Helping Them Heal With Heather Branam

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Doctors Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Heather, Heather Branham. Looking forward to our conversation today, Heather.

Thank you for having me.

You're very welcome, you're very welcome. So I've, uh, had a chat with Heather about this and she's, she's cool with it, so we're gonna, we're gonna do— start, start the conversation off a little differently, listeners, because something that Heather said to me at the end of our— the conversation we had last month was— it was just— it just rang so true for me and so, so essential. So kind of— it's what this podcast is all about, right, in one sentence, I think. Um, so the sentence, what, what Heather said to me was, if I can't, if I can't heal, I can't help them heal. And ain't that the truth, right?

It is the truth. And it took me several years to figure that out because I kept trying to help them, but I wasn't helping myself. And I realized that one day when I started my healing journey is if I can't heal, I can't help them heal. And it hit me kind of like a ton of bricks. And that's when I knew I had to actually work on myself before I could start working on them.

Yeah. And the them that we're talking about, listeners, is Heather and her husband's 4 kids that she's adopted, right? That they've adopted. And they have— they have— there's 8 between them. with her husband, but 4 kids, 4 adopted kids live with you in Colorado, right?

Yes, we live in Colorado. We moved here from Alabama last year.

Yeah. So why is this— why did it ring true to you, Heather? What led you to see the truth in that statement?

For me, it was— it was— I was— I had so many issues that I was trying to get my kids to not have those issues. You know, like when they would make a comment to me about, you're not my mom. Yes, I'm not your mom. But those were words that I, like, said to my mom. You know, I had to forgive myself for saying those to my own birth— I mean, my own adopted mom. It was Them having fits or, you know, meltdowns about, you know, not being able to see their mom. And I had those same fits, but it was things that I had never dealt with. You know, I didn't get to see my birth mom a lot. They don't get to see their birth mom at all. There was just so many things that were rooted deeply in me That I knew I had to let go of to help them.

Yeah. So can you perhaps give a little bit of a background to a little bit of a story, a bit on your story to give some context to the listeners?

So my story is my birth mom was in foster care. And my parents, my birth mom and birth dad were both 17 when they had me. Shortly after they Um, had me, they both got on drugs, and my grandmother ended up taking me in and adopting me when I was 6.

Yeah. And she took, she took you in at 2 though, I think, if I remember.

She did. She took me in at 2. That was when my birth parents separated. And because my birth mom was in foster care, she didn't have anywhere to go. And she was kind of jumping from house to house. And my dad, he didn't really know how to take care of me. And he was gone a lot because he was in the Army. So he was gone, you know, every other weekend, and then he worked out of town. So my grandmother took me and she raised me.

Yeah. So this is really significant. that this, this truth, because we're, you're, you're ending a, a cycle of like generational trauma. Yeah. We talked about generational trauma.

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

And, and, and that was for me, my biggest thing was, like I mentioned earlier, my mother was in foster care and I was adopted. And then I got pregnant at 18 and I kept my child. I broke that cycle. And now I'm here to help my kids that I've adopted break that cycle as well.

Yeah, yeah. Did I tell you that my biological dad was in foster care, in, in homes? Did I tell you that?

Yes, sir, you did.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. I found that out last year from a, from a cousin that I met through, um, through Ancestry and, uh, 23andMe. Yeah, my, my biological father, his mum died in childbirth giving birth to the The youngest of 3 siblings, and his father was away. So it was the work problem again, right? His father was away at sea and so— and didn't have any support. So the 3 siblings were in and out of care. And 2 of those 3 siblings went to father kids who were, were adopted. So what does healing mean to you, Heather?

What does healing mean to me? Oh, goodness. So healing for me is It's the moment that I realized I couldn't help my kids heal if I wasn't willing to heal myself. Um, it was— I was carrying so much grief and so much trauma, and I was staying in survival mode. And I realized that when I could see, um, some of that showing up in my own kids. You know, I was starting to see that their little anger and frustration with each other was some of the anger and frustration that I was putting on my kids. So healing for me was really big that I knew I had to go on this healing journey in order to help my kids. Healing for me, I mean, it's, it's choosing a different path than the one I came from.

Yeah, so there's, there's some kind of mindset and thought, thoughty stuff there as well, and there's some, you know, pretty intense healing, pretty intense, um, emotional stuff there. Um, that the, the idea that I've— that came to me from another adoptive mum called, uh, Holly Ann Petrie down in, uh, Texas. She talked to— she used the baggage word as well, but she, she said, um, the most important thing is unpacking our own emotional baggage as adoptive parents, right? Yeah. So what, what does that— what does unpacking— what does that, what does that process look like to you, Heather?

