September 16, 2023 • 62 mins
Do you need to find some light within you during the daily wins and losses of the adoptee journey? This episode welcomes international adoptee, author, and adoptee empowerment life coach Michelle Madrid. She shares intimate insights from her own experiences growing up in foster care, being labeled with limiting words, and the intense feelings of being unwanted by her birth and adoptive parents. What if you could reclaim your identity and purpose?
As we explore the adoptee journey further, Michelle unveils the eight pain points that many adoptees grapple with - from the deep sense of unwelcome they often experience to the pain of broken bonds and having the truth concealed from them. We reflect on the fear of abandonment that lies at the heart of these pains and how it can manifest as people-pleasing and a lack of self-acceptance. We also discuss the powerful exercise, "Putting Down the Baggage," which Michelle has designed to help adoptees recognize and let go of the emotional burdens they've been carrying since childhood.
Finally, Michelle gives us a sneak peek into her upcoming podcast, Electricity of You. Here, she aims to provide a safe and sacred space for adoptees to reconnect with their light, ignite their purpose and share their grief. This episode provides profound wisdom and advice on the adoptee journey, the power of reclaiming identity, and the healing power of sharing grief. So, are you ready to light up your inner electricity?
Find your people, cherish your people and love your people.
#adoptee #adoptees #adopteevoices #adopteestories #adopteestrong #adoptionreality #adopteejourney #adoption #wanderingtreeadoptee
Visit Michelle online at http://TheMichelleMadrid.com.
Here’s the link to the book’s product page on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Let-Us-Be-Greater-Adoptees/dp/160868847X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=SVDF0EUYX7PS&keywords=Michelle+Madrid&qid=1694831079&s=books&sprefix=michelle+madrid%2Cstripbooks%2C92&sr=1-1
Also great ways to connect with Michelle include:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LetHerBeGreater
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themichellemadrid
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michelle-madrid-62b1661a/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheMichelleMadrid
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Ann.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And so, ultimately, I think the shift comes when we
realize that losing ourselves isthe greatest tragedy of all,
abandoning our truth is thegreatest tragedy.
It's the greatest loss when weleave ourselves behind.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome everybody to today's episode.
It's a pleasure to be heretoday with our guest.
I'm going to read a little bitabout her in a couple of minutes
, but I just want to share outthat.
Her credentials really satheavy with me in the context of
I almost felt like I wasn'tgoing to be able to measure up
and made me a little nervousabout this episode.
But at the end of it all I amso thankful she's here.
(00:59):
I'm going to share a little bitabout her and then I'm going to
turn it over to her so she cantell us also a little bit about
her adoption story.
So, with that said, I'd like tointroduce Michelle Madrid.
She is the author of anupcoming and soon to be released
book called Let Us Be Greater agentle, guided path to healing
(01:23):
for adoptees.
She is also going to belaunching a podcast here in the
next couple of weeks or so andit is going to be labeled
Electricity of you.
We'll touch a little bit onthat as well today.
Michelle is an internationaladoptee, a former foster child
in the UK and an adopteeempowerment life coach who has
(01:45):
been recognized as an Angels inAdoption Honoree by the
Congressional Coalition ofAdoption Institute, ccai.
And if that isn't enough forall of us, she has been inducted
into the New Mexico Women'sHall of Fame for her work in
adoption.
(02:05):
Currently she lives in LosAngeles and you can visit her
online at her website, whichwill drop in our show notes.
But for kicking us off, it isTheMichelleMadridcom, and so,
with that said, welcome,michelle to the show.
It is a great pleasure to haveyou here today.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm honored to be here with youand with everyone listening.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Well, thank you.
If you don't mind, let's startout with a little bit about
Michelle and her adoption storybefore we jump into the book
itself.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Absolutely.
If I take you way, way back, Iwas born in the United Kingdom,
the daughter of an English womanand my father my first father
was Spanish, first motherEnglish.
My mother was married withthree children, but she wasn't
married to my father.
She and my father had an affairand I was the product of that
(03:05):
affair, and so complicated times, right Decisions of what to do
and ultimately the decision wasmade to place me in foster care.
I was placed into foster careas a baby, but not after having
spent some time with my firstmother.
She needed close for me.
(03:25):
She held me and then she droveme with her husband to my foster
mom, my foster carer, and sheleft me there.
I have read in my fosterrecords that when she left me,
it was a winter day and thefoster home was, as they put,
(03:46):
cold and chaotic, because therewas something wrong with the
chimney and there were likeworkers around trying to fix it,
but it was cold and chaotic.
My mom walked away and that'swhere my journey to adoption
began, inside of foster care.
I should mention, because Ithink this is pivotal for me or
it's poignant for me, it'simportant for me to say because
(04:10):
it's part of the pain points ofmy own personal existence, my
own personal journey as anadoptee.
I was labeled with a lot oflimiting labels while I was in
foster care Difficult to place,strange looking, unwanted,
illegitimate.
Social workers really wereconcerned that I wouldn't be
adopted because of my story,because I was this illegitimate
(04:33):
child as they, and also becauseI was darker in coloring.
This is all stated in my fosterrecords.
I really believe that the wordsspoken around children, about
children to children, stick tous Even when we are nonverbal,
before we can even speak ourfirst word.
These things adhere themselvesto us and I grew up with just a
(04:56):
sense of feeling prettyworthless, even after I was
adopted.
Even after I was adopted, I wasadopted by Americans who
happened to be living in theUnited Kingdom, in England at
the time.
They had two sons.
My mother wanted a daughter andso I was adopted and brought to
(05:17):
America.
I think a lot of people wouldsay, oh well, that's great.
That's where the story ends.
You were adopted, isn't thatwonderful.
That was a struggle for mebecause I had a new family, but
I also lost the first me, as Icall it.
I was Julia Dawn before I wasadopted, my first mother named
(05:37):
me Julia Dawn.
Upon being adopted, I becameMichelle Ann.
There was a whole lot ofconfusion in my young head
growing up because I felt thatlittle girl, that Julia Dawn, in
me.
I didn't know what to do withher, where to place her.
I grew up with a lot ofconfusion over that.
I grew up in an adoptive homewith an alcoholic father.
(05:58):
There was a lot of hurt insideof the home.
A father who wasn't terriblykeen at the time because I think
of his alcoholism just to leanin and be a dad to me.
He was never physically abusive, but he was verbally abusive.
I think that was an added layerof hurt to feel not wanted by
(06:19):
my first parents on some leveland then, within the adoptive
family that I was brought into,not necessarily wanted by my
adoptive father.
The journey for me has been aninteresting one, but one that I
feel like if I were to definemyself, I would say I'm just a
(06:39):
seeker of truth and I wanted toknow the truth about me and what
that meant to me.
Even when I couldn't clearlyunderstand that, there was just
something in me that drove meforward to wanting to know more
of who I was and who I'm here tobe and to certainly find some
(07:01):
sense of why this journeyhappened in my life, not just
why my first parents left andall of that, not that, but just
why.
What does it mean for mepersonally, as a human being, as
a soul on this planet, thatthis transition, this shift in
my life happened?
What does it mean Also, what doI do with it, how do I make a
(07:22):
difference with it?
Which has led me, I think, heretoday, with you, inside of this
conversation.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I love that and thank you so much.
I think that's a great segueinto a little bit about your
book.
I want to thank you.
It is rare to get somebody'sterial before it's actually hit
the shelf.
I feel very honored to have hadthat opportunity to read that.
So I'm going to talk againabout the title of your book,
(07:50):
and it is called Let Us BeGreater A Gentle, guided Path to
Healing for Adoptees.
That sounds like a verypersonal title to me.
What does that mean for you andhow did you get to that?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It is a very personal title and thank you for those
kind words you just spoke.
I really appreciate it.
I think actually I know Let UsBe Greater is the book that I
longed for when I was growing up, adopted.
I remember just reading bookson adoption that just made it
feel the experience feel sort ofcold and I didn't resonate with
(08:28):
them, almost like I had adiagnosis that needed to be
cured and I didn't feel seen,heard, understood, known as out
of the books.
And so, truly, let Us BeGreater is the book that I
longed to read.
It is very personal because Igo into very personal moments
along my own journey as anadoptee and the title actually
(08:51):
is seated in Ethiopia.
I have a beautiful, brilliant,radiant 13-year-old daughter
named Eviana.
She is adopted from Ethiopiaand she and I preface this
because she and I haveconversations and this is a part
of her story that she iscomfortable with me sharing,
(09:12):
because there's a sharedexperience there between she and
I as mother and daughter.
Her story is hers to share, butI also want to make very clear
that she has given me permissionto share this part of our
journey together.
I learned in Ethiopia that shehad been given a name by the
police officer who found her andshe was in Southern Ethiopia
(09:37):
but the name is NorthernEthiopian.
So there is belief that thepolice officer was living in
Southern Ethiopia but is fromthe North.
And the name is Tiblet and itmeans let her be greater.
And I remember being inEthiopia holding my daughter for
the first time and learning thetranslation of her name Tiblet.
Her name is Eviana Tiblet.
(09:57):
There is meaning to her firstname, eviana.
It means living water.
She was very sick at the timewith Giardia from unsafe water
that she had been given as ababy.
So her name is, you know,living water.
Let her be greater.
There is such power in hernames.
But I do remember holding her,learning the translation of the
(10:19):
name Tiblet and thinking tomyself that it was a divine
message.
It hit me that I needed to takethat name in let her be greater
because I was holding thischild and she was very sick.
She was malnourished, very tinyfor her 10 months of age, yet I
could see all the potential ofher, right in front of me, in my
arms.
Like a moody, I saw everything,like her power, her grace, her
(10:43):
beauty, her intelligence.
I was just drinking it in andthere was this moment where I
thought, oh, I can see all ofthis in my child, but I can't
catch a glimpse of this inmyself.
Why?
Why can't I see the same valueand worth?
And so it started me on anexploration of deeper sense of
(11:04):
self and value worthiness.
The title of the book, for me,is really a crying out to all of
us as adoptees, that we can begreater than the circumstance,
the broken circumstances that somany of us find ourselves in.
Sometimes those brokencircumstances can just feel
identified by those things, bythe brokenness.
(11:25):
But there are ways to do theinner work.
I'm a big believer in that, theinner work of coming home to
ourselves, accessing a powerthat maybe we feel adoption has
taken away from us.
I felt disempowered for a very,very long time.
So, yes, this is a personaltitle.
It's woven within the story ofmy daughter and I becoming
(11:47):
mother and daughter, and then,beyond that, it is a mantra, I
think, to all of us as adopteeslet us be greater.
It does start with us.
It starts with each and everyone of us doing the work of
claiming what is ours to claim,and that is our identity and our
voice and our truth and ourpower, and I want that for every
(12:08):
adopted person.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think that's beautiful.
And with that I wanna talk alittle bit about your
identification within yourself.
You speak of your first me.
You have a first name and youspoke of it earlier in our
dialogue.
Can you kind of grab ahold ofthat a little bit more and speak
(12:31):
about the first me inrelationship to yourself?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, I mean, it was a part of me that I felt I had
just been severed from, withoutexplanation, without my
permission.
It was me before this changehappened in my life, this shift.
There was a little girl and hername was Julia Dawn.
She had an identity, she hadparents, she had a nationality,
(12:59):
she had a story.
And then adoption happened andthat shifted and I was being
told that none of that matteredanymore.
And it was so painful because Ididn't want to displease my new
family, I didn't want todisappoint my new mother as I
grew, but I couldn't shake thisfeeling that it wasn't right to
(13:24):
ask me to forget something I cannever forget because it's a
part of who I am.
