dramateacher at Savona Park at that
time, and she put me in thisscene where I was supposed to

(24:53):
get upset and I.
I think I dissociated, I think Iblacked out.
I think I, but I raged in thescene.
I think I kicked a chair overand it felt so good.
And when I came out of it, I waslike, what just happened?

Yeah.
And they're like, award

Ann T (25:16):
amazing.
Amazing.
And you're like, oh my God.
Yeah.
I'm walking away from that goingdon't do that again.
That is, that felt really outtacontrol.
Yeah.
And that, that little bits andpieces like that.
And then coming into recovery,there's this idea of another one
of those sayings that I don'tagree with now.

(25:37):
I think it was important at thetime, but it's just anger is the
dubious luxury of mortal menkind of thing, which I.
Had to do with resentments.
And resentments are a bigprecursor to relapse.
We get a resentment and we chewon it all day long and we try to
rewrite history for things thatwe can't rewrite history about,
and that sends us to relapse.

(25:58):
A anger and resentment aredifferent.
They're different animals.
And there's a lot of crossoverin the language in the big book
written by Bill Wilson back inthe thirties.
Yeah.
That today I look at that and Ithink that language that
self-talk the things that wewere told about ourselves and
that things that we understandthe neurolinguistics of it need

(26:23):
to change.
Yeah.
They, there needs to be anexpansion of, what does it mean?
Because my anger was never theproblem.
What I do with it is theproblem.
If I'm punching walls orpunching people or racing my car
down the road or that, or I'mgetting a gun and road ra, all

(26:44):
of that is a problem.
Me having that emotion isabsolutely necessary.
Yeah.
So the idea of I think thatintuitively we have this weird
dynamic of self-destruction andself-preservation running at the
same time.
And so even in addiction,'causeI would look at people in

(27:06):
treatment and it's you're outthere self-destructing, but
there's a, at the core of you,there is a self-preservation on
a cellular level or you wouldn'tbe here.

Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like in your biology too.
Yeah.

Ann T (27:18):
There's something in your system going, yeah, nope, we
don't wanna die today.
Let's go get help.
We don't know why we don't know.
Our head explodes with all the,I don't knows, which I also
think is a thing our brains donot like.

It's resistance

Ann T (27:31):
and has to be dealt with.
We have to move into a place ofbeing okay with, I don't know,
and uncertainty.
We don't like it.
We'll make up stories to makeourselves feel better about it.

Yeah.
We fill in the gap.
Half of our memories aren't eventrue, which is so crazy.
I forget the percentage that I,when I was learning that, I was
like, oh, that's fascinating.

Ann T (27:50):
Yeah, but we'll take a fact and weave a really, think
about our literature and ourmovies and our they come out of
our imagination.
It's a story that, we got allwrapped up in and then we told
it to the rest of the world andeverybody gets to choose what
they wanna believe or not.
That anger piece, it was one ofthose things that like, I had to

(28:11):
let it out slowly and I had tolet it out.
I had to be really intentionalwith.
Who am I sharing this with?
Who am I talking about my angerwith?
How am I letting it out?
Because I, if I don't, I'm gonnara, I know that I'm gonna rage.
I can feel it.
I got a little I got a littletattoo and I was in Arizona.

(28:32):
It's a little matchstick withlittle flame.
It's love remind me that, if Idon't pay attention, I will burn
things down.
Yeah.
I love.

It's such a good reminder too.
Yeah.
Because that match can godifferent ways.
It can go different ways.
That match can also be like, youcan light shit up and it

Ann T (28:53):
could be let it burn or it could be

Don't do it.
I'm gonna blow this place up.
Okay.

Ann T (28:58):
Because sometimes there are things that like, this
doesn't serve me anymore and Ineed to let it go.
I need to burn it down.
I need to walk away.
I need to, but people used toask me like, don't you ever
think about using anymore?
And I was like, I really don't.
But on occasion, when the moonis full, I really wanna blow up

(29:18):
a car.

It's, yeah, I do wanna blow up a car, but I think
that's where, I always say ouraddictions aren't the problem.
They're the solution to thepain.
So it's once you start goingunderneath that hood and you
start to realize that a lot ofit was like just that boiled up
anger and that injustice thatmaybe we experienced, or the
grief that we haven't felt, orthe, yeah, anything that we

(29:41):
weren't resourced to, to processthrough it.

Ann T (29:45):
There's less rage when you start to get underneath,
it's that anger iceberg, right?
It's I'll get angry today andthen I'll go,'cause I'll run
through all the sentences thatthe anger, and then I'll go,
yeah, but you don't reallybelieve that.
So what's really going on?
And underneath that is always myfeelings are hurt.
Like my feelings are hurt.

(30:06):
Somebody doesn't like me.
Somebody told me something aboutmyself.
I don't a situation didn't gothe way I wanted it to, or a
situation went exactly as Iwould thought it would go.
And and it's thatdisappointment, right?
It's that disappointment thatwe're also terrified of.
And I said it to a friend theother day, I was talking to her
and I said, so far I have notseen disappointment kill anyone.

(30:30):
I just haven't we're so afraidof it.
We don't tolerate it.
I think this is one of thoseneurobiological things.
There was a a workshop that Iwent to on dismantling
deception, and it was theneurobiology of lying.
Which is a huge piece ofaddiction that I don't think we
talk about enough.
I've thought if I, had thewherewithal or someone was

(30:51):
paying me to get a PhD, this iswhat I would study would be,
yeah.
Like we lie.
But if you say that to somebody,they'll go, what I, what are you
talking about?
I don't lie.
And I'm like that right there isa lie.
'cause guaranteed you do.
We do it out of a protection.
We protect ourselves by sayingthings that we either want to be

(31:11):
true and aren't.
Or the sentence I always hear,particularly in sex addiction,
because along with sex addictionis betrayal trauma.
The partner discovers that theperson that they're with has
been doing these things.
They could be watchingpornography, they could be
getting arrested for childpornography.
They could be having affairs,they could be all sorts of

(31:32):
things.
Sex workers, the whole gamut.
And they are shocked and the.
It looks exactly like PTSD, butit is so encapsulated in this
moment.
And it impacts the partnerpsychologically, sexually,
physically, all areas.
And they go into a spin in aswirl.

(31:55):
So this person goes to treatmentand they start doing theirs.
And this person over here ishopefully doing theirs.
Yeah, sometimes not.
Sometimes it's a you go getfixed and this will work if you
go do that.
So we have a whole in-housething that we do with the at
coming clean and the partnersworking together with,

(32:16):
individual therapy and couplestherapy and all the things that
come together.
But in the beginning of that, Ijust start working with people.
'cause the man will come in andhe'll go I'm just, I'm gonna
tell the truth from now on.
And I'm like, you don't evenknow what that means.
And you're gonna have to reallystart with, I am a liar, and I
don't really know what tellingthe truth means.

(32:38):
Because if you keep tellingyourself, I'm gonna tell the
truth, you're gonna keep lyingto yourself.
Self-deception is where itstarts.
And what they explained in thisworkshop was what gets wired in
is that early on in our earlyenvironments, being authentic
and telling the truth is notsafe, right?

(33:02):
This is not a safe thing showingup as I am not safe.
So I'm going to learn thatdeception is safer.
I'm not gonna know that, that'snot gonna be a conscious thing.
I'm gonna walk into my adulthoodwith.
I'm just going to carry thisthing in the back of my head

(33:22):
that says, don't tell thatperson the truth about who you
are because they will rejectyou.
Now, what I will tell you ifyou're my therapist Lauren, is
well, I didn't wanna tell mywife that I was doing these
things because I didn't wannahurt her.
And that's the first place whereI go, that's a load of bullshit

(33:45):
and you're paying me to, tellyou that and help you unwind
that you have no tolerance forher upset.
'cause you know she's gonna beupset if you had said this when
you first started dating andgiven them the agency and the
choice to go, oh, you do thatwhile you're by yourself?
Yeah.
Maybe not.

(34:07):
Because that's what I hear fromthe partners I work with.
They go, you know what?
I could probably get, forgivethe behaviors.
What I can't forgive is theyknew and they deceived me.
They made me fall in love withthem and get married and have
kids and go 20 years not know socommon what they really were.

