Episode 24: LIVE Anniversary Show
In honour of the first anniversary of You & I, we hosted a LIVE episode on YouTube and Instagram where we answered some of the question submissions we haven’t yet explored.
We took audience questions LIVE with one of my closest friends and people I go to regularly for advice, Caroline Boquist, who is the co-owner of Walrus in Vancouver, BC.
The questions that we explored:
Question 1:
I'm married with kids. I love my husband and my kids but at the same time I'm not fulfilled by my relationship. I've started to develop strong feelings for someone else. It hasn't gone beyond a meeting for coffee and messaging. I don't know what to do. Please help?
Question 2:
How do you find balance between “life is too short” and still achieve goals and get through your daily routine?
Question 3:
I left my drug addict, in all ways abusive, partner after eight years about eight months ago. I was bold, convicted and finally strong enough to leave. But after almost a year, I am more wounded, battered and stuck in my trauma than ever before. Talk therapy is just talk for my mind to get in some words and for my heart to be emotional. But my body is stuck, frozen-filled with stress, trauma, cortisol, paralyzed with PTSD and all things in between. My question to you is, how do I thaw myself and help my body release all of this ‘stuff’?
Question 4:
How do you let go of personal guilt? Guilt is an overpowering emotion that takes up way too much space in my life. The bigger problem is, all my guilt is self-imposed and the person I feel most guilty about is…me. Most of my days are spent thinking about what or how I SHOULD be doing something, even when those around me encourage me or remind me I am doing so many great things. How do I let go of this guilt?
This anniversary episode will be my last for a little while. In order to create the space needed to write my book, To You Who Wonders, You & I will be on hiatus. I love all the learning that has come from exploring your questions and I can’t wait to do this LIVE with you.
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We hope that you get something helpful out of this conversation. If anything, know that you’re not alone. You see, we all struggle, mourn, yearn, question, laugh and cry. No matter our age, background, or titles, at our core, we are all not so different, You & I.
It needs to be said, I am not a professional, just someone with some personal experience to share. I do hope this is helpful, but as always, take the advice that resonates and ignore what doesn't. And don’t hesitate to seek out professional help through a trusted source.
Episode Resources:
Jackie Kai Ellis: Website / Instagram
Caroline Boquist: Instagram
Indian Residential School Survivors Society: Website / 24-hr Crisis Line 1-800-721-0066
You & I Podcast: Website / Instagram
Resources on finding trusted professional help can be found here.
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The following transcript was automatically generated. Please be aware that it may contain errors. Thank you for your understanding.
Speaker 1: This way this is gonna be great.
Speaker 2: All right on my phone because I don't know if I can make this work on my computer.
Speaker 1: Okay this is great. So let's begin. Yeah thank you Bella. Yeah we got it working.
Speaker 3: We're gonna like letting back here.
Speaker 1: YouTube stuff later. Okay so everyone we're here now. We're on these instances. All right so I'm gonna just do the disclaimer quickly again.
Speaker 3: We're like the fifth time or whatever it is.
Speaker 1: We well maybe I'll do an introduction first. That'll be different. So this is Caroline DeQuist. She is the co-owner of Walrus home in Vancouver and she is also one of my dearest friends. One of my wisest friends and some that I go to regularly for advice. We talk quite a bit.
Both of us are just people. So we're gonna give you our opinions on things. We're gonna give just our take from our experience. So just know that we're not professionals. And to take whatever advice resonate with you and whatever doesn't resonate with you throw it out. We are we are not experts by any means.
So there's that. And I think both of us really do support and believe in getting professional help as well if you feel like you need it. And so we do have resources on our website UNDIpodcast.com just in case you wanted a little bit of help finding some resources for professional help. So today is our one year anniversary episode which is why we decided to do a live because I've always wanted to raise your crane and like have people ask questions like real time. But we will be answering some questions. Some of the questions that we got for the podcast but just did not have enough episodes to answer them all. So I've chosen a few of them that I think would be interesting for us to discuss.
And if you do have any questions please do put them in the comments in the bottom. And I'll try every once in a while to scroll through them and then we can try to answer as many of them as we can. We'll try to be about an hour.
And if I see a ton more questions maybe we'll go to an hour and a half. But I'll be posting the entire video online as a podcast episode. So don't feel like you need to tune in for all of it. I'll post everything afterwards so you can definitely watch it afterwards. Okay so that is all that stuff. Okay so do you want to get into question number one? I know you're a bit nervous too so I just want you to know like I am here for you.
Speaker 3: Amazing. Thank you. We got each other. We got each other.
Speaker 1: Okay so question number one is is a good one. Okay I'll read it out. I'm married with kids. I love my husband and my kids but at the same time I'm not fulfilled by my relationship. I've started developing strong feelings for someone else.
It hasn't gone beyond a meeting for coffee and messaging. I don't know what to do please help. So that is the first question. I am so curious what your thoughts are on this and if you don't feel comfortable starting I can definitely start too.
Speaker 2: Okay we'll jump in obviously at any point. My immediate feeling around this is that I think it's very common and it's human nature if you're in a relationship for a long time you know life becomes this everyday mundane thing at times for people whether it's marriage, your kids, your routine, all that kind of thing and it can lead to feelings of feeling unfulfilled and wanting something a little bit more exciting maybe and it sounds a little bit like that's perhaps what's happening here but I would say that it's easy to project whatever it is that we're feeling onto our partners onto the people that are right in our immediate fold and I peel it back just a little bit and go actually where is it that you're feeling unfulfilled within yourself. I kind of like to start with myself first and go you know maybe it's not necessarily my partner and maybe what is happening inside of me that's causing me to feel unfulfilled and then really to check in and and maybe it's it's not necessarily the relationship but it starts from from us. That's kind of my first would be my first go to.
