Turning Pain into Purpose: A Journey of Post-Traumatic Growth (Episode #73)

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Something about you that I can't help but smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh. Something's around.

Welcome to the human intimacy podcast. Dr. Kevin Skinner, Marianne Michaelis. Marianne, it's a Beautiful day.

Well, Dr. Skinner, today is a fantastic day and I'm so thrilled to be here.

To our listeners, we're going to be talking about post Traumatic growth. We've talked a lot about ptsd, post traumatic stress that is often a byproduct of infidelity and sexual betrayal, and how the betrayed partners experience a lot of PTSD symptoms. But we want to turn our attention to the growth process, shifting away from the trauma and into growth mindset. A few years ago, Richard Trudeshki and Lawrence Calhoun wrote an assessment called the Post Traumatic Growth Inventory where they looked at different dimensions of how we grow through difficulty and adversity. And today we're going to be talking about specifically how to grow through adversity. Marianne, where would you like to start us today?

Well, as you know, Dr. Skinner, I've already shared with you a little bit just before we started that today is really a momentous day. I just have to start there and then we'll go backwards.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Because this is really deeply personal for me. And today I'm going to share some of the the reason why and what it's looked like for me in my own journey. But the reason why I'm saying this is such a momentous day is because today, just like an hour ago, the US Supreme Court ruled on the Free Speech Coalition versus Paxton, which is the adult industry, the porn industry versus the state of Texas regarding age verification laws for children. And the Supreme Court upheld that. It is legal and it does not violate the Constitution to protect children online through age verification. This is so, so huge. And this is a really big part of my own personal story, of my own post traumatic growth.

So hopefully those of you watching on YouTube can see Marianne's excitement. But maybe more important is it's going to influence what I've been referring to as the wild, wild west of the Internet and give more structure for age verification. Are there any other things that we ought to be aware whereabout related to this new ruling?

Well, it changes a lot of things. It changes, first of all, that in order to access porn, instead of 62% of children being targeted and finding porn last week without even looking at it, it's now creating some age gating, which means that if I want to look at porn, I need to be able to verify that I'm over 18. That needs to happen from the porn sites and those who are sharing and pushing the adult content. And so it's just some gates to help create some safety. You know, it's kind of like with a toddler, you put up gates so they can't fall down the stairs. That's basically what this ruling does. I do think it's important to look at this as a beginning. For the last couple of decades, we had the explosion of the Internet. We didn't really know what it really meant. We don't have a lot of data and research on how this has impacted kids because we don't do a lot of research on kids.

Right.

And how porn impacts them. So we've been in this no man's land. And so this is now saying no, we've got some definitives. But I also think that this is also pivotal because if I'm a billion dollar industry built on exploitation of human beings, sexual exploitation, I'm going to go somewhere. And we're also standing on the brink of this new abyss of AI and I believe that it will be shifting. And so we'll probably need some more legislation and more protections for children. Once again, the courts have said this isn't about protecting adults. They can do whatever they want to do. But children need some protections.

Yeah, well, no different than say tobacco or alcohol age verification. If I want to go into a store and purchase either of those, I need to. Right. So that's really what we're saying here. That's what the ruling is, is now randomly getting online. I'm going to need to verify if I'm going to intentionally choose to look at pornography. Sure.

And I think that can feel alarming to a lot of people. Like, oh, no, part of the Supreme Court case. The Free Speech Coalition said, well, this is going to have really a chilling effect. It's going to make people think twice before they do. They may be worried about what does age verification mean? But I think it's also important to realize that a lot of the Internet was built by this industry.

Right.

You need to be 18 to have a credit card. You can do age verification just through possession of a credit card. So there's a lot more out there. It's a lot simpler and easier than we think. And this isn't new. A lot of the European nations, a lot of other nations have already done this.