Yeah.
This is so common though.
I'm so happy we're having thisconversation.
This is so fucking common.
And it's like you said it's atrauma and so many of us are
walking around with theserelational wounds, but that are
all also tied to the childhoodwounds and the different coping
mechanisms that we have.

(34:47):
Yeah.
How do you usually work withsomeone with we can't heal if
we're not being honest withourselves if we're lying to
ourselves.
So how do you start to breakdown that barrier of being
honest with yourself when theysay, oh, I don't wanna hurt
somebody, and then you go downthat next layer where.
You realize that it's becausethey don't have the ability to
handle somebody else's upset.

(35:08):
How do you usually start workingwith the couples at that point?
Do you start to introduce themto both being able to handle
them being authentic to eachother?
Is that kind of what it lookslike, or,

Ann T (35:22):
You hope, so one of the pieces is they go into what's
called a disclosure process.
So it's a, the betrayer.
Is gonna write out their story.
Now, what usually comes out ofthat?
And if they've gone totreatment, they've done a lot of
that work is to go, where didthis begin?
Where did this start?

(35:42):
Because the addict has had somesort of wound and trauma as
well.
It's as, as much as we're on thetrendy thing of narcissists and
they're terrible people and youcan't fix them and all that kind
of stuff, it's a, it's not thatsimple.
And there are narcissistictraits that almost every single
one of us has.
It's, if you wanna talk aboutself-protection and self-love,

(36:03):
self-love is narcissism.
It's just Martha differently.
Yeah.
It's, it's when this level ofself-love, usurps being able to
connect with anybody else,you're isolated in your little
protective place.
It comes from a wound.
Every narcissist is has theirown wound.

(36:25):
It's again, difficult to getoutside of that and see yourself
in that space.
When the victim mentality andthe victim messaging at some
point becomes its own addiction,its own attachment.
I had to do that.
I had to go through that.
I kept going through theserelationships and I had to

(36:47):
finally sit down and I, what Iknew then was the 12 steps, and
I ran it through the 12 steps.
I had to see the pattern.
And the pattern was you keeppicking the same kind of person.
It's not them.
Yeah.
But you are picking a patternwhere you are with someone who
is not emotionally there foryou.
What does that sound like?
Oh, that sounds like the homeyou grew up in with an alcoholic

(37:08):
father and a mother who workedconsistently and being raised by
your siblings, which was reallyconfusing.
Exactly those values and thosecore things and all of that, no
wonder going back to that placeand then going, okay, so now I'm
just repeating a pattern, right?
Because the brain lovespatterns, loves those, what's

(37:30):
survival without looking forpatterns.
And I'm go and I'm setting up asituation where even the nice
guys that came into my life, Ihad to turn'em into bad guys so
that they would a, abandon me sothat I could be the victim.
And I did that into my recovery.

Oh, same here, girl.
I've been single for the pastalmost three years now.
'cause I was like, I need todeconstruct this, right?
Because I, yeah.
Am I

Ann T (37:56):
not gonna be?
Because what we, I did this in agroup one time where we talked
about this intuition thing andthis, what we are taught versus
what we learn.
And I said this I doubt myfeelings.
I what I, what felt for, oh, itfeels so familiar.
He feels like we've known eachother in another life.
Like he makes my heart flutterand I get butterflies in my

(38:18):
stomach.
What I didn't know was those areactually warning bells from my
body.

The red flag.
Yeah.

Ann T (38:26):
And only until I could see that oh, this is what that
feels like, and that's what thatis.
And No thank you.
I'm gonna go this way.
And stay away from that, becausenow I'm recognizing that's
actually a warning from mysystem.

It's the adrenaline and the body being
like, Hey, like threat.
But we're thinking it's likesexual chemistry.
Yeah.

Ann T (38:49):
Passion.
Yeah.
It's toxic, it's passion, it'sfighting.
And then.
Speaking love.
It's passion.
Yeah.
My last relationship in recoverywas very passionate.

Yeah.
And we're addicted to thatpassion though, too.
We're so addicted to it and thethrills and the ups and the
downs, because we don't have tostay very long.

Ann T (39:13):
It's the, yeah, it's the chaos.
It's the I know that life gotpretty stable and pretty Okay.
Pretty quickly.
Lots of things stoppedhappening.
Like the police stop taking mehome and leaving me on the
doorstep and, yeah.
Is this your daughter?
Oh yeah.
She's our, drunk and disorderlyand whatever, and, hangover

(39:33):
stopped, and, lots of thingsimmediately stopped and I was
able to begin to show up alittle more consistently.
Took a while to learn, to beresponsible and to take on those
responsibilities.
And again, I was afraid ofsuccess.
So even when good opportunitiescame, I sabotaged'em because I

(39:54):
wasn't ready to accept adifferent messaging.
I, I was still.
That failure and that it, Irecognized at 10 years of
recovery, Lauren, that I wasstill thinking of myself as that
addict that was sponging off myparents and slept till two in
the afternoon and then would goout and party all night long.

(40:15):
That hadn't happened in 10years.
I had a job, I had an apartment.
I had,

I was paying my bills.
Yeah.
We have to grieve, we have togrieve those identities and if
we don't grieve them, they'll,if we don't grieve and accept
them, I can't say grieve, don'twanna let go.
Yeah.
Why are grieving yourself like

Ann T (40:30):
you're this person that you're not anymore?
What are you like, like you'vedragged her into the, to the
current and you're not givingyourself any credit for what you
do?
Everything that I did and that Iaccomplished to that point, I
associated with being in arelationship with somebody.

Oh,

Ann T (40:48):
they weren't going to my classes.
They weren't going to my job.
They weren't doing any of thosethings.
I was doing them, but when thatperson wasn't there, I couldn't
cope and I couldn't do, and Icouldn't.
I tell this story that like at21 I was finally faced with the
universe was going, this personisn't gonna abandon you.

(41:10):
They'll keep cheating on you,but they're not gonna abandon
you.
They'll stay in the relationshipand they'll get all the things
you now know who they are,they've revealed themselves to
you, and they're not walkingaway from you.
What are you gonna do?
It was this crossroads moment ofare am I gonna choose me or am I
gonna abandon me again?
Again?

(41:30):
Yeah.
I did figure out in working thatthing, that pattern that I have,
the internal message that says,I don't deserve to be loved in
any other way than this.
I only deserve to be abandoned.
Yep.
I only deserve to be with peoplewho are not gonna show up for
me.
This guy, at one point in timeon the phone.

(41:52):
I'm begging him like, pleasedon't go to her house.
But, and he's going, but you'reso strong, Anne.
You're gonna be okay.
You're so strong.
And I'm hearing it like it's aninsult.
Like he's slapping me in theface with the statement of my
strength.
I'm not.
Yes.
I actually was, and my systemwas like, we don't really wanna
do this anymore.
We don't.

(42:12):
Yeah, exactly.
Please choose you please.
Please do shoot, like physicallyand emotionally.
I was just such a mess and I'mlaying on my a apart my
apartment, my first apartment at22 years old that I'm paying the
rent on and laying on the floor.
No one will ever love me.
I'm gonna be alone for the restof my life.

(42:34):
Just really in the pity party,just blah, just a big puddle on
the floor.
And like you, you were sayingearlier about breaking down,
right?
We have to do that.
Like the whole system just brokedown.
And I have a friend whodescribed this to me recently, I
was like, because in that, rightup through that muck comes this

(42:58):
little voice that goes, you'reokay, right?
You are not really alone,there's this universal
connection that you have andeverything's okay and God, or
whatever you believe in waslike, I've, I know what you
want.

Yeah.
You're just shedding a skin thatno longer serves you.

Ann T (43:18):
I know what you want, but you have some work to do to get
there.
And this was the like, if thatperfect person walked into my
life that day, I would not haveallowed it.
I wouldn't have received it'cause I didn't deserve it.
And that, the irony is that ithad happened.
The perfect person had shown upin my life, but neither one of

(43:39):
us was in the place where wecould receive each other, where
we could be in a partnershiptogether.
It had happened.
He got me to come to my firstmeeting and then he broke up
with me and it, and I hated himfor it.
And it was the most loving thingthat he could do was to get out
of my recovery and let me grow.

