December 28, 2024 • 35 mins
What if the very essence of who you are could remain untouched, even in the face of profound rejection and trauma? Join us for an insightful conversation with Simon Benn, the creative force behind the Thriving Adoptees Podcast, who courageously shares his personal journey of reaching out to his biological father. Despite facing rejection once again, Simon's story reveals the incredible resilience adoptees often possess, emphasizing that rejection often reflects the other person's struggles rather than our own worth. Together, we explore how Simon's experience serves as an inspiring testament to navigating the emotional complexities of reunion with strength and self-compassion.
Discover how somatic experiences and identity exploration can lead to profound healing and transformation. We dive into the significance of childhood memories, like finding a cherished teddy bear, and how they can spark a deep exploration of consciousness and self. With insights from internal family systems therapy, we highlight the concept of an indestructible core self, offering a hopeful perspective on healing from trauma. Through powerful stories and therapeutic wisdom, we aim to inspire listeners to embrace their wholeness and embark on a journey of thriving beyond past traumas, providing a beacon of hope and understanding for those on similar paths.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
As young kids you know, days old, weeks old,
months old, whatever that is.
It's pre-verbal trauma, so wedon't have any cognitive, we
don't have any memory of it.
We didn't know, we didn't haveany words for it.
It's pre-verbal, so pre-verbaltrauma.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, lisa Anne.
We are an experience-based showfocused on sharing the journey
of adoption, identity, lifesearch and reunion.
Let's begin today'sconversation with our guest of
honor, simon Benn, and I'm goingto jump in here and say we are
thankful to have you on the show.
I have had the privilege andthe honor of being on your show
(01:02):
a couple times.
Let's talk about who you are.
You are the creative owner ofThriving Adoptees Podcast, the
multi-continent phenom that youare.
You pump out so many wonderfulguests on your show and I just
love what you are doing for thecommunity.
(01:23):
But before we get into all ofthat, this is an opportunity for
you to tell your story and bein the hot seat a little bit.
So let me turn it over to youand kind of tell us who you are,
simon.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, thank you, lisa , and the honors are mine.
You know like we're all here tohelp one another, you know,
walking each other home, as theysay.
I'll start with kind of somerecent stuff, because some
people might have heard thestory from me before, but last
week I connected with the secondbiological cousin that I've
(01:59):
spoken to.
I spoke to one about 18 monthsor so ago and I spoke to another
one last week and I found outthat my biological father was
actually in care, so his mum haddied and his dad was a sailor,
and the sailors, obviouslythey're away at sea, right.
(02:20):
So he was one of three siblings, uh, and they were all in
different orphanages, uh, inworkhouses, right, these were
orphanages for workhouses, um,in liverpool, I think, uh, in,
you know.
So this would be in the 40s, Iguess, maybe in the 40s, um,
1940s, and so that gave me adifferent, and so that gave me a
(02:54):
different take on why, when Ihad called my biological father
out of the blue last October,that he basically shunned me and
this, this I say with a Britishmetaphor I say he blew me out,
which meant the end of theconversation was don't call me
again, and so you know, the lastthing he'd heard was a letter
that he had a waiver form thathe had signed back in 1966,
(03:18):
before I was born.
Yeah, and 57 years later, Icontact him out of the blue and
he doesn't really want to know,and so that was an interesting
one for me.
My first thoughts were I didn'thandle that very well.
(03:40):
Maybe I could have handled itbetter, and if I'd handled it
better would I have had a betterresult.
And then I looked back at theforms and I thought, well, he,
um, he, he didn't want anythingto do with the baby.
Before the baby was born, he'dbeen out with, he'd been dating
(04:00):
my biological mother, pat, forfive months, and when she told
him that she was pregnant, hedidn't want anything to do with
it.
So that was back in 1966.
Fast forward to 2023, lastOctober, he still doesn't want
to have to do anything to dowith me, and so he hasn't
changed.
The phone call was anexperiment to see whether he
(04:22):
changed and it hadn't.
The phone call was anexperiment to see whether he
changed and it hadn't.
And the uh, what I?
The learning that I took fromthat is that his rejection
didn't uh throw me, um into about of insecurity.
I think there was a couple ofminutes when I was slightly
(04:43):
stunned and then I bounced backpretty, pretty quickly, pretty
quickly, and as adoptees, we areincredibly resilient,
incredibly resilient, and Idon't and and people talk about
resilience like it's somethingthat we build by going to the,
(05:04):
by going to the gym, likebuilding a muscle.
I don't think it's like that.
I think resilience is seeingthe strength that we've always
had, that we just haven'tappreciated before, and so so,
yeah, I'm cheerleading, really,for our resilience and I guess
(05:26):
I'm pointing the listenerstowards where they have seen
their own resilience as they'venavigated the ups and downs of
this adoptee life and thereunion rollercoaster, and just
to perhaps take a moment out andsee, because we're really tough
(05:47):
on ourselves we are adoptees,absolutely, we're really tough
on ourselves and I, you know,one of the biggest things, uh,
I'm seeing at the moment is howpowerful this grace is, grace
for ourselves, grace forourselves seeing our own
resilience.
Um key thoughts, thoughts I hadwhen you asked about the story.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, you know, what I want to do for our listeners
is take just a moment, becausewe have, between us, talked to a
large number of adoptees,sometimes on mic, sometimes off
mic.
There is always a little bit ofa thread around the reunion and
(06:29):
secondary rejection conversation, and where you are in your
journey has a lot of impact onhow you handle that, and so what
I really liked about whatyou've just shared already in
the first few minutes is amethod or at least understanding
of your own resilience andgiving yourself grace.
(06:50):
But what I also tapped intoreal quickly was your birth
father's character and integritywas deeply ingrained in him and
many decades later and manydecades later, still the same
guy.
That has nothing to do with us,the adoptee.
That is that person's to own.
(07:13):
And, to your point, givinggrace, I think the place we need
to be more grace oriented isnot taking that rejection as if
we've done something wrong,taking that rejection as if
we've done something wrong.
Yours is a great livedexperience of how you had no
hunt in that in that way.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, and I judged him hard.
And then when I found out lastweek that he'd been raised in
care, first off I didn't knowthat britain had work workhouses
, so people may have seen it ontelevision.