So we're not leaving this out. This is something that's been done in other countries, European years identified. So let's do a couple things, and I know you're excited to talk about this, relaying this to the Post Traumatic growth. There's a story there that you're excited to share that I think is important for our listeners because this has been a journey for you, Marianne. In fact, you went to Washington, D.C. as they were presenting their cases, if I recall. Right. And so now we've been waiting and waiting and waiting. And today is the day.

Today is the day we've been waiting for. Anxiously. Yes. So, yeah. So I want to jump in if I can then just to.

Yeah, please.

For me, when I look at post traumatic growth, when I look at healing, when I look at recovery, I think we have to find meaning, we have to find a way. Like this is existentialism at its core. What is my purpose? What is my meaning? What is the meaning of this? And so I want to back up just in my own story in 2015, so 10 years ago, I remember sitting in a group of betrayed partners and the therapist saying, you know, we were talking about sometimes religious leaders or other people can say really damaging things that they don't understand. Betrayal, trauma and recovery. And this specific individual said, sometimes we have to be the educators.

Right.

And those may not be the exact words, but that was what I heard. And that has, like, echoed down the chambers for me for 10 years. Sometimes it falls on us when we've gone through hard things, when we've gone through traumatic things. There is power that comes in finding purpose and meaning. Viktor Frankl's book is all about that. So it's about finding meaning in the moment and finding our why.

Maybe this is the best way I can say this is from all experiences. We have to give it meaning. Everything that we experience, we have to give it Meaning. And more often than not, we don't give it meaning because it was just meaningless. But when events, maybe discovery or maybe a car accident or maybe any other traumatic event, our brain pays more attention to. To things that are more emotional to us. So the stronger the emotion, the stronger the imprint upon our minds. So any intense experience is going to. We're going to pay more attention to it. It's just the way our brains work. So that makes a lot of sense to me. Right. So we've got to make sense of every experience. And yet when it's traumatic based, our brains go up. I gotta pay close attention to this. What do I do with this? And that's what you said, right? Maybe we're the ones who were teaching. Maybe I'm the one who's giving a voice to this experience, making a difference.

And what I think is really important about that. Melody talks about victimhood. It can be really easy to say, this happened to me, I'm a victim. I didn't ask for this, I didn't agree to it. I didn't know it was gonna happen to me, and I'm not okay with it. We all have lots of things that happen to us where we are into that victim place. Melody says we have a nanosecond for a nanosecond. We grieve and we go through that. I was a victim. I didn't choose this. I didn't want this. But we can't thrive there. We can't heal in that victim place. And so we grieve that, we acknowledge it, and then we have to get up and we have to move on. I want to clarify also this finding the meaning, at least in my own story, a door opens here and a door opens there. It's not. I just don't want to paint the wrong picture. Yeah.

More important because I think in that journey and as a therapist, when I look at clients who are really in the healing journey initially, there's this mindset of maybe I'm not enough, maybe I'm a failure. Maybe I've let everyone down, maybe I'm stupid, maybe I'm unlovable. Right. And then as the meaning shifts, and which it really does is people heal. I am enough. I am lovable, I am important. You start to see this process and. But my relationship's struggling and so I'm doing okay. But the relationship's hard. And so it's not just a smooth path, as you're saying, as we give meaning to this. But growth is a likely outcome as we start Turning and learning and growing, because that's what I want to learn from you today. Marianne is. Okay, so that was 2015, 10 years ago. If I was to ask you to describe the path. Are we playing Chutes and ladders, where we start and we go back three steps and we. Right. What does this actually look like for you? To the point where today you're sharing this, making a difference in thousands of.

People'S lives, I think shoots and ladders is pretty apt. That's what it's felt like. You know, for me, I believe that all healing is spiritual, that there's a spiritual component because it's about congruence with ourselves. And. And I'm a woman of faith. And so for me, part of my journey, a big part of my journey, has been reaching up to my higher power and looking for that meaning and looking for when I maybe don't have the attachment with my spouse because of the betrayal, I've had to look someplace else for, am I okay? Am I enough? And for me, that's been my higher power. That's been a place where I've really. And, you know, when we talk about healing, growth, there's usually 12 steps that we talk about that incorporate that. For some of my clients, they struggle with that, where they don't necessarily have that to fall back on. But what I found is even if we talk about a family member who's passed away, like, my grandma really, really loved me, we can even pull that into, like, what would my grandma say right now? But finding a place where we can look outside of ourselves for love, perspective, and connection, I. I think is a really important, essential element of this healing recovery journey.