(44:01):
Then we came back togetheragain.
We built a friendship and wecame back together again and
we'll be married 40 years thisSeptember.
Beautiful.
Prepared.
I could never have seen thatcoming.
I was gonna be somebodycompletely different.
It wasn't gonna be somebody I'dalready been with.
But he did.
He showed up and I watched himchange because we were in the

(44:23):
same recovery community.
And he watched me change and hewas there for me at the end of
this relationship when I waschoosing myself.
And he never said a disparagingword about this other person.
He just modeled this really likesupportive behavior.
And I knew I'd known for a verylong time that I cared very

(44:46):
deeply about him.
But I also was in a place whereit was like.
He was more important as aperson in my life than as the
object of my affection.
There's that difference betweenthe need and the want.
Like I wanted his friendship andI would accept just that, if
that's all that it was evergonna be.
If there was more offered, Iwould accept that too.

(45:08):
But I would accept, I wouldrespect the relationship and the
friendship that we had.
And that was a really differentway of thinking.
It was all these breakdowns ofold ideas.
And he did, coming into thissort of second wave, he treated
me very differently.
And I treated me verydifferently.

(45:29):
'cause there was still some,there was still a little chaos
going on and there were somesituations where it was like,
yeah, that is not okay with me.
And if that's the way it's gonnago I'm cool over here.
I started to actually explorefriendships with men instead of
every relationship with a manhaving to be a sexual thing.

Yeah.
Like love of your life in everydistrict of the county.
Yeah.

Ann T (45:52):
And I started to show up as me in those friendships and
be accepted as me in thosefriendships.
That was huge.
The first time a man said, Ireally respect you and I really
respect your recovery and yourprogram.
And I, that was not a sentence Iever thought would be impactful
for me, but it was hugelyimpactful.

(46:17):
Yeah.
Not because of how you look, notbecause of that.
I think I can hit on you and getwith that and Right.
But because of how you walk inyour life, I have respect for
you.

That's beautiful.
You're being seen and yeah, youstop self abandoning and you
started showing up differently.
That's how our relationshipschange is because people treat
you the way that you treatyourself, and so it starts to
mirror back to us.
It's such a beautiful story.
Yeah.
To share and experience, tohave.

Ann T (46:51):
Yeah.
And I failed at it just as muchas I was successful at it.
Yeah.
I would get caught in the lovebombing of friendship and the,
the abuse of, and I've workedfor a hundred narcissistic
bosses and had to go intotherapy to understand why this
is a thing for me.

Yeah.
It's not a flip of the, it's nota flip of a match.
It's not a flip of a switch.
Not at all.
You have to like continuously gothrough the pattern.

Ann T (47:19):
Yeah.
And

continuously choose differently at different
layers and awareness and all of

Ann T (47:24):
that.
And to be okay with, if I tellyou who I am and I come into
this and I share myself withyou, and I show up as I am,
which means sometimes that'sgonna be messy and that upsets
you or disappoints you then wearen't really friends.
Yeah.
If we're not stepping towardseach other in those spaces we're

(47:45):
acquaintances.
Yeah.
I'm not gonna trust you with thedeeper stuff of me.
I'm not Yeah.
Intimacy is being Yeah.
I'm okay if I disappoint you inthat.
I'm okay.
I'm all right.
Yeah.
I told my friend the other day,I said, like I said, just I
haven't seen disappointment killanybody, and I set out to
disappoint at least one person aday just to prove that.

(48:05):
Scientific theory that Yeah.
Yeah.
The trial run, we're

still,

Ann T (48:10):
we're

doing peer review studies in this moment.

Ann T (48:12):
My anecdotal, but I heard a guy, I heard a guy on NPR once
on the Hidden Brain, and hetalked about rejection.
And having had his wife leavehim and, what he was going
through and how it was blockinghim, he would go in to try to
put his hand out to someone thathe was interested in meeting,
and the anxiety would come upand overwhelm him.

(48:33):
And he felt like he, I have toget over this fear of rejection
thing.
And so he went and he developedhis own little, like his goal
was to be rejected by someoneevery day.
And so he would ask outrageousthings of his friends.
To get them to reject and to,you just, it was really
fascinating to listen to.
It's a

great sales tactic too.
They always say go for the noinstead of the Yes.
In that way too, because it'slike it switch brain.
Get that outta the way.
You realize you're like, okay.
Yeah, because it should be,it's.
It's being okay with not beingliked.
Because if you are being likedby everyone, you are not being
your authentic self.
You are literally performingpeople and and projecting what

(49:16):
they think.
And it's people pleasing, likeyou said, which is a coping
mechanism.
It's what's a trauma response,

Ann T (49:21):
please response?
Perfectionism, the one, thosetrauma responses, right?
Yeah.
Make sure everybody's happy sonobody gets mad.
So your nervous system is okayand it's, everything, right?
Yeah.
And I learned that.
It's like the goal I heard a aguy talking about chronic pain
one day in a conference and hesaid pain management is not the
goal in pain management is notto alleviate the pain.

(49:44):
You can't, it's chronic pain.
It's there, right?
The goal is to learn how tomanage it.
That's a whole different thing.
And I think the same goes withthis emotional response.
It's not about.
Being not ever being triggered,avoiding all the things that
might ever trigger you in theworld.
Yeah.

(50:04):
That's the not gonna do that.

It's a fast way to fail and a fast way to, to be in
a pessimistic, like veryresentful space because it's,
and you're

Ann T (50:13):
walking around in the world all the time going, you
triggered me.
That triggered me that trigger.
It's like it's allowing yourselfto be all of it, how you
survive.
Yeah.
It's learning to manage, it'slearning to recognize like, ooh,
okay, my system is feelingreally overwhelmed right now and
my head is starting to do thatthing and I need to maybe step
away from this and I need to, Ihad a night at this conference

(50:36):
with my teen is the first timewe've all traveled together and
done this thing and.
Most of them are younger.
Not all of them, but most ofthem are younger.
And they're, it's Thursday nightdinner and Friday night we go
get tattoos and we go to alounge and we're having fun and
it's all woo-hoo.
And then Saturday night they'reall like, where are we going?
What are we gonna do?
What are we?
And all these text messagesstart coming in and I'm, I am
triggered and I'm looking atthose this is my family of

(50:58):
origin, this is beautiful.
And I get, I just go, I'm gonnago to my hotel for a few
minutes.
Yeah.
Because, and I ended up justgoing, I'm gonna stay at my
hotel.
And everybody was, I knoweverybody was upset with me.
I know that because somebody inthat told me later was like,

(51:19):
yeah, everybody was a littleworried.
And they were, she was, she's afriend of mine and she was like,
she's okay.
She's fine.
They're not mad.
They're just

disappointed.
You know that saying,

Ann T (51:27):
And I could feel it.
I was like, I know.
I, but I also knew that like Ineeded to pack, I needed to take
a shower.
I needed to de-stress.
I needed to have some quiet timebecause I hadn't had any, and I
am one who's I don't stay in thesame hotel.
My boss didn't understand that,but I'm like, this is what I've
learned about me.

(51:48):
I can't be in the same elevatorwith people.
I just spent eight hours.
In a room with I just need myown, I need to walk somewhere.
I need to move my body.
I, these are the things that Ineed for me.
So I put my headphones on and Idanced around the room to get
some of that energy out and I,ate snacks and, just put a silly

(52:09):
face mask on and chilled out.
And.
The next day.
I was refreshed and I was, andI'm sitting next to my,
coworkers and they're hungoverand talking.

Yeah.
But that's the thing, that's thebeauty of it.
You knew what you needed and wecan't get there and listen
wisdom,

Ann T (52:26):
age, and wisdom,

but it's, it's just listening to what we need.
It really isn't, we can't knowwhat we need if we don't know
how to listen to the body.
And if we don't know how tolisten to the body, we won't
know how we feel.
And if we don't know how wefeel, we won't know what we
need.
Yeah.
So it's like the deepest level.
It's always connecting back tothe body, learning to listen,
which gets completely derangedthrough trauma.

