#71 How to Explain Recovery to Loved Ones So They Can Support You | Recovery Secrets Series

Welcome to the Overcoming PTSD Podcast. My name is Brad Schipke, and this is the limited series called Recovery Secrets Daily Coaching. Now, these were private sessions that I originally ran as a paid coaching program, but now for the first time ever, I'm making all 100+ sessions available for free for all of you podcast listeners. And this series is over 100 days of practical strategies that have helped thousands of trauma survivors fully heal. So make sure to subscribe because I'm dropping a new episode every single weekday until the archive is complete. And you definitely do not want to miss it. So without further ado, let's dive on in.

All right, we are live here. Welcome everyone to our Recovery Secrets daily coaching session. Today is Friday, and today our topic was picked and voted on by you all. So we're really excited for this topic here today. It's not a topic we typically cover when it comes to, you know, the recovery journey. We typically stick to the action, we typically stick to the individual. So it's going to be an awesome topic and an awesome conversation to have. We'll give everything a minute to connect up here, but if you're going to be joining us live, feel free to say hey in the chat box there so that we can welcome you as well as engage with you throughout the session today. And this lovely man to my right.

Good morning, everybody. My name is Brad. If you are new, welcome. If you're old, welcome back. Today we are talking about a question that you guys voted on, that you guys submitted and voted on. So that should be exciting. And the topic is how to explain recovery to, excuse me, loved ones so they can best understand and support you. So that's how to explain recovery to loved ones so they can best understand and support you. So today we're going to be answering that question, going deep on that, how to really express yourself to the people you love about recovery. I really liked the question because it's about recovery. And generally when we have questions like this, it's, it's talking, it's asking a question about how do I explain my PTSD, not my recovery. So it's, it's a, it's an exciting topic.

Sorry, Brad.

It's okay.

She's testing some stuff, testing some stuff out. So he heard himself in the past over speakers, over speakers. So really excited about this topic here today. And again, it was picked by you all. If you ever have any topics that, you know, you, you want us to cover, you can submit them through the platform. We absolutely encourage you to do so and we'll vote on them, you know, throughout the week to absolutely make sure that we get one of those for our Friday session, if not more of them, depending on kind of how they fall. Now, just some housekeeping. Really good news. Next week is our bootcamp. And next week we are covering boundaries. We're doing an entire week dedicated to boundaries. So you can absolutely look forward to that. I'm very, very excited about that. And we have some other kind of special things planned within this month. We're going to have a special guest on here. Actually, my personal coach and personal trainer is going to kind of come on and do some coaching on some different aspects of health and wellness that we don't particularly cover. And he's an expert in, which is going to be super, super fun. And then we're also going to do some different things, Brad and I, together at different times during the week. So we're really, really excited to do that and just wanted to kind of get that out there while we're rocking and rolling here. But let me welcome some people and then we'll kind of jump into our topic here today. So welcome, Mimi. Welcome, Tony. Welcome, Lorena. Welcome, Bonnie. Welcome, Lena. Welcome, Jeanette. Great to have each and every one of you here today. So this was a voted-on topic, right? The topic is how to explain recovery to a loved one, right? And the big key and the reason that, to be honest with you, the reason that I put this kind of in the running for This week was that word recovery, the word recovery specifically. And I love— I don't remember who submitted it, but I love the way that it was submitted, which was, how do I explain recovery to a loved one? And like Brad said, we, you know, in the past have gotten a lot of questions of how do I explain my PTSD or my trauma to a loved one? And I love this because it's focused on the future. It is focused on growth and getting better, and it's focused on the journey that you're on now, not something that happened to you in the past. So that's a, a A really, really amazing way to start, an amazing way to frame this topic just right out the gate there. So in your experience, Brad, what— or do you have any stories? Or what do you feel like— how do you feel like this topic has been a part of your life?

Yeah, I think this is— this will be different for everybody. Like, we all have people in our life, and obviously PTSD and trauma, CPTSD, whatever you're going through, is a very challenging thing. And it can be challenging to Communicate something that other people just quite honestly can't, can't fully understand. If you like, without experiencing, experiencing the pain of PTSD, how do you know what it's like? Sorry, I lost my train of thought. So most people don't understand what PTSD is like. So I totally lost it there.