You know, Marianne, as you described this, going back to that research, by Post Traumatic Growth they're talking about, you developed more of an appreciation for elements of your life, things that maybe in the past we took for granted, but now I'm like, I actually appreciate this friendship or this part of. Because I've had to lean on somebody. So I have a deeper connection if we've been fortunate enough to find that person. Or maybe appreciation for myself, like, realizing, you know, I. I'm actually. For so long, I thought I was maybe negative. There's something negative about me, and I realized I can do hard things.

Yeah.

And to me, that's the growth that we're looking at is. Is the resiliency. I run groups for men and women, and I'm telling you, some of the most resilient people, listening to their stories and how they work through things and their Growth and their commitment to growth. It's absolutely something that's one of the most beautiful things that I've observed.

Hmm. I love that. One of the maybe jaw dropping kind of stopping exercises that I experienced probably about a year into my healing recovery journey, was when somebody said, you know, I want you to take a piece of paper. It was a therapist who said, take a piece of paper. And I want you to draw a line down the middle. And I want you to write on the left side, like, this is what it looked like when I started. This is where I was a year ago. And I want you to write, this is where I am now. And to be able to look at and compare. Most of the time, in the moments we don't notice we're living in the moment, especially in trauma, other people can look and say, like, oh, my goodness, how could you do that? We don't have that outside perspective. But taking that step back and looking, we see the growth. But usually in the moment, it's like when you look in the mirror every day, oh, do I look any different? I don't know. We don't see it.

It's imperceptible in many cases. So, Marianne, a couple concepts you already talked about. One is it deepens relationships. When we're growing, something happens, and it usually is that we begin to create connections with people. And that's one of the things I've observed in the groups that I run is they start, many of them who have said, I've been so alone, I felt isolated. I couldn't talk with anybody. And now part of the growth process is actually creating connections, support. And you described what Your experience was 10 years ago. How many of those people are you still friends with? Yeah.

And because of the therapist that was in the group that really encouraged me, I ended up meeting you. And I've been really incredibly influenced by the really good people, the mentors that have been in my life as I have walked through this journey.

So because you entered in the path, you met somebody, and then that person introduced you, then I got to know you through when you were becoming a certified sex addiction therapist. But if I look at this process, I'm going to say how many others were key or influential in your journey?

Oh, yeah, there's been hundreds. Let me slow it down just a little bit. Cause I want to almost highlight some of the rockier spots if I can.

Yeah, let's do some rocks.

So I hit a point where I had to really have some hard conversations with my higher power looking for that Meaning and purpose and saying, if you knew that I was going to experience these things, if you knew that all these things that I didn't know, what's the purpose of this? There's gotta be a greater good for this. What can I find in this? And when I started asking those questions and saying, help me figure out how to utilize this in a healthy way, or in a way, like, help me find some meaning from this, because I don't want to just suffer this and just, like, stuff it in a box and not have anything come from it. So if there's a reason behind this, help me understand and see it. I'm open and willing to that. And then my husband lost his job, and then we moved from Florida, where I love, like, in Florida, there were amazing community and connections, and we were so held there. I had some really great relational or just relationships there. We moved to across the nation, to Washington State. I didn't find connection. I was struggling so much. Somebody said, marianne, you need to become a therapist. You need to go back to school. If I had been fully fulfilled, if I had been thriving relationally in this new space, I probably wouldn't have gone back to school. But because it was so hard, I said, I've got to do something with this. And so that pushed me to getting my degree, going back to grad school. And so there were some really hard places in there that, because of the scarcity of connection that I really needed, it was like, okay, I've gotta channel this into finding some meaning to help others with this.