(52:51):
When there's any type of likeinterception, we can't know.
We're fully hungry.
We can't sense if it's a traumaresponse or if it's intuition.
And it's it's just been sofascinating to really get to the
root of.
All the things that like I dowith my clients, and I'm sure
with you, it's just thatemotional aspect.
It's shifting your relationshipsto all emotion and realizing

(53:13):
there's no good or bad.
Just there's no good or badfood.
It's object objective.
It's your relationship to itdrew the relationship to it.
The meaning that you've assignedto it.
Where's that?
Yeah.
From and allowing it.
Yeah.

Ann T (53:24):
Ksky said that years ago.
He is a alcohol isn't bad, drugsaren't bad.
These things aren't bad.
If they were, we would all havea problem with them.
It's not the thing, it's yourrelationship to the thing.
It's your relationship to thebehavior.
It's your relationship to thesubstance.
It's the looking for an externalsolution to an internal problem,
always.

(53:45):
Instead of looking inward,instead of going inward.
Like in that moment, my head isgoing into this big triggered
spiral thing and it's okay, weknow what's happening.
We know what's happening rightnow.
We know how to, we know how tocome out of this.
We know what to do.
It doesn't involve other people.
It doesn't involve running outand running down the street and

(54:06):
bearing myself.
I was that sort of, of addict.
I was not a sit at home all bymyself, isolated and using.
I would've gotten there.
Yeah, but I was still a barroomgirl.
I was still a be in the middleof a crowd.
I think it's part of how I grewup.
I'm the seventh of eight kidsand I grew up in a crowd of
people.

(54:27):
So I could isolate and you wouldnever know it.
Yeah.
I will look like I'm having agreat time and I'm completely
shut down on the inside.
I can perform phenomenally andno one will know.
And that's really hard for me tocome to in my recovery who am I

(54:49):
even?
Yeah.
Because

who you were wasn't truly you.
So worrying about people beingdisappointed or not liking you
wasn't even really about you.
It was about this character thatwe made.

Ann T (55:00):
Yeah.
And I don't even know what kind,what flavor ice cream I like.
I've just been molding myself towhoever I was around and I did,
there was somebody in recoveryearly on said I, I don't really
have clothes that have costumes.
And I went home and I looked inmy closet and I was like, that's
so true.
Like I had a different.
Set of wardrobe for whoever,whatever crowd I was hanging out

(55:25):
in.
And I, and you did that too.
I know you did that.
'cause I used, I'm nervous tosee that like it was one of I
knew your story.
And I would go Sarah, man, Ireally pray for her.
I really pray.
She like like that she crashesearly and she can,

Hundred percent have that reckoning

Ann T (55:41):
with self.
I was friends with

everyone, quote unquote, and it was because, and
running all the time

Ann T (55:46):
and you looked exhausted.
It just looked like so muchwork.
And I could feel it in you.
My heart always went out tothat.
That little girl that I can seein you that just looked so
terrified,

God.
And I had no idea.
I didn't understand.
I was so numb.
I thought I was so numb.
I wasn't numb.
I was highly sensitive.
Very similar to your story, butI had learned very young that.
There's some man manipulation inmy past and some gaslighting,
and some obviously, like myfamily didn't know how to deal
with emotions, so they drank andthey worked.

(56:21):
So I mo, I mimicked all of thatand I didn't know it, and it
showed up through me.
Even when my mom died, I lookedpeople straight in the face.
They're coming up to me beinglike, I'm so sorry.
And I was like, don't be alarmedif I don't seem sad.
I actually can't feel a thing,but I promise it will come
eventually.
I've said that to so manypeople, like being like, but I'm

(56:42):
gonna go take a shot now.
You wanna take a shot?
You and I go and they're like,are you sure you're okay?
And I'm like, I'm fine.
I just need black out.
Then I'll cry.
It's what?
And I would have night terrors.
I remember my roommate when thatall happened.
Like she said, it would scarethe living daylight out of her.
And you, if you look it up, whenpeople scream in their I would

(57:02):
scream bloody murder.
She was like, I thought somebodybroke into the home.
I thought you're being hurt.
Completely unconscious, justsleeping.
And I would just wake upscreaming, looked it up.
And it's from a repression ofemotion.
It's from my subconsciousreliving the horror and the pain
of me pushing that down.
Ugh.
And it was coming at, that'sanguish.

Ann T (57:21):
Crazy.
That's anguish.
That is, I love that word, Bre.
It, Brene Brown has her Atlas ofthe Heart.
I don't know if you've ever seenthat book.
I know.

Of

Ann T (57:30):
the book.
I haven't read it though.
It's so beautiful.
'cause she breaks down all ofthese emotions and anguish is
one of the like what comes outof that is guttural.
Yeah.

Oh yeah, it's that deep that any release I have
even I start crying from my cry.
I'm like, oh my God.
The sounds that come out when Ido any type of body work or
trauma work now, because I'mreleasing a lot from the body
now, it's older stuff, but it'sbeing released and people in the
room will just start breakingdown.
'cause you can hear it, you cantell it is just this young

(58:02):
little girl in there that's justso heartbroken.
So heartbroken.
And I can't tell you exactlywhat it's from, but I've learned
not to worry about that.
I don't need to put a picture inmy head.
I don't need to know the exactmoment.
I need to allow the motion tomove through me and finished the
emotional loop, the actualprocess, the natural process of

(58:23):
it.
Otherwise it'll in there and itwill, a very intelligent system,
will create some type ofmechanism.

Ann T (58:31):
A part will come, a part will come in and go that's not
okay.
Let's not do that right now.
Let's, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.

Yeah.
I can't just start screaming,screaming in the middle of the
thing.
There are some places that youcan, you can't have tantrums
everywhere, but you can learnhow to start moving through it.
And like you said, like when youwent to that hotel room, you
danced it outta your body.
You pay attention and you learnways to it's very

Ann T (58:54):
intuitive when you let it be.
It's so intuitive.
I was hanging out Saturday withsome friends and they have a
little one, and he was in thestroller in heaven, and they
took him out and he was walking.
And I just I love little kidsfor that.
'cause it's just Ooh, we canjust wiggle and we can just, and
they think it's hysterical, butthey'll join you.

And their emotions are up and down.
They can be laughing one minuteand hysterically crying the
next, and then literally justhappy as a clam.
And it, but that's the naturalrhythm of humans, not just
children.
That's the thing is that at somepoint we get told that what's
acceptable and what's not.
And then we believe,

Ann T (59:31):
And usually then, we do a lot of Kelly McDaniels wrote a
book called Mother Hunger, andthere's a space in there that I,
it, I, it made me cry when Iread it because it was this
like, there's like the severeabuse that happens.
But there's even that, like Igrew up in an era where it was
like you put the child in thecrib and you let them cry it
out.
Just don't pick the child up,put them in the, let them cry it

(59:54):
out.
And what she says is, learningto self-soothe is a next level
advanced development.
As an infant, you do not havethat skill.
No.
Yeah.
So you will stop crying, but themessaging is that no one is
coming.

Lauren Jewel (01:00:13):
Yeah.
Pre-verbal trauma is so common.
So many with people with foodissues.
I'm like, it's, I was like, itcan be preverbal, it can be
Right.
You hungry.
You could not get food.
So now you instinctively,unconsciously have to finish
your plate.
And you don't know why.
You don't know why you have toeat everything in sight.
But it's because these thingshappen.

(01:00:34):
And like you said, it could bethat you think you're gonna be
abandoned, no one's coming,you're on your own.
And these things, like we havesuch an intelligent system and
we do not have somebody who canexplain to us what was going on
or teach us to resource ourselfwith the it shows

Ann T (01:00:52):
up in therapy a lot too, where it's I just can't I just
can't seem to find what this isconnected to.
And it's it might be connectedto something

you're never gonna have a memory

Ann T (01:01:00):
of.

