From Insufficient To Infinite With Jeff Forney

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Doctors podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Jeff, Jeff Forney, back on the show again.

Right, thanks for having me.

It's been too long, it's been too long. So healing, everybody talks about healing. What does healing mean to you, Jeff?

Well, I think I gave it some thought when you told me this is the subject, and I really And we just kind of mentioned it as we were just kind of shooting the breeze here before we started this. It's the gratitude and staying in a grateful spot with life. And because the more I stay in that gratefulness, my— the feeling of not being enough in life dissipates. The comparison to what was their life like? Being raised by biological parents, and I didn't have that. Um, if I stay in gratitude, all of those things that can kind of eat away dissipate, and they get, they get, uh, lessened. And I, you know, as I've said before, my adoption experience was— um, not that there isn't trauma that comes, that is, there's, uh, not that there are some things we're not dealing with, how, you know, and the term trauma is also one that we can discuss what that really means. But I had an upbringing that I really am grateful for what I did have and staying in that spot, really, I then I feel less of a need to compare and to, um, feel less than to other people. And, um, you know, it's weird. I, I, you know, you and I both do a lot in the adoption community, you interviewing and myself photographing and hearing stories. And a lot of times people have a real anger towards you know, growing up, and I get it, you know, some people are raised transracial adoptees and raised by parents that are not of their race, of their ethnicity, I prefer to say, but so there's no one to mirror off of. But, you know, what if we were all spiritual beings out there in the heavens, all equal, and we all What if we were the ones that were up for the big challenge? Someone said, "Hey, Simon, you want to come to Earth? You're gonna have a little bit of a challenge. You're gonna be raised by parents that are not technically your blood, but we think you can handle it." And I think you and you and I probably said, "I can do it." So yes, sometimes there's challenges here, and sometimes our other adoptee compatriots. You know, there are things that you know can be tough. But what if this is what we signed up for, and this is what we're going to slog it out and do? And when we get back to that big campfire in the sky one day, you and I are going to have a great story to tell because we had those extra challenges that we felt we were up to up to doing. So I, you know, I know there's that phrase or metaphor like. Life, this is just a test. And it's only a test. Had this been a real situation, then blah, blah, blah. But in a way, life is a test, because we're here on this human— we're spiritual beings on this human journey. And we're giving it a go. And so yeah, maybe it's a tough one. But that's what— perhaps that's what we signed up for. So I try to look at it a little bit of a spin like that. And if I, if I feel like, if I can, if I look at it, that this was something that I was presented as a challenge and took the challenge up as an adoptee on Earth, it, I feel more like, all right, so yeah, I got a little bit of a tougher draw than most, but let's make the best out of it. Let's, you know, so that was a very long-winded kind of response.

There's plenty there, mate. There's plenty there. That's good. Like, we've got about an hour together, so it's good that there's still stuff to talk about. Um, so, uh, what, what do you, uh, what do you see as the kind of, um, the, the difference between something that you're talking about— seems to me to be like a spontaneous gratitude from within— Um, compared to this kind of force gratitude from without. You know, we're told that we should be grateful, and that grates with us. But what you're talking about is a gratitude from within, right?

Yes, yes. And yes, I know a lot of people, you know, growing up, hey, I'm adopted. And they're like, oh, aren't you lucky? You know, and maybe I mentioned before, last time I was here, You know, I had a friend whose mom passed away in third grade, and everybody he got to grieve, and they talked about it. Well, nobody, you know, nobody. You know, I my mom died when I was three days old. Nobody. I didn't get any of that. You know, I got hey, you're a lucky guy. So, and yes, I think coming from somebody else. It, it, it's not a very helpful thing to hear it on the outside. But as I've, you know, looked at it more in the adoption and looking at life in as an entity in itself, the fact that I am here on Earth, I was not taken to Mexico and aborted in Tijuana. Because I was before Roe v. Wade. I'm just grateful I've got, you know, a family, and I got air in my lungs and a heartbeat in my chest. So I'm trying to look at it, you know, yes, we've, we've got a different set of challenges, but I'm grateful for everything that's coming. So, and it makes for better conversation at the dinner table, you know, it's It throws a little dynamic that maybe when we were younger, yeah, we were kind of angry that people are telling us we have to be so grateful. But now I am grateful that, but it's coming from within and that I've got something that, you know, we're a little more unique than the other people around. Yeah.