You are so cute. Brad can single task and single task really, really well. And I am testing something for Audio. Something that, that comes in next week that he heard his own voice and he got distracted. So, but on that train of thought, right? So if somebody else has not experienced the thing that you've experienced, it's really hard for them to relate to you, right? Meaning no matter what it is, whether it's like trauma in and of itself, or if it is the recovery journey, it's a challenging thing for them to understand. Now, this is true just across all topics, across all things. Right. And so this is true. I mean, it can be true across like age gaps. It can be true across countries or cultures or genders or races or anything like that. When we don't have the same experiences as someone, it can be challenging to understand their point of view and where they're coming from. And so the, the first thing I kind of wanna point out here specific to recovery, because we are really honed in on This is an independent journey is the very, very first thing that I want you to do is support yourself through this journey. Right? And that might sound like kind of weird, right? So we're talking about how to get other— not really how to get others to support you, but how to cultivate maybe that support or explain the recovery journey to friends and family members. And we'll talk about communication in a minute. But you first and foremost need to be able to support yourself regardless of anybody else. So the way that I sometimes think about life and recovery and PTSD is, you know, you have this like bubble around you. Now, when we were kids, we had like, we used to call it our safety circle if we were doing something maybe dangerous, or just your personal space bubble. In the last couple years, that's been legally expanded, which has been excellent, right? But imagine that you have this bubble around you and you control what comes into that bubble and what goes out of that bubble. So you're in control of everything that happens within that bubble. Okay. That's the only thing really that you can control is, is you and what goes on there. So when it comes to other people, when it comes to other people's support, although it's excellent and it's great and it's amazing part of life, especially when it comes to friends and family, the very, very first person you need to support yourself and basically to set that example is you. So more than anything else today, I want you to set yourself up and to be in a position where you are supporting yourself at the highest level. Regardless of what other people think, because here is some like harsh reality for, for the morning. I'll start off with a little harsh reality. Not everyone is gonna support you. Not everyone's gonna support you on this journey, even if it is, you know, your, your best friend, or it might be your partner, you know, it might be your parents, it might be siblings. Not everyone is gonna support you on this journey. Sometimes most people won't support you on this journey. And it's not because they don't love you, but it's because they think they have your best interest at heart. So let me give an example, right? What you're basically saying with recovery is you're saying, okay, I'm reaching for this goal, which is full recovery, and I am working hard to achieve it. Now, most people don't believe that full recovery from trauma PTSD is possible, right? And so if you say, okay, I'm gonna go to space and walk on the moon, or I'm going to go to Jupiter and I'm going to take a lap around the rings, right? Your friends and family love you. They do love you. It's not a lack of expression of love. In fact, it is an expression of love for them to say, Kayleen, listen, don't you think you're kind of setting yourself up for failure by aiming for Jupiter and wanting to walk on the rings there? Listen, it's not possible. Even if it is, it's going to be really hard. And do you want to put all that pressure on yourself and start to say all these things? And it actually is an expression of love. It is an expression of love, and that's really, really important to understand. I don't want you to understand that, which is why the first step needs to be you first and foremost supporting yourself, because they don't have information that we have. Now comes the communication element, which is we can communicate to them the information that we have. What they don't know is I have a space elevator and I can actually get to Jupiter. Okay, so I have a path to get to that goal. They didn't know that existed before. That's where communication can come into the equation here. Right. And so you can communicate to loved ones if you so choose and kind of explain where you're going, why you're going, how you're going. And in regard to support, you can, again, I want you to support yourself first and foremost at the very highest level and find everyone else's support as icing on the cake. That's the point where I want you to get to. It's icing on the cake. So if they support you, great. If they don't, that's not a big deal. It's not going to change the outcome all that much. Right. And when you can get to that point, it doesn't matter how they feel about the recovery journey, even if you've communicated, okay, this is what I'm doing, this is how I'm doing it, this is why I'm doing it, and here are all the reasons that it's possible. What I want you to really ask for support in, if you're going to ask for support, there are different ways that we can ask for support. I want to encourage you to ask for just a lack of interference, just a lack of interference. And that lack of interference honestly can be the way that anyone in our life supports us best. Anyone. Because again, their expression of love very often can be trying to interfere, trying to get you on a different route. Well, you know, why don't you go back to this therapist that you were seeing? Or why don't you, why don't you just slow down a little bit? Or just, you know, just, just relax a little bit, take some time off, right? That's an expression of the love that they have for you is coupled with some of their own kind of insecurities. Right. But a lack of interference is going to allow you to get to where you're going without any unnecessary friction. And so this is kind of how Brad and I are within our relationship, just a lack of interference. So when he goes for something, when he does something, he knows, or we communicate that he has my full support and I don't interfere whatsoever. So there are times where I don't give my opinion. I don't basically say anything on the topic. He does his thing. He knows he has my support. He knows if he wants my opinion, it's here, but I just like let him do his thing and I don't interfere. And there are times he does the same thing to me where he doesn't give his opinion. He says, you know, you have my full support, you do your thing. If you want it, it's here. And he doesn't interfere. And what that allows us to do is reach our goals and also make our own mistakes without too much muddled Distraction and, and too much really, I mean, it really is interference, but confusion on, well, he has this opinion, I have this opinion. I'm not sure even how to communicate my opinion, but I feel like this is right, but I don't have data to back it up. Right. So I'm just gonna go for this thing. And even if he thinks like, well, I don't really think it's gonna work, he's gonna not interfere. He's gonna not tell me that unless I ask him so that I can kind of go and make my own mistakes. And so I think about this, you know, a good example of this would be like teaching a kid how to ride a bike. Right? So you're there in the beginning to kind of give them support, but then what happens after that? You need to at some point stop interfering, right? So that they can actually get the balance, so that they can actually get going, right? If you're going to be running alongside them for the rest of their life every time they've ever, you know, will get on a bike until they're, you know, in their 60s and just kind of holding their shoulder and just like running alongside the bike, that's not going to work. That's not going to be in their best interest. They need to fall. They need to figure out that you ride on gravel, you ride on sand, that's going to hurt a lot, right? The bike doesn't perform the same way on grass, on sand, on gravel, on whatever, all these different things, right? So a lack of interference sometimes can be the very, very, very best support that we can ask for. Because what we're also doing when we're just simply asking for— basically, we're asking for nothing, which is a really beautiful thing because everything comes back to you. You're still the ultimate support system. And so you're asking just basically In a very, very harsh way. Don't get in my way, please.

Right?

But when you're on that journey, you're allowed to kind of, or you allow yourself to learn the lessons. You allow yourself to skin your knees. You allow yourself to figure it out. And again, very much the lack of interference is the very best support that you can ask for. Because sometimes we're asking for support from someone. I'm asking, hey, can you be there for me in this way and this way and this way and this way and this way? Right. And not only does that become maybe a burden on them, and maybe they don't even want to express that, maybe they don't know how to set their own boundaries, but you're basically trying to get somebody else to fill a hole in your own life. And we want to fill our own holes, right? We're on our own ship, and if there's holes in our ships, we need to fill them ourselves. And you're all the more empowered when you do so, right? So we don't need other people to, to complete ourselves, basically. Other people are a tremendous, tremendous enhancement, and that's not what I'm saying, right? But we don't need other people in order to fill voids. And that's an important thing. You want to both kind of come to the table, no matter what relationship it is, you want to come to the table as your best self, as working to be your best self, and let those kind of lines run parallel.