Yeah.
It might be your mom's might beyour

Ann T (01:01:03):
dad's.
Yeah.
I have one client I've beenworking with for a while, and he
like the anger and the rage andit's doesn't sound like it's a
family thing.
Like my, my, my parents loved meand I grew up in this really
nice, and I finally, one day Ijust went.
Tell me about the birth story.
I don't think I've ever askedyou about the birth story.
Any, anything happened in themusic.
Oh, yeah.
Like I was early and almostdied, and like I had to be in a,

(01:01:25):
like this whole horrible, I'mlike, oh, so people were coming
at you and they weren't, primarycaregiver and they weren't, that
would freak out a tiny littlehuman being coming into the
world for the very first time.
And you have this pattern ofbehavior of perceiving everybody
around you as a threat, and youget aggressive with being.
Huh.

(01:01:45):
And he, like, when I, when welaid all that out together he
did.
He was just like,

yep.
I was a twin.
And my twin had passed away andI learned during birth trauma
work.
Was that because my twin hadpassed away in the belly?
I was in a graveyard my entirepregnancy, like in the birth.
So I had, I.
Absorbed that obviously, but inthat gestation phase, right?

(01:02:11):
Not even birth in the world.
I learned that I was going to beabandoned and I was like, oh my
God.
I never once thought aboutgrieving my sibling, my twin, or
even thinking of that.
'cause it was never here.

Ann T (01:02:24):
But

in truth, I was brought up and just my gestation
phase was in a graveyardessentially.
I was left by that.
That part of me that was meantto be there in, in retrospect.
But the work is so fascinating'cause we will make ourselves
crazy if we try tointellectualize it and figure
out why we, yes.
I have what's from Yes.

(01:02:44):
Driven myself insane.
Yeah.
And when we perform it allright.
And yeah.

Ann T (01:02:48):
And mine is, I was the seventh child and my parents had
moved and my birth date was set.
I didn't come into the world.
When I wanted to.
I didn't come in some reallyorganic sort of way.
I was in induced labor on aparticular day because the
doctor was afraid that my motherwould just drop me.

(01:03:10):
She'd have me in the middle ofthe grocery store.
She was shopping or something,and I, when I did that, when I
did that work and laid out, Igot that information and that
story, what it honed in for mewas I have always been resistant
to, if I feel like you'reforcing me to do something, if

(01:03:30):
you're telling me I have to dosomething, my instant deep
reaction is no.
And my oppositional defiancecame from that core place.
It was like, I know what you allwant me to do.
I'm not doing it.

So such a cool, it's such a beautiful metaphor.
Isn't like how we see it and theway it works, but also at the
time we're like, yeah, dammit.
What the fuck?
But it's very fascinating whenwe can find it within ourselves.
Yes.
To see how it shows up and beinghonest with ourselves.
Because we could easily deny thethings that, that are there.

Ann T (01:04:05):
Especially if they're not, if they're not comfortable.
Truths.
My, my coworkers used to, theyused to laugh at me when I
worked at when I worked atPathways, because I did, I
became that person who, waslike, I just cussed out Ms.
Anne.
And I was like, did you?
Oh, I actually hear fuck you.
Thank you for that reallyimportant information that might
save my life.

(01:04:25):
I didn't really take itpersonally or anything.
Yeah.
I was like, bring me your anger.
Bring me, I was that person whowas like, we got an angry one.
Where's Anne?
I was like, yeah, come into myoffice.
Use all the words.
Get it out.
Because it's usually a friend.

It's usually like behind all that rage and anger,
you'll meet its best friend andit's brother grief and it's like
there's Yeah.

Ann T (01:04:46):
Or fear, just like how many people I would see just
okay you're walking around likea caged animal.
That's not anger, that's fear.
That's anxiety.
I think a lot of men, what wewitness as anger and aggression
is anxiety at its.
Most heightened, which is fear,which is I am triggered by this

(01:05:10):
experience.
There was a guy had that, likewhen we sat down and talked, he
was like, man, I was in prisonfor a long time and laying in
bed at night and somebody comingand checking on you every 15
minutes is that doesn't feelgood.
No.
Yeah.
Not in that, and he would, heevery moment of every day, he
just looked like he was waitingfor something to pop off.
And it was like, I just, I justI can see through, one of my

(01:05:34):
gifts is I can see through theanger to the little kid behind
it that's just really terrifiedand really is screaming that
nobody understands.
Nobody's listening.
Nobody understands what myexperience is.
I, I don't know how to do this.
I don't know how to my daughterwas very little.

(01:05:55):
She was lovely out in public.

This is a great open.
She was

Ann T (01:06:00):
lovely out in public, lovely, maybe one or two times,
not so lovely.
But she would come home and hershe could not regulate her
system.
So as a little person, she wouldjust fall apart.
It would just be thesescreaming, tantrum me, whatever.
And I did, at one point, I waslike, I gotta put you in your
room.
She was, maybe she was maybe twoand a half three.

(01:06:22):
You, you gotta go in there and,and again, it's like I look at
it now, it's like, how, what amI even saying to my right?

But we're learning, I can only imagine
having a child.
You learn as you go.
There's no hand.
But I'm

Ann T (01:06:32):
triggered and I put her in the other room and I hear
this crash, this terrible sound.
And I run to her room and I openthe door.
She had a metal towel bar on theback of her door.
I don't know why in the housethat we bought, but she, as a
tiny little person.
Had ripped it off of the door,God.

(01:06:52):
And she was holding it and shewas looking at me and I got it
in that moment.
'cause she was looking at melike I am out of control.
And I looked at her and waslike, you are outta control.
And I, yeah.
Am supposed to teach you how tonot and it was a big moment of
recognition of I am the personthat's supposed to teach you how
to regulate your nervous system,how to bring yourself out of

(01:07:16):
that.
You can't do that.
What are we sending our kids tothe room for?
What am I doing?
I'm telling you, you're notacceptable as this person doing
this thing that you're doingright now.
And I, man, I stepped right inand I wrapped her up and I just
held onto her until, myheartbeat and her heartbeat

(01:07:36):
regulated and she calmed downand it became this sort of
routine that when she would getupset, I would go, do you want
me to hold you or do you want meto just sit here?
But I didn't leave.
I didn't walk out of the roomand go, fix your, I did when she
was little, you know a kidsparrot you, she was underneath

(01:07:57):
the table one time.
'cause she was that little, shewas underneath the table and I
said, what are you doing backthere, Sarah?
And she said, I'm changing myattitude.
Said, oh, wise one, I'll leaveyou alone to take care of them.
We actually go under the tableand I do.
I was like, it was like, ohyeah, I have said that.

(01:08:18):
You need to change your attitudekids.

That's so funny.

Ann T (01:08:23):
Our best teachers.
And I used to tell her that allthe time when she was little,
she would say something and Iwould just be like, who are you?
And she'd be like, I'm yourdaughter.
And I'm like, I dunno, you'vecome into this whole thing with
some stuff.
I don't even think I have, likeyou've taught me a whole lot
about how to be a better person,how to be a decent parent, how
to change some of thatgenerational stuff.

(01:08:46):
Yeah.
And do it differently.
And it was very intentional withher a lot of times.
And I know we didn't get itperfect.
I know that you can't, stuff wedidn't see and stuff we didn't
get right.
And, but I am always amazed andawed and so happy that like I

(01:09:06):
have this person that.
When we spend time together,it's like we, I like her and she
likes me as the person that Iam.
And again, it's that respect forthe work and the growth and the,
there's a lot of things I likegoing back to school.
When I went back to school wasone of those I want my daughter
to see that you don't never haveto stop.

(01:09:28):
Like life's gonna get in theway, but you don't never have to
stop.
You adapt and you adjust, butyou can still go for your goals.
Exactly.
And I think that's been a reallyvaluable, I know it has for her
'cause she has had some stuffcome in and life come in and,
change plans and none of it'sbeen, some, any kind of smooth
road for any of us.

(01:09:50):
But we just don't give up.
You just, you, I tell people allthe time, it's like we live in a
sailing town, and I use thatanalogy all the time.
I'm like you're not gonna sailyour boat from here to, across
the Severn River in a straightline.
Doesn't work that way.
Yeah.
You go back and forth and youadjust according to the wind and

(01:10:11):
you don't know what the wind isgonna do.
So you have to be on your toesand paying attention and you
gotta attack and you gottaadjust those sails.
And it takes time and you gottabe really patient.
Sometimes there's no wind andyou're just waiting.
You're dead in the water, you'rejust waiting.
Yeah.
You can start up your engine,but that, that, the point of

(01:10:31):
sailing is to not do that.