So part of the meaning that you say that you're giving to it is like, I'm gonna help, I'm gonna contribute. I'm gonna be engaged in this process of educating and informing, and then in the process becoming a therapist to really help people who are suffering.

I don't want anybody to have to go through what I've gone through. How can I make it better for somebody else? Especially related to this case, the Supreme Court case that we're talking about today. As I was in grad school, our school district gave all of the students, like 15,000 students, Chromebooks, which happens in a lot of places. They gave them to them, and they didn't have appropriate filters. And I had several parents come to me because they knew that I was pretty vocal in this area. And we had actually started an anti pornography coalition in that time, just trying to educate people about the harms of pornography. People came to me and said, hey, like, what do we do with this? And so we started going to School board meetings for 18 months, we went to school board meetings and said, hey, you've got to do something. This isn't okay. We've got to protect our kids. And the school board just kept saying, yeah, they just were so non receptive. And I worked so hard and when I walked away, I was just gutted. They did nothing. They refused to do anything. And I, oh, that was like the Chutes and Ladders. I can't do anything. What do I do? Like there's nothing I can.

A helpless state is like, I put all my energy, all my heart into this. And the outcome, it was meaningless. It didn't change anything.

And then I picked myself up and I said, fine. Like my little fighter defiant part said, fine. Now I'm, I get a little feisty sometimes. I'm going to go to the state level. Then if I can't do anything locally, I'll go to this state. And I started working with my representatives on some legislation and it got bogged down and it died. And so once again I was just like, oh man. And so I focused on working with my clients. And then last fall, somebody came to our CSAT community of sex addiction therapist and said, hey, is anybody interested in working on some advocacy work regarding online verification for porn? And you should assume I was like, me, me, me, pick me, pick me. And here's the part that I've really found a lot of redemption in my story of the pain that I've gone through. Like that, that finding that why was realizing when I was helping write this amicus brief which was part of the Supreme Court case, I was able to cite, I was able to go back through all of those school board minutes from the meeting minutes that were published. They were online, they were official record. And so the, some of the arguments that we used in the amicus brief, I could say, hey, here's a newspaper article where it talked about this. Here's all the parents upset about it. Here's all the students that were showing up at the school board meeting saying, we don't want this. There, all of those efforts of that 18 months weren't for naught. They were.

And isn't that an interesting thing, Marianne? Right? Because it, if I'd asked you at the time where the school board rejected or didn't respond and the state got bogged down, if I'd asked you in those hopeless moments, like I just wasted 18 months or I wasted all of this time and then came the part which we often find in growth. It's not in vain. Something Positive happens, you get a little bit of momentum. And that is the beauty of post traumatic growth. And what I tell my clients is, look, I don't know when relief comes, but you're going to start having more and more moments of relief and less of this weight that you feel with a trauma or even an addiction. Because when you put your heart into something and you keep getting information, you attend groups, you get a sponsor, you have support, you begin to imperceptibly feel and think differently. Just this week, I was talking with an incredible couple lovely people, and I had them go through an exercise. And as they went through the exercise, I said, okay, now that we're done with this part of it, where would have you been a year ago? And their scores, they said, we would have been much lower in most of these categories. And that while it may be imperceptible to those going through it, you begin to recognize, oh, my gosh. But, yeah, where are you going to be next year? Where are you going to be in two years? Or where are you going to be in 10 years? Marianne, where are you today?