And so, getting back to thatlittle girl and understanding
that there was hurt there that Ineeded to get to, there was a
little girl there who had beensomehow made invisible, not
(13:44):
erased, because I still felt her, but she had been asked to be
silent and to be quiet and smallinside of myself.
And it was such a burden and ithurt and it was painful and I
did not feel whole.
I felt like I was living thislife of separation from my first
(14:08):
chapter.
I don't ever skip ahead.
In a book, I read that intro, Iread the first chapter before I
get to the second and I wantedto understand that little girl
who was in my first chapter.
I wanted to know her, I wantedto help her and I knew that if I
could get back to her, shecould also help me by
(14:31):
identifying the wounds that Ihad buried, because I didn't
feel like I had permission touncover them, to look at them,
to explore them, to examine themin order to get back to myself.
That's what I mean about thefirst me, because every adoptee
has that.
They have a first chapter.
They have first identity, firstfamily, first me, and I think
(14:52):
that part of themselves needs tobe safely held and it needs to
be nurtured, recognized andacknowledged.
I think that is such abeautiful gift and we need to do
that.
We need to recognize andacknowledge, as part of who we
are, in ways that feel good andright, that when we connect to
that precious child inside of uswho had such a shift in their
(15:17):
life and felt so out of control,unseen, unheard, unknown, in
that moment and beyond, it is apowerful thing and healing
starts to happen in that momentwhere the first me and the big
me reconnect.
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Well, during that discussion and your explanation
of first me, I heard youreference at least two, if not
more times the internal pain andthe pain points of our adoptee
journey and I was wondering ifyou would like to expand on
(15:55):
those.
You call them out in yourmaterial.
You reference them as eightpain points.
Let's dive there a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Okay, yeah, I moved through eight pain points that I
have definitely moved throughin my own life.
Many, many, many I coach havemoved through these pain points,
sometimes all of them,sometimes a few of them,
sometimes one of them.
They'll be dealing with whenthey arrive to me.
(16:25):
The first is the pain offeeling, you know, unwelcome in
the world, just a sense of notfeeling welcome in the life that
they've been given.
Sometimes I've described myselfand I don't know about you and
other adoptees, those I coachhave agreed with me as maybe a
foreigner in my own life, astranger in my own life, someone
on the margins, sort of peekingin.
(16:46):
I used to feel like I livedoutside of this glass house and
I could see all of these peopleinvolved in my life.
I could see them, but I wasn'tallowed access in, but I knew
that they were there, you know.
So I felt this feeling offeeling unwelcome in the world
(17:07):
and it is a pain point that manyadoptees share with me.
The second is the pain ofbroken bonds and just a deep
sense of loss, and adoption isrooted in loss.
One family had to come apartfor another family to come
together.
It is absolutely the truth thatwe must speak out loud and it
(17:28):
has not done adoptees anyservice to not speak that truth
out loud.
Adoption is rooted in loss.
There is no shame, there's noblame in that.
It is the truth and we mustspeak to it so that we can help
ourselves in each other.
Being denied access to truth,what a pain point.
You know the truth of who weare, the truth of our medical
(17:49):
records.
You know the ability to seekthe truth of ourselves on even a
spiritual level, when so muchof the world tells us, you know
or defines the narrative that weare here to live.
You know the saying that truthwill set you free.
I believe each and everyadoptee deserves access to truth
(18:10):
.
Familiar rejection and wordsthat harm is number four, I
think, just the pain of thesense of rejection.
As you know, our lives shiftand our first families disappear
.
You know there is a feeling ofthat.
They're gone.
I understand that there is openadoption and that there's a
(18:32):
sense of rejection.
I think that is so at the coreof the adoptee journey, no
matter what the adoptionstructure looks like.
We must talk about that.
Even adoptees who are in openadopt adoptions can feel the
sense of rejection and confusionso important that we're able to
(18:55):
talk about that in safe, sacredspaces.
And certainly you know wordsthat harm my golly.
There are a lot of words thatare thrown around out there
about the adoption process thatcan make adoptees feel
diminished in their lives.
We need to work on that.
That can be out in the world.
(19:16):
It can even be within our homes.
Let's be really careful withour words.
I think that's very important.
I certainly know, growing up inmy house, there were a lot of
harmful words that were spokenand they do stick.
You know, it's like a stickyresidue.
It's very important that we getto a place where we start to
peel those things off andunderstand that those words and
even the rejection that we'vebeen through, it's not who we
(19:36):
are.
The pain of distrust that hitshard.
Learning how to trust ourselves.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Just makes your heart bleed almost, doesn't it?
Yeah, I agree with you, it's aheart bleeder.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, it's a heart leader and what makes my heart,
you know, the ability to trustothers, but the ability to trust
our own selves.
I didn't trust me for a longtime because I didn't know why I
didn't really know why myparents left.
So how can I trust anything oranyone around me when there was
(20:10):
so much truth that was kept fromme, the ability to speak about
the loss I felt inside, therejection that I feared all of
it?
I just felt like there was whocould be trusted and
unfortunately, that even wasturned against my own self.
I didn't trust myself for along time.
(20:32):
Banished biology the pain ofbanished biology was a real one
for me, just feeling like Icouldn't openly express what I
felt pulsing within my veins.
My mother used to say you areSouthern now and you are, you
know, white now and that's whoyou are.
(20:52):
Because we adopted you, You'reone of us, and I'm sure her she
meant well with that on somelevel.
I think she was trying to showme or say to me hey, we include
you, right, but it didn't allowme the chance to be who I am and
to do that transparently andopenly.
(21:14):
And so I think that sense ofbanished biology.
We need to help adopteesconnect back to the truth of who
they are in that way.
Pleasing others versus pleasingthe self is the seventh pain
point that I explore really isrooted in that fear of rejection
, and so we put others above usand unfortunately oftentimes can
(21:36):
hurt ourselves in the doing.
And I think it's reallyimportant to help adoptees
realize that pleasing yourself,honoring yourself, is priority
number one, and it's really abeautiful thing to give yourself
permission to do that.
Lack of transparency andacceptance is number eight just
that sense of not being able tobe transparent in our lives and
(22:01):
accepted as who we are and whowe're here to be.
Those are the pain points thatI've moved through in the book
and they're heartbreakers andheart leaders indeed.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But they're also, michelle, the heart and soul of
a lot of the emotions and theperspectives and the journeys
that adoptees are on thecommonalities of those themes.
We hear them over and over andover, and to get them pen to
paper is so important because weneed those types of tools where
(22:38):
people are, like yourself,saying I've been here, this is
how I've worked through it, andI want to share with you how
I've worked through it.
So I'm going to pick out two ofthe pain points that I can
relate to very heavily formyself, and I'd like us to talk
through them a little bit, andI'm going to go out of order.
I apologize in advance.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
People pleasing the people pleasing one is.
You know what one of myfavorites and in one of my early
seasons with my husband and afriend of ours called the Mon,
we actually spoke about peoplepleasing in correlation to
abandonment.
(23:25):
I was just curious what some ofyour thoughts or how you've
been coaching others through theaspects and the downsides of
people pleasing.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I feel like you know, people pleasing is such a
.
It's a form of really self-harmemotional self-harm and I think
it's really important toidentify.
You know where you believe yourpeople pleasing pattern started
.
Now I can go way, way back andsay that for me, I believe it
(24:00):
started, you know, the moment myfirst mother walked away.
I was not verbal at that time,but I felt her leaving, there's
no doubt about it.
And so I think in the mind webegin to think what do we need
to do so that others will stay?
And while you know I better, Ibetter be good, I better you
(24:23):
know please others that do whatthey say, or they might leave me
too, and I think that issomething that is sort of
embedded in us on a cellularlevel as adoptees.
But beyond that, I think youknow, coming into our adoptive
families, I just really rememberfeeling I better please my mom
(24:44):
because I was this daughter thatshe had always dreamed of and
wanted, and she had thoughtsabout who I was here to be and
who I was, and I needed to fitthat mold because if I
displeased her I would riskbeing sent back.
I remember having that thoughtvery clearly as a little girl
(25:07):
and pinpointing, I think, for me, when that really seated itself
inside of myself.
I remember being at my adoptivegrandmother's home and she had
remarried and we were about toleave her home we had been there
for the day and her new husbandI was just a little thing, I
was a little girl and maybe Iwas, I don't know seven.
(25:29):
I was young and I didn't feelsafe around him for some reason.
I didn't like him really.
He made me feel uncomfortableand I didn't know him, you know.
But my mother wanted me to givehim a kiss on the cheek,
goodbye.
And he was sitting at the endof the dinner table and I didn't
want to do it.
(25:50):
It was the first time I kind ofpushed back, like no, I don't
want to give him a kiss, and youknow, my mom said Michelle, be
a good girl, go kiss, you know athing, goodbye.
And I did it and I rememberfeeling just this sense of shame
and a sense of being made to dosomething that I don't feel
(26:13):
comfortable with.
But I have to do it because ifnot I'm really going to
disappoint my mother.
And it just started, I think,for me the thought pattern that
I didn't have power over my ownagency.
I didn't have agency overmyself with my words, with my
thoughts, with my actions, withmy desires, with my dreams.
(26:35):
I better do what other peoplewant or I risk losing them.
And so, ultimately, I think theshift comes when we realize
that losing ourselves is thegreatest tragedy of all.
Abandoning our truth is thegreatest tragedy.
It's the greatest loss when weleave ourselves behind.
(26:56):
And so it is.
It takes work, but it's soimportant to build that daily
muscle of shame, showing up foryourself as an adoptee, of doing
the things that please you andignite the light within you, and
doing that first and holdingyourself as priority in that way
.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And that takes work.
That takes an immense amount ofwork and time and effort, and I
will share with the listenersthat in the last 60 days I have
been hyper-focused on some ofexactly what you're talking
about In the context of dailyjournal.
(27:36):
I have six questions I askmyself every day.
I intend to do it for a 63-dayperiod.
This is getting beyond the 21days of a habit.
This is really trying toreframe my brain and reprogram
some of my thought process, andpart of that is in the context
(27:57):
of people pleasing and it'sweird.
They're weird things.
I'll share my six questions Iask myself every day did I
overeat?
I know that sounds silly, butit matters to me because I have
learned in the last probablyyear.
I use food for two reasons.
Now, I'm not overweight in thecontext of that's why I care,
(28:20):
but I have found that I eat andI'm uncomfortable, like
physically uncomfortable, right.
I also ask myself did I listento something with the intention
of learning?
So I listen to other podcasters.
I speak about them frequentlyon here.
I listen to stuff that isassociated with reframing your
(28:42):
mind, positivity, right, mindreset, those types of items and
then I ask myself did I readtoday?
Because I'm a reader.
And did I move today?
Because I would now work remote?
And I've worked remote for adecade and I can tell the
difference in my activity levelI went from endurance activities
(29:04):
to hardly moving at all.
But the last question that Iask myself every day in journal
on which is the most importantone what am I grateful for today
?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, those are so good.
I'm so proud of you.
Gratitude is so key.
That's hard when we've beenadoptees who've been told just
be grateful, just be gratefuland move forward.
But gratitude to me is different.
It is so expansive, the spaceof gratitude, and I can hold on
(29:38):
to a piece of gratitude, amoment of gratitude from my day,
and I think that's what you'resuggesting.
It's like if I close my eyes,if I'm journaling and I get
really still, what from this daycan I be grateful for?
Even if it's just one thing?
Maybe it's my breath, maybeit's my beating heart.
I like to tell people yourheart beats 100,000 times a day.
(30:00):
You don't even have to thinkabout it.
It's a gift.
We can hold gratitude for ourbeating heart.
There's always something we canfind to fill ourselves up with
a sense of gratitude and it isso life-affirming and it is so
healing Just saying that sharingabout breath and heart.