Speaker 1: Yeah and how I mean I feel like the audience would want to know how many years you've been with your husband because I think that that's some some street cred too.
Speaker 2: Fair enough so Devin and I have been together for 30 years we started dating when I was 19 and where we've been married for 20 going on 26 years this year so for sure we have been through in that 30 year span we've just been through so much together and you know obviously it's not all roses all the time we have gone through our bouts of you know counseling and therapy separately together all that kind of thing and but part of that desire to stay together is that I I do I do want to be in a a loveful fulfilling relationship with myself and with my partner I it is really important to me like I am not somebody who can really stay in a place of complacency.
Speaker 1: Hold on your your sound should be a bit muffled. Yeah sis yeah yeah yeah. You don't want to stay in a place of complacency.
Speaker 2: To complacency or you know for a long time of just coasting. I think that I am somebody who is not good in being in a place of just like coasting and comfort.
I really seek to be challenged to go deeper to have a more fulfilled life for me and myself so I can show up for my partner and for my kids. I do and so yeah go ahead. Sorry.
Speaker 1: Well I was you know you were saying that you definitely don't shy away from finding help like finding therapy for as a couple individually and I do think that that's my go to like when I'm I haven't been with Joe for 30 years but we've two rounds our relationship because we had our first round. We like to call that like 1.0 and this is 2.0 and so we've known each other for like 10 years now 11 years and for sure like we go through phases. Where we're just on the brink of like okay is this the thing that's going to break us and my first instinct is always get therapy.
Yeah. But I was also funny enough listening to the Modern Love podcast which was exactly about cheating and what Esther Perel said is that cheating. Yes there's always that conversation around like fidelity and hurt feelings and betrayal and all of that but beneath all of it is always a sense of longing and long. And so the question would be case she she says I'm not feeling fulfilled by my relationship and so there is a loss there of like well at one point were you fulfilled and how do you feel about losing that connection because we don't get married thinking. Oh well one day we're just going to like lose it all like we get married because we're so in love with this person and we want to ideally spend the rest of our lives with them and how does that lose that feeling because it's actually quite painful to lose something like that like connection with your person you know. So that would be kind of like that sorry go ahead.
Speaker 2: No and I think that that's that is what happens is it can be kind of destabilizing right like it's sort of like a heartbreak process. But again I kind of really encourage myself to come back to to me and within that feeling of. Unfulfillment or you know that that's just part of life right like life is never this one straight line so of course I think it's totally natural to have these feelings of ebbs and flows within ourselves within our relationships. But in this meeting what your questionnaire asked was you know they're seeking this outside they've gone on a conversation a coffee date with this person. I really come back and go you know is it really worth risking everything.
To continue that and. Yeah I'm just not sure I think that it's easy to get you know really caught up and lost in these romantic notions when things feel either sedentary or no longer fulfilled in a relationship but again it's just come back come back to what's going on I really revert back to what's going on for me. Where am I really feeling that I'm fulfillment what's going on in my life. And then I think it's a reflection of maybe what's going on in my relationship.
Speaker 1: Yeah and like how do we define fulfillment because I think everyone defines fulfillment differently in a relationship. I'm just going to repeat the question for people who might be in now to the gist of it is is that there is someone I'm assuming it's a woman actually but it might be. And someone who has husband and kids but they don't feel fulfilled in their relationship. And they've started developing strong feelings for someone else and it hasn't gone beyond a meeting for coffee and messaging them but they don't know what to do and they've asked for help. But yeah I mean just you know what what does a fulfilling relationship actually look like to us individually because that looks different for every single person and if we can't even define that. Then how can we make the steps to get that for ourselves to because we are responsible in some ways for our own desires and I also don't want to shame the person. No if they feel like my relationship isn't working for whatever reason and they really feel like they need to leave like no that's okay too. Like you have your friends you live your life you don't owe it to anyone else other than the people directly involved for any explanation or just. I left my first husband for I mean you could you could put it under the under the category of I wasn't fulfilled.
I had my own reasons but you know sometimes relationships I believe are meant to be there for a lifetime and some are meant to last until that period of learning is done. Yeah, whatever that means because we are I believe more than just human beings in relationships were souls trying to learn how to reflect. Something more beautiful than just humanity yeah like or human beings were here to reflect the most beautiful part of humanity but maybe not just to be human beings you know yeah and that was yeah.
Speaker 2: And we're ever evolving people to right we're ever evolving people so sometimes the people that we fall in love with you know even whether it's in partnership in marriage or in friendships it's sometimes like you say they sort of run their course and and that's okay we have to be able to give ourselves permission to exit. If that's if that's what's best for for us. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I think like as a sort of like a final thing it's like. You know if we do decide or if they do decide like okay I am going to leave. I think the only thing that if if I could give any advice about because it's so sticky and so hard to leave both for the person that's leaving and the person that's left. Yeah that if possible and this is like an ideal situation because we're all just figuring it out right but to be as respectful as possible in the process of leaving. Yeah. And I think that that level of guilt and torment after that when you think back in time you're like oh I should have like this or I should have not said that.
And it's only I only say this not to say like here's your benchmark of what you should do before like compassion like I don't want you to hurt more than you already. Yes.