And let me just look at that. Dr. Skinner, I know that you're here because of your experiences. We find passion, we find meaning because of the things that we've experienced. And one of the parts I think that's so important about post traumatic growth is getting to the place where we work through the shame and where we can say, I'm going to tell my story. I'm going to share this. When I started working with some other individuals on this case, Let me just clarify. I was like a very small drop in the bucket on this case. I don't want to make that sound bigger than it is, but I'm very proud to have been involved and to have spoken out, but I know that I'm a small bucket. But what was really beautiful in January when we went to DC Just as they were hearing this case, we met with other organizations and individuals who are equally, if not more passionate than I am about protecting kids online. And each person that came or these organizations that came to this space, we participated in a couple of briefings that were there. And I can't tell you how many people said, this has impacted my life. I've struggled with porn. This has been hard for me. And they were there, they were able to talk about it, and they were able to channel and say, I want to help other people. I want others to not have the pain that I've had. So there's power in finding that meaning. But also yes. Finding other people where we can talk about it and saying, hold on, let's all take our collective experiences and let's try to do something with it that can be helpful, that can be beneficial.

And sometimes that is simply feeling more peace. Right. It's not that I have to be this huge advocate or even a small part of this advocacy. It might simply be, I'm advocating for you as a human being, and we're connecting. And that's a profound way of giving back through your adversity and through your challenges is lifting someone else up.

I can tell my story and somebody can say, oh, you get it. I can give somebody a me, too. And, yeah, that doesn't have to be on a national or international stage or a stage at all. It can be allowing someone to feel seen and to feel felt. Because I get it. Because I've also had grief. I've also felt betrayed. I've also felt hurt. And we are inspired, I believe, by other people's stories, by hearing how other people have gotten through these really, really hard things. It gives us hope in humanity.

And what stands out for me there is. I see your strength, and that's motivational. Like I. You're doing, I can do it. We can do it. And then the momentum begins to move forward because there's hope, because there is a path. Wait, you're doing this. You've been through this. You understand it, and this is how I'm seeing you. Wow. Maybe I can get there. And so there is a power. And that momentum that you're describing there, that growth, it's hope filled.

Yeah. And usually that path, I would say for most people, at least in my experience, it's really been like, here's a door that's opening, or here's an opportunity, or here's an idea. And I've caught myself so many times sitting here going, like, do I want. Like, I don't know, should I do this? Do I want to go through this? There is doubt and questioning. It's a challenge to figure out which way. Where do I go with this? What's the right way for me?

Yeah. And we might not know. Part of the growth process is acknowledging I don't know the answer right now. I mean, there are things that are undeniably I don't have the answer to. But using Carol Dweck's work from Mindset, Right. She talks about this growth mindset. Like, I don't know the answer today, but I guarantee you that if I'm gonna. I'm gonna come up with it, I'm gonna find the answer, and I'm not gonna accept no or you can't do that as a possibility. I'm going to find a solution. And to me, that is that growth mindset that we're talking about, post traumatic growth that I don't. I'm not gonna lay down and just be the victim of this circumstance. I'm gonna find a solution. I'm gonna get stronger, we're gonna get stronger. I love it when couples take on this mindset as well. Like, we're gonna get better as a couple. We're committed to our healing. And to me, that's a beautiful thing.

I love Carol Dweck's work, especially regarding failure, like viewing failure. And I know you and I have talked about this previously, but really looking at there really isn't failure. There's just looking at that does not work today. It's about curiosity and it's about learning. And when we take that into what didn't work and how didn't that work. I love to have my clients go bowling and we talk about that walk of shame as you're coming back and everybody saw that gutter ball. And I can have a lot of shame about that, or I can go like, how do I tweak my arm next time? What didn't work? That's shifting out of that perfectionism and that shame to a. That open mindset. But there's a. Hopefully our listeners and viewers know we work with a lot of theories. Like, we look at the lens, like the world through these different ideas that people have said, maybe if we look at it through this way, this will make sense. And there's a theorist, I don't know their first name, but their last name is Crumble. And they, they had a theory about work. It's a fascinating theory. It basically says, if I'm standing at this crossroads trying to figure out which way do I go, what do I do? I can go be a psychologist and I can work with clients, or I can teach, I can be an instructor. And I just don't know which way I want to go. Crumble's theory is basically like, it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter. Because either direction you go, you will gain experience, you will gain knowledge, you will gain growth. And so I can go one direction and say, I'm going to go try to be a psychologist and realize I hate this. This is not what I really like to do. And so I can take that with me. Everything that I've learned and I can apply that someplace else. And so looking at it as we take our experiences and we can say, what is my opportunity to grow from this? What do I do with this? I'm never stuck in this one place.