In a lot of cases, it's like removing responsibility. Kind of what you're saying is like removing responsibility from yourself and putting it on somebody else to support you. And again, support doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. If you're in a relationship that's actively abusive or negative or just like Destructive, whatever it is, support can be a good thing. But like Kayleen said, a lot of times what's best is just neutrality so that you're not, you're not putting the, your responsibility of your life and your healing on somebody else's shoulders. And again, it doesn't mean that support is bad at all, but sometimes I've been in that, this, this mindset, right? Where I'm like, oh, I need somebody else to support in order for me to heal. So then you make your recovery, your, your healing, your life dependent on somebody else. And dependent on somebody you care about. And that can be a lot of pressure you put on somebody else. So that kind of neutrality, or what did you, what was the way you said it?

It's like a lack of interference.

A lack of interference. Like it, it allows you to keep the focus on where it matters and where you, like the only, the only thing you can control, which is you, like you trying to get somebody else to do something, you can't control that. And a lot of times that can cause some frustration. Sometimes just explaining where you're at can help them understand you. And maybe some understanding can be helpful because I saw in here, Bonnie said, you know, she was so grateful to have her family just allow her to— she was so grateful that her family allowed her the space and time that she needed to heal. And what Kayleen basically says, like lack of interference, like her family was like, I love you. I understand you need to do this for you. Right. So sometimes you just need the understanding because recovery generally means you, you stop taking time, you know, doing certain things and you put time on Your healing and yourself, right? So by nature, we all have a limited amount of time. It's like we're going to be taking away time from something, usually things that aren't very— that don't add to your life anyway, but you're going to be having to spend time on yourself and quite a bit of time on yourself to actually heal and get yourself to the point where you're back, back recovered, right? Back to normal. So having a family that can understand that and just communicating, hey, it's going to be, it's going to be some time. I'm going to need some space. You know, these are This is what I need to make myself best so that I can be best in our relationship and our family and in our life together. And a lot of times it's just, just communicating that, that lack of, that lack of interference. So you can focus on you and then you don't have to worry about, oh, this person isn't supporting me or isn't, is supporting me. Or it's like, or I need this person's support. It's like you're focusing on you, which is the only thing that you have power over. And sometimes interesting, interestingly enough, like That need to have somebody support you, if you have that, that can be a trauma response in and of itself where you can go actually further and start processing that. So if you have any kind of emotions coming up right now where, where you, you're saying like you just need a lack of, not, you need a lack of interference, right? Kind of neutrality on it. And if you have this, this need inside you where you're like, I need somebody's support. I need somebody to help me. I need somebody to love me or whatever it is. It's like, and none of those things are bad, you know, for people to help you or to love you or whatever, but for it to be this need for you to heal, I would encourage you, highly encourage you that to look inward and do some processing on that to see if there is some trauma attached to that, because that, that's where this can come from. Like you can reach out for this pain or, or feel like you need people in your life to fill these holes, to fill these voids. The holes and voids are basically just pain in your life, right? To fill this void in your life, that's causing you a lot of pain. And what that does is it actually prevents you from actually addressing the root of the problem. So I think, I think that's really great. Like, how do you, how do you ask a loved one or how do you explain recovery to a loved one so they can best understand and support you? That's really it. You know, just, you know, you explain what you need and don't expect anything like. Back from them, except for, you know, just like neutrality and understanding. Like, understanding is probably what I would, would go for. Like, I want you to understand what I'm going through, what I'm, what I'm trying to achieve and what I need to do, right? Like Bonnie said, like, I need to spend some more time on this and I'll, like, you'll need to set up these boundaries of like, I need to, I need this time to myself, right? And they may just accept that, but you may have to communicate a little bit more. It's different to everybody, but.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So it's gonna come down to like a conversation. If you feel like, if you feel like there is interference or you feel like, or they're just asking, you know, how can I best support you? It's, it's ultimately gonna come down to a conversation, which honestly could be a bootcamp in and of itself, just a conversation. So when it comes to like communication, so what I would encourage you to do before any communication, and that it's not like it's gonna be dangerous or anything, but before any communication is really think about what you need in kind of regard to your recovery and what this journey kind of looks like for you. So Brad was talking about boundaries. So when I'm saying what you need, I'm not saying what you need from somebody else. I'm saying what you need as an individual, right? So, and what the recovery journey will look like for you so that you can kind of communicate that. And so that you can say, okay, so, and you can have this conversation multiple times over as you learn more about recovery, as you kind of implement more things, As you figure out what it's going to look like for you, you know, you can start to set up some boundaries and say, I need this time sacred for me, and I would appreciate no interruptions. That's what I need. And that's just a lack of interference, right? So I need this hour every night or this hour every morning, whatever it is, or this small amount of time, you know, a couple of times a day to focus on me. And you can communicate that to them, especially if you know this already. What that might look like, what recovery might look like. And I think I'm gonna pick on you, Bonnie. Bonnie's an amazing, amazing example of this. You know, what it could look like, what it might look like, what it's gonna look like is I'm gonna take a step back cuz I'm gonna focus a tremendous amount on me so that in the future I can take a, a huge step forward and be all in on everything and just have nothing but love to give and there, there to be no pain left. And again, Bonnie, I hope you don't mind, I'm gonna pick on you. And, and Bonnie had a similar situation where Bonnie took a step back from some of the things kind of in her life, spent a tremendous amount of time on herself, and as a result was able to like really spring forward as a completely new person because she put so much time and effort into herself. She did all this healing. She was able to come back as, as a new person. And so where it might've looked like sacrifice in that interim of, you know, I'm taking a step back for me. So there's gonna be some things that maybe I don't go to or, or some time that maybe we don't spend together. That's what it's gonna look like. For right now, but in the future, when we do spend that time together, I'm going to be present. I'm going to be healed. I'm going to be whole, and it's going to be a completely different experience. And so the way I sometimes think about that is if you ever got one of those Happy Meal cars in the '90s, and you you had one of those cars, and it was like a Matchbox car or whatever it was, and you pulled it back, and then it shot forward. That's what this can kind of look like. And so it can look like I'm gonna. Kind of just really shut the blinds, shut the shutters here, focus on me so that I can come back out and be full and whole forever and not need to do that again. So you're taking it. It's not, it's not really a step back, but in this metaphor, you're taking kind of a step back so you can take many, many, many leaps forward.