Speaker 2: Yes. Like is this this risk of the date kind of going to add more to the hurt. Right. Is that going to a space that you can't. You can't get back from anymore. I mean you can always get back but you know it'll just add to the complexity of what's happening right and until we create that space within ourselves it's even really hard to ask for. What we need you know unless we really kind of go inward. How are we able to ask our partners what we need if we just don't know if we've lost sight of it right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and also on top of that it's like. Sure we're giving we're giving all our advice. But ultimately life is about about making mistakes and hurting. Yeah. And you know I say mistakes with a huge caveat because our mistakes even mistakes because they're just experiences in life and so sometimes we need to learn a lesson that is just painful whatever that looks like and society may judge. But it's really hard to judge when we don't see every single piece of the puzzle.
It's like how do you know what this puzzle this this image looks like if you are missing like 95% of the pieces you're going to make a pretty shoddy guess at what that picture is. Yeah. Yeah. I just want to remind people that yes this is our anniversary episode and we are answering some of the questions that we didn't get a chance to answer on the podcast, but also we're taking questions from you who have joined us. So please feel free if you do have a question that you want us to explore. Put that in the comments and yeah. How do you feel do you want to move on to question to do you feel like we. Or that I think so.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Okay. Okay. The next one is so great.
Speaker 1: I love this question. Okay. So this person asks, how do you find balance between life. Oh, between quote life is too short and yet still achieve goals and get through your daily routine. So for a bit of background, they write I was born and raised in a war torn country and so daily survival was a key until my parents moved us to Canada and we started to have to have savings and long long term goals and not live day to day. So they started during COVID.
I'll just read it during COVID and while I was working from home and my 14 year old was a 10 online classes. He suffered a cardiac arrest and I was the one to perform CPR on him until the paramedics arrived and were able to revive 15 minutes later and five shocks of eight AEDs later. Oh my God, that's that's just heartbreaking. Then five months later, my dad passed away of a cardiac arrest because my mom didn't know how to assist him with CPR. So all those dreams and goals I was trying to build became unimportant. I was very healthy and fit always found balance and set boundaries for myself and although I still try the attitude now is what's another glass of wine.
What's another croissant. I'll go to the gym tomorrow. What another $50 to spend on a shirt or buying more makeup, I say to myself, I deprived myself from so much over the years and life is too short to do that again. Look, I almost lost my son in a second. What do I need that savings for. I need to enjoy life now.
I'm not going to be able to take any of it to my grave. As a family, we all know how fortunate we are to have my younger son around and how lucky we are. Very grateful on a daily basis, but I still struggle with disciplining myself and I find that people around me don't understand it. I feel them saying get over it already. And so I indulge in that piece of cake because there might not be tomorrow. I'm 50 years old and I've gone through so much more in between all that and always managed to move forward. But this time the mindset is different and that I'm hoping to tackle. In conclusion, I'd like to say that I continue to work out but the workouts haven't been as effective. I do enjoy a beverage but I haven't lost control completely and although I indulge, I've managed my weight to a certain point, but all that feels like a chore and not enjoyment.
I hope that my question opens up a conversation for so many people who perhaps feel the same way life is too important and I just want to live it to the fullest regardless of the circumstances and consequences. Wow. That is a lot of trauma actually.
Speaker 2: A lot of trauma. Yeah. That is a lot, a lot of trauma and when I first read the question I was brought back to when my dad died 26 years ago and it was of a massive heart attack and it was totally a surprise and a shock to everybody. He was only 60 years old and it fully sent me into a space of very similar to your, to the asker in, in terms of just like an existential crisis really like my whole world had upended and it forced me to question a lot of things and I understand like I really empathize and have compassion for the level of, it's almost like when the grief is so great, there's this feeling of like painful desperation and urgency at the same time to just like what she sort of, or what they describe like eating everything, throw caution to the wind. What does it all matter anyway? Because we can just be taken in a, in a snap, right? And that really is the fragility of life at any given moment and I think that the only way for me that I came back to a sense of balance isn't quite the right word but a sense of comfort in it. And so what I did in it was really to lean into my grief and to acknowledge the trauma. It sounds like they've gone through so much heartbreak and so much devastation and it doesn't, and they don't really describe what they've done to sort of acknowledge the grief. So, so I would really say start there and to really go deeply into acknowledging these traumatic heart breaking events that happened and to ask for help and guidance through it to lean into the grief to accept what happened, not to fight it so that they can perhaps come back to a place of a broader understanding of what now their lives mean without their dad, with having experienced this trauma with their child and all the things that they were describing in between or not describing between that happened but it really I think has to start with honouring that grief.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you're so right. Like I'm just trying to think of when something like this has happened to me and I won't say that it was anything this traumatic because you know almost losing your child, losing your dad, living, you know growing up in a war torn country. Yeah, these things like are so they so fundamentally shape the way that we see life, period. But for me, I would say I went through a years of just super indulgent living, like, you name it, like, I mean, it was just like, why not. I'll order that third piece of foie gras, like I went through that phase and that was after I divorced my first husband, which was a really big trauma for me, because I never thought that I could survive without him. And I never imagined my life being anything but him. You know, this was back in my 20s.
And because of the way that the marriage was to, because it was, we were very frugal, we didn't do much. I just went into this phase of like, anything can happen. So I might as well just enjoy myself, like, all the things that you're afraid of can happen. Yeah. And so why not eat that third third piece of foie gras. Yeah, really cares about the pocketbook and things that.
But I think you're totally right. At a certain point, after I had indulged in everything that I could have possibly indulged in. For this ask her, it's not the cake. It's not the extra glasses of wine. It's, you know, all of these things are just things. But true enjoyment in life happens when you can reconcile that life also means death. Yeah.
And I'm not saying that I'm there, because I still live with a lot of fear. But it's like, if we're so voraciously swallowing up life at a speed that we can't even fully it's like, it's like eating too many peaches in summer and your stomach you get on the case. Yeah. Yeah. And we don't even feel that good about it.