I feel it in my body there's ashift and it feels really good
(30:25):
and you know what we deserve?
That and that's connecting withthat light inside of us, the
gratitude that we can hold forour lives, even the harder
moments from our lives.
You know, I like to ask and Iencourage adoptees to ask, even
in the harder moments, if youcan sit and journal on asking
(30:46):
yourself these three questionswhat was that, or is that here
to teach me?
What was that or is that hereto show me and how is that here
to grow me?
Those are three questions thatI think can start some really
beautiful reflective journaling,even in the harder moments.
You know they say you can'thave a message without a mess.
(31:07):
I really believe that adoptionis messy.
This experience is not perfect,although the narration out
there has tried to make it so.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's messy.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But if we can please ourselves but ourselves as the
priority and say, okay, thesemessy moments have happened and
that's okay to say they hurt.
But let me do the work ofseeking out what might be the
miracle awaiting me there, whatmight be the thing that fills me
(31:39):
up with gratitude.
You know that was hard, butlook what I learned, look what
it showed me, look how, look howit grow, it grew me.
So I think your questions andjournaling is is such a
beautiful process to put pen topaper and explore your own
thoughts in that way.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't necessary evil, to be
frank about it.
And I, yeah, it's not, and Irecognize that and I know many
other adoptees recognize thattoo, and all I can say is let's
encourage each other to findways.
You know, if it's, if it issomething as simple as two
questions make it repetitive dosomething right and it's.
(32:23):
It's important to me under thecontext of all of the preverbal
trauma which you know, we, asadoptees, we really start to
understand that as we areworking through this journey and
we're starting to learn morethings about ourselves.
But you have a differentapproach which I really liked as
(32:44):
well.
We we do mention, you know, inmany instances a primal wound.
We mentioned trauma response,but in your book you actually
talk about grief and thedefinition of grief and the
phases of grief, and I waswondering if you would be
willing to talk a little bitabout that too.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Absolutely, and I think I would pinpoint in on
disenfranchised grief.
Anything is really so importantto clarify in this adoptee
journey because it's it's corein our experience.
If you think about it and Idefine disenfranchised grief in
the book I'm just going to readit there is a kind of grief
known as disenfranchised griefand it very much applies to the
(33:29):
way that many adopteesexperience their loss.
Grief becomes disenfranchisedwhen others do not validate or
recognize a loss or thesubsequent grieving process.
Adoptes are told even todaythat they shouldn't be grieving,
they should just be grateful.
They shouldn't spend their timewondering about who or what
came first.
This has been the primaryattitude for decades, for
(33:52):
decades, but it is beginning tochange.
As awareness increases and I'llstop there because just our
conversation is that piece ofawareness as we connect as
adoptees, as we, as we sharewithin our adoptee constellation
, as we get real and raw andvulnerable, we're beginning to
(34:13):
open up space for talking aboutgrief and I think that is a very
healing thing.
I do talk about the five stagesof grief, and this should be.
I don't want this to becomplicated, going through this
book and reading, so let's breakdown.
You know the five stages ofgrief and they're based on
psychiatrist Elizabeth KublerRoss's model.
(34:35):
Denial is the first stage ofgrief in the Kubler Ross model
and I think it's not unusual foran adoptee to you know, truly
spend or respond to their strongfeelings of grief by pretending
that the loss never happened.
I used to say that a lot.
My friends would tease me, youknow, in school.
I would say they would ask mewhy did your you know, why did
(34:58):
your parents give you up, or whydid they want you those things?
Every adult, yeah, we've always, all of us, have been faced
with those kinds of questions.
That hurt, but I used to denythat I had been laughed.
I would say, well, my mother'sthe Queen of England and my
father's the King of Spain, andthey're very, they're very busy,
and so I'm here right now andthat would at least shut these
(35:22):
kids up right For the moment.
But but there was denial and itwas a coping mechanism.
It protected me in that moment.
I didn't have to go right tothe heart of the hurt and it
stopped the questioning in thatmoment.
Anger is the second stage ofgrief and you know, it's one
(35:44):
that can look like frustrationor irritation.
Anxiety is the stage of grief.
Or an adoptee may think why me?
This isn't fair, why me?
And they may find itincomprehensible that the loss
has happened in their life inthe first place.
And you know, I think anger issuch a healthy phase when we're,
when we're able to do it in asafe space and really explore
(36:07):
the anger that we feel.
But I think that for a longtime we've not been able to be
angry as adoptees because we'rejust supposed to be grateful and
happy and how lucky.
You are right.
Those things may be true.
Each adoptee looks at theiradopt adoption experience
differently.
Adoption for each adoptee is asunique as the adopted person.
(36:31):
But I think that we can't be,we can't be afraid of the anger.
You need to explore it and feelit and and understand that it's
valid.
It's a valid feeling.
Bargaining is the third stage.
You know I don't know about you, but I tried to bargain with
God a lot.
You know if I, if I'm a goodadoptee, can I someday maybe see
(36:54):
my first mother again?
Or you know, there's a lot ofbargaining that can happen.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's so interesting , michelle, because I I don't
know if I've ever shared this.
I have to really think if Ihave, I used to actually say
this on the regular God, whatlesson have I not learned yet?
What lesson do I still need tolearn?
Let me know, because I'm kindof getting exhausted.
(37:21):
So I would do the bargainingwith God as to this journey and
my life and the things that werehappening in that and I know
now it was very much seated innot only my trauma, but you know
the concept of grief as well.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, that's really beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, I mean, when we recognizethat it's grief, we're not a.
I like to say we're not angryadoptees, we're grieving
adoptees, but we have the rightto feel anger.
We have the right to feel angerand it's important that we do
because we're grieving and weneed to feel those things.
(37:59):
We need to feel what is real inorder to heal.
I did, you know.
I did the bargaining with God.
You know, if you would justplease stop my, my adoptive
father from drinking, I promiseI'll be the best daughter and
I'll never feel sad about beingadopted again If you just do
this, you know that's just sopowerful, and it also stabs you
(38:21):
in the heart when you hearsomeone say that, but we know
that it happens in manyinstances.
Yeah, absolutely it does.
Depression I'll move on.
Depression is the fourth stageand I think it's probably maybe
the most well-known, you know,within the stages of grief, and
(38:42):
it can be difficult, it can bemessy, it can be loud, it can be
quiet, but it is, I think, thestage where adoptees can find
themselves, maybe withdrawingfrom their life or isolating
themselves, numbing themselves.
Maybe they feel a little bittoo overwhelmed to face it and
that's an isolating place to beand it can cause us to feel
(39:03):
deflated emotionally anddepressed, maybe even overlooked
, since the wider narrative inthe adoption conversation does
suggest that adoptees havenothing to grieve.
So why would we be depressedafter all?
It's really important to look atthis stage.
And then the fifth is, I think,acceptance.
And acceptance is interestingwithin the Kupla-Ross model
(39:28):
because it's, you know, it's notsaying it's okay that I'm
adopted, and where we arrivewithin that space of acceptance
is I'm adopted and I'm going tobe okay.
And I think that is sotransformational when we can say
that I'm adopted and I'm goingto be okay.
We've been asked for a verylong time just to say I'm okay,
(39:50):
I'm adopted and it's okay.
Let me back that up.
I think we have been urged tosay it's okay that I'm adopted,
and getting to that place ofsaying I'm adopted and I am
going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Oh, I love that spin, I like that reframing of that
and I think I'm going to sit inthat for a little bit, michelle.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's when we begin to recognize our grief, we begin
to honor it, we begin to seethat it's valid and that these
stages of grief, these emotionswe feel are valid.
We become more aware thatthey're there and we frequently
observe our grief and it's okay.
(40:34):
What is that saying?
Light burns off fog, igniting alight within us that maybe
we've dimmed down because wethought we've had to.
And then we start pulling thelight up a little bit, a little
bit and a little bit, as wefrequently begin to observe our
grief, and we burn away the fogthat, in my opinion, has kept us
(40:56):
from ourselves.
That's how I look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah, I really do like that and I am going to
spend some time reflecting onthat when we close out our
conversation today.
It's just one of those thingsthat I know will be stuck in my
repeat brain that mightoverthink your brain.
It will happen.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, I hope you'll send me your notes and thoughts
on that, because I'd love toknow.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely Well, you mentioned points of
light and I want us to tackle acommon theme.
That drew me to your book as Iwas reading through it and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I feel like wewere channeling each other at
some point in time and we didn'tknow each other at that point
(41:41):
in time.
And so you have an exerciseit's called putting down the
baggage, and you reference theterm burden, and it's important
to me because I equally, havebeen giving thought over about a
calendar year now and curatingmy thought process around the
burden that adoptees are askedto carry, and so I define that.
(42:05):
We connected through.
Another podcaster and I want togive him credit is Simon Ben.
He does the thriving adopteespodcast.
Please go check him out and heconnected us together and I'm so
thankful that he did.
But as part of that, I was onhis podcast again, thriving
adoptees, and it is episode 207.
(42:29):
It published in November 2022.
It is called the hidden and notso hidden burdens of the adoptee
, and my approach to thatconversation, michelle, was we
are asked from the earliest ageto start holding on to the
(42:51):
burden of this adoption and it'snot ours to hold, and each of
the phases of development.
We pick up another piece and wewe start, you know, putting it
in our backpack or in oursuitcase or however we're going
to hold it, you know, internalto our body.
It's really deep in my heartthat that happens to us.
(43:14):
It's it's even above and beyondour trauma response.
It's above and beyond thenarrative.
It's above and beyondprocessing grief.
It is we are literally justwalking through life.
We'll hear someone say somethingto us and we'll pick it up and
we'll be like, oh, I can't dothat again because, because and
then we'll go into, uh, let'sjust say, the childhood ages you
(43:38):
referenced.
You know the things kids saidto you and how you, you know,
react to that.
And then you'll start carryingthat burden, right, the burden
of how other children impact you.
And then you'll be sitting withuh and you referenced and she,
you know the the need to go andshow affection to an adult that
you didn't know and didn't carefor.
(43:58):
And you'll hear your aunts andyour uncles that you're being
raised with oh, you're sospecial, we talk about that in
our community and you startcarrying that burden.
And so what I love about ustogether in this conversation is
I recognize how we get them.
I'm talking about how we'regetting them and I'm encouraging
(44:19):
us to lay them down, but youactually have the tool or a tool
in order to lay those burdensdown, and you want to talk about
that a little bit with us.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Absolutely those burdens.
Thank you for sharing that,because those burdens are so
heavy and they weigh us down,and they weigh us down, and they
weigh us down and they dim ourlight, you know, until I think
it's just a flicker in the dark.
Um, I have always approached myhealing through so work
modalities.
I've tried more traditional,but it's always been the
(44:50):
alternative methods that have, Ithink, have produced the most
transformation in my ownpersonal journey.
Putting down the baggage is theexercise that you're referring
to and, um, you know it's it's.
It's one that's very powerfulfor me, because oftentimes we
don't even recognize that we'recarrying this baggage.
(45:11):
We can feel the weight of it,but we don't recognize that
that's exactly what it is, and Ithink we put the burden on our
shoulders from a very young ageas adoptees.
I mean, for me, I can say youknow, I must have done something
for my first parents to haveleft.
I must have done something formy adopted father to drink.
(45:33):
You know all of it.
I must be a good girl and dowhat my mother wants me to do in
order to be loved, and all ofthese, these burns.
We pick up another piece and we, you know, put it in, like you
said, the backpack or or thesuitcase so much of.
I think are hurt, those painpoints, adoptees, is truly
rooted in this, this residue ofadoption loss.
(45:56):
It can cause us to feel sodisconnected in our lives, I
think, especially when thatresidue of loss can't be safely
explored.