So did you remember when this sort of this spontaneous gratitude Do you remember the first time you kind of felt that, or that, that idea popped into your head?

I think, I think it's been, I think it's been there, but I think it's gotten bigger and the more I've understood it. But I, I was kind of, you know, even high school, university, I, I think I even had a— there was little signs of it even back then. I just, I am, I'm an optimist. And I do see things glass half full. So from there, though, learning more about adoption and my life, and even As a parent, you know, that's another thing. Adoptee parents, parents that have children, that's a whole, you know, I had a little learning moment with my younger daughter last week. And I told her, I'm like, you know, I'm still dealing with some adoption stuff. And I behaved poorly in that situation. And I'm sorry I reacted. It was something that was more deep-seated within me. And there's, so there's, there's things to learn in that realm too. But yeah, shoot, I kind of lost what you were saying there. But yeah, I feel that it's gotten, I've learned more as I've gone along and gotten stronger in my idea of the uniqueness of it all.

Yeah. Yeah. It is a So me and my missus haven't got any kids. Uh, we were very close. Unfortunately, her— she was very close to her uncle that died, and he died like, um, 2 years ago. Uh, and so close that she actually gave him one of her kidneys, right?

Mm-hmm.

And the guy didn't— the guy didn't last long after he got this kidney, uh, unfortunately. Um, he— so this is nothing to do with adoption, but this is to everything to do with parenting, this, this little example I'm going. So he was, um, His father was, um, you know, abused, abused him physically. And, you know, he was an alcoholic, um, and he used to beat up, beat on his wife, used to beat on his kid. And when that— so this guy's called Brian, right? Um, when Brian saw his son for the first time, he had this huge epiphany moment that came to him that he was not going to be how his father was to him. He was going to be a completely different dad. He didn't have a great, you know, the opposite of a role model in his own father, and he was going to completely turn it on its head.

Yeah.

And, you know, becoming a father or a mother, I'm sure, is a very profound, profound moment.

Yeah. Yeah, it was. When I, you know, yeah, I would be changing diapers and, you know, in the middle of the night and just kind of having emotional moments for myself in that I didn't have this, so to speak, to have my own biological mother or father around. And they'll never have to deal with that. And, you know, I have still not ever taken a flight with my— my wife and I have never taken a flight by ourselves since the kids. We travel as a family together. Sometimes my wife and I drive up to San Francisco from Los Angeles in a car. But are there something That I don't want to abandon my children. I know when they turn 18 and they're adults, and I'm gonna have less control of it. But I, we've never, and I realize it's something that I've kind of been. I've always kind of planned. I've directed it this way for the last 16 and a half years. Well, yeah, I won't get on a plane with my wife and leave my two kids at home. I would, I would be just, I would not like to leave them on their own. So my wife has flown with a child, or I have flown, or we haven't done that. So there's something still I don't want to be, I don't want to abandon or have what happened to me and do to my children. So there's, there's still things that I'm still dealing with at this age, middle age, you know.

Yeah. So how do you see these 2 things fitting together, this kind of, uh, internal, uh, gratitude and, and this, um— I, I think, you know, it, it's a counter. You're, you're, you're talking about the internal gratitude, your gratitude being a, a counterforce, if you like, to, to this feeling of, of not being enough. How, how do those 2 things Um, interact, relate to one another.

How does— say that again. So how does my gratitude interact?

So you've— we've, we've all got this fear as adoptees that we're, that we're not enough, right? And when we're not enough and we're, um, and we're fearful of more rejection on the basis that we're not, uh, not enough. And life is about seeing through that and seeing through that belief, you know, um, that comes off the back of the trauma. So how does— you talked about gratitude for life, and you talked about this in, in this gratitude counter, uh, being like a counterforce to your feeling not, not, you know, um, not, not being enough. How do those 2 things relate?