But in the end, it's like, if we just know that summer is going to end one day and that's kind of okay, then we're then maybe we won't eat so many peaches until we get sick. Yeah. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's what it is. It's about, you know, it's funny because, you know, she's also saying, none of it, Matt, like none of it matters, but then everything, but that it also all matters, right?
It's true. None of this stuff, like, regardless of everywhere she came from, you're right, it won't associate that grief and that heartbreak that she's gone through. So really to be able to explore that and sit in it and allow that grief to move through, move through them to a place where they can just have a bit of space to be thoughtful about how they want to move forward in life, right? Whether it is, I'm going to have this donut because, yeah, life is short and I haven't had 10 today. So I'm just going to have the one this week, you know, or, you know, it's that, that dance of appreciating life for all of the greatness that it offers while still holding the fragility of life right here, you know.
Speaker 1: And it is, it is so much easier said than done. Like, I think we both know that we've had conversations all the time where we're like, okay, so this would be great. But like, so much easier said than done because I think to myself, if I, if I went through what this person went through and I, and my son, you know, I heard cardiac arrest and I had to, you know, perform CPR on him an hour later, he gets revived. Like, I, I don't know, you know, like, there is some grief that just never leaves you. Yeah. Yeah. And that that's also okay. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker 2: That's actually one of the biggest things I think I learned after my dad died was that it's not about, it's not about all of a sudden being happy. It's not about not having that grief. It's about learning to live life while also holding grief. You know, like, I think that my grief still sits here. You know, it still sits here, but also I have enough understanding and perspective to know that I still need to move forward in life.
And I'm going to just try and do that to the best of my abilities and hopefully it is for a long time to come because I have things that I want to be here for for the next X number of years. Right.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's also such a key point. It's like, we work out not because, well, I mean, I'm kind of a weirdo. I really like work out, but we work out or we don't eat that, you know, fifth slice of cake or whatever it is, not because, you know, we don't want to, but we just want something else more.
Yes. You know, we want to be here for our child more. We want to be able to move with, you know, without health issues more. And it really is just like, you know, small choices, you can want two things at once and just want one thing just a little bit more. Yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I hope that they do take great care in moving forward through this, all of this hugely traumatic experiences.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. So for people who just joined, we're answering some questions from the UNI podcast that we didn't get a chance to answer in our actual episodes, because we will be putting the podcast. Oh, happy Mother's Day.
Speaker 3: Well, Ali, say hi. So sweet.
Speaker 1: For those of you that don't know, Ali was one of my chefs at Boku when I owned Boku, and he just did a speech at Petit Cucha as well, which Caroline organizes Petit Cucha.
So it's kind of cool. But yes, we're answering some of the questions that we didn't get a chance to answer in the podcast, and we're also taking questions from you. So for whoever's tuned in and has a question, any question at all, it could be a deep one or something that is, you know, I mean, I get a lot like, where did you perm your hair? That's probably my number one random question anyway. So ask anything you want.
We're here for you and we just wanted to create space for people to express themselves and for us to explore questions that you might have. But in the meantime, definitely we'll ask question three. Yes. Oh, goodness. Okay. Okay.
Question three. I left my drug. Oh, wait a second. Okay.
Okay. It says I left my drug addict and always abusive partner after eight years, about eight months ago. I was bold, convicted, and finally strong enough to leave.
But almost, but after almost a year, I'm more wounded, battered and stuck in my mama than ever before. Talk therapy is just talk for my mind to get into some words and for my heart to be emotional. But my body is stuff frozen filled with stress trauma cortisol, paralyzed with PTSD and all things in between.
My question to you is, how do I thaw myself and my body release all this stuff. And they say my apologies for being so dark and heavy. And first of all, I just want to say no apologies needed at all whatsoever. Nothing is too dark.
Nothing's too heavy. We're here for it all because we're all human. And actually I do think that everybody goes through pretty dark and heavy things at some point or another. And the fact that we talk about it makes it more normalized. And we don't feel as much shame about it because we shouldn't be having shame about about things like that. I think so. Yeah. So, yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know what do you want to start this one.
Speaker 1: Sure, I can. I want to say that this is okay. So, I'm not going to say that I went through an abusive relationship to this degree. And I've never really admitted this like, like publicly maybe, but I do think that I experienced a pretty abusive relationship before. And it was very controlling and mentally abusive and like gaslighting in the very classic sense of gaslighting. Like, I know gaslighting is kind of a popular word to use. And it's kind of become, you know, lingo that we use for things that actually don't mean gaslighting.
But, but yeah, it was a lot of gaslighting to the point where I actually questioned my own sanity. And then I've also been in another relationship that was very short as I got out of there very quickly. But all the signs were leading towards physical abuse. But that first relationship I had lasted about seven years. And it's, it definitely left me with a lot of trauma, a lot of PTSD about, about very specific things like I wasn't allowed to like answer the phone.
I wasn't allowed to like, if someone rang the doorbell, I wasn't allowed to ring like, you know, open the door, things like that. So, you know, just parsing through all of it afterwards. And what I would say to this person, not knowing the kind of abuse that this person went through. And I'm not saying that mine was equal to theirs, but a year is a very short time to even start to feel like you even can breathe or think clearly like a year is is very short.
In terms of the amount of trauma that this person went through. And yes, there is a difference between like talking things out and getting your mind out there. And it's still having it all stuck in your body. And I think that for me, sort of try to attack it on all levels because I don't think that one thing is the golden ticket over another but, you know, to do talk therapy. Sometimes just cracks that ice just a little bit so that your body can just thought just a tiny bit and some of that healing can kind of like leak out of those cracks just a little bit. And then that healing sort of melts more ice and and so this thing I found that healing has been very cyclical. So it's not linear like you just go go go and then you get over it and then you're at the end and I'm here. It's very much like going in an upward spiral, like you're constantly like, oh, I hit that rough part again and then you come back. You hit that rough part again and you come back.