You know, it goes back to theability to explore our feelings,
those wounds that are resided,that we're carrying with us as
we go on, as we grow, and sothat heavy weight is placed on
our shoulders, and knowingly on,or unknowingly, as as adopted
(46:17):
people.
And so this exercise asks aquestion to adoptees, and the
first question is what baggageare you carrying that doesn't
belong to you?
Now, that is a transformationalquestion, because number one
you have to think about.
Well, wait, wait, a minute.
Am I carrying around baggagethat doesn't belong to me?
(46:38):
Am I carrying around someoneelse's burden?
And what does that look likefor me?
How does that feel?
What are you carrying righthere and right now that was
never yours to carry Can be thefollow-up question.
And what heavy load remains onyour shoulders?
You know that that really needsto be let go up.
What do you?
What have you placed on yourshoulders that was never yours
(47:01):
to carry.
So the exercise is based on theDickens process and it's a
technique that it guides theadopted person to think about
what their life has been like,is like currently, and what it
will be like if they continue tocarry the baggage of the past
with it.
And now the past, let me justsay, can be 50 years ago, five
(47:22):
years ago, five minutes ago,right, because, as you say, we
can put, you know, those burdenson ourselves every single day,
multiple times a day.
So if you know the CharlesDickens story, a Christmas Carol
, you know that the characterScrooge was shown his past, his
present and his future, what hisfuture would look like if he
didn't, you know, change hisways or his outlook on life.
(47:43):
So in putting down the baggage,what we do is a similar process
of identifying a pain, alimiting belief, a hurt, a wound
, a burden, and we look at it indepth through the lens of three
questions.
And the first question is whatdid this burden, this baggage,
this pain, this hurt that I'veattached to myself?
What did this cost me and thoseI love in the past?
Journal on that.
(48:04):
What does it cost you in thepast to carry this burden around
?
And then the second question iswhat is this costing me and
those I love right now, here inthe present Journal on that,
what's it costing me right hereand right now?
And then the final question iswhat will this cost me and those
I love in the future?
We look future, forward.
(48:24):
What's your life going to looklike one, three, five, ten years
down the road if you continueto carry this baggage?
It doesn't belong to you and wereally step into that feeling.
We step into the experience ofthat feeling, the magnitude, the
consequences of it.
I say you know, see it here,feel it, really immerse yourself
in the feeling and through thisimmersive process of really
(48:45):
feeling it, seeing it, what's itgoing to be like?
What's it been like in the past?
What does it feel like today?
What will it be like in thefuture?
You're really asked to witnessyour life as you carry this
baggage around and ultimately,you're motivated to put the
baggage down once and for alland to free yourself from the
weight and to create new thoughtpatterns, new supportive
(49:05):
language and behavior patternsthat support, I think, healthy
whole relationships, both withself and with others.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I like that.
I'm going to transition us alittle bit because I want to go
now to a little bit of thelighter side.
That's a lot of heavy in ourconversation, but there's also a
lot of health and wealth andbenefit in the conversation, so
let's lighten up.
You talk about points of life.
There's a mantra that youreally have utilized to help
(49:37):
guide through you and it'simpactful for you and I'd like
you to share that mantra with us.
And then my third item justputting them all right in a row
for you is talking a little bitabout connection to community
and things that you see aretaking place in the adoptee
community to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yeah, I think the mantra you're talking about is
where focus goes, energy flows.
Yeah, that's, oh my goodness.
Our thoughts create a reality.
It took me a long time torealize that, but it is so true.
What you think of, what you'rethinking about, what you're
keeping your focus on, theenergy of that is going to show
up.
And so if you think you don'thold worth, the energy of that
(50:19):
is going to find you and Ipromise you the energy is going
to show up and show you howyou're not worthy of love, how
you're not worthy of your dreams, how you're not worthy of
abundant life, health andwholeness and joy.
But if we can shift ourthoughts as adoptees to how
worthy we are of those thingseven though there were moments
(50:42):
in our life that were hard andthere were things that happened
that were beyond our control, wehave control over our thoughts
and that, to me, gives metraction to know I can choose a
belief that is healthy and wholefor me, that loves me and
that's supportive.
I'm worthy of love, I am love,I am light.
(51:03):
I want to focus on those kindsof thoughts because I know the
energy of that will find me.
I mean, just when I speak thatI feel the tingle of it.
If you are able to notice alimiting thought or belief when
you have it and stop and say youknow what?
Wait just a minute.
I see that this thought is alimiting one and I recognize it.
(51:28):
It's not who I am, it's whatI'm thinking.
Right, it's just a thought andI'm going to forgive it and I'm
going to let it go and I'm goingto choose.
I'm going to change the channelon that thought, I'm going to
change the channel on thatprogramming and I'm going to
choose a thought that is healthyand whole for me, and when I do
that, the energy of that findsme.
(51:50):
I mean, I'm telling you in themoment, it will find you.
As adoptees, we deserve toaccess that part of ourselves
that reminds us of our worth,that is life affirming and can
help guide us, I think, closerto a greater way of being in our
(52:10):
lives, individually andcollectively.
I just urge your listeners toreally take in where focus goes
energy flows.
Be careful of the thoughts, becareful of the limiting beliefs,
be careful of the words you usewith yourself.
Choose well, because, my gosh,you deserve it.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
I appreciate that and I think they will as well.
It's definitely an upliftingmantra and ties in nicely to the
toolboxes that we carry aroundto help us thrive and heal and
do all the things that move usforward into the world.
(52:51):
Well, let's then transitionabout the adoptee community.
My advocacy is how we can touchone another, how we can connect
, how we can be in community.
It's important.
I know for myself, every time Imeet an adoptee, I feel an
immediate connection just fromthe simple statement I see you,
(53:17):
adoptee.
So I would really like you to,just if you have a couple more
minutes with us, talk a littlebit about connecting to
community.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
It's so key.
I used to tell myself that Ididn't need community.
I was actually afraid ofcommunity because I just saw
life as pretty fragile and Ididn't trust that people would
stay at communities with.
You know, stick around.
And so I tended to, I didn'tlean in.
(53:47):
And it was when I started tolean in where I started to feel
seen and heard and know.
There's nothing more beautifulthan someone saying I understand
, I get that, I've been theretoo and I want to hold your hand
and I want you to know that Isee you and I hear you and I
know you and do I understand?
I think it's so beautiful.
Community is key and I thinkthat this is why there's this
(54:13):
shift and this tipping pointwithin the adoptee community,
the adoptee constellation,because we are connecting, we
are plugging into each other, weare sharing our perspectives
and my gosh, there's a widevariety of perspective and I
think that is OK, I think it'sbeautiful.
(54:34):
So a wide variety of experiencethat we hold as adoptees and we
need to share them all.
We need to honor each other.
You know, no judging, but let'sjust hear each other out.
I want to hear adoptees.
I want to hear their stories, Iwant to hear their perspectives
and their wisdom.
They hold so much wisdom.
(54:55):
We are an incredible communityof people, but I do think that
you know, through connectingsocial media, et cetera, in the
various ways that we areplugging into one another, that
we are seeing a tipping point,and I think that we are seeing,
you know, the damage that's beendone within a wider narrative
(55:15):
that's not represented our truelived experience, and all we're
saying is we want to be the onesto speak our experience.
We would really appreciate ifthe adoption conversation could
be more centered on the adoptee,because that's who it impacts,
in my opinion, the most.
So I think, voice by voice,adoptee by adoptee, we're
(55:39):
shining light in the darknessand we're reaching other
adoptees who have felt very muchalone and isolated within this
experience.
We each know what that feelslike and we're having the
difficult, uncomfortable,sometimes messy conversations
that we need to have tochallenge people to consider
their you know, preconceivednotions of what it means to be
(55:59):
adopted.
And I think that there is anenergy and electricity that's
being unleashed within ourcommunity.
It's unstoppable and it'screating change, and I am all
here for it.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
Yeah, I am too.
I appreciate that perspective,and we're going to end a little
bit with you talking about yourupcoming endeavor into
podcasting, and you know I'mhere for you, so let's talk
about what you're going tolaunch here in a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Oh, yes, you have already given me some great tips
, by the way, and some tools touse, some secrets of the trade,
so thank you so much for that.
We are launching theElectricity of you podcast, and
this goes back this is seatedway back in my childhood as a
young adoptee, feeling very muchalone in the dark, in the fog
(56:49):
before that was even a term thatI knew alone and isolated in my
experience.
I used to, you know, cuddle upin my bed at night in the dark,
and I used to sing this littlelight of mine, I'm going to let
it shine, and I know you saidyou, you know that song.
Some of your listeners may,some may not, but this little
light of mine, I'm going to letit shine.
(57:09):
Right, and I would sing thatbecause there's so much of my
experience as an adoptee thatfelt like it was very much in
the shadows and in the dark, andso this podcast is going to
explore, through the diverseguests that I'm going to have on
, people with incredible wisdom,incredible stories to share.
(57:32):
You know what caused their lightto go on dim?
Because mine went on dim.
I believed it was there somehow, some way, but it it was dimmed
down, it was doled out for awhile.
And what was that like?
You know, what was the darkvalley that they moved through
and how did they find thedirection to reconnect, plug
back into their light and ignitetheir true promise, their true
(57:55):
purpose, their reason for being,and to stand tall in their
truth.
And then what does that looklike?
And you know what are the toolsthat they want to share with
listeners and that can help them, you know, get that traction
today to start reigniting theirlives, reigniting their purpose
(58:17):
and the promise that each of ushold.
And so I'm so excited to bereleasing that.
The first one comes out,episode one, in just a couple of
weeks.
The electricity of you podcastis going to be special.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
I am looking forward to adding it to my list of
listening to learn activities,and so congratulations, and I
wish you the best of luck withit too.
It is such a joy and an honorand I know you're going to
you're going to resonate withthese words as well over time to
(58:50):
spend in conversation withpeople and to have guests, and
so, as we close out, I justreally want to say thank you so
much for coming on our show andsharing so much positivity and
really encouraging words for thelisteners.
I don't want to mismisrepresent the book again,
(59:11):
because you know I might justaccidentally do that.
The name of the book is Let UsBe Greater A Gentle, guided Path
to Healing for Adoptees.
The podcast is Electricity ofyou.
Our guest is Michelle Madridand she can be found at
(59:32):
themichellemadridcom, and I'llput all of her socials in the
notes as well.
As we close out and say goodbyeto one another, there's one
last question I want to pose,and it is around your lived
experience and what you wantnon-adoptees to take away from
(59:56):
the conversation.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
It's so important to understand that number one, that
adoption is rooted in loss.
And that takes us back to thebeginning of our conversation,
right, I think non-adopteesreally need to understand that
and really lean into that truth.
Adoption is rooted in loss andso adoptees grieve that loss and
(01:00:18):
it's important that we aregiven safe, sacred, safe space
to grieve.
And then, I think, beyond thatis and it goes along with the
grief we have to feel what isreal in order to heal.
And I think we have to feelwhat is real in order to become
more of who we're here to be,Not sanitizing this experience,
(01:00:39):
speaking real and raw about itin order to, you know, I think,
step into the light individuallyand collectively.
I would want them to knownon-adoptees, If you know
adoptees, if you know us, if youlove us, if you love us
unconditionally and that's theway we all want to be loved you
(01:01:00):
want us to feel what's real forus.
You'll want that for us.
You'll want us to have accessto grieving what's been lost and
you'll say we understand thatadoption is rooted in loss and
we want to know what is thatlike for you.
I mean, those kind of words areso healing, they hold so much
(01:01:22):
power and for non-adopties tohelp make space for meaningful
conversation without anyjudgment, without any
expectation, and just be open tohearing the adoptee perspective
.