I think when I dip into those moments of not being enough, I have gotten better at being kinder to myself. I think in the past, I can be pretty hard on myself. But if I look at how my childhood and the relinquishment can affect things. I, I try to allow myself more leeway with stuff, and I try to talk to the inner child like, you know, the way I would talk to a friend if a friend came to me and said, hey, I, I don't know if I'm good enough for this job. What would I say to my friend? Like, You didn't get that job because you're horrible at it. You got it because you deserve it. This is what, you know, I'm trying to talk to myself more like I would to a friend or to my family member because we can say pretty harsh things to ourselves. And I've really kind of learned that saying, treat myself like I would someone else that like if Simon, if you came to me and said, hey, I'm a little concerned about this, Jeff. And also, and I would give you all the reasons why you are doing exactly what you should be doing, why you deserve to be doing this, why your podcast is doing well. Like, I would tell you all these things. And I think that helps lessen that, that inadequacy. And I really, you know, the more grateful I am, they kind of, one kind of takes over the other, and they— or they mesh together. But now it's only 30%, uh, not good enough, and 70% sitting in gratitude, or sometimes— but I want to get to 80%, 90%. There'll always be a little something, but I really, I really feel like we can spin it in our head as why we're here And, you know, I was listening to this other, uh, Gabor Maté, you know, and he was, he was saying something, but it applied to being adopted. Someone was saying, or maybe someone did ask, what would you say to an adoptee who doesn't, you know, I don't remember the question. Gabor responded and said, anybody who feels that like they were unloved, or that why did I get these parents? Or how did I end up here with this life? Well, something more empower— more important than your, your parents wanted you here, and that's called the universe. And the universe is up here, and parents are down here. Something— you needed to be here for some reason. The universe needed you here. They needed Simon here. They needed Jeff here so that we could do this and help others in our community. So it's a, it's a nice way of looking at it. That there is still a purpose for us, even though we've got, you know, we have more challenges. We're here to learn and whatever we do learn, share with others that we can all help each other out. Yeah.

So there's a sense of us being bigger than our beliefs that we're not good enough.

Yes, I believe we are totally bigger than our beliefs a lot of times are limiting. The things we tell ourselves, and we're we're we're diamonds. We're we are we are stardust, my friend. We are of the stars, and we can we are all stars. We can all do whatever we want, really. And the one thing that I got, I you know some adoptees feel like well, I my. I was raised by Caucasian parents, and I was African American, and I didn't get— and I, and I get there, there's challenges there. But at the same time, and I was raised by Caucasian parents, but I also didn't have— sometimes other adoptees have the issue of assimilating with their parents, or I, I couldn't be like them because I was not them. I, I felt out of place. In a way, my being adopted was a freedom for me. I didn't feel beholden to be— my dad was in finance, my mom was a schoolteacher. I didn't feel beholden to do what my dad did. I didn't feel beholden to do what my mom did because they knew and I knew I was not them. And I— it gave me an odd freedom that when— and especially this happened to me at university. When I told them, hey, I might get into a little something else, or I might not necessarily use my degree at this moment, might get into photography, or, you know, modeling and then photography. It was, I felt like there was not, it was, it felt it wasn't, I wasn't so concerned for their reaction. And I felt like they were going to understand it more because they knew I was not of them. So it It kind of gave me a freedom to be who I wanted. And I know some adoptees can see it as it really limited me and I got stuck and I never got to be around my, you know, my, you know, my biological roots. But if you look at it a different way, it allows you to create your own. You have your own palette to paint on. I wasn't painting with a brush that came from my mom or dad because I can't hold that brush. I biologically can't hold that same brush. So it kind of gave me a freedom to be unique.

Yeah. I came up with this, I came up with this progression idea and sometimes, somehow, sometime last year. And it was, it was the, the anguish of not, the anguish of not feeling enough. Right. And then the relief, the relief at finally feeling sufficient. Right?

Yeah.

And then the bliss of being infinite.

Yeah.

So you, you're, you're really— I, I'm, I'm with you with this, the stardust stuff, you know, this, yeah, this bigger thing. And I, I think this is something that, like, like anything else, we have to see for ourselves. You know, I came up with this line about 3 years ago. Now, there's no such thing as a— there's no such thing as a secondhand insight. We have to have them. We have to have the insights for themselves. Other people's insights, such as you are lucky, don't land for us. We have to— we have to see it for ourselves. And that's—

that's a great— that's great. That's great. I mean, go ahead. I did— I'm just clocking that in my own head right now.

Yeah. It's that, um, and then I want to bring something back down to really back down to earth on this, and it's a story I tell every now and again. I read this, read this book about an adrenaline junkie that became a junkie junkie, right?

Yeah.