Everything then can be a teacher. And it doesn't mean it's going to be easy. In fact, some of them might be absolutely overwhelming and gut wrenching. But I can take this experience and I can learn from it, and my life can be better. That may feel overwhelming today, but you might look back in five and 10 years and say, it was that moment when I was lifting the heaviest weights and now look at my muscles. The reality is, is you build your muscles and then that's a mindset of I'm. My trauma muscles, they're strong. You may say, and that's, you know, using that metaphor. The reality is, is you're resilient, you're strong, you are doing hard things.

Can I. I want to spread out that metaphor just a little bit more. So if we take that metaphor, it's like, hey, I just got a gym membership. I went to the gym and I did like two, three hours of working out. And then I come back home and I'm looking in the mirror going, like, is the muscle there yet? Like. And then I say, I'd be like, I don't. Nothing's changed. I can't see anything. I believe that even post traumatic growth, it's imperceptible. And we notice it just like when you go to the gym, you're working out or you're hiking or whatever, and then you run up the stairs and you're like, huh, that wasn't as. I'm not as winded as I was a while ago. I feel a little bit better. We often notice it kind of more in hindsight. We don't usually notice it in that moment.

So. Fun story. So 2005, I ran a marathon, and our city has a 5k. But I. So the fun run was about two weeks after my marathon. And that 5k was the easiest run I've ever done in terms of just. Just like, I got all this oxygen. I just ran a marathon. My body was still in the recovery process. And yet, because I'd pushed for 26.2 miles, that 5k was like, I found myself in mile two. Like, all this oxygen, right? This is. I'll be done in a mile. What's up with this? I guess my point here is when you push yourself, you'd be surprised at what used to set you off. What used to be More difficult. What used to be hard, you're like, yeah, I can do this. I got it. Because you've been through some of the most difficult experiences. Now it's like, okay, a 5K, that's it. That's all you got for me today. And the point is, you start to look at things and you say, I know I can get through this.

What I'm hearing you talk about is expanding our window of tolerance, which is a term or a phrase that comes from Dan Siegel, meaning that sometimes we can maybe only tolerate something that's this much. And as we stretch and grow, like you did through that marathon, Suddenly you had 26.2amount of tolerance. And so, like, that little 5K felt like nothing because of what you'd gone through. You had grown and changed, and your body had substantially changed because of that. I just want to punctuate that I'm married to somebody who's a runner. And so, like, running 26.2 miles, you just don't wake up one morning and say, I'm going to run 26.2 miles. You have a lot of long runs that go into the buildup so that you can sustain and you can get through that 26.2 months. It's not a short, easy process. It takes a lot.

I remember one specific Saturday, they say that you want to peak about a month before and then kind of go down. But I'd ran, I think, about 19 miles. Not easy terrain, but 19 miles. And I thought. And I would still have seven more after this in a month from now. And that was like. Right. Because you. Even when you're going through difficult times, you know there's more. You know, there's more. Maybe it's a couple getting ready to go through a disclosure, you know, there's more. But we've done some hard things up to this point, and what we realize is we are a resilient species. We do hard things. And sometimes the growth that we're looking for, you might not see it, but when you hang in there long enough, you do. You get stronger. And that's really. I hope our listeners today can take a message that as you go through this journey, it's not a moment. It's multiple moments stacked upon each other, one after the other after the other. And then the shoots and ladders happens, and it's like, oh, man. Nothing that did that did. That was a waste of time. No, it wasn't a waste of time. You learned maybe what didn't work.