Um, the filomena story, whichis, uh, you know, he's a british
(07:54):
, a british actor, and it's it'sthe story of this, you know,
like a catholic, a catholicwoman in ireland, and and this
workhouse that they put in.
I didn't't realise we had themin the UK, but we did, and he
spent some time in there.
So he's got, he had his owntrauma, the death of his own
(08:15):
mother, and where he was raisedin a workhouse-sproke orphanage.
And is it wonder, you know, hewas damaged, is damaged himself,
he's still alive.
This it wonder, you know, he,he was damaged, is damaged
himself, he's still alive.
This guy you know, um, and uh,he's so.
So it's grace for ourselves,but it's also grace for them and
I'm feeling a little bit more.
(08:36):
I'm feeling more grace to him.
I'm not judging him quite ashardly.
As hard I've downgraded his,his, uh, status, uh, they rude
words which we wouldn't talkabout on the show but it's a
lesser rude word.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, you've downgraded his importance or
you're a little bit moreempathetic to his mindset.
Just having a similar, justhaving correlation things you
can correlate between what youbelieve could have been his
experience to your own, I'd likeus to also take a step back.
I do think that there's a largenumber of people that know a
(09:12):
little bit about your story.
But just in case everybody doesnot know your story, you are in
the UK and you were adopted inwhat time?
General time period 1967.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So, yeah, I was born in Wrexham, which is in North
Wales, very close to Liverpool,and then I was adopted out of
the Adoption Council an adoptioncouncil like an adoption agency
but public sector in Liverpool,when I was four weeks old.
And then I grew up in Yorkshire, which is 80 miles away or so
(09:52):
from Liverpool, and I've livedaround there all my life.
I've lived within about 20minutes drive of home, you know,
for all my time, apart fromuniversity and a couple of
spells abroad, abroad, um, butyeah and uh, I was told that I
(10:15):
was adopted when my when, whenwe went to collect my little
sister from the same adoptionagency, when I was two, or just
before I was two, I think, andthat's when my mom and dad told
me I don't have any recollectionof that and I so I grew up
knowing and knowing that I wasadopted.
I had a book about.
There was a book that was in mybookshelf like a kid's
storybook about an adoption, afamily that grew by an adoption
(10:36):
and, uh, did any consciousadoption trauma and went into
the family business.
At the age of 40 I found outthat the teddy bear that I've
had from, as you know, as longas I can remember is was from my
birth mother.
My first reaction to that wasone of curiosity, and then, a
(10:58):
couple of months later, I hadsome anger towards my birth
mother.
I never thought about my birthmother before, never had any
anger towards her, and so thatkind of that coming out to the
fog moment set me um on apersonal development, identity
crisis or whatever a personaljourney I also around.
(11:19):
That time I'd eventually, aftermany, after over a decade I'd
had a good year in our businessand that didn't make me happy.
So I thought maybe adoption hasmessed me up.
Business success hasn't made mehappy.
It hasn't stopped me worryingabout the future and my antenna
were up about where, where's myhappiness going to come from.
So that's that's when I was 40.
(11:42):
I'm now 57, so for the last 17years I've been exploring
identity and consciousness andemotions and trauma, that sort
of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah Well, with that said, how do you for yourself
identify or define identity?
Because we talked a little bitabout integrity and character
just a few minutes ago andpersonality comes in here
somewhere, but it's not youridentity, so kind of give us
your take on.
You know this journey thatyou've been on, associated with
(12:19):
that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I see our identity as what some people would call
consciousness, what some peoplewould call chi, what some people
would call chi, what somepeople would call awareness,
what some people would call Idon't know, our non-physical
(12:42):
identity.
So we are the.
I'm going back stream fromstream from.
Well, we're not what we do,we're not what we feel, we're
not what we think.
Um, we're not ourcharacteristics, because they
change.
We're not our personality,because that changes.
I'm looking, I'm defining us asthe spiritual being having the
(13:08):
human experience.
That that French Jesuit guysaid many years ago.
He said we're not human beingshaving a spiritual experience,
we're spiritual beings having ahuman experience.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So spirit is another word that people use and that
resonates with you, based off ofyour journey and how you've
been approaching your healingpath, kind of give us an idea of
what are the really importantthings for you to do to help
(13:44):
yourself be whole.
If there's a whole person ofyou which there is a whole
person of you, we are all wholepeople.
It's just how we kind of movethe, the.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
This is tricky stuff, right.
So metaphors are our ally onthis stuff.
So the.
I came up with something lastyear which separates our trauma
from who we are, and this iswhen we're playing the rock
paper scissors game that weplayed as kids.
(14:18):
If we go one, two, three and Istay as the fist, you go
scissors.
Rock beats scissors, rock.
Rock is who we are, scissors isa metaphor for our trauma, but
our scissors, the scissors don'tcut the rock.
(14:38):
They're not sharp enough.
They can't do any damage to therock, but we know this trauma
stuff is real.
So if, so, if we see paperusing the same game analogy the
paper our trauma is the paper.
Paper hides the truth of who weare, but it doesn't hurt who we
(14:59):
are.
So we are, I paper.
We separate the trauma that wehave been through and that we
have felt from the essence ofwho we are, this whole rock.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, that's a really great analogy for that really
deep core statement of traumathat we talk about in our
community pre-verbal, thengrowth, trauma and how we have
navigated our life as a resultof that.
But you really have spent agood portion of the time period
(15:47):
I've known you, which is acouple of years now, you know in
retrospect, really trying tohelp navigate the world with a
positivity, with a health view,with a don't get stuck view and
maybe it is part impartial topulling back that paper and
(16:09):
exposing the core rock of trauma.
But how can you have a, youknow, a positive life?
And so tell me a little bit inour audience, why thriving
adoptees and and how thatstarted for you, what your
intentions are, that's your whyand how you're moving, how
(16:29):
you're accelerating things inour community.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So, from a personal perspective, I read the Primal
Wound and I felt wounded and Ifelt I was doomed to live with
that wound until I had thisinsight right.
I had a sight from within thatwho we truly are, our essence is
(16:55):
unwoundable.