Yeah. And, and he, he, so he decided to he decided to try heroin for 2 weeks to see what it was like coming off it. So he's a nutter, right? Anyway, 5 years later, he's still not off. 5 years later, he came off heroin and it was on the back of one thing, right? And he only gives one sentence On the, on the explanation, right? Yeah. He said, I realized that I was bigger than my addiction.

That's it.

That's it. That's it. I was bigger than my addiction. So it's an 11-hour book. It's called— I've name-checked it before. It's, it's by a guy called Ben Timberlake. I'll put the— I'll put— I can't remember the name of the book, but I'll put it in the show notes. But that thing, right? I am bigger than my addiction.

Yeah.

And you think, how can, how can this stupid, you know, like, well, he got that. He, he got that not as a kind of like a vague idea. He got that deep in his, his bones. And, uh, it's very— it's really pertinent to me. It all seems very pertinent to me given the amount of adoptees who are addicts, right?

Yeah.

And who and how we're all addicted to stuff in a different way, whether it's chocolate, business, retail therapy, you know, whatever, exercise, you know, like we're all addicted to something different in a different level as well as the booze and drugs which are so prevalent within the drug trade. And but it's that size of that impact and the identity piece Yeah. You know, like, um, yeah. So I don't know what you make of that.

I think that's really it. Um, we are bigger than our addiction or our adoption or whatever -tion we want to come up with. We are bigger than it. But it, you know, I think it's a rare person that comes out of the gate And is going through grammar school at the age of 8, 10 years old that is really tracking that idea. I think it, you know, I think we all go through the process of, oh, these shoes are too tight, and boy, my toes are hurting. Well, next year the shoes are still too tight, and at some point as adoptees we say, Maybe I need a bigger shoe, and we get to that bigger shoe. And yes, we did. We go through trauma of having crunched up toes for a while. Yes, we did. Did it hurt? Yep. But did we learn from it, and did we make an adjustment? Yes. So you know, when you know better, we should do better. And I think you know we. Everybody has that moment of really kind of figuring out when you learn to ride a bike, you will stub your, you know, or scrape your knee and hit your head. But then we learn it and we realize we are bigger than the bike, we are smarter than the bike, and we will not let the bike determine, you know, whether we fall or not. It's up to us. So I think, and we have a few more of those challenges than say A biological person. They they still have challenges too. We're not the only people that go around on this planet with challenges, but I think that's that's it. Being bigger than the addiction or the adoption is really key. But I think it takes time for us to get there, and I think you you kind of pulled back and you looked you you you know it's kind of like that. that box of money or whatever it is, briefcase in Pulp Fiction. They open the briefcase, the glow of light, it's like gold bar light, you know, something golden is coming out. And Simon, it sounds like you saw it and you're like, oh, I, you know, you saw it. The goal is to have that briefcase open with that light on us all the time. You know, we can't always do it. Sometimes I have bad days. But you got a glimpse of it. You saw it, and I'm you know I see that you've turned the page on that. That's awesome, brother. That's awesome.

It's a it's a depth thing. I find myself talking about this a lot, right? So we we get um we get a glimpse of something. Yeah. And you talked about that. You you talked about the the gratitude. growing, right? So we don't normally— we wouldn't normally associate growth with gratitude. You know, gratitude, you're grateful or you're ungrateful, right? It's not normally a size thing, isn't it? You know, it's not like, it's not like the, the, your metaphor with the shoe, the, the shoes growing every year. You know, it, it gets, it gets bigger. Gratitude isn't normally looked at as something that gets bigger.

Yeah.

And I don't think that kind of, um, insights are looked at that way either. I think insights grow, you know, you get a glimpse of it, um, then, then you maybe get curious about, uh, you get curious about the mismatch between this new way of thinking and this old way of thinking, perhaps that old belief.

thing. Yes.

Um, and then it, it, it grows steadily. It becomes, um, it's, it's like a, a, a, a, um, I'm trying to think of analogy there. It, it transfers from something that we get in our heads to something that we get in our hearts, and then we get it in our bones. And, and, and that's That's the difference.

And that's when you've mastered it, when it gets into your bones and then you've got a good grip on this.

And it becomes what people call an embodied understanding, an embodied understanding, right? It's not just an idea in your head, it's an embodied understanding. You get it in your gut, you get it in your bones. And I just did another interview with a fellow adoptee who's also a therapist, and she said— she, she talks about, um, uh, physiological healing, right? So it's when, um, something happens, uh, let, let's say a rejection happens, um, and we feel it. We feel it in our gut. We feel like we've been punched in the gut by this rejection. Yeah. And then, and then we do our work and we do a little bit more work and we do a little bit more work. And as we carry on doing the work, the, the, the, the punch in the gut is less painful. Yes.