Please be open to hearing us.
We're not here to harm anyone.
We're here to help ourselvesand each other heal, and I think
that's a very powerful thing,such profound words and what a
(01:01:45):
great way to end this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Thank you so much, michelle.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Thank you so much.
You are so dear.
You are a point of light in mylife and in the lives of so many
adoptees, and I thank you forlighting up my day because you
have.
Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Oh, thank you so much .
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
Make sure to rate, review andshare.
Want to join the conversation?
Contact us atWanderingTreeAdoptDcom.
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, Lisa Ann.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
And so, ultimately, I think the shift comes when we
realize that losing ourselves isthe greatest tragedy of all,
abandoning our truth is thegreatest tragedy.
It's the greatest loss when weleave ourselves behind.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
Welcome everybody to today's episode.
It's a pleasure to be heretoday with our guest.
I'm going to read a little bitabout her in a couple of minutes
, but I just want to share outthat.
Her credentials really satheavy with me in the context of
I almost felt like I wasn'tgoing to be able to measure up
and made me a little nervousabout this episode.
But at the end of it all I amso thankful she's here.
(00:59):
I'm going to share a little bitabout her and then I'm going to
turn it over to her so she cantell us also a little bit about
her adoption story.
So, with that said, I'd like tointroduce Michelle Madrid.
She is the author of anupcoming and soon to be released
book called Let Us Be Greater agentle, guided path to healing
(01:23):
for adoptees.
She is also going to belaunching a podcast here in the
next couple of weeks or so andit is going to be labeled
Electricity of you.
We'll touch a little bit onthat as well today.
Michelle is an internationaladoptee, a former foster child
in the UK and an adopteeempowerment life coach who has
(01:45):
been recognized as an Angels inAdoption Honoree by the
Congressional Coalition ofAdoption Institute, ccai.
And if that isn't enough forall of us, she has been inducted
into the New Mexico Women'sHall of Fame for her work in
adoption.
(02:05):
Currently she lives in LosAngeles and you can visit her
online at her website, whichwill drop in our show notes.
But for kicking us off, it isTheMichelleMadridcom, and so,
with that said, welcome,michelle to the show.
It is a great pleasure to haveyou here today.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm honored to be here with youand with everyone listening.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Well, thank you.
If you don't mind, let's startout with a little bit about
Michelle and her adoption storybefore we jump into the book
itself.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Absolutely.
If I take you way, way back, Iwas born in the United Kingdom,
the daughter of an English womanand my father my first father
was Spanish, first motherEnglish.
My mother was married withthree children, but she wasn't
married to my father.
She and my father had an affairand I was the product of that
(03:05):
affair, and so complicated times, right Decisions of what to do
and ultimately the decision wasmade to place me in foster care.
I was placed into foster careas a baby, but not after having
spent some time with my firstmother.
She needed close for me.
(03:25):
She held me and then she droveme with her husband to my foster
mom, my foster carer, and sheleft me there.
I have read in my fosterrecords that when she left me,
it was a winter day and thefoster home was, as they put,
(03:46):
cold and chaotic, because therewas something wrong with the
chimney and there were likeworkers around trying to fix it,
but it was cold and chaotic.
My mom walked away and that'swhere my journey to adoption
began, inside of foster care.
I should mention, because Ithink this is pivotal for me or
it's poignant for me, it'simportant for me to say because
(04:10):
it's part of the pain points ofmy own personal existence, my
own personal journey as anadoptee.
I was labeled with a lot oflimiting labels while I was in
foster care Difficult to place,strange looking, unwanted,
illegitimate.
Social workers really wereconcerned that I wouldn't be
adopted because of my story,because I was this illegitimate
(04:33):
child as they, and also becauseI was darker in coloring.
This is all stated in my fosterrecords.
I really believe that the wordsspoken around children, about
children to children, stick tous Even when we are nonverbal,
before we can even speak ourfirst word.
These things adhere themselvesto us and I grew up with just a
(04:56):
sense of feeling prettyworthless, even after I was
adopted.
Even after I was adopted, I wasadopted by Americans who
happened to be living in theUnited Kingdom, in England at
the time.
They had two sons.
My mother wanted a daughter andso I was adopted and brought to
(05:17):
America.
I think a lot of people wouldsay, oh well, that's great.
That's where the story ends.
You were adopted, isn't thatwonderful.
That was a struggle for mebecause I had a new family, but
I also lost the first me, as Icall it.
I was Julia Dawn before I wasadopted, my first mother named
(05:37):
me Julia Dawn.
Upon being adopted, I becameMichelle Ann.
There was a whole lot ofconfusion in my young head
growing up because I felt thatlittle girl, that Julia Dawn, in
me.
I didn't know what to do withher, where to place her.
I grew up with a lot ofconfusion over that.
I grew up in an adoptive homewith an alcoholic father.
(05:58):
There was a lot of hurt insideof the home.
A father who wasn't terriblykeen at the time because I think
of his alcoholism just to leanin and be a dad to me.
He was never physically abusive, but he was verbally abusive.
I think that was an added layerof hurt to feel not wanted by
(06:19):
my first parents on some leveland then, within the adoptive
family that I was brought into,not necessarily wanted by my
adoptive father.
The journey for me has been aninteresting one, but one that I
feel like if I were to definemyself, I would say I'm just a
(06:39):
seeker of truth and I wanted toknow the truth about me and what
that meant to me.
Even when I couldn't clearlyunderstand that, there was just
something in me that drove meforward to wanting to know more
of who I was and who I'm here tobe and to certainly find some
(07:01):
sense of why this journeyhappened in my life, not just
why my first parents left andall of that, not that, but just
why.
What does it mean for mepersonally, as a human being, as
a soul on this planet, thatthis transition, this shift in
my life happened?
What does it mean Also, what doI do with it, how do I make a
(07:22):
difference with it?
Which has led me, I think, heretoday, with you, inside of this
conversation.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Yeah, I love that and thank you so much.
I think that's a great segueinto a little bit about your
book.
I want to thank you.
It is rare to get somebody'sterial before it's actually hit
the shelf.
I feel very honored to have hadthat opportunity to read that.
So I'm going to talk againabout the title of your book,
(07:50):
and it is called Let Us BeGreater A Gentle, guided Path to
Healing for Adoptees.
That sounds like a verypersonal title to me.
What does that mean for you andhow did you get to that?
Speaker 2 (08:05):
It is a very personal title and thank you for those
kind words you just spoke.
I really appreciate it.
I think actually I know Let UsBe Greater is the book that I
longed for when I was growing up, adopted.
I remember just reading bookson adoption that just made it
feel the experience feel sort ofcold and I didn't resonate with
(08:28):
them, almost like I had adiagnosis that needed to be
cured and I didn't feel seen,heard, understood, known as out
of the books.
And so, truly, let Us BeGreater is the book that I
longed to read.
It is very personal because Igo into very personal moments
along my own journey as anadoptee and the title actually
(08:51):
is seated in Ethiopia.
I have a beautiful, brilliant,radiant 13-year-old daughter
named Eviana.
She is adopted from Ethiopiaand she and I preface this
because she and I haveconversations and this is a part
of her story that she iscomfortable with me sharing,
(09:12):
because there's a sharedexperience there between she and
I as mother and daughter.
Her story is hers to share, butI also want to make very clear
that she has given me permissionto share this part of our
journey together.
I learned in Ethiopia that shehad been given a name by the
police officer who found her andshe was in Southern Ethiopia
(09:37):
but the name is NorthernEthiopian.
So there is belief that thepolice officer was living in
Southern Ethiopia but is fromthe North.
And the name is Tiblet and itmeans let her be greater.
And I remember being inEthiopia holding my daughter for
the first time and learning thetranslation of her name Tiblet.
Her name is Eviana Tiblet.
(09:57):
There is meaning to her firstname, eviana.
It means living water.
She was very sick at the timewith Giardia from unsafe water
that she had been given as ababy.
So her name is, you know,living water.
Let her be greater.
There is such power in hernames.
But I do remember holding her,learning the translation of the
(10:19):
name Tiblet and thinking tomyself that it was a divine
message.
It hit me that I needed to takethat name in let her be greater
because I was holding thischild and she was very sick.
She was malnourished, very tinyfor her 10 months of age, yet I
could see all the potential ofher, right in front of me, in my
arms.
Like a moody, I saw everything,like her power, her grace, her
(10:43):
beauty, her intelligence.
I was just drinking it in andthere was this moment where I
thought, oh, I can see all ofthis in my child, but I can't
catch a glimpse of this inmyself.
Why?
Why can't I see the same valueand worth?
And so it started me on anexploration of deeper sense of
(11:04):
self and value worthiness.
The title of the book, for me,is really a crying out to all of
us as adoptees, that we can begreater than the circumstance,
the broken circumstances that somany of us find ourselves in.
Sometimes those brokencircumstances can just feel
identified by those things, bythe brokenness.
(11:25):
But there are ways to do theinner work.
I'm a big believer in that, theinner work of coming home to
ourselves, accessing a powerthat maybe we feel adoption has
taken away from us.
I felt disempowered for a very,very long time.
So, yes, this is a personaltitle.
It's woven within the story ofmy daughter and I becoming
(11:47):
mother and daughter, and then,beyond that, it is a mantra, I
think, to all of us as adopteeslet us be greater.
It does start with us.
It starts with each and everyone of us doing the work of
claiming what is ours to claim,and that is our identity and our
voice and our truth and ourpower, and I want that for every
(12:08):
adopted person.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I think that's beautiful.
And with that I wanna talk alittle bit about your
identification within yourself.
You speak of your first me.
You have a first name and youspoke of it earlier in our
dialogue.
Can you kind of grab ahold ofthat a little bit more and speak
(12:31):
about the first me inrelationship to yourself?
Speaker 2 (12:35):
Yeah, I mean, it was a part of me that I felt I had
just been severed from, withoutexplanation, without my
permission.
It was me before this changehappened in my life, this shift.
There was a little girl and hername was Julia Dawn.
She had an identity, she hadparents, she had a nationality,
(12:59):
she had a story.
And then adoption happened andthat shifted and I was being
told that none of that matteredanymore.
And it was so painful because Ididn't want to displease my new
family, I didn't want todisappoint my new mother as I
grew, but I couldn't shake thisfeeling that it wasn't right to
(13:24):
ask me to forget something I cannever forget because it's a
part of who I am.
And so, getting back to thatlittle girl and understanding
that there was hurt there that Ineeded to get to, there was a
little girl there who had beensomehow made invisible, not
(13:44):
erased, because I still felt her, but she had been asked to be
silent and to be quiet and smallinside of myself.
And it was such a burden and ithurt and it was painful and I
did not feel whole.
I felt like I was living thislife of separation from my first
(14:08):
chapter.
I don't ever skip ahead.
In a book, I read that intro, Iread the first chapter before I
get to the second and I wantedto understand that little girl
who was in my first chapter.
I wanted to know her, I wantedto help her and I knew that if I
could get back to her, shecould also help me by
(14:31):
identifying the wounds that Ihad buried, because I didn't
feel like I had permission touncover them, to look at them,
to explore them, to examine themin order to get back to myself.
That's what I mean about thefirst me, because every adoptee
has that.
They have a first chapter.
They have first identity, firstfamily, first me, and I think
(14:52):
that part of themselves needs tobe safely held and it needs to
be nurtured, recognized andacknowledged.
I think that is such abeautiful gift and we need to do
that.
We need to recognize andacknowledge, as part of who we
are, in ways that feel good andright, that when we connect to
that precious child inside of uswho had such a shift in their
(15:17):
life and felt so out of control,unseen, unheard, unknown, in
that moment and beyond, it is apowerful thing and healing
starts to happen in that momentwhere the first me and the big
me reconnect.