And if people want a differentway of looking at this, perhaps
to go deeper, then if you lookat internal family systems, the
founder is a therapist of, uh,internal family systems is a
therapist.
This guy called dick schwartzand he talks about the uppercase
(17:16):
s self.
So what I call spirit orconsciousness, richard schwartz
calls uppercase s self.
So it's, it's our essence, it'sthe essence of who we are and
that I had a glimpse of thatessence, a big glimpse of that
essence, about eight years agoand that gave me hope.
(17:43):
People hope and interviewadoptees about what's helped
them heal, what's helped themsee their wholeness, what's
helped them see that they areunwoundable.
Nobody's saying the traumadidn't happen.
The trauma has hidden us, ithasn't hurt us.
(18:03):
And now that sounds like a niceidea, but I'm talking about a
lived experience.
So recently I've started doing,I've started with a somatic
experience and I've seen her acouple of times and in my
sessions with her I have had areminder, a felt experience of
(18:28):
this wholeness.
So what's really helping me ismarrying up a deep knowledge of
this uppercase S self that isunwounded, it's been hidden by
the trauma, marrying up thatwith the actual felt somatic
(18:48):
experience.
So we're talking about twodifferent therapy modalities
here Internal family systems,that says there's an uppercase S
cell that is undamaged, it isuntouched, it is intact, the
trauma has not damaged it, ithas only hidden it.
And what I have actuallyexperienced again and again and
(19:13):
again, but at a more deep andprofound level, through this
somatic experiencing this, thissense of oneness, right, so
we're?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
yeah, so let me do a couple of things here for our
listeners, if you don't mind,simon.
I'm always about what tools canwe put in our tool belt, and
it's different for everybody,just like the journey is
different for everybody, justlike the trauma has exposure in
different ways for each of us.
We have, maybe, some commonthreads.
Do you mind giving a little bitmore explanation around the
(19:51):
somatic experience therapy, alittle more definition?
I know a couple of people thatare working, you know, in the US
, in that realm and so if youdon't mind just giving a little
bit more around what that is,because it's so new to our
community so, um, somaticexperiences experiencing.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The main guy in this area is a guy called peter
levine.
The relinquishment trauma, um,in, as young kids you know, days
old, weeks old, months old,whatever that is, it's
pre-verbal trauma, so we don'thave any cognitive, we don't
have any men, we don't have amemory of it.
We we trauma, so we don't haveany cognitive, we don't have any
memory of it.
(20:32):
We didn't know, we didn't haveany words for it.
It's pre-verbal, so pre-verbaltrauma.
If pre-verbal trauma meetstrauma, talk therapy, it's gonna
fail, because how can we talkabout something that we haven't
got words for?
So people talk about the, the,the, this Bessel van der Kolk
(20:55):
guy, he talks about the body,keeping the score right.
So somatic work is exploring,sensations in, in, in the, in
the body, so it's sitting withwhat's going on within us.
So, uh, so for me it, you knowit was a tightness, a tightness
(21:17):
across the, the chest, and thenit felt like a, a big, a big
steel ball bearing right, sothat's probably about four
inches wide, like, you know, ametal ball.
It felt that that was rollingaround my body and it was going
from the left hand, like my lefthand, up my arm into my chest
(21:38):
down to the right hand and it's,it's some tension, it's
something within.
I think soma is greek for body,if I may be wrong on that.
Basically, what we're doing iswe're sitting with the
sensations of our body.
Does that explain?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
it.
It does explain it, and one ofthe things I want to pick up on
in that definition or thatexplanation is the difference
between cognitive therapy whichmany of us are used to probably
the predominant methodology oftherapy is cognitive therapy and
(22:18):
you're blending the concept ofcognitive therapy can only go so
far if you have trauma that youcannot verbalize because it's
pre verbal trauma, but it didkeep score in your body through
natural, not reflection buteffect, right.
(22:39):
So I get it, I 100% get it.
I like that.
I wish there were more tools ineveryone's toolbox and
availability to have the big S,as you've just talked about, the
somatic experience, which is alittle bit different, a little
bit more tuning into thephysicality of your body, and
(23:02):
this cognitive approach that ispredominant in most therapy.
I'm currently going through thecognitive approach just because
it's what's available.
I'm also blending just a littlebit of thought process around
somatic.
I haven't made the leap yet,but I've got a lot of cognitive
to work through, so I'm okay forthat for now.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah.
So I did a bit of EMDR with asomatic slant to it.
So I and I did that because alot of the guests, a lot of the
adoptees that I've interviewedwho are therapists for the
Thriving Adoptees podcast, havethey've really switched me on to
this pre-verbal trauma.
(23:45):
They just everybody kept onsaying it pre-verbal trauma.
And so I've done some EMDR,somatic kind of EMDR work.
I've done some, you know,somatic experiencing and and
that's what I continue to do andI'm, and I've also I'm putting
dipping my toe in the in theparts work, as so I've been
(24:05):
listening to Richard Schwartz'sbook no Bad Parts.
At the same time, I'm exploringall of these things, exploring
all these different modalitiesand trying to hook them together
, and I'm doing that because Iwant to be more in touch with
the uppercase S itself.
I'm working on a healingframework for adoptees and I'm
(24:28):
drawing from all the knowledgethat I've gained interviewing
the adoptees that have been onthe show, all the input from
some adoptees that have donesome questionnaire you know
filled in some questionnairesabout what's helped them heal
and my own experience, ongoingexperience too.
So I'm drawing on three sourcesto create a healing framework.
(24:51):
I'm trying to demystify it, I'mtrying to get under the bonnet,
right under the hood, of whathelps us heal, because what I
found is that everybody defines.
You know, when you came on theshow I I interviewed you around
healing.
Everybody's got a differentdefinition of healing.
So let's focus on the healing.
(25:14):
I believe that we should betrauma-informed and
healing-obsessed, so I'm shiningthe spotlight on healing on my
podcast.
Some people don't even like theword healing, so we're looking
at well, it's integrating, it'sprocessing, it's resolving.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
What I really like, regardless of what word you use,
healing or not is the conceptof I want to feel good about
myself.
I do know what joy looks like.
I do know what it means to behappy.
It ebbs and flows in everyone'slife.
It doesn't matter if you're anadoptee or not.