Yeah. That's beautiful. I mean, that's, I mean, that's pretty much it right there. I mean, like, that's what recovery looks like. It just means you spending more time to yourself, spending more time with your emotion to process your emotions so, so that you can Step forward and do all the things you want to do, have the relationships you want to have. So that's really it. It's pretty simple.

It is pretty simple. And I, I again want to hone in on the fact that you have to be the ultimate one to support yourself. You need to be the person that's going to give you everything that you need.

Okay. So if somebody is like wanting, if somebody has that need or that desire to go out and then ask somebody for, to understand them and to support them, how does, how does one go about supporting themselves. So what, what are some like steps that they could take? So like, if you, you want that support or you're not getting that support, how do you support yourself?

I think that's a good question. And it's gonna come down to honestly like self, self-love and self-care activities, right? And so how would you support a friend going through this? And again, support is not a bad thing. I don't want to say that like there's no need for people in your life and you, right, are this independent Person that has no need for community. People are very, very important, and a support system is an amazing thing. But the point being, like, you want to be there for yourself first and foremost, and all of that is icing on the cake, right? All of that is icing on the cake. So, but I want you to think about, or something that you can think about, is how would I support a friend going through this, right? Maybe you would take a friend. Like, if I had a friend going through like a breakup or a hard time or whatever, depending on where they were in the world, I'd go and visit them. Or I'd invite them to stay maybe for a couple days or a week or whatever it is, and, you know, just hang out, go for walks, go for hikes, have coffee, talk or not, you know, kind of depending on, on the situation or different times, and just kind of pump them up and be like, hey, you're, you know, you're gonna get through this. You've got this. It's okay to feel however you feel right now, and there's light on the other side of this, and it doesn't feel like it, but you're gonna, you're gonna, you're gonna be able to do it. It's going to be great. You're okay, right? You just kind of like reinforce those things. And so thinking about how could I best support somebody else, it's not any different than supporting yourself, right? And so supporting yourself is going to look like taking time for yourself and doing things that you enjoy and doing things that are good for you. How can you best support yourself? You can take yourself into self-care situations, right? Maybe that's going for walks. Maybe that's, you know, taking a little, a little trip if you can. Just doing things that support you. I want you to think about right now, like, what are some actions that you can take or things that you can say to yourself that will support you through this recovery journey? In the chat box there, give me something in the chat box. What are some actions that you could take, things that you could say to yourself that will support you through this recovery journey? It's a good question, right?

Yeah.

What could you do today to show yourself support? How would you show a friend support? How would you show a loved one support? What would you do for them? You could buy yourself flowers, right? Seriously, that's, you know, that's what I sometimes do depending on the situation for a friend or family member that needs some support or some love or just, you know, to kind of make their day. Buy yourself flowers. Take yourself out to dinner. You know, take yourself to the beach and hang out with yourself. Read a good book. You know, take a day of just to do whatever with no pressure, you know, and sit and play music and listen to— go out on the porch and listen to music and Hang out with your dog, go for walks. I love that. Maybe take a walk by the river, right? There's all sorts of things that you can do to support yourself. We often just don't think about supporting ourselves. We think about supporting other people and what it means to support other people. Again, the point of the conversation is not to say that other people aren't important, but you want it to be icing on the cake. You want to be in a point where you can support yourself. That doesn't mean you always exclusively do that.

Yeah. It doesn't mean isolating yourself and just doing nothing. It's just, that's, that's where the core of it is. And like Kayleen said, everything else is icing on the cake. Like there were so many times in my recovery where just me being held by Kayleen, having a, having her hug me and hold me. And like, it allowed me to open my heart even more. And that support was amazing. So it's not to say that those things aren't helpful, but the majority, the vast majority of my progress happened when I was alone.

Mm-hmm.

The vast majority of my support came from me. And I know the same thing was from you.

Yeah.

It's like, yeah, I, I maybe even 99%, like quite, quite honestly, but like those, those moments are very strong moments at the same time. Like when we're, when we're there to be able to support each other in the way of like, be there for each other in a positive way. Like that's not a bad thing. Like that's, that's like, I, I don't want to take that away, but you know, that person isn't going to be there.

Yeah.

24/7. You know, most of the time you're going to be by yourself. And a lot of times just the reality of it is that if it can, if, if the other person, if, if the mindset isn't correct around support and supporting the other person, it could actually, actually put a lot of strain on the relationship and on the other person. And that's kind of just the reality of it. It's like, we don't want to think that, like, I never wanted to think that my, my pain affected Kayleen, but I know that it has. Right. And she was, she was willing to help me through that, right. As I was willing to help her through that as well. But that's the thing about it too, is like, if you, if you lean too hard on a relationship and you expect somebody else to save you or to help you through everything, then you could just, the reality is, and you know, it's a painful reality, but you can strain that relationship or you can hurt that person. And it's not, again, it's not something like anybody likes to think about, but it's kind of just the reality of it. So there's nothing wrong with having support like that, but the majority of it is going to come from you, right? Because you're with you 24/7. You're in your head 24/7. You're in your body 24/7. So you might as well learn how to support yourself through this. And that, that's, that's how you're going to make the biggest leaps and bounds forward in recovery anyways, is, is learning how to do this process yourself, learning how to support yourself, not leaning on, not fully leaning on a therapist or not fully leaning on somebody else to help you through this, but learning how to support yourself. And that's what this is all about. It's about empowering you. It's not about saying all the, all these other things are bad. It's not about saying therapy is bad or, you know, getting a hug from a loved one or your mom is a bad thing. It's like, those aren't bad things, but you can't rely on that. Like those things aren't going to give you, get you to where you want to go. Only you can get you to where you want to go. So that's, that's a really important piece because it's not about isolating yourself. It's not about saying no to support if support is there. Be like, nope, I'm doing this all by myself. And You can't support me, but that's where the majority of the progress you're going to make in your recovery journey is going to come within you, not from without you.

