Courageous Conversations

Hello everybody and welcome to The V Spot. I'm your host, Andrea Mancuso, founder and CEO of Intentional Healing and Wellness. I created this podcast because I believe vulnerability is our true superpower, and I want to promote a safe space where we can come together and engage in conscious and courageous conversations to encourage individual and collective healing. In the V Spot, we will choose courage over comfort as we speak our truth and pave the way for others to do the same. For each episode, we will unite in empathy and embrace our superpower as we spend quality time together here in the V Spot. Thank you for tuning in.

Hello everybody and welcome to the V Spot. You know, tonight's episode is going to be a bit different than usual. It won't just be me and I won't have a guest. So what will it be about? Well, it's actually going to be a conversation with someone that I haven't been able to have, a means of closure. For the purpose of confidentiality, we'll call him T. T, why didn't you tell me? How come you didn't let me know what was going on? You know, in hindsight, I'm actually grateful that you didn't. Because knowing me, I would have stuck around and I would have helped, or tried to really. But it didn't play out like that. And for whatever the reason, you didn't feel comfortable to be 100% honest with me. Maybe the way that I showed up and the way that I was living my life at that time didn't allow for you to feel comfortable. And if that's the case, I'm actually sorry. I knew something was wrong when you started to stay up the way you were staying up. There was no logical reason why you weren't eating dinner anymore. You were never hungry, never wanting to come to sleep. We went from spending such quality time together to spending barely no time together. And I thought that it was because I was working that— my new job at that point. And I thought you were working too. I mean, you left the house in work clothes, you came home in dirty work clothes. And you didn't have a job. What happened? You know, I knew I wasn't crazy. You had a funny way of making me feel like I was back then, but there were little signs, little things happening around the apartment that didn't make sense.

Right?

I couldn't quite understand why I was always finding those tiny little rubber bands on the floor. You said they were from the work site. I believed you. A heroin ring?

Really?

And you brought that shit to our house?

Why?

And forging my signature? That was almost $10,000. It took a while to pay off that $10,000, but it was a lesson that I needed to learn, and apparently you were the one who needed to teach it to me. What's the lesson, you want to know? Follow my intuition. I know when I'm done. I just have to learn to have the courage to walk away when I feel it. I never had that before, and I didn't realize how important it was until you So thank you. I didn't learn it right away. I spent 10 years, 10 years trying to make sense out of what happened. It never made sense, but now I see things different. You needed help. And I know you tried to get it. I found the prescription on top of the cabinets in the kitchen after you left. I know that you were trying to kick your habit on your own, but that's a mean kind of addiction. And so in ways I'm grateful that I didn't know, because as I said, knowing me I would have been by your side trying to help you, and that's a world I want no part of. It came too close too many times, and I don't want a part of it. And thankfully, the way things went down, I didn't have to. So I'm grateful that I went to the precinct and I had an opportunity to speak with the detective that day. You know, I knew that if I were to hear from you, I would get a totally different story about what happened. And sure enough, sure enough. And so he told me everything, and thankfully he did. You weren't going to work in the Bronx. You were part of a heroin ring. You had paraphernalia all over your car. You admitted to using. Maybe that would get you a lesser penalty. I don't know. I changed my phone number. I went my way and I never looked back. But I want you to know this: the T that I knew from high school, he had a heart of gold. I'm not quite sure what happened to that heart, but I'll tell you one thing. From my heart to yours, I hope wherever you are in the world, you're doing much better, that you're healing from the demons that have tormented you, and maybe someday you'll be able to actually own what happened.

The second part of this conversation is even more important and necessary than the first part. It's the part of the conversation where I get to talk to myself about that particular chapter of my story. You see, in the years following my experiences with T, I worked hard to heal, and I made 3 significant shifts that ultimately changed my whole life. The first was moving from blame to responsibility. The second, from anger to empathy. And the third From Heartache to Gratitude. So here it goes. Andrea, of course it was easy to blame him. I mean, he lied about having a new job, was part of a heroin ring, staged a break-in and stole from the apartment you both lived in, forged your name and ran up a credit card bill for almost $10,000. And used his one call after his arrest to call his ex who he was cheating with. So much to blame him for. No, you're wrong. You aren't a victim. You ignored your intuition. You stayed in the relationship despite sensing something was off. You had so much fear then. You were afraid to let go. Start over, go back into the single market. And so your decision to stay cost you a lot of pain. While you deserve to extend yourself grace for abandoning yourself and your truth, recognizing and accepting your responsibility has been so liberating. You needed to experience those pains and betrayals in order to teach you to honor your intuition and never ditch it again. Now for the anger. Oh, the anger. That was so real, consuming, detrimental to you, actually. You spent years angry at T, but it was really you that you were mad at. What the fuck made you stay? Why would you choose to stay with someone you were feeling disconnected from? It was ludicrous. But I remember the day you saw yourself and your choices through the lens of empathy for the first time. When you released the shame, the beat-up. Instead, you loved up on you like never before. Wow, what a new experience that was. A freedom you never knew before. Extending empathy to others comes so easily to you, but extending empathy to yourself, well, that was an entirely different story. That was a victory, and it also paved the way to extend empathy to T. He had his demons too. Then the heartache. My, oh my, that heartache. You hurt in ways that you couldn't even put into words. So you did the only thing that you could think of at the time: armor up and isolate. Did your armor and solitude protect you? Yeah, from everyone except for yourself. But that's a conversation for another episode. Thankfully, you stayed committed to putting the pieces of your shattered heart back together. And you made your way to gratitude's door. Was it an easy path to follow? Absolutely not. But you walked, and sometimes you even crawled, through all of the aches and pains until you got comfortable in all of the blessings. So here I am, thankful as ever for my experiences with T, grateful for the woman I became as a result of that particular time of my life. You see, I can't celebrate where I am today if I don't honor the path that led me here. We don't get to own the victories and trash the devastations. That's not how it works. It's about embracing all of our story, even the parts that aren't all glitz and glam. I'll close this episode by reciting Ho'oponopono, the Hawaiian prayer of reconciliation. This time to myself. I'm sorry. I forgive you. Thank you.

I love you.

Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The V Spot. To be continued.

Thank you for spending quality time with me here in the V Spot. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, write a review, and tell a friend to tell a friend to meet us in the V Spot. To stay connected and in the loop about all special events, join the email list at www.intentionalhealingandwellness.com. You can also join the Intentional Healing and Wellness Community on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I'll catch you soon.