(25:54):
Those are just common thingsthat happen to humans.
But with that said, a lot of myebb and flow comes from the
concepts of adoption andeverything that has happened
through that.
So, utilizing cognitive therapyjust as an example within the
last probably, I have to thinkabout this.
(26:15):
I have to math this backwardsfor just a minute.
Last four weeks come to theabsolute official position.
I, absolutely.
This is why it's an absolutedespise conflict.
(26:36):
Like I am, I will do almostanything to avoid conflict to
the extent that it is hurting memore than it's hurting someone
I'm going to be in conflict with, which then has lent to an
understanding that I am angryabout a whole bunch of stuff.
(26:59):
But how am I addressing theanger that landed in?
Well, will you rationaleeveryone's behavior because you
want to avoid the conflict andso, to your point, to be healing
?
Those are three major steps formyself through the cognitive
therapy approach, but at thesame time I do have pockets and
(27:22):
windows of like when I rememberbeing extremely happy.
So it's an ebb and flow for me.
I don't know if it is foreverybody else, but I like the
fact that through these types ofconversations and the continual
engagement between people suchas yourself and I, who've had
multiple conversations, we'relearning, and every time we
learn we share something new,and again the toolbox changes
(27:45):
and grows and becomes more solid.
So if it's a healing framework,it's a healing framework.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, people say that time is the greatest healer.
I don't think it is.
I think it's insight.
So you had an insight.
You had an insight aboutconflict avoidance.
Sorry, that's my word ratherthan yours, I think, but you
know, if I link this back right,do you get when you are sensing
(28:16):
potential conflict, do you soyou're anticipating it right?
You're seeing potential forconflict that's going to happen.
Do you actually feel that inyour body?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, let's talk through that.
So I do, and that's what'sreally interesting about our
conversation today, because someof these things are getting
uncovered as we're going throughthem, and I think that's really
important for our listeners.
It could be you, it could be me, it could be any of the other
podcasters, any of the peoplethat are writing books and blogs
.
It's our moment in time.
(28:51):
We're going to absolutely toyour point learn from insight,
and I do not think time healsall wounds.
I call bullshit, I just flatout call bullshit, because it
just doesn't happen that way andyou have to want in my view,
you kind of need to want somelevel of insight in order to
(29:15):
figure it out.
You have to have a curiosity,right.
But to get back to yourquestion, yeah, there are some
very physiological feelings thathappen, right.
Anxiety.
I can start feeling a welling,you know, from my stomach up
into my chest, up into mybreathing, and I just start
(29:36):
tensing up and then I know I'mgoing to be in some state.
Now it doesn't present the wayI just spoke of it.
It doesn't present as if I'mlike this, you know, nervous.
You can see me, my hands aregoing, going, going.
It doesn't present that waywhat it presents as in the
context of my need to avoid, Iwalk away, I stop talking, I
(30:01):
move out of the situation or Ijust acquiesce Okay, you're
right, Even though the me deepdown says you're not right.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, so, um, you, you get that feeling in the pit,
that, you get this horriblefeeling in the pit of your
stomach, um, and, and that's nosurprise, because that's where
the, the there's the biggestnerve endings and the biggest
collection of nerve endings inour body are in our gut, and so
(30:31):
that's where, and I have that, Iget that too.
So what we're doing withsomatic, what we're doing with
somatic work, is we're bringingthat up.
What happens for us?
I guess it's and this is justmy experience, right, I'm not a
shrink yeah, um, what I think weget is we get that feeling, uh,
(30:52):
in our, in our bodies, and wedon't want that feeling, and and
so we, we avoid, we avoid theconflict, we avoid sharing our
the truth of where we're at, andwe stuff it, we're stuffing it.
(31:13):
I was thinking about a couple ofnights I don't know how many.
This happened.
So my bedroom when I was a kidwas above the kitchen and I
remember how many times Once,twice, three times my parents
were, generally speaking, notarguing all the time, but I
remember hearing them argue inbed because they were in the
(31:38):
kitchen and I was in my bedroomupstairs, and I remember that,
being scared of that complex.
Do I remember the physiology ofit?
No, I'm going back probably 50years now, but I remember not
liking that and yeah, so that'swith the somatic experience.
(31:58):
We're surfacing this stuff in asafe place.
I also remember one massivephysiological shift that
happened for me, a physiologicalmoment in therapy about eight
years ago, when I had, I had, um.
(32:20):
I found my birth mother's name,but I hadn't gone to the next
step of trying to trace her, andthe therapist asked me why I
had this, this.
This picture came into my headof the, of my birth mother being
outside me opening the door,the therapist door, um, the
other side of the, the studio,the office, her being there, my
(32:44):
birth mother being there, patbeing there and something in her
face saying rejecting me.
And I flushed ice cold interror and then red hot in anger
.
I'm not prepared to let thisfear, you know like, haunt me
for the rest of my life.
And that was the time when Irestarted my search and and that
(33:07):
led to the, to the finding theletter in my adoption file to
the social worker from a birthmother, and when it became clear
that the teddy bear that I'ddismissed as a consolation prize
was actually a symbol of mybirth, mother's love.
So that was a huge, huge momentfor me, as the tears came
(33:27):
screaming down my face and they,they washed away the last
vestiges of this belief that shedidn't love me enough to keep
me.
This somatic stuff, these.
Our body does keep the scoreand helping us understand that,
helping us be okay with thatscore and helping us surface
(33:52):
that.
It's insight again.
I think most people would agreewith the fact that time is not
the greatest healer, but theydon't know what is.
If it's not time, what is it?
It's insights.
That's what we're sharing here.
We're sharing insights.
Put, put those on a plate andjust say listener, can you, can
(34:14):
you learn from this insight?
Is it can?
Can this, this thing thathelped our fellow adoptee?
Can this help you on yourhealing journey?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
yeah, I would agree.
Well, as we're closing out, howcan people connect with you,
share with you and help kind ofcreate this framework?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
So my focus is the framework I have got.
I've got a lot of work to do.
We've got to start off with aholistic view of it, then then
dive down into the, into thedifferent parts of our healing
journey.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I would agree.
Keep on moving it forward.
Well, thank you for being ontoday's show.
You are always welcome here.