And I like the term, and this was really helpful for me on my recovery journey, like, you want to rescue yourself, right? You don't need to be rescued. You're the rescuer and the rescuee, right? So you want to rescue yourself. You have the ability to rescue yourself, whether it's just from being triggered or it's, you know, from a bad day or Or whatever it is that's going on, you can rescue yourself. You absolutely have the power and the capability to do that. And like Brad said, everything else is icing on the cake. So some different ways that we can support ourselves. We can take self-care actions. I want you to think about how you can support yourself internally in your mind. This is maybe the biggest thing, right? So the most obvious thing is, okay, you can take yourself for a walk and get yourself flowers. You can, you know, go out, hang out in nature. You can volunteer. There's all sorts of things that you can do, right? But what's going on internally to support ourselves? I support myself at an unbelievably high level still, mostly just because it's a habit, not necessarily 'cause I need it, just because I had to build this habit on the recovery journey. And so constantly my thoughts are like, you've got this, Kay, you're doing awesome. Like, you're, you're almost done with this, and then you can go do that other thing that, you know, that you wanna do or that you're looking forward to. Or just like, slow down, you can do this, right? Like, whatever it is, right? I tend to like rush things, right? So it's like, hold on, slow down. It's gonna be faster if you just focus on one thing at a time, right? And so that's all support. You're, you're coaching yourself in your head. That's all support. So I want you to think about what's going on in your head and how you can best support yourself. And what's really cool about that, and for me, I, I speak out loud a lot, meaning like I speak to myself out loud when I'm alone and when I'm not alone. And when you do something and you celebrate yourself and you support yourself, if and when you start to do that aloud, other people immediately are gonna jump on board. And that is the coolest phenomenon I've ever seen. Right? I will do something, whatever it is, and no matter who I'm around, if I say out loud, like, go Kay, like, good job Kay, everyone around me will also be like, good job Kay. Like, and they, they have no idea really, like, why they're doing it. But it's cuz first I got the ball rolling. Yeah. I celebrated myself. And it's something silly. It's like throwing a can in the trash can from, you know, across the, the room or whatever it is. And that's all that it is. And I'm like, good job, Kay. And then like—

Swatting away a can that your loved one is trying to Get into a trash can across the road, which is, which is what Brad does, right?

And then he is like, good job, Brad. Right. And so, yeah, Brad, it cultivates this energy of support and honestly energy of support for yourself, but it also just kind of makes others feel good. So something to think about internally, how can you support yourself?

Yeah, that's huge. I will say one thing, one, one kind of caveat to all of this. If you're, if you're ever in a place Where I don't want to get dark right at the end, but if you're like you're in a place where where you feel like you might be in danger of hurting yourself or somebody else, that's a time to reach out to support to get someone to help you think clearly. And I've been in a dark place like that, and people have helped me. And I know Kayleen's been in dark places like that. And you know, in in that time, there's no shame in ever reaching out. I want to say that at the end of all this, there's never any shame to reach out when you need it. There are people. Who will help you, who will support you through that. So it doesn't mean you have to be in this all by yourself. It means the core of this will will come from you. But if you're ever in danger, if you ever are in a dire situation like that, there are so many good people out there who will help you. And reaching out for support is such a valuable thing. So I want to say that at the end too.

And won't damage the people that you reach out to.

No, no.

Thing to think about too, you know. And and I I like that you brought that up, right? Yeah. There there is a time and a place, and there there's no shame, and there's no harm in reaching out for support.

There's no shame.

All working to do is, is cultivate the best version of yourself, the, the strongest version of yourself that eventually won't need those things.

Because if you knew how many people actually felt that same way, you'd be like, oh, there's absolutely no shame in this. Like, so many people feel this. It's like ridiculous how many people feel that way. So that's it.

Not to be dark at the end, but you know, so a lot, a lot of wavelengths, because it can go in so many different directions, right?

And there's so many different nuances to just a single question. And you try to fit them all in.

But so again, a lot of different wavelengths today, but the core is building up you as an individual so that you get to the point where you are strong and independent and you'll start to know and it'll get a lot more obvious. The more healing that you do, you'll figure out, is this— am I asking for support because I'm trying to fill a void that I have that I need to heal? Or, you know, am I looking for support because It's because it's icing on the cake, right? Because it's something that would benefit me but is not the end-all be-all. And it gets more and more clear the more healing that you do. So yeah, a lot of things to think about here today.

Yeah.

And what I challenge you to do today, and what I want you to do today, is pick one external way to support yourself. Show yourself support. Buy yourself flowers, whatever it is. Take yourself for a walk. Go for a bath. Whatever you want to do, right? Bubble bath. Bubble bath today. One external thing, and I want to do like 100,000 internal things, but one internal thing as well. So just pick one phrase right now. If you can share in the chat box, absolutely do it. One phrase that you are going to repeat to yourself throughout the day, throughout the weekend here, that is going to show yourself support. Just one little phrase. So let me know in the chat box there. We'll move into our Q&A. If you have any questions, feel free to get them in the chat box. Next week is our Boundary Boot Camp, so you can absolutely look forward to that. We are very, very excited about that. And I can't wait.