But each time you're sort of like parts of yourself get revealed to you again and you start to come alive again. So not to what I would say to this askers don't put so much pressure on yourself to heal now. But that in the darkest moments know that healing is happening, even if you cannot see it as long as you just want it. You know, sometimes it doesn't even look like you're trying to heal like you're not making any physical or mental like you're not working at it. Sometimes healing looks like not working on it. Sometimes healing is just remember thinking because I was trying to heal so hard and so fast that I would get down on myself about not doing it like all the time like thinking about it all the time and working on it. And I remember thinking we have to trust our bodies. If we have the intention to heal our bodies will carry us there. And we don't know what path it might take.
But one day we'll end up in this spot and go, oh, how did I get here? I like air here. I can breathe here. God, I like feel warm now. So just to have hope, I think that it will, it will happen. That's just, I mean, what do you think?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you for sharing that and I'm sorry that you went through that. And I think that it obviously takes a huge amount of bravery for anybody to step out of a relationship that is so bad and so abusive. It's just, it's, it's, it's huge.
So that already I'm sure is a big part of it. And I loved what you said about how healing is cyclical because I totally would resonate with that. It's like, you know, we think we've had this moment of expansion and release and we have. And then we go on to the next thing and then it kind of pokes its head back in every now and again. And then another layer is thought out. And then we go again and then another part. It's sometimes, sometimes it's not instant.
And sometimes it's, it's a whole process of things. And it's huge that they're going to talk therapy. And I would also encourage them to explore. other kinds of somatic physical release if that's something that is of interest to them. You know, whether it's other kind of modalities to help unstick some of the trauma that's been inflicted into their body.
Because I do think that we store all these emotional things within our bodies kind of at a cellular level that we can keep storing these traumatic events and not really know that they're there until we have something happen and it kind of shakes it out of us a little bit. So I really love exploring other forms and other modalities of therapy. That would also be something I would encourage them to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I've personally done lots of different types of healing on top of seeing a therapist, which I think all of them have their place and all of them are very important.
Not one is necessarily better than another. But you know, I recently saw, thanks to you, a Reiki healer and found it to be really powerful because what I'm working through now is resisting my good and not feeling like, because I've only had examples of women who sacrificed their entire lives in order to just be a good mother, quote, good mother or martyrs, you know, in our country. And I was like, but I love me and I want me and I don't want to disappear and I don't want to live my life only for someone else. And so I was really resisting this and I found that after that one session, because I was ready to let this go, the, I guess, sadness and the stickiness around that kind of just relieved a little bit. I've also personally done psychedelic therapy. So I've done psychedelics before that I personally would take that with a huge grain of salt. It's not for everyone.
I was ready for it. But it's definitely a more like dangerous one that you really have to take with a grain of salt. And I want to emphasize that because I'm not I'm not saying go do this. I'm saying I've done it. And meditation and breathing what do you call those breathing meditation? Breathwork.
Speaker 2: Yeah, breathwork is huge. Yeah, breathwork is hugely helpful. Yeah. And yeah, and same like Reiki acupuncture acupuncture. Yeah. The psychedelic big psychedelic treatment. And even Prana Keeling, there's so many incredible modalities out there that can help us release our physical traumas without having to relive and articulate them verbally, which which I think can also be really helpful. So just showing up to something that can help us physically release it without having to relive and articulate the stories, but just show up, be there in a trusted space, as long as they feel safe, and really want to drive home just to give yourself the patience and the grace to allow yourself to get there, you know, in due time, as this as the healing happens. It takes an incredible amount of courage, I think, to get better and to want to seek to get better. And it takes courage and bravery and yeah, yeah, yeah, just be graceful, be grace, give yourself grace as you go through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So for those that have just joined, I'll just summarize the question. There's someone that left their drug addict abusive partner after eight years, and it's just been a year, but they just haven't been feeling like talk therapy has been really helping them to unlock some of the trauma that they they feel and they they they ask, how do I thaw myself and help my body to release some of this trauma? Yeah, it's you're right, I do think that it gets locked in our bodies and and really anything helps like but to me also another thing that helped me through some of my traumas around abuse were friends. Yeah, really trusted friends that not don't impose on you what they think is best for you, but is just there to hold space for you to be exactly as you are. Yeah, because I remember when I was in that abusive relationship, one of the most powerful things that a friend said to me, she's still one of my closest friends today is I want so badly as your friend for you to be happy, but I fully believe that you have everything in you for you to be okay. I have to trust that and she just kept on saying it over and over.
That's a good one. Yeah, until I was like, oh yeah, I do have everything in me to be okay. And those were the words that resonated in my head as I was leaving this relationship. I have everything in me and those kinds of friends that are like not going to tell you what to do. But I'm going to stand by you and support you in loving yourself.
Yeah. And I think that throughout my life I've just been so lucky to have really, really good friends and I think that my friends have healed me in some ways more than talk therapy more than all the modalities. Like my friends have been the things in my life to heal me. So surround yourself with good people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. 100%. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Should we move on to the last question? Yeah, yeah, let's do it. Because we're nearing up on an hour. Okay. So last question is how do you let go of personal guilt? Oh, before I know, before I do that, remind whoever's tuned in that we are more than happy to answer any of your questions as well. So if you do have a question, put them in the comments.
We also understand that it's very vulnerable to put questions in the comments. So like don't feel like you need to. But if you want something answered, anything at all, please do.