I've appreciated your insightsthroughout the years and I know
we're going to be in activeconversation, so it's a pleasure
.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Thank you, and thank you again for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Thank you for listening to today's episode of
Wandering Tree Podcast.
Please rate, review and sharethis out so we can experience
the Live Adoptee journeytogether.
Want to be a guest on our show?
Check us out atwanderingtreeadopteecom.
As young kids you know, days old, weeks old,
months old, whatever that is.
It's pre-verbal trauma, so wedon't have any cognitive, we
don't have any memory of it.
We didn't know, we didn't haveany words for it.
It's pre-verbal, so pre-verbaltrauma.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Welcome to Wandering Tree Podcast.
I am your host, lisa Anne.
We are an experience-based showfocused on sharing the journey
of adoption, identity, lifesearch and reunion.
Let's begin today'sconversation with our guest of
honor, simon Benn, and I'm goingto jump in here and say we are
thankful to have you on the show.
I have had the privilege andthe honor of being on your show
(01:02):
a couple times.
Let's talk about who you are.
You are the creative owner ofThriving Adoptees Podcast, the
multi-continent phenom that youare.
You pump out so many wonderfulguests on your show and I just
love what you are doing for thecommunity.
(01:23):
But before we get into all ofthat, this is an opportunity for
you to tell your story and bein the hot seat a little bit.
So let me turn it over to youand kind of tell us who you are,
simon.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, thank you, lisa , and the honors are mine.
You know like we're all here tohelp one another, you know,
walking each other home, as theysay.
I'll start with kind of somerecent stuff, because some
people might have heard thestory from me before, but last
week I connected with the secondbiological cousin that I've
(01:59):
spoken to.
I spoke to one about 18 monthsor so ago and I spoke to another
one last week and I found outthat my biological father was
actually in care, so his mum haddied and his dad was a sailor,
and the sailors, obviouslythey're away at sea, right.
(02:20):
So he was one of three siblings, uh, and they were all in
different orphanages, uh, inworkhouses, right, these were
orphanages for workhouses, um,in liverpool, I think, uh, in,
you know.
So this would be in the 40s, Iguess, maybe in the 40s, um,
1940s, and so that gave me adifferent, and so that gave me a
(02:54):
different take on why, when Ihad called my biological father
out of the blue last October,that he basically shunned me and
this, this I say with a Britishmetaphor I say he blew me out,
which meant the end of theconversation was don't call me
again, and so you know, the lastthing he'd heard was a letter
that he had a waiver form thathe had signed back in 1966,
(03:18):
before I was born.
Yeah, and 57 years later, Icontact him out of the blue and
he doesn't really want to know,and so that was an interesting
one for me.
My first thoughts were I didn'thandle that very well.
(03:40):
Maybe I could have handled itbetter, and if I'd handled it
better would I have had a betterresult.
And then I looked back at theforms and I thought, well, he,
um, he, he didn't want anythingto do with the baby.
Before the baby was born, he'dbeen out with, he'd been dating
(04:00):
my biological mother, pat, forfive months, and when she told
him that she was pregnant, hedidn't want anything to do with
it.
So that was back in 1966.
Fast forward to 2023, lastOctober, he still doesn't want
to have to do anything to dowith me, and so he hasn't
changed.
The phone call was anexperiment to see whether he
(04:22):
changed and it hadn't.
The phone call was anexperiment to see whether he
changed and it hadn't.
And the uh, what I?
The learning that I took fromthat is that his rejection
didn't uh throw me, um into about of insecurity.
I think there was a couple ofminutes when I was slightly
(04:43):
stunned and then I bounced backpretty, pretty quickly, pretty
quickly, and as adoptees, we areincredibly resilient,
incredibly resilient, and Idon't and and people talk about
resilience like it's somethingthat we build by going to the,
(05:04):
by going to the gym, likebuilding a muscle.
I don't think it's like that.
I think resilience is seeingthe strength that we've always
had, that we just haven'tappreciated before, and so so,
yeah, I'm cheerleading, really,for our resilience and I guess
(05:26):
I'm pointing the listenerstowards where they have seen
their own resilience as they'venavigated the ups and downs of
this adoptee life and thereunion rollercoaster, and just
to perhaps take a moment out andsee, because we're really tough
(05:47):
on ourselves we are adoptees,absolutely, we're really tough
on ourselves and I, you know,one of the biggest things, uh,
I'm seeing at the moment is howpowerful this grace is, grace
for ourselves, grace forourselves seeing our own
resilience.
Um key thoughts, thoughts I hadwhen you asked about the story.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Yeah, you know, what I want to do for our listeners
is take just a moment, becausewe have, between us, talked to a
large number of adoptees,sometimes on mic, sometimes off
mic.
There is always a little bit ofa thread around the reunion and
(06:29):
secondary rejection conversation, and where you are in your
journey has a lot of impact onhow you handle that, and so what
I really liked about whatyou've just shared already in
the first few minutes is amethod or at least understanding
of your own resilience andgiving yourself grace.
(06:50):
But what I also tapped intoreal quickly was your birth
father's character and integritywas deeply ingrained in him and
many decades later and manydecades later, still the same
guy.
That has nothing to do with us,the adoptee.
That is that person's to own.
(07:13):
And, to your point, givinggrace, I think the place we need
to be more grace oriented isnot taking that rejection as if
we've done something wrong,taking that rejection as if
we've done something wrong.
Yours is a great livedexperience of how you had no
hunt in that in that way.
Speaker 1 (07:32):
Yeah, and I judged him hard.
And then when I found out lastweek that he'd been raised in
care, first off I didn't knowthat britain had work workhouses
, so people may have seen it ontelevision.
Um, the filomena story, whichis, uh, you know, he's a british
(07:54):
, a british actor, and it's it'sthe story of this, you know,
like a catholic, a catholicwoman in ireland, and and this
workhouse that they put in.
I didn't't realise we had themin the UK, but we did, and he
spent some time in there.
So he's got, he had his owntrauma, the death of his own
(08:15):
mother, and where he was raisedin a workhouse-sproke orphanage.
And is it wonder, you know, hewas damaged, is damaged himself,
he's still alive.