Yeah. So Boundary Bootcamp next week, going to be incredible the entire week. We're going to get you a date for that health and wellness coach that we're going to bring on. Our hopes and our plans is if you guys enjoy that, that type of kind of content, that's more focused on health, fitness, wellness, overall wellness, kind of on a physical sense, nutrition, things like that, and how to incorporate that, because we're all about kind of Optimizing everything and making everything the best it can. And like, that is definitely a big part of mental health as well and recovery. So we want to bring that to you as well. I'm not an expert at that stuff. So we wanted to bring somebody in to kind of see if that was something you guys were interested in. So definitely look forward to that. We're going to give you an exact date as soon as Kayleen has that fully scheduled. So we'll give you a date and a time. It's not going to be during the regular time. So it's going to be on— we'll probably stream it live in the group, but. It'll be probably, I don't know, we'll, we'll give you a time, but you can look forward to that as well. That's going to be exciting.

And yeah. Yeah. So a lot of exciting things. Like Brad said, if that's something you guys enjoy, we can make that kind of a monthly special guest. He's a really cool guy. He is an expert on a lot of different things and especially in those areas. Absolutely. Some, someone that we look up to and he's my personal coach in multiple different ways, which is, and he's also our landlord actually.

So that's funny.

Yeah. I forgot about that. All right. So I love, I love, love these phrases. Helene sharing, you've got this. I love you. What an amazing support phrase. Mimi sharing, I'm on top of this. Larry sharing, positive self-talk replacing the auto-no. Absolutely. That's awesome. Bonnie sharing, I've never quit on myself and I'm now a better version of me. I love it. Love it. Love it. Lorraine sharing, support for oneself. Eat very well. Food affects mood, which is something that Ryan can talk about when he's on here too. Exercise regularly and get great sleep and regulate your thoughts. Poor self-talk hinders success. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, eating well, exercising, those self-care, self-love activities, right? That's part of my kind of self-care, self-love health routines, right? I get up 5 days a week and I do my workout and I, I make good food choices during the week, right? That's me showing myself, hey, I love you, I care about you, I support you. And I want you to be healthy and live forever. Bonnie sharing, I took the time to look back and find things I had accomplished even through the trauma. There were big things that I had done and I completely forgotten in all the darkness. Breaking through all the feelings of I am useless, it really helped me find that positive. That's an amazing thing, Bonnie. So sometimes we'll do an exercise we call like the silver lining exercise, and it's basically about finding the good from what seems at first Very, very dark, very, very cloudy, right? And finding that one good thing or the good thing that came from it. And at first, it's a really, really challenging exercise. Really challenging because your brain wants to go down one route, which is, this is the worst thing ever. And there are always different ways to get perspective on things. There are constantly, there are always different perspectives. So if you ask me now, I'm removed from the situation. I can give you a completely different perspective, for one, because I was not directly involved. Right. I could say, well, actually, we'll hear something good from it. Right. But the power comes from being in that situation and being able to shift your perspective to find that silver lining. And that becomes a skill that you build. That's awesome, Bonnie. Claudia sharing, I've started implementing the red light positive self-talk you two do. Sometimes I laugh and feel silly, but then I start smiling and ramble off a dozen loving compliments to myself. Claudia, that's an amazing, amazing Amazing. There's a red light I sit at every day and they just changed it. It was a really, really long red light, like long enough where I actually had to start running the light. It was like that long. I thought it was broken. And, and I was sitting there doing that activity and I was like, wow, this is like an incredibly long red light. And they just changed it and it's like the fastest red light ever. So I have to go really, really, really super fast.

That's awesome though.

I love that. Larry's saying, give your pets the time that they need and deserve. That's a great way. To support yourself, and of course you're also supporting those animals as well, which is great.

Sometimes getting out of yourself and just showing love, right? Showing love whether it's to a pet or somebody you care about—it's like it gets you out of everything and gets you feeling love in your heart, and that can can help you heal. Yeah, it's a beautiful thing. And you can volunteer. Kaylee won't let me get a dog. No, I'm just kidding.

Ryan won't let you get a dog. I know.

Our landlord won't let me get a dog. Yeah, he would.

He would actually. He actually would. He actually would. They have. But I can't—

I want a bigger dog than 5 dogs at one time. That would be allowed.

Joe sharing, for me, it's being at coaching and learning what I need to take care of me. That's awesome. I mean, self-development in general, it's one of the things we actually have on our Unbreakable Planner is there's a little section at the bottom right that says personal growth. And what that is, is basically what self-development did you do today? Because that's an important thing that, that we used to like to track and we'd like to track. Just to basically make sure that you're still growing. You're still kind of trying to reach that next level. That's an awesome self-care activity. I love it. Awesome support activity.

We have a massive Unbreakable Planner sheet over here, so that's what I was looking at.

Bonnie's sharing, one important thing I had to keep telling myself that I needed to be whole to be there for my family. I was not good for anyone the way I was. And I did buy myself flowers to celebrate winning, which I absolutely love. And that is the ultimate kind of mindset of this work when it comes to family, when it comes to loved ones, when it comes to support. support and stuff like that, it's not that you're not good enough, right? It's that you want to be able to kind of contribute to that dynamic in a healthy way. And there are ways that we can do that by focusing on ourselves. So the more that we focus on ourselves, the more that we contribute to a healthy dynamic, and the more everybody else gets better. So for me, a really big thing when I didn't love myself was I understood that concept that I love my family, I love My friends and my partner. I love my dog. Like, I love all those people. And I understand if I take this time for myself, even though I don't love myself, and at the time, like, hated myself, if I take— if I, like, heal myself and get myself whole, I'm gonna be able to contribute to them in a really positive way and bring their lives up and, and, and help them just by being the best version of me. So that's awesome, Bonnie. I love that. Do you wanna pull it out?

Do you want me to?

Sure. Just because you mentioned it. Sure. So Mimi's sharing, when I started the BTU program, I decided to tell my family about the program and then completely stopped talking about anything regarding my CPTSD to them or about my past, giving them a break. And they just told me eventually how much they saw a difference in me, how much progress I made. Last weekend, they just told me, we see you, we see the work you have done, and it feels great. Mimi, that's amazing. That's a huge amazing thing.