You're welcome to. So the last question is how do you let go of personal guilt? Guilt is an overpowering emotion that takes up way too much space in my life.
The bigger problem is all my guilt is self-imposed and the person I feel most guilty about is me. Huh. Interesting.
Okay. Yeah, right? What does she mean? Or he?
I don't know. I feel guilty. My husband earns more than I do, or that he seemingly works harder than me. I feel guilty. I'm not more advanced in my career or where I really want to be. Ironically, I feel guilty. I'm not living the life I envisioned. And that in the future, it will cause more pain and suffering that I want to admit.
I feel guilty. I put other people first, my work, social, romantic life. Yet I feel guilty when I don't spend more time with family and friends.
Most of my days are spent thinking about what or how I should be doing something, even when those around me encourage me or remind me I'm doing so many great things. How do I let go of this guilt?
Speaker 2: Guilt. Guilt is like one of the worst things. It's like, it's, it's like, for me, guilt is like fear in terms of robbing us of our joy, you know? There's so many ways, in some ways, to approach this, this idea of guilt. And I remember really looking at guilt. I mean, it's an ongoing thing, but for sure, paying close attention to it a few years ago, when I noticed how often throughout the day I would feel guilty.
And yeah, yeah. And it was quite surprising and revealing to, to, to notice that, to actually notice how many times throughout the day I would feel guilty. So for me, it was a process of looking at where actually, and when I started to feel guilty, and this idea of guilt.
Like, is this a story? And is this part of my makeup? Because of something that happened a long time ago? Is guilt something that I'm, that is such a big part of me because of an environment or a happenstance or an incident? And I've just hung on to that all throughout my life. Guilt is one of those things that sometimes I ask myself, like, how is this serving me?
Is it, is it like, how, how is this serving me? I think that guilt, if it's something where I made a poor choice, and then I feel guilty about it, because I feel badly about it, then I kind of want to be accountable. It's an opportunity for me to have that be a lesson, understand what it was, that why I made that, you know, decision that was unsupportive, and, and kind of use that as a learning point for me, and how to move forward. And then there's, there's guilt where people feel like they're so privileged, and so they feel guilt because they feel bad that they're so living this great life, you know, so again, coming back to that idea of guilt kind of robbing us of our joy. And so when I look at, regardless of how many different scenarios we can put around the idea of guilt, the feeling for me when I really look, look at guilt is what's beneath it, and what, for me, was beneath guilt was a feeling of unworthiness.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so, that's exactly what I was thinking is, you know, around guilt, I mean, I have a very, like, a very intimate relationship with guilt. It's really motivation for most of my decisions, actually, and into that, but sometimes I think like, is this guilt internally motivated or externally motivated? Is it because I've done something that violates my own ethic and moral system? Or is it something that someone else has told me that I should feel bad?
Yes. And if it's something that someone else has told me that I should feel bad about, I mean, it's good to like, number one, consider it, consider the source that is coming from, and consider the validity of whether or not that matches my own internal value system. So for example, you know, if this person feels guilty that their husband earns more than they do, where did this idea come from that that's a bad thing? Like, where did this come from that this is a bad thing or that they're not more advanced in their career?
So where does this idea that they should be more advanced come from? And so like, drawing that line back to its origin and then saying, like, oh, this isn't my thought. This is actually, I heard this when I was a child and when I was five, and now I believe it to be true, and it's causing a lot of tension in me. And I think you're right, like a lot of this externally sourced guilt plays off of our insecurities and havoc. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I think that's the thing is the asker is saying, like, giving all these different scenarios of feeling guilty. And I think that's where peeling back what's behind guilt, because we'll always have a million stories for so many different things, right?
Like, this negative self chatter that happens, it's just like an on like a stream, like a stream of consciousness that's like negative will always, it's always there ready to kind of take us down. But to be able to become kind of the observer of that and be able to notice, like you say, where that's coming from, and set ourselves free from that. I really think as soon as we start noticing where the root of the guilt comes from, we start paying attention to what is at the core of it and the feelings of insecurity and unworthiness of something is at the root of guilt. Then we can kind of set ourselves free from any of these, any of these stories that lock us into a place of guilt. Does that make sense? Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, I'm just thinking about the places that I feel the most guilt in this moment in time. And I would say that it's mother guilt. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. And sometimes I feel like as mothers, we wear it as a badge of honor or something like, like, oh yeah, I get you mother guilt. And it's just like, actually, no, let's just let's not support this idea of mother guilt, you know, because it just, it's just so unsupportive to living our authentic lives. I feel like all of these stories, right, all of these stories, whether they came from something or whether they're stories that we tell ourselves, whether they're old stories that no longer hold true to who we are today. In order to sort of free ourselves from those stories, we have to come back home to ourselves, connect to our truest, deepest, deepest self of who we are today, so that we can move from a place of authenticity, and we can move from a place that aligns with who we are. And if we are moving from a place that aligns with who we are right now, you know, the opportunities to feel quote unquote guilty or unworthy about something will slowly melt away because we're not going to be prescribing by these negative self-talk narratives anymore, and we're just going to be coming home to self and what's true for us and moving from that place.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and it's like, you can also use guilt as a good tool, actually. Yeah. Like, oh, wait a second, where are my value systems in this? So for example, with the whole mother guilt thing, it's like, okay, where does this come from?
Like, where is this idea that I need to be 24-7 emotionally, physically, mentally available and sacrificing for my child? Like, where does this come from? And is that me? Like, is that my value system?
Well, it turns out it's really not. And so, you know, my value system is like, I want to be the foster growth and joy and, you know, like being able, like independence and boundary. And how is my child going to learn that for himself and for his future, like, and for his future relationships?