Mm. But I would say there is something really powerful. That does happen in our moments. And it, it, it is like a refining process. It's a price that we pay to know ourselves. It's a price that we pay to know our higher power. We pay a price when we go through these refining moments and we are changed. And I have so many clients that is gone through really heartbreaking things, and they'd say, you know, Marianne, if I could change anything, I probably wouldn't. I've gone through this grueling heartache of divorce or loss or whatever it is, but I've also learned to value myself and respect myself and to create boundaries and to live more fully not allowing abuse or whatever it is. And so it is in these moments where we, you know, just to summarize Viktor Frankl's story, or what I remember of it, he was a concentration camp survivor, but he talks about in the hardest, darkest moment where they were sloshing through the mud and it was freezing cold. He was trying to stay in the middle of the pack so they didn't get beaten. It was a forced labor camp. And he talks about looking down, trying to find anything to use, like for a shoelace to keep his shoes on in that moment was so cold, so hungry, so oppressed in so many ways. He talked about the birth of existentialism was in this moment of harrowing misery. And he, he talked about, he said he cast his mind to a future place, saying, if I were standing in front of an auditorium of people and it was warm, people were well dressed and well fed, and I was standing there having to talk about what I learned in this moment, what would I tell them? It is in those moments where we really. It feels like it, maybe it can't get worse than this. This is so hard. Where do we find the meaning in those moments to keep going? That was the power that carried him through that.

And if we continue down that pathway, he talked about the depravity. And in particular, I'll never forget the part of it where he had fallen and he was on the ground and one of the guards had his gun on his shoulder or his. And his boot on his chest. And he's looking up and he's thinking, I'm freer than you are. And I think about, how do we get to that space? I often think about this in terms of someone who's trapped in addiction, who doesn't feel free at all. The person who is overcoming addictive tendencies and that they feel free, er, maybe for the first time because they've committed to their growth to their change, to be reclaiming their life. And when they're in that journey and they see themselves in a new way, like, I'm freer. I'm not. I'm not beholden to this addiction. That kind of growth is beautiful to see. Again, I referred back to the group of men that I've been working with. Just beautiful individuals in terms of the work that they're trying to put in and become better men. But I can't get this out of my mind. When they say things like, I am freer than I've ever been. My life. I feel that feeling. Not the weight of a guard with his boot on my chest and gun on my shoulder. It's a freedom of, like, I can fly. I haven't been able to feel this way for decades. That's the post traumatic growth or post addictive growth that we're actually looking for.

Yeah. I think a lot of that comes from being able to see ourselves clearly. And I don't know, I've had a lot of thoughts as you were saying that now I'm struggling to pull them together. But being able to give ourselves permission. There is so much freedom that comes from not staying in secrecy and hiding, staying in shame. That freedom comes to say, oh, here's where I'm at, and giving ourselves permission. One of the phrases that comes from 12 steps, I believe from AA is just, you know, it's one day at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time. And that's really, I think, what any growth is.

Yeah.

Post traumatic growth or not, it is in this moment. How do I get through my next breath?

Yes. And what happens there is. We don't know that answer. That's the part where as humans, we're conditioned. There's gonna be. If I don't know the answer, maybe there isn't one. But that's the interesting thing about life. There's always an answer. Now I'm gonna go a little bit more, maybe a little bit more difficult here for a second. Last night I received a phone call from my mom, and her good friend and sister is passing away. And my mom is just in a tremendous amount of just, just sorrow because they've been such good friends and just done so many things together. And I think about the growth of that kind of loss where somebody that's close to you is dying, whom you love deeply, and the emotional pain and the emotional sorrow and the grieving of that process. And I just listened to my mom and just feeling the pain of this loss that she's experiencing. And me, too. Right. I love my aunt, just a great, great lady. And my cousins. Right. Who I've been close with throughout my life. At the same time, my aunt is actually the strong one. My aunt said to my mom, it's not as bad as I thought it was gonna be. It's gonna be okay. I think about that experience and, like, how in the world is my aunt, who's. They've given her a week.

Wow. How.