Awesome.

One of, to me, one of the coolest parts about recovery. There's a lot of cool parts about recovery, but it's one of those moments where it's like, it's not what you're aiming for, but it's a cool indication that other people are feeling and seeing the work that you put in. Is that, is someone to kind of look at you and say, you look great. What are you doing? You look great. Something is different. And they have no idea if you've just spent 9 months doing mental health work and healing and past trauma or got a haircut or lost weight or anything like that. But there's something.

Yeah.

different about you, and it's an energy that radiates differently. And that's a really, really cool thing for people to kind of notice and cool feedback to get because we see ourselves every day, right? And so if we're making 1% progress every day, it's like, okay, you don't really feel the difference day to day, but maybe someone doesn't see you for a while, a couple weeks, a couple months, and they're like, wow, like, because now all of a sudden you've made 60% progress. Yeah, like that. There's a big difference there.

That's incredible, Mimi. The work you put in has paid off. And that is one of the best things when other people, and again, it's not what you're aiming for, but it's like, it feels pretty dang good. Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. I can do fill in the blank. I love that one, Joe. That's awesome. That's an awesome one. My return, negative self-talk hinders success. Absolutely does. I say, you know, you can talk yourself into or out of anything. That to me is like the best indication of what self-talk can do. You can talk yourself into something and it could be something bad. You could talk yourself into eating an entire chocolate cake, or you can talk yourself out of eating an entire chocolate cake. You can talk yourself out of a negative situation, out of a trigger, out of whatever it is, or into those negative situations, or into a positive situation. And that is the power that our brain has.

Yeah.

And our self-talk has. And so the more that you practice self-talk, the more that you become aware of your thoughts, control your thoughts, the better that muscle is going to become. The stronger that muscle is going to become, and easier it is to be. It's going to be able to be a lot easier to talk yourself into the good things and out of the bad things. That is a muscle. That is a muscle. It's a skill. That's all that it is. It's not that you can't do it at first. It just feels a lot harder at first because the muscle is weak.

It's a little muscle. Oh, peewee muscle.

Oh, peewee muscle. Little bing muscle. So this is the unbreakable planner that Brad was kind of referring to when he was when he was. Staring off into space at it earlier. And this is the section I was talking about. I know it's really, really small here, but in the bottom right-hand side of the Unbreakable Planner, we have some tracking. And one of the things we have is just this little personal growth with a question mark and a blank line. And really all that is is, did you grow today? Did you learn today? Did you self-develop today? And it's a simple, like, you can just put like yes or no, or you could put exactly what you did. You know, I used to write In a different format, but I used to write like what I did, maybe what book I was reading or what podcast I was listening to or some sort of coaching like this, whatever it is. So it's a great, great thing. That's a great way to support yourself. Everything on this Unbreakable Planner is a great way to support yourself, right? By doing gratitudes, that's a great way to support yourself. By accomplishing things on your to-do list, by planning, that's a great way to support yourself. By celebrating your wins, that's a great way to support yourself. By setting yourself up for success the next day and figuring out what's going to feel good at the end of the next day. That's a great way to support yourself. By thinking about how you can improve, that's a great way to support yourself. This isn't a beat yourself up section. This is, hey, here are the things that I can do to get a little bit better, a little bit better. And then by tracking those things, another great way to support yourself. This whole document is self-love, self-support to help you kind of move in that right direction. So if you have any questions, feel free to get them in.

No pressure either way. So when do you think you'll have the date for the health and wellness guy named Ryan?

A couple, couple days probably we'll have a date. So over the weekend, probably. Yeah. Yeah. By next week, if not by the end of next week, for sure we'll have some sort of date, but we're talking about some different things in regard to topics, but you all can let us know what you're kind of looking for in regard to topics. We had presented the idea quite a while ago and it was something that people were interested in, in regard to that different area of basically how fitness, how nutrition affects mental health. And he, he is the guy to talk to about that. He's so knowledgeable on fitness. He's so knowledgeable, just like a very, very wholesome level on nutrition and the ins and outs of that and how that affects us on different levels. That's his entire life is doing stuff like that. So he's the guy to talk to for that. So I'm, I'm really excited to have him on. I'm looking forward to having him on. I don't know what he's going to talk about. Maybe he'll pick a few topics and we'll kind of go back and forth. He's kind of deciding on what he wants to chat about right now. But if you all have any questions for him, he's going to do a Q&A at the end of whatever kind of session topic that he talks about. And again, if it, if it's something that you all enjoy and find value from, we'll, we'll make sure to get him back here. So Joe Sharing, I was talking about what I posted earlier about the BTU planner and shared with my Messenger group of 4 friends. That share and provide accountability for each other. I gave them the free link to our Recovery Secrets group because they wanted to know where it came from. That's awesome. That is awesome. And Joe, if they want to be part of Recovery Secrets, they can sign up for free to, to kind of get that free trial there. So if you want to send them the link overcomingptsd.com/free, they'll be able to like sign up. So they'll get access to the platform and the bonuses and all sorts of stuff like that so that we can welcome them into the group, at least for a short period of time. And that's awesome. I love that accountability.

Hopefully a long period of time.

What did I say?

We'll welcome them for a short period of time. And then after that short period of time, they are not welcome. They're no longer welcome.

They're out, hopefully forever. Yeah. I think my brain said for at least a short period of time.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But our mission, our mission here is to, you know, provide, you know, very helpful in-depth mental health services to that is available to everybody. But our mission is, is to. Heal, heal the world's past so they can love their present and build an extraordinary future. And to do that, I mean, we would love your help to help us accomplish that mission, to help more and more people spread the word that it is possible to heal, that people can get better, that we're not stuck where we are, that things can get better, and that your past can actually be a powerful thing to propel you forward and build an exceptional, extraordinary future for yourself. It's not something that actually makes you weak or bad. It actually is something that You can use to become some, someone great. So any support, we would love it. Or if there's any way that we can support you or somebody that, you know, let us know. 'Cause you know, we're, that's what we're all about. We're here to help and help and serve in every, every way that we can.