Yeah, absolutely.

And, and, but we live in this world of ones and zeros, right? Right? Gratitude? Not gratitude. No, no, it's a size thing. It's the size of your gratitude. It's your— it's the depth of— it's the depth of your— of our understanding and everything.

Yeah. And I think there's little things that you can do to feed the gratitude that help it grow. And, you know, you know, as you go, gratitude, yes, can grow and increase, and then eventually we're embodying the whole gratitude, and it makes things a lot less— I don't stumble over things. Things are less painful. I don't know if I mentioned on the last— I don't know if this had happened, but, you know, I don't know if I told you, my birth mother has told me the same thing for 30 years. Of how I came to be, and then a year ago she told me, "Well, you were kidnapped," and I said, "Well, that's not what you—you said I was. I mean, the papers say this baby's for adoption, and you told me what you did." And and at first I was really like pissed that she said that, and I was like, "You know, you can really fuck off with that." I said some, you know, I was—you know—we have this; we can talk like that to each other. But But then I quite quickly pivoted and realized I don't need her. I don't need my birth mother to conspire in my healing. I can do it without her. And I, however I got here, and I don't know if I'll ever know for sure, because it could be that, you know, I, my birth mother, I know, is dealing with an extreme amount of guilt and shame for relinquishing. I think she looks back and thinks, boy, I should have tried harder at doing it on my own. But at the time, and I don't blame her, but I know she's going through it internally. So this new idea that, you know, because if I'm kidnapped, it takes it off of her. Well, you were kidnapped. So I didn't, you know, there's just less, less guilt that she needs to carry. And I realize I don't need even a clear answer as to how I got here. I just know that I am here, and I'm working on being better as this spirit on this human journey that got adopted, and working on being the best I can be where I'm at, and How did I get here? It could be a changing thing, but I'm realizing it doesn't hinge on that. So, there are still things that can come up, and it did irk me when she said that. But I handled it way better than I would have in my 20s if I had heard that. I would have been like Jesus Christ at the market dumping tables over. I would have thrown thrown glass against the wall. Like, if I had heard that. But now it's like, okay, I'm seeing it for what it is. I realize there's a lot of people that got into this adoption mosaic quite innocently. I think my birth mother didn't really, you know, she didn't have any other option being Catholic. She was not going to keep me. Her parents were not going to allow that. They weren't going to pay for the last years of university. So I don't think that she had any mal, you know, any, any bad intent. And I think my parents who adopted me, they came at it innocently looking for a child that needed a home. And you and I definitely came into this situation, this situation innocently. We were the product of, you know, You know, what we were the product of. Like, we, we came in innocent. So I think, you know, I know there are some bad behaviors within the adoption world, but I try to give— I'm giving my birth mother a little more lenience and my birth father, who's a little bit of a nut himself, and I'm not worrying about it. I'm gonna let things unfold as they do. So. And it's come with age and looking at it, you know. And I think you and I have been kind of digging deep and it's showing.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I forgot to say, you mentioned diamond earlier on. So diamond. Yeah. Since last time I— we spoke, I think I've changed the Thriving Adoptees logo to a diamond. Right. So there's a reason for that, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. There's a reason for that.

Yeah. No, we, we, we are We're one of the most unique people, uh, in existence on this planet. We're a minority hidden in plain sight. We don't have any specific look to our minority. We are of all, uh, ethnicities and religions and whatever, all in this. And nobody would know who we are unless we raise our hand and say we are. Yeah. Um, and I think we're giving some— we're getting some voice out there. And I think you're giving voice to a lot of these people. I think what I'm doing as well, coming from a different angle. And I think people are starting to understand that maybe it's not all, you know, crumpets and coffee, you know, being adopted. There's a few things in there. But we are bigger than our adoption. So things we can do.

Things we can do. So metaphors kind of sometimes run out of steam, but that, you know, like the diamond's value, is set by, um, by the market, right?

Yeah.