If the only example he's ever seen is someone that continually sacrifices everything for him, right? And so for me, this is the guilt was actually such a good learning prompt. Yeah. To say, oh, that's not me. That doesn't come from me.
And I'm not going to live that. And then you kind of stop feeling guilty a little bit, because you're like, you realize where you stand with something. Exactly. And you can decide from a place of real clarity, and you're right, authenticity. But how this also works with, I think, self-worth and self-esteem is that the more we stand by ourselves, like stand beside ourselves and stand for ourselves, the more we're telling our inner selves and even our inner child, which is often where our feelings of unworthiness stem from.
We're standing beside our inner child saying, no, no, no, I've got you. Yes. You're listening. I'm listening. I'm protecting you.
And I am speaking for you. And we will do what's right for us, not someone else. And I think that is where some of that healing starts to happen when you realize, oh, no, my adult self is not going to betray my child self, that my adult self is there to nurture and stand by my child self. And then all of a sudden your child self starts to feel like, I'm worthy of this. Oh, I'm worthy of this adult self standing up for me and protecting. And so there's this like, the halves start to really come together, I think. At least that was my experience for me, not to say that I'm like, so, feel so worthy all the time.
Speaker 3: No, I don't. I mean, you know, I'm constantly like, oh, I feel so unworthy. Like I have like osteosandrum or this or that or whatever. So yes, yes, yes. That's the thing is we need to again, not to like, repeat the same thing, but we really need to give ourselves grace around this stuff. We really need to just chill out. It's okay. It is okay.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I've been thinking about a lot around guilt is how does gratitude almost cancel out guilt in a way? It's almost like the antidote to some of the guilt.
Yeah. Because I remember like certain things like feeling really guilty about my privilege. Like for example, my parents, they were not very wealthy. They worked so hard.
They sacrificed everything for us. And I almost felt like guilty when I was enjoying my life because I was raised watching people that could never enjoy themselves. And I felt bad if I enjoyed it. And then all of a sudden I was like, no, this is an opportunity that they've sacrificed for me. I need to be grateful for it and use it well. Exactly.
Speaker 2: And that, yeah, and I think that that's it. I think that, you know, guilt can be a tool as long as it doesn't over, like it doesn't like overcome us, as long as it doesn't become all consuming, right? Like using guilt as an opportunity to look at where we're at with something.
And gratitude is a big one. Because I think that even now today, yet we both came from extremely hardworking parents, you know, first generation Canadians, for me, I'm first generation Canadian and guilt of that. But just look at our whole climate around the world right now to, you know, the guilt that people feel for living in their joy while people are dying and people are starving and all that kind of thing. But the thing is, is that's always existed, you know, like the pain and suffering of life and joy, they it's always existed in life. And I think it's, I think we're doing a disservice to ourselves if we get consumed by guilt. Yeah, and it just takes away our joy because both things can exist at the same time. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: So the thing around guilt to not necessarily in answering this person's question about like, how do you let go of guilt? But very personally, I did, I have been talking to you about this human design thing forever. So if people that have tuned in don't know about human design, it's basically like the combination of astrology and Chinese medicine and energy meridians and they basically tight, like spit out this entire profile on how you were created and every single person is different and every single person has is a piece of this greater puzzle and is super crucial to kind of like uplifting humanity in their own special way. And anyway, so one of the things in human design is your motivation. So some people have this is the motivation for like making choices for for anything and doing anything. And, for example, some people have like innocence as a motivation and some people have fear as motivation. Some people have ambition as a motivation or want or desire as a motivation.
I don't know if ambition is one, but mine is guilt. Wow. And I've been I haven't looked into it a ton, but what I did look into is that actually it's not completely a bad thing that that like, like everything in life, there are they are two sides of the same coin, a way that something manifests positively in a way that it can manifest negatively. And the positive side to my using guilt as motivation for making decisions is that in every decision I make for my career, I always want it to help someone else too. Like that is just who I am and everything that I do, I need to know that I'm not the only one that gets helped by this.
And so and I never do work really that only benefits me only like I can't I can't do it. And so I just thought it's so interesting that in some ways, this guilt that I do live with that has really caused a lot of like
Speaker 3: stress in
Speaker 1: my life, necessary stress, but that it also exhibits itself in this really beautiful way. And that in some ways that is the way I was meant to be like that's the way I was created to be. And to me, this makes a lot of sense that yeah, when I read my human design profile and it said guilt was my motivation, I was like, oh boy, yes it is.
But wow, is it ever like down to down to just like, I remember when I had the bakery and my my team members would come over for like a team meeting. And some of them would say, oh, that mixer I've been looking at that one and just haven't like pressed the button and just kind of expensive I didn't want to buy it. I'd be like, go ahead just take it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Because I feel so guilty if I have something that someone else I know, I still kind of do that. If someone's like, hey, I like that. I'm like, oh yeah, if I'm not super attached to it, go for it.
Speaker 1: And in some ways, this is just like this beauty. But also, it can quickly turn into it's like everything. One depends on the other, the beauty and the dark kind of go hand in hand. But anyway, do you have any last thoughts before I wrap up?
Speaker 2: Hmm. Just I think it's I think that congratulations on one year of putting something out into the world. I think it's it is really brave. And I think that you're doing such a great job on not that you need my like approval. I'm just saying as your friend, it's really awesome to walk alongside you and witness your continuous evolution and your journey on this. And I am really grateful that you allow me to be part of it with you.