I love it. Bonnie sharing, one of the things that helped me have more time for my healing routine was to make meals ahead of time for myself and the hubby. One less thing to take up time during the day. That's an awesome thing. And I remember you doing that, Bonnie.

That's awesome.

I remember that in like B2 Live hearing about that, you know, just like making meals ahead of time. So, you know, you basically systematizing your life so that you can have that time for yourself. And what I really like about that is how independent you were in like figuring that out, right? And so it wasn't like, oh, I don't have time because I have all this to do during the day. It was how can I make time? Okay, well, let me try this. Maybe I can make meals ahead of time and free up that time during the week. So it's going to take a bigger chunk of time up front, but I'm gonna be able to get that time consistently during the week. I mean, that's like the epitome of independent healing.

I love that. Sneeze?

Kind of. I did sneeze. And all right, so I don't see any more questions. Amazing, amazing job here today and throughout the week in this session. Make sure you stick around. Next week is our Boundary Bootcamp, which we are so excited about. We'll have our health and wellness coach Ryan on in a couple of weeks, if not sooner. We're gonna do a Coffee with Coaches sessions in a couple of weekends. And just a lot of, a lot more fun to be had. So Larry's sharing, what is the best way to talk to yourself? That's a great question. It's a great question, Larry. The short answer is positively. The longer answer is to, you know, cultivate talking to yourself, to cultivate that self-talk. You can do it aloud. If you're having a hard time controlling what's going on in your mind in regards to self-talk, you can start to do this aloud. Right? And you can just do it kind of under your breath. It doesn't matter what people think. Doesn't matter. You're building a habit, and this is more important than what anyone else thinks. And this doesn't have to be a forever thing, although like I said, I still talk aloud— out loud a lot. She does. You can talk to yourself out loud. So this is something I used to do. It was tremendously helpful on my sobriety journey, specifically when I needed to get in control of my thoughts, when I needed to really dial them in and have them be something very, very specific. I would speak them out loud, right? So now I could control my thoughts in my head, but when I needed it even more powerfully, even stronger, even more focused— excuse me— I would stand in the mirror and I would say them out loud. So you can start to say these things out loud. And when you know, like, when you're saying these things out loud, what you're doing is you're saying them out loud, but you're also saying them in your head. And so you're kind of become— it's easier to become aware of what's going on, and it's easier to basically fill those things, fill that self-talk with positive self-talk because you'll be saying it all out loud. So there's a bunch of ways that you could do that. You could, I mean, write down like maybe 15, 20, 50, and 100 if you want positive things to say to yourself and you just read off that list out loud for like as long as you want, basically to build the muscle. That's like working out. I would consider that like very much like a workout. You're working out. You're saying, this is, we're, we're going this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, this way, this way. And kind of showing your brain, here's what we're going to do, right? And you can like literally do something like that, or you can just speak out loud during your day. You can speak out loud when you face challenges. You can speak out loud all the time again to cultivate this. And then you'll notice where it starts to get negative if you're saying it out loud, or you might notice when I stop saying these things out loud, then they get negative and bring it back to taking control of those thoughts.

Not related.

No, I know.

Okay. Watching me.

Yeah. I was wondering if you had any. Nope.

Just an idea.

Okay. All right. So amazing job everyone. Larry, I hope that helps. You can let us know if, if it did. And I hope you all have an amazing, amazing weekend. I'm so excited for our Boundaries Bootcamp next week, so you can absolutely look forward to that. And then the week after, we'll be back to kind of a round robin schedule with our topics. We'll continue to vote on topics, so continue to submit topics. You can submit a topic anytime through the platform. So if something pops into your head, make sure that you submit it so that we can vote on it, so we can get it covered in Recovery Secrets, because we want to help you specifically with what you're going through. The submitted topics have been amazing, amazing, amazing so far because we get to talk about topics in a different way, in a way that relates to specifically what you're going through in kind of a given week, month, or moment.

Also, on a side note, on a very— maybe not very future update, but I am Working on, and it's going to be months before this is done, but I want to give you guys a quick update. I'm working on a a new platform for for Recovery Secrets because I know we've heard it time and time again that you know Facebook isn't the most. I don't particularly like Facebook. It's very easy to get caught in it. So we're I'm I'm building a all-inclusive platform where we can have the Recovery Secrets coaching library. We're going to have a coaching roadmap for you to go through step by step, a dashboard, a community, just like Facebook built in on this one platform, have an app on that. Also some forums where you can get more in-depth Q&A questions and support from us. But all in all, it's going to be an amazing platform. It's going to have everything just like Facebook does, the notifications, the messaging, connecting with other people, but it's going to be our own kind of unique platform to us. So you can actually go and do away with all the social media stuff that's negative and addictive and things like that. And you will be able to have this one cohesive site where everything is in it. So that's something that's in the plans as well, because we're always looking to make this better. We're always looking to improve things. So that's something that's on the roadmap for to be built over the next, let's say, 3 to 6 months. So just something else to look forward to. But Kayleen skedaddled because she has to get ready for a Broken to Unbreakable Q&A. So if you guys are part of Broken to Unbreakable, she is going to do that right now. But thank you guys so much for showing up today. I'm really, really, really hope that you guys found value in this. I hope you guys have a fantastic weekend and I look forward to seeing y'all on Monday.

Hey everybody, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you want to learn more about how you can coach with with me directly, there's a link in the description you can check out. There's absolutely no pressure. The main thing is I wanted you to get value from this episode here, but I hope you have a fantastic day and I'll see you in the next one.