And sometimes we might think we are going to the
right place, and other times theuniverse and whoever, whatever,
whether it's greaterintelligence or whatever creator
you believe in, may beredirecting you.
And it may feel like the worstfeeling in the world and you
might think that life is fallingapart, but really it is opening
up another door and closing adoor that was never meant to be

(01:10:55):
there, or, yeah.
Was for only there for a shortperiod of time.

Ann T (01:10:59):
She and I had an experience back in 2008.
Her dad got really sick and shewas before senior year for you
guys.
And it was a really toughsummer.
He came, he was in and out ofthe hospital.
We didn't know what was gonnahappen.
I was really angry and I wasworking for the worst boss I've

(01:11:22):
ever worked for in my entirelife.
And at the end of the summer, wewent on a vacation in August and
the very last day, she and herfriend that she brought with her
and I went down to the beach andwe were walking along the little
bike path to go, into town.
And we got hit by a drunkdriver.

(01:11:44):
I didn't know she'd been hit.
I thought it was just me.
And found out in the midst ofhim strapped to a board being
put in the ambulance and they'restarting to talk about, oh, we
gotta take her too.
And I start freaking out.
'cause now I, I can't reach mychild and she's been injured and
I don't know what's happening.
And we were very lucky.
We walked outta the hospitalthat night and she had a

(01:12:05):
concussion and still doesn'thave any memory of the actual
accident.
I remember every single secondof the trauma of the accident.
'cause I took the brunt of it.
And I went into I understoodwhat was happening to me.
I understood the trauma that washappening.
My family had just been throughthis incredibly traumatic summer

(01:12:27):
and getting help and getting usto.
It changed the dynamic of ourrelationship in some really
beautiful ways, but it wasreally hard for a year at least,
of just like fighting for myfamily and fighting for their
sanity and fighting for them toget help, and she didn't wanna

(01:12:49):
get help.
She didn't want anybody to know.
She went into her.
Yeah, I was gonna

say, I don't think she even mentioned it wasn't
until you had told me and I waslike, excuse me.
What?
Because that was when I wasgetting closer with her and I
had idea.
No, she didn't want

Ann T (01:13:00):
teachers to know, she didn't want anybody to know.
And I started getting emailsfrom her, the administration,
that they thought she was ondrugs and that she was, I was
like, ah.
Started hanging out with me, AndI knew I knew for myself, like I
had my story of like, when Ifell off the cliff and when
everything felt powerless andwhen I got really mad and I

(01:13:22):
started acting out.
And what I, what did I do?
I went to the drugs and thealcohol and the people that,
it's really easy to be connectedin that group.
All you gotta do is drink and dodrugs, and you're in the club.
Super easy.
I was terrified that was gonnahappen.
Like this was gonna be themoment when I lose her.
And I went in for this and Itold her, I was like, I cannot

(01:13:44):
stop you.
From making any of thosedecisions.
But I can tell you I'm gonna doeverything in my power to
disrupt it as much as I canbecause I had a parent, I had
parents who went, we don't knowwhat to do, so we're just taking
our hands off.
And they let me run, they let mequit school at 16 and move into

(01:14:07):
a house with a guy who was 26years old.
And I'm telling you, Lauren, atthat ti at that period of time,
in my head, it was like mydaughter comes home and tells me
that I'm taking somebody off theplanet, somebody her.
So not gonna be me.
Like it's, it is not going downthe way that it did back in No,

(01:14:28):
yeah.
Seventies, because as a

child you think it's the coolest.
I had very once my mother passedaway I had the very cool quote
unquote father, which like Ithought was so great.
The, but looking back, I'm like,I did not have a parent.
No, I need a parent.
I'm craving biologically we needparents.
And I did not have one and whenI needed one the most.
The

Ann T (01:14:49):
most.
And that's the thing, likeparents get in this thing where
it's my kids are teenagers.
They don't really need me likethey used to.
Oh, they absolutely do.

Yeah,

Ann T (01:14:59):
they totally do.
Because my job at that time wasto remind her like, these are
the ground rules, and if I don'tteach them to you, society is
going to, in the realm of judgesand the court system and
treatment.
Yeah.

And society in a straight, it's gonna, it's gonna
be

Ann T (01:15:15):
really life changing and painful.
So I'm going to, because likeyou said, nobody did it for me.
Nobody was there stepping in theway.
I had people lecturing me.
I had a day where my mother sentevery single one of my siblings
to this house I was living in tolecture me.
Nobody came in not, and said,we're grabbing your stuff and
we're dragging your butt backhome because this is

(01:15:37):
unacceptable.
And maybe I would, it was likeyou would've just run again.
I'm like, would I have, do youknow.
I don't know.
I know I was mad and I know thatpart of what the messaging was
in that was that nobody cares.

I know you, all you really truly wanted was
somebody to pick your ass up andtell you that you're coming here
and you're loved and you need todo it, but we're, we'll show
that we don't, we'll show thatwe don't, we'll push it

Ann T (01:15:57):
away, but

in deep depth,

Ann T (01:16:00):
we want we'll let you go.
You'll figure it out on your ownand you'll come back.
That was what my mother got fromthe support people around.
Let her go, let her she'll comeback, and I really, here's the
one thing I've learned aboutaddiction.
My addiction and something thatI've worked with my clients.
So you asked me how I work withthem.
I like to try to go back and Ilike to find that place where

(01:16:21):
did you start to feel powerless?
Where did that feeling ofpowerlessness, no agency over
what's happening to me, thedecisions people are making for
me, because that is a feeder forresentment.
At some point, we will begin toresent those people, those
places, those things that aretaking away my agency.

(01:16:43):
From resentment comesentitlement.
And when my resentment reachesan entitled space, that's where
that anger's gonna bubble up.
And my response to that, if Ihave found something to pick up
and ease that tension, theentitlement's gonna say, F this,
I'm gonna do what I want.

(01:17:04):
Yeah.
I don't care about anybody else.
I'm entitled to feel better.
My system is gonna say, youdeserve it, so you go do that
thing.
It's destructive.
Who cares?

Yeah your system just wants some form of safety,
some form of regulation, and itmay come through rebellion.
Because of rebellion, it's sonegative.

Ann T (01:17:24):
That powerlessness and that resentment, all those B
blend together, all the hurtscome together.
All the things bubble up to thesurface.
And I just want relief.
I just wanna relieve thepressure valve.
So I found this behavior thatworks, smell adaptive.
It'll become obsessive andcompulsive and addictive and

(01:17:45):
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

We won't worry about this now,

Ann T (01:17:48):
but right now.
And it's, again, it's the ironybecause I've been in recovery
for a long time and I noticedthis thing where it's when I was
using, I was an in the momentright now, kind of girl, not
thinking about the future, notthinking about, it's a race.
We love

mindfulness when we're in, when we're using and
getting high.
Yeah.
Present intentional.

Ann T (01:18:08):
Give me that thing.
I want it now.
The minute I stepped intorecovery, I could not be present
in the moment.
I was feeling guilt about thepast and I was freaking out
about the future, and I wasjust,

yeah, your body's oh.

Ann T (01:18:24):
Like grading back and forth between these two.
But if you asked me to, comeinto this, drop into this
present moment and have thisexperience, I would look at you
like you got 14 heads.
I don't know what you're talkingabout.
It's a threat to being, and thatkins, that, that process of it
was after the accident theuniverse provided me with an

(01:18:46):
experience where for a year Iwas learning Tibetan meditation
with a Tibetan llama that showedup in town.
And I have a friend who went,Hey, you wanna be part of this
thing?
And I drove him to our littlesangha that could, as we called
it.
And I did not real, like I gavemyself that gift.

(01:19:08):
And I did not realize howlasting a gift that would be
because it, it gave me thisconnection to myself, this
permission to sit, thispermission to be with all the.
That would come up and to notgive all of this so much
importance.
Like I would do meditations withpeople and immediately in a

(01:19:30):
group, everybody would go, Ican't meditate, I can't stop
thinking.
I'm like, no one can.