And I think it's really brave for the people who've you know, written in with all their questions. And, you know, everybody is just going through so much at any given time. And I really just think we need to have more compassion and more kindness and really just remember that everybody is going through stuff. We just we just often don't know. And to reserve judgment around that and to really allow ourselves the space and the grace to move through whatever we need to move through.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this one year anniversary is also going to be sort of the last episode for a while, because I'm making time to write my next book to you who wonders. And it's sorry, I'm like strangely emotional.
I'm also very jet lagged so that might be a part of it. But I just feel like this year of answering people's questions and just such a privilege to hold such private intimate feelings. It's just been it's genuinely changed me. Like, when I started this process, I was feeling a little bit lost and feeling like I didn't know what to do with myself and where I stood and where to put my energy. And through answering these questions, like, there were so many moments where I felt like I was writing to them. But I was like, if I can say this to this person, why can't I say that to me too?
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh. Yes. All the time. Yeah. All the time. Whenever I'm in conversation with somebody and have deep compassion for them, I literally am like, okay, it's not lost on me that I need to be saying this to myself too. Yes. Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes. All those I would write to someone and say like, you are just fine the way you are. Like, yeah, you know, just be gentle and kind to yourself. And there were moments where I was not gentle and not kind to myself. And I would actually stop because I said it so much to people that I it actually stopped me. And I said, be gentle and kind to yourself because it had become this, this, you know, new pathway that had been created in my in my brain from saying this so many times to others.
And I genuinely believe that doing the podcast over the year has made me more loving towards myself, more accepting. There's more self worth. And there's also this hope that through knowing other people's stories and how they struggle that we decrease the amount of shame that people feel, but also that we increase the amount of empathy and compassion.
Because you just do not know who is just going through a shit time in life. And we can always extend a little bit of grace to our neighbor, I think me included. I mean, I'm I'm I can be very impatient and whatever, but such a reminder. Anyway, so this is the last the last episode for a while. So I'm very, very grateful we got to do this as a last episode. I do have one thing to sort of say before we end off. In addition to a thank you to you. Thank you to you. Thank you so much all your wisdom and to all the people who have tuned in. This episode will be we'll figure out some way, but it up online somewhere so people can see it. But I also want to highlight a not for profit organization chosen by one of our past guests. We do this in each episode. It's just a small way to thank our community and to thank our guests.
And Kim Bootsyak, she was a past guest and she wanted to support the Indian Residential School Survivor Society. And they've given us a little bit of information. So I'll read it. The Indian Residential School Survivor Society is a not for profit organization that's been supporting First Nations peoples in British Columbia since 1994 by providing essential services to residential school survivors, families and communities experiencing intergenerational trauma. The IRS SS assist First Nations peoples to recognize and be holistically empowered from the primary and generational effect of the residential schools by supporting research, education, awareness, partnerships and advocating for justice and healing. So if you want to learn more, you can head to irsss.ca and you can also head to undipodcast.com because we'll be putting up a video that IRS SS has provided just because we we were planning on putting it at the end of this live stream but because we couldn't live stream to YouTube, we couldn't do that. So we'll put it up on our website. And I guess last words are just, you know, take take, we hope that you have taken some inspiration, some healing from this interview. And yeah, we just send you I can I think I can speak on your behalf, Caroline, and you all so much love and so much support and so much gratitude. And yeah, that's it, I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, everybody.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Okay, okay, signing off now. Okay. Bye. Bye.
Speaker 4: Every walk within our journey of life is ceremony. For us as First Nations people, ceremony is not separated.
Speaker 5: The Indian Residential School Survivors Society is a unique organization that provides safe spaces for land-based healing, emotionally, spiritually, and culturally for those that attended Indian Residential School. Those that we call intergenerational survivors, 60 scoop survivors, Indian day school, Indian day scholar, missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, missing and murdered Indigenous boys and men, and community members that are just peeling back the layers of trauma. That's what we do. Hey.
Speaker 6: I had custody of my two older grandsons because my oldest daughter is not in a good place. She's out on the streets. And then I got my youngest granddaughter, like she's seven months old now. And her mom was murdered.
Speaker 7: So I'm the murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls and two-spirited coordinator for the North. I cover French George to basically the ocean. For the majority of the time, I'm actually on the road. And we do this because a lot of our First Nations people have barriers. Some of them don't have vehicles. Some of them don't have licenses. So we try to minimize those barriers for them. So that's us going into communities.
Speaker 5: Our team is in the Nass Valley. It's in Heidegwai. It's in Burns Lake. It's in Hazelton. It's here in Prince George. We have some in Fort St. John. So when we have our people in those locations, the ability to respond to a crisis is a lot faster.
Speaker 7: We try to keep everything land-based, bringing our people back to their culture. With residential school, we've kind of lost that piece. And a lot of people have lost their culture. So what we do is we try and bring that piece back to the families so that they can begin their own healing journey within their culture.
Speaker 4: All of our services are at no cost to any of our clients. We believe this journey is strictly their individual journey. And we are there just to be the strength they need us to be in that moment.
Speaker 6: Jolene is very personable. She's very... Her demeanor is like she's a friend. She gets me.
Speaker 4: As First Nations people, the land is where our knowledge comes from. That is where our connection to our creator exists. And through the work at the Indian Residential School Survivor Society, culture saves lives.
Speaker 7: The healing can take forever. You can do it your whole life and still not be healed. So it's a lifelong journey. And those little pieces where I get to see a moment of brightness in someone, that's why I do what I do.
Speaker 4: IRSSS is ultimately grateful for all donors and thankful for those that have provided financial support to IRSSS. Every dollar and cent that is provided goes a long way and allows us to reach people that we haven't been able to reach before. For anyone that is interested in more information about who we are, please visit irsss.ca. For anyone that is wanting to donate, please go to our website.