It's beautiful.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
Well, during that discussion and your explanation
of first me, I heard youreference at least two, if not
more times the internal pain andthe pain points of our adoptee
journey and I was wondering ifyou would like to expand on
(15:55):
those.
You call them out in yourmaterial.
You reference them as eightpain points.
Let's dive there a little bit.
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Okay, yeah, I moved through eight pain points that I
have definitely moved throughin my own life.
Many, many, many I coach havemoved through these pain points,
sometimes all of them,sometimes a few of them,
sometimes one of them.
They'll be dealing with whenthey arrive to me.
(16:25):
The first is the pain offeeling, you know, unwelcome in
the world, just a sense of notfeeling welcome in the life that
they've been given.
Sometimes I've described myselfand I don't know about you and
other adoptees, those I coachhave agreed with me as maybe a
foreigner in my own life, astranger in my own life, someone
on the margins, sort of peekingin.
(16:46):
I used to feel like I livedoutside of this glass house and
I could see all of these peopleinvolved in my life.
I could see them, but I wasn'tallowed access in, but I knew
that they were there, you know.
So I felt this feeling offeeling unwelcome in the world
(17:07):
and it is a pain point that manyadoptees share with me.
The second is the pain ofbroken bonds and just a deep
sense of loss, and adoption isrooted in loss.
One family had to come apartfor another family to come
together.
It is absolutely the truth thatwe must speak out loud and it
(17:28):
has not done adoptees anyservice to not speak that truth
out loud.
Adoption is rooted in loss.
There is no shame, there's noblame in that.
It is the truth and we mustspeak to it so that we can help
ourselves in each other.
Being denied access to truth,what a pain point.
You know the truth of who weare, the truth of our medical
(17:49):
records.
You know the ability to seekthe truth of ourselves on even a
spiritual level, when so muchof the world tells us, you know
or defines the narrative that weare here to live.
You know the saying that truthwill set you free.
I believe each and everyadoptee deserves access to truth
(18:10):
.
Familiar rejection and wordsthat harm is number four, I
think, just the pain of thesense of rejection.
As you know, our lives shiftand our first families disappear
.
You know there is a feeling ofthat.
They're gone.
I understand that there is openadoption and that there's a
(18:32):
sense of rejection.
I think that is so at the coreof the adoptee journey, no
matter what the adoptionstructure looks like.
We must talk about that.
Even adoptees who are in openadopt adoptions can feel the
sense of rejection and confusionso important that we're able to
(18:55):
talk about that in safe, sacredspaces.
And certainly you know wordsthat harm my golly.
There are a lot of words thatare thrown around out there
about the adoption process thatcan make adoptees feel
diminished in their lives.
We need to work on that.
That can be out in the world.
(19:16):
It can even be within our homes.
Let's be really careful withour words.
I think that's very important.
I certainly know, growing up inmy house, there were a lot of
harmful words that were spokenand they do stick.
You know, it's like a stickyresidue.
It's very important that we getto a place where we start to
peel those things off andunderstand that those words and
even the rejection that we'vebeen through, it's not who we
(19:36):
are.
The pain of distrust that hitshard.
Learning how to trust ourselves.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Just makes your heart bleed almost, doesn't it?
Yeah, I agree with you, it's aheart bleeder.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Yeah, it's a heart leader and what makes my heart,
you know, the ability to trustothers, but the ability to trust
our own selves.
I didn't trust me for a longtime because I didn't know why I
didn't really know why myparents left.
So how can I trust anything oranyone around me when there was
(20:10):
so much truth that was kept fromme, the ability to speak about
the loss I felt inside, therejection that I feared all of
it?
I just felt like there was whocould be trusted and
unfortunately, that even wasturned against my own self.
I didn't trust myself for along time.
(20:32):
Banished biology the pain ofbanished biology was a real one
for me, just feeling like Icouldn't openly express what I
felt pulsing within my veins.
My mother used to say you areSouthern now and you are, you
know, white now and that's whoyou are.
(20:52):
Because we adopted you, You'reone of us, and I'm sure her she
meant well with that on somelevel.
I think she was trying to showme or say to me hey, we include
you, right, but it didn't allowme the chance to be who I am and
to do that transparently andopenly.
(21:14):
And so I think that sense ofbanished biology.
We need to help adopteesconnect back to the truth of who
they are in that way.
Pleasing others versus pleasingthe self is the seventh pain
point that I explore really isrooted in that fear of rejection
, and so we put others above usand unfortunately oftentimes can
(21:36):
hurt ourselves in the doing.
And I think it's reallyimportant to help adoptees
realize that pleasing yourself,honoring yourself, is priority
number one, and it's really abeautiful thing to give yourself
permission to do that.
Lack of transparency andacceptance is number eight just
that sense of not being able tobe transparent in our lives and
(22:01):
accepted as who we are and whowe're here to be.
Those are the pain points thatI've moved through in the book
and they're heartbreakers andheart leaders indeed.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
But they're also, michelle, the heart and soul of
a lot of the emotions and theperspectives and the journeys
that adoptees are on thecommonalities of those themes.
We hear them over and over andover, and to get them pen to
paper is so important because weneed those types of tools where
(22:38):
people are, like yourself,saying I've been here, this is
how I've worked through it, andI want to share with you how
I've worked through it.
So I'm going to pick out two ofthe pain points that I can
relate to very heavily formyself, and I'd like us to talk
through them a little bit, andI'm going to go out of order.
I apologize in advance.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Okay, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
People pleasing the people pleasing one is.
You know what one of myfavorites and in one of my early
seasons with my husband and afriend of ours called the Mon,
we actually spoke about peoplepleasing in correlation to
abandonment.
(23:25):
I was just curious what some ofyour thoughts or how you've
been coaching others through theaspects and the downsides of
people pleasing.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I feel like you know, people pleasing is such a
.
It's a form of really self-harmemotional self-harm and I think
it's really important toidentify.
You know where you believe yourpeople pleasing pattern started
.
Now I can go way, way back andsay that for me, I believe it
(24:00):
started, you know, the moment myfirst mother walked away.
I was not verbal at that time,but I felt her leaving, there's
no doubt about it.
And so I think in the mind webegin to think what do we need
to do so that others will stay?
And while you know I better, Ibetter be good, I better you
(24:23):
know please others that do whatthey say, or they might leave me
too, and I think that issomething that is sort of
embedded in us on a cellularlevel as adoptees.
But beyond that, I think youknow, coming into our adoptive
families, I just really rememberfeeling I better please my mom
(24:44):
because I was this daughter thatshe had always dreamed of and
wanted, and she had thoughtsabout who I was here to be and
who I was, and I needed to fitthat mold because if I
displeased her I would riskbeing sent back.
I remember having that thoughtvery clearly as a little girl
(25:07):
and pinpointing, I think, for me, when that really seated itself
inside of myself.
I remember being at my adoptivegrandmother's home and she had
remarried and we were about toleave her home we had been there
for the day and her new husbandI was just a little thing, I
was a little girl and maybe Iwas, I don't know seven.
(25:29):
I was young and I didn't feelsafe around him for some reason.
I didn't like him really.
He made me feel uncomfortableand I didn't know him, you know.
But my mother wanted me to givehim a kiss on the cheek,
goodbye.
And he was sitting at the endof the dinner table and I didn't
want to do it.
(25:50):
It was the first time I kind ofpushed back, like no, I don't
want to give him a kiss, and youknow, my mom said Michelle, be
a good girl, go kiss, you know athing, goodbye.
And I did it and I rememberfeeling just this sense of shame
and a sense of being made to dosomething that I don't feel
(26:13):
comfortable with.
But I have to do it because ifnot I'm really going to
disappoint my mother.
And it just started, I think,for me the thought pattern that
I didn't have power over my ownagency.
I didn't have agency overmyself with my words, with my
thoughts, with my actions, withmy desires, with my dreams.
(26:35):
I better do what other peoplewant or I risk losing them.
And so, ultimately, I think theshift comes when we realize
that losing ourselves is thegreatest tragedy of all.
Abandoning our truth is thegreatest tragedy.
It's the greatest loss when weleave ourselves behind.
(26:56):
And so it is.
It takes work, but it's soimportant to build that daily
muscle of shame, showing up foryourself as an adoptee, of doing
the things that please you andignite the light within you, and
doing that first and holdingyourself as priority in that way
.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And that takes work.
That takes an immense amount ofwork and time and effort, and I
will share with the listenersthat in the last 60 days I have
been hyper-focused on some ofexactly what you're talking
about In the context of dailyjournal.
(27:36):
I have six questions I askmyself every day.
I intend to do it for a 63-dayperiod.
This is getting beyond the 21days of a habit.
This is really trying toreframe my brain and reprogram
some of my thought process, andpart of that is in the context
(27:57):
of people pleasing and it'sweird.
They're weird things.
I'll share my six questions Iask myself every day did I
overeat?
I know that sounds silly, butit matters to me because I have
learned in the last probablyyear.
I use food for two reasons.
Now, I'm not overweight in thecontext of that's why I care,
(28:20):
but I have found that I eat andI'm uncomfortable, like
physically uncomfortable, right.
I also ask myself did I listento something with the intention
of learning?
So I listen to other podcasters.
I speak about them frequentlyon here.
I listen to stuff that isassociated with reframing your
(28:42):
mind, positivity, right, mindreset, those types of items and
then I ask myself did I readtoday?
Because I'm a reader.
And did I move today?
Because I would now work remote?
And I've worked remote for adecade and I can tell the
difference in my activity levelI went from endurance activities
(29:04):
to hardly moving at all.
But the last question that Iask myself every day in journal
on which is the most importantone what am I grateful for today
?
Speaker 2 (29:14):
Yeah, those are so good.
I'm so proud of you.
Gratitude is so key.
That's hard when we've beenadoptees who've been told just
be grateful, just be gratefuland move forward.
But gratitude to me is different.
It is so expansive, the spaceof gratitude, and I can hold on
(29:38):
to a piece of gratitude, amoment of gratitude from my day,
and I think that's what you'resuggesting.
It's like if I close my eyes,if I'm journaling and I get
really still, what from this daycan I be grateful for?
Even if it's just one thing?
Maybe it's my breath, maybeit's my beating heart.
I like to tell people yourheart beats 100,000 times a day.
(30:00):
You don't even have to thinkabout it.
It's a gift.
We can hold gratitude for ourbeating heart.
There's always something we canfind to fill ourselves up with
a sense of gratitude and it isso life-affirming and it is so
healing Just saying that sharingabout breath and heart.
I feel it in my body there's ashift and it feels really good
(30:25):
and you know what we deserve?
That and that's connecting withthat light inside of us, the
gratitude that we can hold forour lives, even the harder
moments from our lives.
You know, I like to ask and Iencourage adoptees to ask, even
in the harder moments, if youcan sit and journal on asking
(30:46):
yourself these three questionswhat was that, or is that here
to teach me?
What was that or is that hereto show me and how is that here
to grow me?
Those are three questions thatI think can start some really
beautiful reflective journaling,even in the harder moments.
You know they say you can'thave a message without a mess.
(31:07):
I really believe that adoptionis messy.
This experience is not perfect,although the narration out
there has tried to make it so.
Speaker 1 (31:17):
It's messy.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
But if we can please ourselves but ourselves as the
priority and say, okay, thesemessy moments have happened and
that's okay to say they hurt.
But let me do the work ofseeking out what might be the
miracle awaiting me there, whatmight be the thing that fills me
(31:39):
up with gratitude.
You know that was hard, butlook what I learned, look what
it showed me, look how, look howit grow, it grew me.