Yeah.
It's a point when you, no one'sbrain

Ann T (01:19:37):
stops thinking you're dead.

Yeah.
Just freeze, grow branches, thesun shines, clouds are in the
sky and your brain is literallymade and wired to think

Ann T (01:19:48):
like that's not the goal.
The goal is to, it isn't.
To not think it is to observethe thinking.
It is to separate yourself fromthis deep attachment.
If you tell somebody thought,your thoughts are not things,
one out of five people that Itell that to will look at me
like, what?

They're not real.
They are not who you are.
You are the being happy, thethoughts, you're observing the
thoughts.

Ann T (01:20:16):
It's a random thing happening in your head, and you
do not have to attach to it.
You'll want to, and it willhappen unconsciously.
You will attach to them.
'cause your system, your primalsystem is running the show more
than you think it is.

It's like a auto, it's like a autopilot
soundtrack.
That's what I call it.
I'm like, what DJs like spintrack are you on right now?
Because sometimes, you'll wakeup and immediately you're like,
the night before you're like,I'm gonna go to bed, it's gonna
be a great day.
And then you wake up, you openyour eyes and you're literally
like, oh God, because it justfucking starts.
And you're like no.
And you're like, just please.
And it's happening until you getback into the body and realize

(01:20:52):
what's yeah.
What it's streaming and giving

Ann T (01:20:54):
ourselves permission to do it can be really hard.
Like just go and sit Ann andjust breathe and just focus on
your breath.
I really think I see thisbehavior a lot in early
recovery, right?
I'd run into people at meetingsin early recovery and they would
have these energy drinks in eachhand and a vape, and they'd be

(01:21:16):
telling me how great recoveryis.
Yep.

It's the adrenaline and the cortisol
we're addicted to

Ann T (01:21:22):
Okay, alright.
People, people with thecigarettes and the vape and I
did it too.
I, we all do it.
It's a signature.
I

talked about it in my last podcast actually.

Ann T (01:21:30):
What I connected with though is I would I, all the
times when I would have somebodywho, they're freaking out, it's
what do you need?
I just need to go outside andsmoke a cigarette.
And I would watch them.
And here I am, like I'm doingall this meditation and this
breath work stuff, and I'mlearning to, to remember to
breathe because we forget mostof us are breathing from here.

(01:21:53):
And to actually take a deepbreath, what it does for the
brain is amazing.

Yeah.
We're like perpetuating it whenwe breathe from the chest.
If we're not breathing, somepeople are like, what do you
mean breathe from the chest?
The lungs are the chest.
No.
We need to breathe into thebelly.

Ann T (01:22:05):
Breathe down into, yeah.
And like you're gonna get tired,but you can't, you're gonna a
lot, you can't.
When you start deep breathingyour brain, oh, you get so high.

Wow.
I've gone to many places.
I have a whole episode on this.
I was literally, I've raised myhand at an event.
It was like a hundred women.
We did like a tribal thing foran hour.
I went to outer space, acrosslifetimes, all these things.
And I literally took the mic andwas like, I'm so sorry.
I'm gonna say this, but I spenta hundred thousand dollars on
drugs when I was using, and I'venever had an experience like

(01:22:34):
that.
What was that?
And I was focused ever since.

Ann T (01:22:38):
Yeah.
Just from this experience.
And I would say what I thinkyour system, your body is
actually asking you for is thebreath.
Your brain's asking for thenicotine.
Your body is actually asking youfor the breath.
I had somebody the other day, Iwas like, man I could really

(01:22:58):
smoke a cigarette right now.
I'm like, I think your body'sactually asking you to breathe.
Look at, but look at your littleaddictive head coming right in
there.
Gimme some, gimme a chemicalright now.
So why don't we just breathe?
Why don't we just sit here anddo some deep breathing, bring
some oxygen to your brain.
An anxiety attack really is thatlike I've shortened my breath

(01:23:20):
and now my brain is going, oh,we're not getting oxygen.
We're dying.
And now we're totally freakingout about God knows what.
Yeah.
All the thoughts glom togetherand then become a disaster story
of catastrophic proportions.
And if I can get somebodydistracted enough.
To just breathe or talk to meabout something mundane and

(01:23:43):
random.
I remember having a guy who, waslike, what do you do for a
living?
It's I install awnings was like,oh, tell me about how you do
that.
Love awnings.
Five minutes later it's yeah,because if you're talking,
you're not, you're not actuallydying.
You're not, you have, you'd haveenough wherewithal.
You're putting words togetherand yeah, it was, I'm highly

(01:24:03):
entertained by what thatinternal survival messaging
says, and I also know that, partof the big task in this process
is learning to call bullshit onit, and learning to really suss
out like what is real in thisexperience that you're having?
'cause most of the time, andAnna Lemke, fantastic book

(01:24:26):
called Dopamine Nation.
She talks about in the worldthat we live in with so much
abundance, we ha we still havethis survival brain, this really
neanderthal basic findingnegative patterns for threat and
safety and finding food, ashelter, right?

(01:24:52):
Just these basic little thingsthat are, that everything is
operating under.
But we don't have those kinds ofchallenges.
We're not ha we don't have tohunt for our food anymore.
We don't have to look for, ifyou go talk to an unhoused
person, they're living in that.
Yeah, they're definitely livingin that experience, but most of

(01:25:12):
us are not having thatexperience.
So in that respect, if I havethis brain that's always looking
for struggle, always looking atsense of safety and negativity,
am I creating my own?
In order to feel, and I do, Iknow that we have brains that
want challenge, but also wantcomfort.

Exactly.
Yeah.

Ann T (01:25:38):
The dilemma for me was coming to this my addict brain
wants to sink comfort at allcosts, wants to be numb and not
feel, and not, just, yeah.
Flatline is dead yeah.
There's no growing,

you're dying.

Ann T (01:25:51):
Comfort will kill me is really my motto.
I have a little sticker on mycomputer here.
It's comfort zone will kill youbecause, and particularly in the
last years of my, my my gradschool.
Stuff.
It was like the pandemic.
I was working like in this crazyway doing everything on Zoom.
I had zoom fatigue.
It was really burnout, trying tofinish my degree.

(01:26:11):
And my degree is online, soeverything is in front of the
computer and I'm hating all ofit.
And I'm really struggling inthis place.
And that is the language I used.
I'm really struggling.
There was a little self-sabotagein there too.
And I'm struggle.
I'm on the struggle bus.
We all say it.
Yeah.
I can't do struggle.
Struggle makes me wanna quit.

(01:26:33):
Yeah.
And I had to look at myself oneday and go, you gotta stop
talking to yourself that way,Ann.
You gotta quit talking toyourself.
What is really happening here?
Oh, I'm very challenged by theseexperiences that I'm having.
Can I do challenge?
I.
Absolutely can do challenge.
And every time I've done achallenge, I've walked through

(01:26:54):
grief or I've gone throughsomething hard, I've come
through trauma.
I've, there's another me on theother side of that I'll, I will
never meet her.
Yeah.
If I don't meet the challenge.
And from the very first timedecades ago when I did that and
it was, oh, I can look at thisgirl in the eyes.

(01:27:16):
I can actually feel good aboutmyself today.
I have self-esteem andself-respect.
I have some inkling of anidentity that I can build on.
I am gaining some wisdom andsome different thought
processes.
I am changing and I am growingand I like that.
So it was a stop talking aboutthe struggle and lean into the

(01:27:40):
challenge.
And the challenge is full of, Idon't knows, and uncertainty and
fear and it's also full of agreat sense of accomplishment
and beautiful, joyful momentsand laughter and really
incredible people.

(01:28:01):
And I don't wanna miss any ofthat either.
And I can't a la carte my life.
I can't only pick out thesethings I wanted to.
I have a friend, I have a reallydear friend who's battling
cancer right now, and we weretalking about this woman that
sponsored her, and that was mytherapist for a little while.

(01:28:23):
She's long since passed, but shewas just the epitome of love.
She was just so loving and wewere talking about things that
she taught us, and I said, yeah,the first time she told me that
my feelings wouldn't kill me.
And I looked at her like, whatare you talking about?
I feel like I'm dying right now.
And she said, my friend said,yeah.