This it wonder, you know, he,he was damaged, is damaged
himself, he's still alive.
This guy you know, um, and uh,he's so.
So it's grace for ourselves,but it's also grace for them and
I'm feeling a little bit more.
(08:36):
I'm feeling more grace to him.
I'm not judging him quite ashardly.
As hard I've downgraded his,his, uh, status, uh, they rude
words which we wouldn't talkabout on the show but it's a
lesser rude word.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Well, you've downgraded his importance or
you're a little bit moreempathetic to his mindset.
Just having a similar, justhaving correlation things you
can correlate between what youbelieve could have been his
experience to your own, I'd likeus to also take a step back.
I do think that there's a largenumber of people that know a
(09:12):
little bit about your story.
But just in case everybody doesnot know your story, you are in
the UK and you were adopted inwhat time?
General time period 1967.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
So, yeah, I was born in Wrexham, which is in North
Wales, very close to Liverpool,and then I was adopted out of
the Adoption Council an adoptioncouncil like an adoption agency
but public sector in Liverpool,when I was four weeks old.
And then I grew up in Yorkshire, which is 80 miles away or so
(09:52):
from Liverpool, and I've livedaround there all my life.
I've lived within about 20minutes drive of home, you know,
for all my time, apart fromuniversity and a couple of
spells abroad, abroad, um, butyeah and uh, I was told that I
(10:15):
was adopted when my when, whenwe went to collect my little
sister from the same adoptionagency, when I was two, or just
before I was two, I think, andthat's when my mom and dad told
me I don't have any recollectionof that and I so I grew up
knowing and knowing that I wasadopted.
I had a book about.
There was a book that was in mybookshelf like a kid's
storybook about an adoption, afamily that grew by an adoption
(10:36):
and, uh, did any consciousadoption trauma and went into
the family business.
At the age of 40 I found outthat the teddy bear that I've
had from, as you know, as longas I can remember is was from my
birth mother.
My first reaction to that wasone of curiosity, and then, a
(10:58):
couple of months later, I hadsome anger towards my birth
mother.
I never thought about my birthmother before, never had any
anger towards her, and so thatkind of that coming out to the
fog moment set me um on apersonal development, identity
crisis or whatever a personaljourney I also around.
(11:19):
That time I'd eventually, aftermany, after over a decade I'd
had a good year in our businessand that didn't make me happy.
So I thought maybe adoption hasmessed me up.
Business success hasn't made mehappy.
It hasn't stopped me worryingabout the future and my antenna
were up about where, where's myhappiness going to come from.
So that's that's when I was 40.
(11:42):
I'm now 57, so for the last 17years I've been exploring
identity and consciousness andemotions and trauma, that sort
of thing.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah Well, with that said, how do you for yourself
identify or define identity?
Because we talked a little bitabout integrity and character
just a few minutes ago andpersonality comes in here
somewhere, but it's not youridentity, so kind of give us
your take on.
You know this journey thatyou've been on, associated with
(12:19):
that.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I see our identity as what some people would call
consciousness, what some peoplewould call chi, what some people
would call chi, what somepeople would call awareness,
what some people would call Idon't know, our non-physical
(12:42):
identity.
So we are the.
I'm going back stream fromstream from.
Well, we're not what we do,we're not what we feel, we're
not what we think.
Um, we're not ourcharacteristics, because they
change.
We're not our personality,because that changes.
I'm looking, I'm defining us asthe spiritual being having the
(13:08):
human experience.
That that French Jesuit guysaid many years ago.
He said we're not human beingshaving a spiritual experience,
we're spiritual beings having ahuman experience.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
So spirit is another word that people use and that
resonates with you, based off ofyour journey and how you've
been approaching your healingpath, kind of give us an idea of
what are the really importantthings for you to do to help
(13:44):
yourself be whole.
If there's a whole person ofyou which there is a whole
person of you, we are all wholepeople.
It's just how we kind of movethe, the.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
This is tricky stuff, right.
So metaphors are our ally onthis stuff.
So the.
I came up with something lastyear which separates our trauma
from who we are, and this iswhen we're playing the rock
paper scissors game that weplayed as kids.
(14:18):
If we go one, two, three and Istay as the fist, you go
scissors.
Rock beats scissors, rock.
Rock is who we are, scissors isa metaphor for our trauma, but
our scissors, the scissors don'tcut the rock.
(14:38):
They're not sharp enough.
They can't do any damage to therock, but we know this trauma
stuff is real.
So if, so, if we see paperusing the same game analogy the
paper our trauma is the paper.
Paper hides the truth of who weare, but it doesn't hurt who we
(14:59):
are.
So we are, I paper.
We separate the trauma that wehave been through and that we
have felt from the essence ofwho we are, this whole rock.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
Yeah, that's a really great analogy for that really
deep core statement of traumathat we talk about in our
community pre-verbal, thengrowth, trauma and how we have
navigated our life as a resultof that.
But you really have spent agood portion of the time period
(15:47):
I've known you, which is acouple of years now, you know in
retrospect, really trying tohelp navigate the world with a
positivity, with a health view,with a don't get stuck view and
maybe it is part impartial topulling back that paper and
(16:09):
exposing the core rock of trauma.
But how can you have a, youknow, a positive life?
And so tell me a little bit inour audience, why thriving
adoptees and and how thatstarted for you, what your
intentions are, that's your whyand how you're moving, how
(16:29):
you're accelerating things inour community.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
So, from a personal perspective, I read the Primal
Wound and I felt wounded and Ifelt I was doomed to live with
that wound until I had thisinsight right.
I had a sight from within thatwho we truly are, our essence is
(16:55):
unwoundable.
And if people want a differentway of looking at this, perhaps
to go deeper, then if you lookat internal family systems, the
founder is a therapist of, uh,internal family systems is a
therapist.
This guy called dick schwartzand he talks about the uppercase
(17:16):
s self.
So what I call spirit orconsciousness, richard schwartz
calls uppercase s self.
So it's, it's our essence, it'sthe essence of who we are and
that I had a glimpse of thatessence, a big glimpse of that
essence, about eight years agoand that gave me hope.
(17:43):
People hope and interviewadoptees about what's helped
them heal, what's helped themsee their wholeness, what's
helped them see that they areunwoundable.