So I think your questions andjournaling is is such a
beautiful process to put pen topaper and explore your own
thoughts in that way.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
Yeah, I mean it wasn't necessary evil, to be
frank about it.
And I, yeah, it's not, and Irecognize that and I know many
other adoptees recognize thattoo, and all I can say is let's
encourage each other to findways.
You know, if it's, if it issomething as simple as two
questions make it repetitive dosomething right and it's.
(32:23):
It's important to me under thecontext of all of the preverbal
trauma which you know, we, asadoptees, we really start to
understand that as we areworking through this journey and
we're starting to learn morethings about ourselves.
But you have a differentapproach which I really liked as
(32:44):
well.
We we do mention, you know, inmany instances a primal wound.
We mentioned trauma response,but in your book you actually
talk about grief and thedefinition of grief and the
phases of grief, and I waswondering if you would be
willing to talk a little bitabout that too.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Absolutely, and I think I would pinpoint in on
disenfranchised grief.
Anything is really so importantto clarify in this adoptee
journey because it's it's corein our experience.
If you think about it and Idefine disenfranchised grief in
the book I'm just going to readit there is a kind of grief
known as disenfranchised griefand it very much applies to the
(33:29):
way that many adopteesexperience their loss.
Grief becomes disenfranchisedwhen others do not validate or
recognize a loss or thesubsequent grieving process.
Adoptes are told even todaythat they shouldn't be grieving,
they should just be grateful.
They shouldn't spend their timewondering about who or what
came first.
This has been the primaryattitude for decades, for
(33:52):
decades, but it is beginning tochange.
As awareness increases and I'llstop there because just our
conversation is that piece ofawareness as we connect as
adoptees, as we, as we sharewithin our adoptee constellation
, as we get real and raw andvulnerable, we're beginning to
(34:13):
open up space for talking aboutgrief and I think that is a very
healing thing.
I do talk about the five stagesof grief, and this should be.
I don't want this to becomplicated, going through this
book and reading, so let's breakdown.
You know the five stages ofgrief and they're based on
psychiatrist Elizabeth KublerRoss's model.
(34:35):
Denial is the first stage ofgrief in the Kubler Ross model
and I think it's not unusual foran adoptee to you know, truly
spend or respond to their strongfeelings of grief by pretending
that the loss never happened.
I used to say that a lot.
My friends would tease me, youknow, in school.
I would say they would ask mewhy did your you know, why did
(34:58):
your parents give you up, or whydid they want you those things?
Every adult, yeah, we've always, all of us, have been faced
with those kinds of questions.
That hurt, but I used to denythat I had been laughed.
I would say, well, my mother'sthe Queen of England and my
father's the King of Spain, andthey're very, they're very busy,
and so I'm here right now andthat would at least shut these
(35:22):
kids up right For the moment.
But but there was denial and itwas a coping mechanism.
It protected me in that moment.
I didn't have to go right tothe heart of the hurt and it
stopped the questioning in thatmoment.
Anger is the second stage ofgrief and you know, it's one
(35:44):
that can look like frustrationor irritation.
Anxiety is the stage of grief.
Or an adoptee may think why me?
This isn't fair, why me?
And they may find itincomprehensible that the loss
has happened in their life inthe first place.
And you know, I think anger issuch a healthy phase when we're,
when we're able to do it in asafe space and really explore
(36:07):
the anger that we feel.
But I think that for a longtime we've not been able to be
angry as adoptees because we'rejust supposed to be grateful and
happy and how lucky.
You are right.
Those things may be true.
Each adoptee looks at theiradopt adoption experience
differently.
Adoption for each adoptee is asunique as the adopted person.
(36:31):
But I think that we can't be,we can't be afraid of the anger.
You need to explore it and feelit and and understand that it's
valid.
It's a valid feeling.
Bargaining is the third stage.
You know I don't know about you, but I tried to bargain with
God a lot.
You know if I, if I'm a goodadoptee, can I someday maybe see
(36:54):
my first mother again?
Or you know, there's a lot ofbargaining that can happen.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
That's so interesting , michelle, because I I don't
know if I've ever shared this.
I have to really think if Ihave, I used to actually say
this on the regular God, whatlesson have I not learned yet?
What lesson do I still need tolearn?
Let me know, because I'm kindof getting exhausted.
(37:21):
So I would do the bargainingwith God as to this journey and
my life and the things that werehappening in that and I know
now it was very much seated innot only my trauma, but you know
the concept of grief as well.
Speaker 2 (37:39):
Yeah, that's really beautiful.
Thank you for sharing that.
Yeah, I mean, when we recognizethat it's grief, we're not a.
I like to say we're not angryadoptees, we're grieving
adoptees, but we have the rightto feel anger.
We have the right to feel angerand it's important that we do
because we're grieving and weneed to feel those things.
(37:59):
We need to feel what is real inorder to heal.
I did, you know.
I did the bargaining with God.
You know, if you would justplease stop my, my adoptive
father from drinking, I promiseI'll be the best daughter and
I'll never feel sad about beingadopted again If you just do
this, you know that's just sopowerful, and it also stabs you
(38:21):
in the heart when you hearsomeone say that, but we know
that it happens in manyinstances.
Yeah, absolutely it does.
Depression I'll move on.
Depression is the fourth stageand I think it's probably maybe
the most well-known, you know,within the stages of grief, and
(38:42):
it can be difficult, it can bemessy, it can be loud, it can be
quiet, but it is, I think, thestage where adoptees can find
themselves, maybe withdrawingfrom their life or isolating
themselves, numbing themselves.
Maybe they feel a little bittoo overwhelmed to face it and
that's an isolating place to beand it can cause us to feel
(39:03):
deflated emotionally anddepressed, maybe even overlooked
, since the wider narrative inthe adoption conversation does
suggest that adoptees havenothing to grieve.
So why would we be depressedafter all?
It's really important to look atthis stage.
And then the fifth is, I think,acceptance.
And acceptance is interestingwithin the Kupla-Ross model
(39:28):
because it's, you know, it's notsaying it's okay that I'm
adopted, and where we arrivewithin that space of acceptance
is I'm adopted and I'm going tobe okay.
And I think that is sotransformational when we can say
that I'm adopted and I'm goingto be okay.
We've been asked for a verylong time just to say I'm okay,
(39:50):
I'm adopted and it's okay.
Let me back that up.
I think we have been urged tosay it's okay that I'm adopted,
and getting to that place ofsaying I'm adopted and I am
going to be okay.
Speaker 1 (40:05):
Oh, I love that spin, I like that reframing of that
and I think I'm going to sit inthat for a little bit, michelle.
Speaker 2 (40:13):
It's when we begin to recognize our grief, we begin
to honor it, we begin to seethat it's valid and that these
stages of grief, these emotionswe feel are valid.
We become more aware thatthey're there and we frequently
observe our grief and it's okay.
(40:34):
What is that saying?
Light burns off fog, igniting alight within us that maybe
we've dimmed down because wethought we've had to.
And then we start pulling thelight up a little bit, a little
bit and a little bit, as wefrequently begin to observe our
grief, and we burn away the fogthat, in my opinion, has kept us
(40:56):
from ourselves.
That's how I look at it.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Yeah, I really do like that and I am going to
spend some time reflecting onthat when we close out our
conversation today.
It's just one of those thingsthat I know will be stuck in my
repeat brain that mightoverthink your brain.
It will happen.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Well, I hope you'll send me your notes and thoughts
on that, because I'd love toknow.
Speaker 1 (41:19):
Oh yeah, absolutely Well, you mentioned points of
light and I want us to tackle acommon theme.
That drew me to your book as Iwas reading through it and I'm
like, oh my gosh, I feel like wewere channeling each other at
some point in time and we didn'tknow each other at that point
(41:41):
in time.
And so you have an exerciseit's called putting down the
baggage, and you reference theterm burden, and it's important
to me because I equally, havebeen giving thought over about a
calendar year now and curatingmy thought process around the
burden that adoptees are askedto carry, and so I define that.
(42:05):
We connected through.
Another podcaster and I want togive him credit is Simon Ben.
He does the thriving adopteespodcast.
Please go check him out and heconnected us together and I'm so
thankful that he did.
But as part of that, I was onhis podcast again, thriving
adoptees, and it is episode 207.
(42:29):
It published in November 2022.
It is called the hidden and notso hidden burdens of the adoptee
, and my approach to thatconversation, michelle, was we
are asked from the earliest ageto start holding on to the
(42:51):
burden of this adoption and it'snot ours to hold, and each of
the phases of development.
We pick up another piece and wewe start, you know, putting it
in our backpack or in oursuitcase or however we're going
to hold it, you know, internalto our body.
It's really deep in my heartthat that happens to us.
(43:14):
It's it's even above and beyondour trauma response.
It's above and beyond thenarrative.
It's above and beyondprocessing grief.
It is we are literally justwalking through life.
We'll hear someone say somethingto us and we'll pick it up and
we'll be like, oh, I can't dothat again because, because and
then we'll go into, uh, let'sjust say, the childhood ages you
(43:38):
referenced.
You know the things kids saidto you and how you, you know,
react to that.
And then you'll start carryingthat burden, right, the burden
of how other children impact you.
And then you'll be sitting withuh and you referenced and she,
you know the the need to go andshow affection to an adult that
you didn't know and didn't carefor.
(43:58):
And you'll hear your aunts andyour uncles that you're being
raised with oh, you're sospecial, we talk about that in
our community and you startcarrying that burden.
And so what I love about ustogether in this conversation is
I recognize how we get them.
I'm talking about how we'regetting them and I'm encouraging
(44:19):
us to lay them down, but youactually have the tool or a tool
in order to lay those burdensdown, and you want to talk about
that a little bit with us.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
Absolutely those burdens.
Thank you for sharing that,because those burdens are so
heavy and they weigh us down,and they weigh us down, and they
weigh us down and they dim ourlight, you know, until I think
it's just a flicker in the dark.
Um, I have always approached myhealing through so work
modalities.
I've tried more traditional,but it's always been the
(44:50):
alternative methods that have, Ithink, have produced the most
transformation in my ownpersonal journey.
Putting down the baggage is theexercise that you're referring
to and, um, you know it's it's.
It's one that's very powerfulfor me, because oftentimes we
don't even recognize that we'recarrying this baggage.
(45:11):
We can feel the weight of it,but we don't recognize that
that's exactly what it is, and Ithink we put the burden on our
shoulders from a very young ageas adoptees.
I mean, for me, I can say youknow, I must have done something
for my first parents to haveleft.
I must have done something formy adopted father to drink.
(45:33):
You know all of it.
I must be a good girl and dowhat my mother wants me to do in
order to be loved, and all ofthese, these burns.
We pick up another piece and we, you know, put it in, like you
said, the backpack or or thesuitcase so much of.
I think are hurt, those painpoints, adoptees, is truly
rooted in this, this residue ofadoption loss.
(45:56):
It can cause us to feel sodisconnected in our lives, I
think, especially when thatresidue of loss can't be safely
explored.
You know, it goes back to theability to explore our feelings,
those wounds that are resided,that we're carrying with us as
we go on, as we grow, and sothat heavy weight is placed on
our shoulders, and knowingly on,or unknowingly, as as adopted
(46:17):
people.
And so this exercise asks aquestion to adoptees, and the
first question is what baggageare you carrying that doesn't
belong to you?
Now, that is a transformationalquestion, because number one
you have to think about.
Well, wait, wait, a minute.
Am I carrying around baggagethat doesn't belong to me?
(46:38):
Am I carrying around someoneelse's burden?
And what does that look likefor me?
How does that feel?
What are you carrying righthere and right now that was
never yours to carry Can be thefollow-up question.