(01:28:43):
She told me your life cannot bea 365 day orgasm.
These are

great.
I love the, I can't a la carte,my life.
Your life can't be a 365 dayorgasm, bringing her back from
the dead with those greatquotes.

Ann T (01:29:01):
Shout out to Brenda.
Keeping her alive.
Yeah.
Yeah.

Wow.
You've shared so much wisdom andI think that a lot of people are
gonna relate to you just as aperson and also to your story
and everything that you'veshared.
So how can people find you?
I know I'm gonna put everythingin the show notes, but do you
specifically do like Instagramor Facebook or anything like
that?

(01:29:27):
I do

Ann T (01:29:27):
have an Instagram.
It's Annie of Annapolis.
Pretty easy to remember.
I don't have a professionalInstagram'cause.
No worries, Mike.
The agency that I work for isRogue River Counseling, so you
can go on the website, rogueriver counseling.com.
And you can read my bio onthere.

(01:29:49):
You can look at what we do.
We have, I work with some reallyincredible therapists that, all
walks of life and everybody hastheir little specialties.
And everybody is so caring andcompassionate and, our sole
focus is really on helpingpeople heal, is really walking

(01:30:10):
that path with them.
I'll meet anybody where theyare.
And the lovely part about doingtherapy in the way that I do
now, I used to do it intreatment and it was very short
term.
I called it triage treatment.
And now I get to really I.
Model for people what healthyrelationship can look like.
I've had clients who, you knowthey do all the things and then

(01:30:32):
they call me up and go, are yougonna fire me?
I'm like, I'm still here.
I'm in my office whenever youwanna come back, or you can come
and go, whatever.
I'm gonna accept you andwhatever, space you're in.
And for some people that's, thatis healing in and of itself
because they faced so many,they've pushed people away and

(01:30:52):
people will go eventually.
And sometimes it's really, it'sabout being that person at you
can get mad at me, you canleave, you can come back.
We'll talk about it.
We'll work all those things out.
So I'm very lucky to be able todo what I do and to keep what I
love about what I do is thatit's, there's no space in which
you now have learned it all.

(01:31:13):
And you're done.

Yeah.
Yeah.
The growing never stops.
The healing never stops.
There's no, it's never healed.
You're always healing.
It's continuous and there's noplace that we're actually really
going.
That's what I got through.
So my growth, it's the

Ann T (01:31:28):
journey.
It is the journey.
And it's crazy to stop everyonce in a while, like where I am
right now.
It's like I'm gonna celebrate myanniversary and to look back and
like it ha it has been a journeyand there's, it's so rich and
deep and meaningful and has allthe emotions in it, and I

(01:31:51):
would've missed it.
I would be dead.
I know that I would be dead if Ihad not, started walking that
path and done what I did and.
Whatev whatever happened,whatever divine intervention or,
my mother's prayers.
I do believe she had some intrainstrumental input there.
And my just, my, my oppositionaldefiance actually worked for me.

(01:32:16):
And I do this with clients too,sometimes.
It's if you can stop fightingthe rest of the world and fight
your addiction you actually willstart to realize who you're
really angry at.

Yeah.
Redirecting the energy.
I remember I redirected theenergy of me looking for getting
and doing all those things and Ijust took that same energy'cause
it can't be created nordestroyed.
And then I put it towardsgetting to know myself and yeah,
figuring out what was there andthe

Ann T (01:32:42):
creativity that comes out of that is

crazy.

Ann T (01:32:46):
Yeah.
It's just so you know I listedand there's so much more, but I
listed in a Facebook postyesterday, like the things that
I got back that I had given upto my addiction and the and then
gone beyond that, it just, andit continues to keep giving.
It's the, with that onelimitation that like, these are

(01:33:08):
things that I cannot do safely.
These and these other things arelike food and sex and those
types of things.
It's like even trickier becausethey are a natural part of our
survival and what we need.
But we need, it's very nuancedfor very new personalized.
We need understand ourrelationship with them and how

(01:33:28):
we are using them, and we needto get healthier in our
relationships with them.
And then it's man, the, it'slimitless.
Yeah,

because it's a thread that is attached to
everything.
So it's not like you're justfocusing on whether it's for
eating, whether it's for sexit's literally the energetics of
how you approach life.
It's connected to everything.
So I know that your work is sopowerful and you're just, like I
said, a beautiful human.
I have so much respect andgratitude for you showing up for

(01:33:57):
me when I needed it.
I have so much respect for theway that you modeled it to
Sarah, your daughter, and how Iwas able to experience those
years with her when I wasyounger.
And I have so much respect tosee what you're doing and
continue to do thank you.
And thank you for coming on hereto the podcast, embody this.

(01:34:17):
I will put everything in theshow notes and everybody who
would like to can get in touchwith you.
But do you have anything left tosay before we jump off here?
Any last words?

Ann T (01:34:30):
I am, I'm very grateful that you that you asked me to do
this, and it was there are thosemo there were a lot of Sarah,
and Sarah's friends that,watching that period of time.
And there were some very darktimes.
There was the loss of, some ofthose folks was very sad for
everybody.
But to see coming out of thatand for myself, as I was coming

(01:34:51):
into recovery too, I had somelosses because of substance use.
But to see you not be taken downby it and to actually, utilize
your recovery and.
And again, like I, not justsurvive, but thrive and to get
that curiosity and that, thatthing that wakes up in us that

(01:35:11):
just says, what else can youknow?
It's alive.
Definitely.
I, I say a lot.
It's, it's, I have a lot ofopportunities and sometimes it's
do you wanna try to do thisthing?
And it's I don't know.
That feels scary.
My curiosity overrides it.
And I tell a lot of people,curiosity got me on the road to
addiction.

(01:35:32):
Because I was curious then too,like you said, redirecting that
energy and staying curious andstaying open.
It's so incredible.
Like I know what the benefit isto me.
I can't always explain that topeople very well who are just
starting.
But to watch you have taken holdof it and then built this thing
that you're building foryourself, and I watch you too,

(01:35:55):
and I and see what's happeningthere and that you let me even,
like I don't ever expect to be apart of anybody's whole story,
but to be a part of somebody'sjourney to walk with them for
just a little bit is such agift.
It's such a gift.
So I, I wish more blessings foryou and more good things in your

(01:36:16):
future.
You're just beginning and that'sso exciting to watch.
So thank you.
Thank you so much.

I love you.
Thank you.
I receive all of that.
It really is serendipitousmoments.
We shall see what comes fromhere for both of our growth
journeys, thanks.
Take care.
If you're still here with aheart cracked open, maybe your
breath is a little slower.
Maybe you had a few tears orchills along the way, then you

(01:36:47):
felt what I felt the power oftruth.
This wasn't just a conversationabout addiction.
It was about being human, aboutwhat it means to reclaim the
parts of yourself that survivaltold you to abandon.
About learning that healingisn't about perfection.
It's about choosing yourselfagain and again, even when it's

(01:37:07):
messy, even when it's slow.
I meant what I said at thebeginning.
This moment with Anne felt fullcircle in every single way to
sit across from the woman whoheld space for me when I was
drowning and to now hold spacefor her on this podcast.
That's embodiment, that istransformation, that is proof

(01:37:28):
that this work works.
So if you're somewhere in themessy middle, wondering if it's
ever going to click, if you'restill performing peace, but
feeling empty inside.
If you're terrified to feelwhat's actually underneath the
surface, this is your reminder.
You are not broken, you arebecoming, and you are so worthy
of becoming someone you're proudof.

(01:37:50):
There are people out here whocan help you.
There are options.
There are solutions.
There is another way.
So if this episode spoke to yoursoul, take 30 seconds to rate,
review, or share it with someoneyou love.
It helps more women find theseconversations and maybe even
find themselves.
You can follow Ann at Annie ofAnnapolis and check out her

(01:38:12):
work@roguerivercounseling.com.
I'll link everything in the shownotes, and if you're ready to
stop numbing and startintegrating this podcast, this
space, this work is here foryou.
Until next time, take a breath,come home to your body and
remember.
You are not too late.
You are not too much.

(01:38:33):
You're just in the process ofrising.
I love you and talk to you soon.

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