Nobody's saying the traumadidn't happen.
The trauma has hidden us, ithasn't hurt us.
(18:03):
And now that sounds like a niceidea, but I'm talking about a
lived experience.
So recently I've started doing,I've started with a somatic
experience and I've seen her acouple of times and in my
sessions with her I have had areminder, a felt experience of
(18:28):
this wholeness.
So what's really helping me ismarrying up a deep knowledge of
this uppercase S self that isunwounded, it's been hidden by
the trauma, marrying up thatwith the actual felt somatic
(18:48):
experience.
So we're talking about twodifferent therapy modalities
here Internal family systems,that says there's an uppercase S
cell that is undamaged, it isuntouched, it is intact, the
trauma has not damaged it, ithas only hidden it.
And what I have actuallyexperienced again and again and
(19:13):
again, but at a more deep andprofound level, through this
somatic experiencing this, thissense of oneness, right, so
we're?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
yeah, so let me do a couple of things here for our
listeners, if you don't mind,simon.
I'm always about what tools canwe put in our tool belt, and
it's different for everybody,just like the journey is
different for everybody, justlike the trauma has exposure in
different ways for each of us.
We have, maybe, some commonthreads.
Do you mind giving a little bitmore explanation around the
(19:51):
somatic experience therapy, alittle more definition?
I know a couple of people thatare working, you know, in the US
, in that realm and so if youdon't mind just giving a little
bit more around what that is,because it's so new to our
community so, um, somaticexperiences experiencing.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
The main guy in this area is a guy called peter
levine.
The relinquishment trauma, um,in, as young kids you know, days
old, weeks old, months old,whatever that is, it's
pre-verbal trauma, so we don'thave any cognitive, we don't
have any men, we don't have amemory of it.
We we trauma, so we don't haveany cognitive, we don't have any
memory of it.
(20:32):
We didn't know, we didn't haveany words for it.
It's pre-verbal, so pre-verbaltrauma.
If pre-verbal trauma meetstrauma, talk therapy, it's gonna
fail, because how can we talkabout something that we haven't
got words for?
So people talk about the, the,the, this Bessel van der Kolk
(20:55):
guy, he talks about the body,keeping the score right.
So somatic work is exploring,sensations in, in, in the, in
the body, so it's sitting withwhat's going on within us.
So, uh, so for me it, you knowit was a tightness, a tightness
(21:17):
across the, the chest, and thenit felt like a, a big, a big
steel ball bearing right, sothat's probably about four
inches wide, like, you know, ametal ball.
It felt that that was rollingaround my body and it was going
from the left hand, like my lefthand, up my arm into my chest
(21:38):
down to the right hand and it's,it's some tension, it's
something within.
I think soma is greek for body,if I may be wrong on that.
Basically, what we're doing iswe're sitting with the
sensations of our body.
Does that explain?
Speaker 2 (21:56):
it.
It does explain it, and one ofthe things I want to pick up on
in that definition or thatexplanation is the difference
between cognitive therapy whichmany of us are used to probably
the predominant methodology oftherapy is cognitive therapy and
(22:18):
you're blending the concept ofcognitive therapy can only go so
far if you have trauma that youcannot verbalize because it's
pre verbal trauma, but it didkeep score in your body through
natural, not reflection buteffect, right.
(22:39):
So I get it, I 100% get it.
I like that.
I wish there were more tools ineveryone's toolbox and
availability to have the big S,as you've just talked about, the
somatic experience, which is alittle bit different, a little
bit more tuning into thephysicality of your body, and
(23:02):
this cognitive approach that ispredominant in most therapy.
I'm currently going through thecognitive approach just because
it's what's available.
I'm also blending just a littlebit of thought process around
somatic.
I haven't made the leap yet,but I've got a lot of cognitive
to work through, so I'm okay forthat for now.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Yeah.
So I did a bit of EMDR with asomatic slant to it.
So I and I did that because alot of the guests, a lot of the
adoptees that I've interviewedwho are therapists for the
Thriving Adoptees podcast, havethey've really switched me on to
this pre-verbal trauma.
(23:45):
They just everybody kept onsaying it pre-verbal trauma.
And so I've done some EMDR,somatic kind of EMDR work.
I've done some, you know,somatic experiencing and and
that's what I continue to do andI'm, and I've also I'm putting
dipping my toe in the in theparts work, as so I've been
(24:05):
listening to Richard Schwartz'sbook no Bad Parts.
At the same time, I'm exploringall of these things, exploring
all these different modalitiesand trying to hook them together
, and I'm doing that because Iwant to be more in touch with
the uppercase S itself.
I'm working on a healingframework for adoptees and I'm
(24:28):
drawing from all the knowledgethat I've gained interviewing
the adoptees that have been onthe show, all the input from
some adoptees that have donesome questionnaire you know
filled in some questionnairesabout what's helped them heal
and my own experience, ongoingexperience too.
So I'm drawing on three sourcesto create a healing framework.
(24:51):
I'm trying to demystify it, I'mtrying to get under the bonnet,
right under the hood, of whathelps us heal, because what I
found is that everybody defines.
You know, when you came on theshow I I interviewed you around
healing.
Everybody's got a differentdefinition of healing.
So let's focus on the healing.
(25:14):
I believe that we should betrauma-informed and
healing-obsessed, so I'm shiningthe spotlight on healing on my
podcast.
Some people don't even like theword healing, so we're looking
at well, it's integrating, it'sprocessing, it's resolving.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
What I really like, regardless of what word you use,
healing or not is the conceptof I want to feel good about
myself.
I do know what joy looks like.
I do know what it means to behappy.
It ebbs and flows in everyone'slife.
It doesn't matter if you're anadoptee or not.
(25:54):
Those are just common thingsthat happen to humans.
But with that said, a lot of myebb and flow comes from the
concepts of adoption andeverything that has happened
through that.
So, utilizing cognitive therapyjust as an example within the
last probably, I have to thinkabout this.
(26:15):
I have to math this backwardsfor just a minute.
Last four weeks come to theabsolute official position.
I, absolutely.
This is why it's an absolutedespise conflict.