How is she the one that is. This is not as bad as I thought it was going to be. How is she the one giving and building and lifting in that final stretch of this life? That, to me, is who a person becomes. It's going to be okay. We're going to find answers. We're going to find solutions. Even as we transition out of this life. That's people who have come to a conclusion of who they are, and they're not afraid, because we're all going to face that moment. We're all going to be put in that moment. And then we have to ask the question, how have I been in this life? And I daresay that my aunt should lift her head high and with confidence say, I've lived a good life. That's what I hope I can say.

My heart goes out to you and your family, Dr. Skinner. And I know that I, and so many of our listeners, our viewers, you know, as we experience loss of loved ones, these are things that are unspeakable, that we don't have the words to even be able to convey how we feel about this. And I also hear, you know, what I hear you talking about really looking at how we face our storms.

How do we face the storms? They're coming. There is not a human being that will not face adversity. Some have higher volume of adversity than others, but there is nobody who's immune. And the question is, do we get back up? Do we fight the fight? And do we do so in a way that is, dare I say, Eeyore, like? Or do we get up and we say, I'm a fighter. I'm gonna figure it out. I'm gonna go make changes. I'm gonna educate the world.

I'm.

I'm going to get involved in helping make people aware of the impact of pornography, like you're doing Marianne. I'm going to reach out. I'm going to create and participate because I want to make a difference. I don't want people to go through what I went through. That's a beautiful story.

I Think what you're talking about is connection. We go through adversity, we go through hard things. And oftentimes we find connection or we need to find connection with ourselves. We can either dissociate out of it, or we can really go internally and say, what can I learn from this? What do I learn from me? What can I learn from this moment? That's part of our emotional regulation. But also there are those moments where all we can do is turn to something higher and bigger than ourselves because the pain is so deep and so great. And in that journey, we do need connection with others. That is what we're talking about today is the human intimacy, our need, our intimate need for connection with others.

And one final point on this topic, you just described it beautifully. The research on post traumatic growth found that some kind of spiritual change occurred in people who are growing. Sometimes it's having a deeper connection with their higher power. Sometimes it's working through the anger and the frustration and the hatred and even towards God. My frustration is I feel let down and working through that and coming to this awareness or this conclusion or this place of like, he didn't let me down, my higher power didn't let me down. I've come deeper, deeper connection, deeper closeness with my higher power. And that is an other part of growth is sometimes redefining that relationship with your higher power in the recovery and in the healing process.

Yeah. As we wrap up, I think just in responding to what you just said, I think it's important just to underscore that what we're talking about today is a process. It's an evolution where we change. It's a changing experience. And it's not night and day different. It's a step at a time, a breath at a time. And it's so hard to see change or see that post traumatic growth, even in ourselves, it's often hard to see. But we're talking about a change and a growing process which we need love and support for ourselves from a higher power sources outside of ourselves and with other human beings.

Awesome. Awesome. So appreciate this conversation, Marianne. Appreciate you sharing your story and excited for what this means. The findings today from the Supreme Court, sending a message to our country in a very profound way. Right. It's time for us to take the Wild west out of the Internet, have a little bit of structure to bless and protect lives of the innocent. That, to me, is fantastic. Your story, the arc of that story, is beautiful. Thank you for sharing it.

Thank you. I can't get the smile off my face. As you can probably tell.

So if you are not watching this on YouTube, you can go to YouTube and watch this live. You I think it's a permagrine in Marianne today.

So that's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears that have gone into this work.

All right, Marianne, thank you for your time. To our listeners, we thank you. You are listening to the Human Intimacy podcast where we have been focusing so much on betrayal and infidelity and recovery. But also my hope is that it's helping you be better in your relationships, helping you understand that connection is what really matters the most. So my invitation, as I have often said, is love is a choice. Make it every day. Thanks to you, our listeners. We appreciate your time. May you be blessed. And Marianne, thank you so much.

Thank you. I'll just say amen to what you just said.

Thank you.

Smile when you smile and laugh when you laugh something surrounds you it's like you're shining, you're staring.