And what heavy load remains onyour shoulders?
You know that that really needsto be let go up.
What do you?
What have you placed on yourshoulders that was never yours
(47:01):
to carry.
So the exercise is based on theDickens process and it's a
technique that it guides theadopted person to think about
what their life has been like,is like currently, and what it
will be like if they continue tocarry the baggage of the past
with it.
And now the past, let me justsay, can be 50 years ago, five
(47:22):
years ago, five minutes ago,right, because, as you say, we
can put, you know, those burdenson ourselves every single day,
multiple times a day.
So if you know the CharlesDickens story, a Christmas Carol
, you know that the characterScrooge was shown his past, his
present and his future, what hisfuture would look like if he
didn't, you know, change hisways or his outlook on life.
(47:43):
So in putting down the baggage,what we do is a similar process
of identifying a pain, alimiting belief, a hurt, a wound
, a burden, and we look at it indepth through the lens of three
questions.
And the first question is whatdid this burden, this baggage,
this pain, this hurt that I'veattached to myself?
What did this cost me and thoseI love in the past?
Journal on that.
(48:04):
What does it cost you in thepast to carry this burden around
?
And then the second question iswhat is this costing me and
those I love right now, here inthe present Journal on that,
what's it costing me right hereand right now?
And then the final question iswhat will this cost me and those
I love in the future?
We look future, forward.
(48:24):
What's your life going to looklike one, three, five, ten years
down the road if you continueto carry this baggage?
It doesn't belong to you and wereally step into that feeling.
We step into the experience ofthat feeling, the magnitude, the
consequences of it.
I say you know, see it here,feel it, really immerse yourself
in the feeling and through thisimmersive process of really
(48:45):
feeling it, seeing it, what's itgoing to be like?
What's it been like in the past?
What does it feel like today?
What will it be like in thefuture?
You're really asked to witnessyour life as you carry this
baggage around and ultimately,you're motivated to put the
baggage down once and for alland to free yourself from the
weight and to create new thoughtpatterns, new supportive
(49:05):
language and behavior patternsthat support, I think, healthy
whole relationships, both withself and with others.
Speaker 1 (49:14):
I like that.
I'm going to transition us alittle bit because I want to go
now to a little bit of thelighter side.
That's a lot of heavy in ourconversation, but there's also a
lot of health and wealth andbenefit in the conversation, so
let's lighten up.
You talk about points of life.
There's a mantra that youreally have utilized to help
(49:37):
guide through you and it'simpactful for you and I'd like
you to share that mantra with us.
And then my third item justputting them all right in a row
for you is talking a little bitabout connection to community
and things that you see aretaking place in the adoptee
community to our benefit.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
Yeah, I think the mantra you're talking about is
where focus goes, energy flows.
Yeah, that's, oh my goodness.
Our thoughts create a reality.
It took me a long time torealize that, but it is so true.
What you think of, what you'rethinking about, what you're
keeping your focus on, theenergy of that is going to show
up.
And so if you think you don'thold worth, the energy of that
(50:19):
is going to find you and Ipromise you the energy is going
to show up and show you howyou're not worthy of love, how
you're not worthy of your dreams, how you're not worthy of
abundant life, health andwholeness and joy.
But if we can shift ourthoughts as adoptees to how
worthy we are of those thingseven though there were moments
(50:42):
in our life that were hard andthere were things that happened
that were beyond our control, wehave control over our thoughts
and that, to me, gives metraction to know I can choose a
belief that is healthy and wholefor me, that loves me and
that's supportive.
I'm worthy of love, I am love,I am light.
(51:03):
I want to focus on those kindsof thoughts because I know the
energy of that will find me.
I mean, just when I speak thatI feel the tingle of it.
If you are able to notice alimiting thought or belief when
you have it and stop and say youknow what?
Wait just a minute.
I see that this thought is alimiting one and I recognize it.
(51:28):
It's not who I am, it's whatI'm thinking.
Right, it's just a thought andI'm going to forgive it and I'm
going to let it go and I'm goingto choose.
I'm going to change the channelon that thought, I'm going to
change the channel on thatprogramming and I'm going to
choose a thought that is healthyand whole for me, and when I do
that, the energy of that findsme.
(51:50):
I mean, I'm telling you in themoment, it will find you.
As adoptees, we deserve toaccess that part of ourselves
that reminds us of our worth,that is life affirming and can
help guide us, I think, closerto a greater way of being in our
(52:10):
lives, individually andcollectively.
I just urge your listeners toreally take in where focus goes
energy flows.
Be careful of the thoughts, becareful of the limiting beliefs,
be careful of the words you usewith yourself.
Choose well, because, my gosh,you deserve it.
Speaker 1 (52:30):
I appreciate that and I think they will as well.
It's definitely an upliftingmantra and ties in nicely to the
toolboxes that we carry aroundto help us thrive and heal and
do all the things that move usforward into the world.
(52:51):
Well, let's then transitionabout the adoptee community.
My advocacy is how we can touchone another, how we can connect
, how we can be in community.
It's important.
I know for myself, every time Imeet an adoptee, I feel an
immediate connection just fromthe simple statement I see you,
(53:17):
adoptee.
So I would really like you to,just if you have a couple more
minutes with us, talk a littlebit about connecting to
community.
Speaker 2 (53:26):
It's so key.
I used to tell myself that Ididn't need community.
I was actually afraid ofcommunity because I just saw
life as pretty fragile and Ididn't trust that people would
stay at communities with.
You know, stick around.
And so I tended to, I didn'tlean in.
(53:47):
And it was when I started tolean in where I started to feel
seen and heard and know.
There's nothing more beautifulthan someone saying I understand
, I get that, I've been theretoo and I want to hold your hand
and I want you to know that Isee you and I hear you and I
know you and do I understand?
I think it's so beautiful.
Community is key and I thinkthat this is why there's this
(54:13):
shift and this tipping pointwithin the adoptee community,
the adoptee constellation,because we are connecting, we
are plugging into each other, weare sharing our perspectives
and my gosh, there's a widevariety of perspective and I
think that is OK, I think it'sbeautiful.
(54:34):
So a wide variety of experiencethat we hold as adoptees and we
need to share them all.
We need to honor each other.
You know, no judging, but let'sjust hear each other out.
I want to hear adoptees.
I want to hear their stories, Iwant to hear their perspectives
and their wisdom.
They hold so much wisdom.
(54:55):
We are an incredible communityof people, but I do think that
you know, through connectingsocial media, et cetera, in the
various ways that we areplugging into one another, that
we are seeing a tipping point,and I think that we are seeing,
you know, the damage that's beendone within a wider narrative
(55:15):
that's not represented our truelived experience, and all we're
saying is we want to be the onesto speak our experience.
We would really appreciate ifthe adoption conversation could
be more centered on the adoptee,because that's who it impacts,
in my opinion, the most.
So I think, voice by voice,adoptee by adoptee, we're
(55:39):
shining light in the darknessand we're reaching other
adoptees who have felt very muchalone and isolated within this
experience.
We each know what that feelslike and we're having the
difficult, uncomfortable,sometimes messy conversations
that we need to have tochallenge people to consider
their you know, preconceivednotions of what it means to be
(55:59):
adopted.
And I think that there is anenergy and electricity that's
being unleashed within ourcommunity.
It's unstoppable and it'screating change, and I am all
here for it.
Speaker 1 (56:09):
Yeah, I am too.
I appreciate that perspective,and we're going to end a little
bit with you talking about yourupcoming endeavor into
podcasting, and you know I'mhere for you, so let's talk
about what you're going tolaunch here in a few weeks.
Speaker 2 (56:28):
Oh, yes, you have already given me some great tips
, by the way, and some tools touse, some secrets of the trade,
so thank you so much for that.
We are launching theElectricity of you podcast, and
this goes back this is seatedway back in my childhood as a
young adoptee, feeling very muchalone in the dark, in the fog
(56:49):
before that was even a term thatI knew alone and isolated in my
experience.
I used to, you know, cuddle upin my bed at night in the dark,
and I used to sing this littlelight of mine, I'm going to let
it shine, and I know you saidyou, you know that song.
Some of your listeners may,some may not, but this little
light of mine, I'm going to letit shine.
(57:09):
Right, and I would sing thatbecause there's so much of my
experience as an adoptee thatfelt like it was very much in
the shadows and in the dark, andso this podcast is going to
explore, through the diverseguests that I'm going to have on
, people with incredible wisdom,incredible stories to share.
(57:32):
You know what caused their lightto go on dim?
Because mine went on dim.
I believed it was there somehow, some way, but it it was dimmed
down, it was doled out for awhile.
And what was that like?
You know, what was the darkvalley that they moved through
and how did they find thedirection to reconnect, plug
back into their light and ignitetheir true promise, their true
(57:55):
purpose, their reason for being,and to stand tall in their
truth.
And then what does that looklike?
And you know what are the toolsthat they want to share with
listeners and that can help them, you know, get that traction
today to start reigniting theirlives, reigniting their purpose
(58:17):
and the promise that each of ushold.
And so I'm so excited to bereleasing that.
The first one comes out,episode one, in just a couple of
weeks.
The electricity of you podcastis going to be special.
Speaker 1 (58:28):
I am looking forward to adding it to my list of
listening to learn activities,and so congratulations, and I
wish you the best of luck withit too.
It is such a joy and an honorand I know you're going to
you're going to resonate withthese words as well over time to
(58:50):
spend in conversation withpeople and to have guests, and
so, as we close out, I justreally want to say thank you so
much for coming on our show andsharing so much positivity and
really encouraging words for thelisteners.
I don't want to mismisrepresent the book again,
(59:11):
because you know I might justaccidentally do that.
The name of the book is Let UsBe Greater A Gentle, guided Path
to Healing for Adoptees.
The podcast is Electricity ofyou.
Our guest is Michelle Madridand she can be found at
(59:32):
themichellemadridcom, and I'llput all of her socials in the
notes as well.
As we close out and say goodbyeto one another, there's one
last question I want to pose,and it is around your lived
experience and what you wantnon-adoptees to take away from
(59:56):
the conversation.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
It's so important to understand that number one, that
adoption is rooted in loss.
And that takes us back to thebeginning of our conversation,
right, I think non-adopteesreally need to understand that
and really lean into that truth.
Adoption is rooted in loss andso adoptees grieve that loss and
(01:00:18):
it's important that we aregiven safe, sacred, safe space
to grieve.
And then, I think, beyond thatis and it goes along with the
grief we have to feel what isreal in order to heal.
And I think we have to feelwhat is real in order to become
more of who we're here to be,Not sanitizing this experience,
(01:00:39):
speaking real and raw about itin order to, you know, I think,
step into the light individuallyand collectively.
I would want them to knownon-adoptees, If you know
adoptees, if you know us, if youlove us, if you love us
unconditionally and that's theway we all want to be loved you
(01:01:00):
want us to feel what's real forus.
You'll want that for us.
You'll want us to have accessto grieving what's been lost and
you'll say we understand thatadoption is rooted in loss and
we want to know what is thatlike for you.
I mean, those kind of words areso healing, they hold so much
(01:01:22):
power and for non-adopties tohelp make space for meaningful
conversation without anyjudgment, without any
expectation, and just be open tohearing the adoptee perspective
.
Please be open to hearing us.
We're not here to harm anyone.
We're here to help ourselvesand each other heal, and I think
that's a very powerful thing,such profound words and what a
(01:01:45):
great way to end this episode.
Speaker 1 (01:01:47):
Thank you so much, michelle.
Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Thank you so much.
You are so dear.
You are a point of light in mylife and in the lives of so many
adoptees, and I thank you forlighting up my day because you
have.
Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Oh, thank you so much .
Thank you for listening totoday's episode.
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