Our, our value is infinite, right? That's, yeah, that's kind of how I see it. And that's the reason for the, the diamond on the logo and that felt embodied understanding of us. So you talked about spiritual beings. Yeah. Yeah. And I love that quote. I haven't used it for a while. You know, that, that I— the quote is that we're not human beings having a spiritual experience. We're spiritual beings having a human experience. Yeah. And, and some people go, go further than that and say, well, well, we're one. spiritual being. And in that sense, we are the universe, because there's only one of us, or we are consciousness.

Yeah.

Consciousness, we are the whole shebang. And, and for me, the, the spiritual being is that part of ourselves that is unwounded. The, the trauma is in the human experience, not in the essence of who we are.

Yes. And I think if you can look at it that way, and I find it helps me, and not everybody will look at it that way, they have maybe other ways of, you know, dissecting it. But if for me, if I see it as Uh, a spiritual being, you know, uh, on this journey that quite possibly I signed up for. So they said, who wants to be Jeff Forney down there? Who wants to be Simon Benn? And we said, well, I'll give that a shot. But it hasn't affected our spiritual being. Yes. Uh, in the human world, it was a little— we're, uh, weird and, you know, we weren't raised by our biological roots. So that, brought certain things to our life. But we are still intact spiritually. We are still ourselves. I'm with you on that, man.

So have you seen this, this, this video, the rock-paper-scissors thing?

I saw you talking about it. Yeah, no. Yeah.

I think it's a very scary I'm a modest guy, really, I am. But I'm, I'm just so chuffed with myself for this, for this metaphor. You know, I've been looking for— and it's funny because like I'm going to be running a course with, uh, running some webinars, um, I was telling you about doing some, um, you know, metaphors, metaphors for, for healing.

Uh, yeah.

Um, who are meeting in Dublin tomorrow. So, so will you play rock-paper-scissors for me, with me? Will you do that? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So we're going to go one, two, three, and then hold up the okay. Hold up the the hand, right? Yeah. One, one, two, three. Okay. So listeners, I I am the rock. I've got I've got the fist, right? It's got a rock, and Jeff has got a a pair of really well-manicured fingers. And he is trying to cut into the rock with his scissors.

Right.

Right? We're 3,000, 6,000 miles away because he's West Coast and I'm in New York, but we're only obviously 12 inches away by Zoom and we can play rock, paper, scissors. So, right, the, the scissors in rock-paper-scissors— rock beats scissors because rock can break scissors. Rock can break scissors. Okay.

Scissors cannot cut rock.

Yeah. So the rock is who we are, and the scissors are the metaphor for the trauma, the The scissors are the trauma. The rock is our essence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um, but nobody's denying that, um, that trauma has happened, right? Nobody's denying that, right? So do you want to— do you want to play rock-paper-scissors again?

Yes.

1, 2, 3. Okay, so Jeff is now holding up his hand flat. He is paper, right? You're paper.

Yep.

And your paper, your hand, can hide my rock.

Yeah.

Paper beats rock. So the paper is the trauma and the rock is us. So Using this metaphor, trauma hides us; it doesn't hurt us.

That's yeah. I love that. I love that. I love it. What happened if I had done rock and you had done rock?

Well, I would have just made you do it again. I'm not gonna. I'm gonna. I'm sticking with the rock. Yeah, the rock with this thing and. This is— it works very well on video. Um, if you want to check it out, listeners, uh, go to my Facebook feed. I'll put a link in it. I'll tell you what, I'll put a link to the video, um, the, uh, on the thing so people can get that. Hopefully it'll, um, um, it, it might get them thinking in a slightly different way about the trauma, because trauma does— Like, I'm just thinking about What does trauma do to the universe? Do you know? Does it— does it heat it? Trauma kind of— it hides our world, does it? It's— is it like the fog? I don't know.