(26:36):
Like I am, I will do almostanything to avoid conflict to
the extent that it is hurting memore than it's hurting someone
I'm going to be in conflict with, which then has lent to an
understanding that I am angryabout a whole bunch of stuff.
(26:59):
But how am I addressing theanger that landed in?
Well, will you rationaleeveryone's behavior because you
want to avoid the conflict andso, to your point, to be healing
?
Those are three major steps formyself through the cognitive
therapy approach, but at thesame time I do have pockets and
(27:22):
windows of like when I rememberbeing extremely happy.
So it's an ebb and flow for me.
I don't know if it is foreverybody else, but I like the
fact that through these types ofconversations and the continual
engagement between people suchas yourself and I, who've had
multiple conversations, we'relearning, and every time we
learn we share something new,and again the toolbox changes
(27:45):
and grows and becomes more solid.
So if it's a healing framework,it's a healing framework.
Speaker 1 (27:51):
Yeah, people say that time is the greatest healer.
I don't think it is.
I think it's insight.
So you had an insight.
You had an insight aboutconflict avoidance.
Sorry, that's my word ratherthan yours, I think, but you
know, if I link this back right,do you get when you are sensing
(28:16):
potential conflict, do you soyou're anticipating it right?
You're seeing potential forconflict that's going to happen.
Do you actually feel that inyour body?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, let's talk through that.
So I do, and that's what'sreally interesting about our
conversation today, because someof these things are getting
uncovered as we're going throughthem, and I think that's really
important for our listeners.
It could be you, it could be me, it could be any of the other
podcasters, any of the peoplethat are writing books and blogs
.
It's our moment in time.
(28:51):
We're going to absolutely toyour point learn from insight,
and I do not think time healsall wounds.
I call bullshit, I just flatout call bullshit, because it
just doesn't happen that way andyou have to want in my view,
you kind of need to want somelevel of insight in order to
(29:15):
figure it out.
You have to have a curiosity,right.
But to get back to yourquestion, yeah, there are some
very physiological feelings thathappen, right.
Anxiety.
I can start feeling a welling,you know, from my stomach up
into my chest, up into mybreathing, and I just start
(29:36):
tensing up and then I know I'mgoing to be in some state.
Now it doesn't present the wayI just spoke of it.
It doesn't present as if I'mlike this, you know, nervous.
You can see me, my hands aregoing, going, going.
It doesn't present that waywhat it presents as in the
context of my need to avoid, Iwalk away, I stop talking, I
(30:01):
move out of the situation or Ijust acquiesce Okay, you're
right, Even though the me deepdown says you're not right.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, so, um, you, you get that feeling in the pit,
that, you get this horriblefeeling in the pit of your
stomach, um, and, and that's nosurprise, because that's where
the, the there's the biggestnerve endings and the biggest
collection of nerve endings inour body are in our gut, and so
(30:31):
that's where, and I have that, Iget that too.
So what we're doing withsomatic, what we're doing with
somatic work, is we're bringingthat up.
What happens for us?
I guess it's and this is justmy experience, right, I'm not a
shrink yeah, um, what I think weget is we get that feeling, uh,
(30:52):
in our, in our bodies, and wedon't want that feeling, and and
so we, we avoid, we avoid theconflict, we avoid sharing our
the truth of where we're at, andwe stuff it, we're stuffing it.
(31:13):
I was thinking about a couple ofnights I don't know how many.
This happened.
So my bedroom when I was a kidwas above the kitchen and I
remember how many times Once,twice, three times my parents
were, generally speaking, notarguing all the time, but I
remember hearing them argue inbed because they were in the
(31:38):
kitchen and I was in my bedroomupstairs, and I remember that,
being scared of that complex.
Do I remember the physiology ofit?
No, I'm going back probably 50years now, but I remember not
liking that and yeah, so that'swith the somatic experience.
(31:58):
We're surfacing this stuff in asafe place.
I also remember one massivephysiological shift that
happened for me, a physiologicalmoment in therapy about eight
years ago, when I had, I had, um.
(32:20):
I found my birth mother's name,but I hadn't gone to the next
step of trying to trace her, andthe therapist asked me why I
had this, this.
This picture came into my headof the, of my birth mother being
outside me opening the door,the therapist door, um, the
other side of the, the studio,the office, her being there, my
(32:44):
birth mother being there, patbeing there and something in her
face saying rejecting me.
And I flushed ice cold interror and then red hot in anger
.
I'm not prepared to let thisfear, you know like, haunt me
for the rest of my life.
And that was the time when Irestarted my search and and that
(33:07):
led to the, to the finding theletter in my adoption file to
the social worker from a birthmother, and when it became clear
that the teddy bear that I'ddismissed as a consolation prize
was actually a symbol of mybirth, mother's love.
So that was a huge, huge momentfor me, as the tears came
(33:27):
screaming down my face and they,they washed away the last
vestiges of this belief that shedidn't love me enough to keep
me.
This somatic stuff, these.
Our body does keep the scoreand helping us understand that,
helping us be okay with thatscore and helping us surface
(33:52):
that.
It's insight again.
I think most people would agreewith the fact that time is not
the greatest healer, but theydon't know what is.
If it's not time, what is it?
It's insights.
That's what we're sharing here.
We're sharing insights.
Put, put those on a plate andjust say listener, can you, can
(34:14):
you learn from this insight?
Is it can?
Can this, this thing thathelped our fellow adoptee?
Can this help you on yourhealing journey?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
yeah, I would agree.
Well, as we're closing out, howcan people connect with you,
share with you and help kind ofcreate this framework?
Speaker 1 (34:33):
So my focus is the framework I have got.
I've got a lot of work to do.
We've got to start off with aholistic view of it, then then
dive down into the, into thedifferent parts of our healing
journey.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
I would agree.
Keep on moving it forward.
Well, thank you for being ontoday's show.
You are always welcome here.
I've appreciated your insightsthroughout the years and I know
we're going to be in activeconversation, so it's a pleasure
.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
Thank you, and thank you again for the opportunity.
Speaker 2 (35:03):
Thank you for listening to today's episode of
Wandering Tree Podcast.
Please rate, review and sharethis out so we can experience
the Live Adoptee journeytogether.
Want to be a guest on our show?
Check us out atwanderingtreeadopteecom.
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