Yeah, it's kind of like— yeah, the trauma is the thing that we're— we're seeing things through a lens that's not exactly true. We're seeing— the trauma makes it so that we see things skewed in a way. You know, last week my daughter did something. She— I was, I was asking her what she was up to, and she kind of blew me off and was into her homework, and, and she kept looking at her phone, or she— and I was like, she's looking at her phone, didn't want to pay attention to me. But then when I was speaking to my wife about something, and it was, I don't know, maybe my wife was saying something about another teenage girl that my girls know. Maybe there was a little gossip or something. My daughter came running out of the room, and this is the one that gave me no time of day when I asked her how her day was, but she was really interested in hearing about what happened on this date with this girl and this boy, whatever. Something happened, and I took it personally that she wasn't interested in what her dad had to say or asked her questions. She was only interested in what The the the date that happened with the girl and the guy, and because of my trauma or my you know something in my adoption you know fired off that she wasn't interested in me. She was only interested in that, and it affected me. And because of my trauma would be that I'm wearing these glasses and I'm seeing. I took it to heart. It was weird. I really took it to heart. I'm like, you know, I'm not going to be seeing you much longer. You're going to graduate. high school. And, you know, I wanted to talk to you and you didn't want to talk to me. And that was all coming from an adopted father. And if I had seen it for really what my wife later was like, she just wanted to hear— well, she was just into her phone for a moment, and then she wanted to hear how the date went. Like, you know, but you made it a whole thing that she doesn't care about you. So that's what trauma is for me. It's not something that I can't recognize, you know, and I kind of quickly, I talked to my wife and then I recognized and I realized, yeah, that's a, that's an adult. That's something that I wasn't good enough, whatever that, and it came up in that way. And I felt that my daughter was blowing me off in a way or something. So that's where it'll do it. Because the reality was, if I take my glasses off, that's really not what happened. But I saw it that way because I remember the last time I touched the hot, the hot plate, I got burned. So I'm going to start reacting that same way. So the more we can learn about ourselves and realize that things that happen to us younger are merely— it doesn't mean it's going to happen again. And we can learn from these things. And How to navigate them with understanding and more patience, and you know again gratitude can be thrown in there. But that's how I reacted last week with my with my daughter. So that's that's a perfect example. And I told her, I said, "Look, you know, dad as an adoptee, sometimes things hit me a little harder, and I'm sorry. I'm working through them." I'm not perfect. I'm learning a lot from you as much as you know. I'm probably learning more from you than you are from me, and I apologize. And I'm I'm working on it. Dad's working on it right now, and that's that was it. But that's where that's where the adoption showed up, and here I am. You know, I'm middle-aged, and you know, it it really affected me. And so then I I got emotional talking to my daughter about it because I. I just felt bad that I got pretty angry with her. So that's, that's it.

Yeah. Wow. The, um, the, the metaphor of the lens, I think, is really great on that. And, um, summing up, and I, I heard something on this lens metaphor. Should I— how do I put it? Um, if we've got orange glasses on, then snow looks orange.

Yeah, absolutely.

So trauma as the Trauma as the lens. Yes. Makes the world look different until we see otherwise.

It's getting those glasses off. You know, I know the, the adoption coming out of the fog, you can use that term, but it's getting these rose-colored or orange-tinted glasses off and seeing it without any memory of the past, without any remembering a biological separation of the past, without, you know, but it takes time, you know, and we're, we're all working on it. But yes, it's understanding that we are not our trauma, we are not our addiction, we are not our adoption, we are larger than that. You know, I wish I knew this at 22. But I didn't. But maybe people will be learning from you and I, and we can help those that are hoping or have these thoughts and don't feel, feel guilty for having these thoughts, feel guilty about sharing these thoughts with their adoptive parents. They don't know where to turn. And they're not alone.

Yeah.

Brilliant.

So is there anything else you'd like to share, Jeff?

Yeah, I could, I could, you know, go get a coffee and we could sit for another couple of hours here, Simon. I mean, we can just keep talking and talking.

Well, let's do it again later in the year. Yeah.

Yeah. No, I love checking in with you, brother. It's great. You're like, this is, it's like being home. We just need a little, we need to sit fireside and just kind of, you know, a little tea and some cookies and let's hang out all afternoon.

I'm hoping to get to your coast, right? Because I've been to East Coast loads of times. I haven't been to West Coast since when I was 13 and I went to Disneyland. So, you know, I'm now 57, so it's 44 years if my maths is correct. It's a long time since I've been to West Coast.

Well, you're welcome for a wonderful dinner here. My wife cooks up incredible Mediterranean food. And she actually lived in London from 6 till 12.

Wow.

Yeah. Israeli, moved, was in London, lived in Finchley and Golders Green or some, and then she, then they moved back. But anyway, there's a big, there's a big Jewish community, Golders Green.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, yeah, and Finchley for that matter. Yeah, cool. Yeah, thank you listeners, and we'll speak to you again very soon. Cheers, Jeff. Thanks a lot. Yeah.