For me, it was realizing that how my abandonment and rejection issues had affected a lot of my relationships. It was also realizing that the abandoned— abandonment and the rejection issues didn't just come from my birth parents. It also came from my grandmother, who would remind me that She would, she would say things like, your mom didn't want you, your mom didn't love you. And it was realizing that those were lies, that my mom did want me, she just could not take care of me. It was unpacking all of that and realizing that these were things that I were— that I was told that wasn't necessarily all true. And digging deeper into that and realizing that I was loved no matter which way I looked at that, that I was loved by my mother, I was loved by my daddy, and I was loved by my grandmother. And moving past the hurt and the anger and the frustration, it was sometimes when I was home by myself screaming as loud as I could to let some of that anger and frustration Out. It was crying and actually feeling the hurt that I felt for so many years. Yeah, I can't believe you know I I'm shuddering to believe this right that your grandma said that your your mom yeah my grandmother would say things like I'm your mama your mama didn't want you your mother didn't love you she never wanted to be a mom. And it was, it hurt because you believed it. You know what I'm saying? Because I was—

Yeah, we're sponges. We, we, we're just kids, right? We're, we're kids and we, and, and we, we suck up this information. We're like, like sponges and we suck up the good stuff, but we also suck up the, the, the, the bad stuff. So you, you're, um, Your grandma must have had serious amounts of stuff going on for her to— for, for her to share that kind of—

Yeah, I, I think she always thought I was going to leave and try to go back to my birth mom. And I think there was the hurt there of her, you know, I've been the one taking care of you. Um, but my mom was—

Oh, so she did it to stop you going?

I think so. I think so.

Isn't that incredible?

Yeah, because so my birth mom was on and off drugs until I think I was 16. And then at 16, I found out she was, she was actually HIV positive. And then she actually passed away when I was 18.

Wow.

So there wasn't really any going back because by the time I, I, like, I turned 18 and could have left my grandmother's house, my birth mom had already passed away.

Yeah, yeah, it, it, it makes— so, you know, with that insight of— you must have got that on some level that she was telling you that. To keep you. She was telling you, mom didn't love you, your mom didn't love you so that you didn't go back to your mom. It, it makes, it makes, it makes perfect sense.

It makes sense, but it took me a very long time to realize that. Yeah. Because, you know, when you're younger and you're a teenager and you're hearing these words, you're like, why would you say such mean things?

Yeah.

Why?

You know why?

Indeed. Mm-hmm.

Why indeed? Yuck. So you've, you've talked a lot about kind of realizations and, um, and insights and realizing that what you'd been told was the truth was, was that in fact a, a pack of, a pack of lies. So we've— we're looking There's been a lot of therapy and counseling and changing of, changing of beliefs, right? And, and also the, the bodywork's been really important to you.

Yes.

Yeah, I think you mentioned Reiki when we spoke, spoke last.

I did. So I spent 5 years in therapy And I— the hardest part was actually sharing my story and actually admitting how I actually felt about certain things that had went on throughout my life. And I decided one day I was going to take up yoga. And my yoga instructor did Reiki. And I was telling her about, you know, I still can't move past certain things. And then my aunt, who was like my mom, passed away. And so I was dealing with a lot of grief, and she recommended Reiki. And in that session, as I was laying there, the words that came to me were, quit fighting, you've already won. And I have spent my whole life trying to fight for either myself or for someone, or, you know, to Like, even with my husband, you know, in fighting with your kids, where you don't do this, I told you not to do this, you know, quit fighting. And it was at that moment that I realized, I don't have to be this person. I don't have to keep fighting. I can move past this.

Yeah.

And it helped me so much. I mean, it helped me with my kids. It helped me with my marriage. It really helped me on the inside as far as my healing journey that, you know, I don't, I don't have to do this anymore, that I've already won. I came out on the other end. I broke that cycle of keeping my child. I'm helping my kids break that cycle. I am not an alcoholic like my parents. I am not a drug addict. I broke those cycles and I don't have to fight that anymore. You know, I can move past it.

Yeah.

So that for me was when I decided that I wanted to learn more about Reiki and help other people who may have been in my situation, you know, with adoption, whether they're adopted or they've adopted kids or if they've been through a divorce or they've had those hurtful words that, you know, They didn't love you. They didn't want you to help those people, those women, you know, go on their journey, help them with their journey.

Yeah. I had this thought at the weekend about pre-verbal trauma, right? And pre-memory trauma, trauma that we can't We— that we can't remember. And it's a feeling thing, isn't it? It's like, for some reason, I— whenever I get near this topic, I think of our first— um, my wife and I have got— I've had 4 dogs. We're on dogs 3 and 4. But I remember distinctly the first dog that we had. Between the two of us, who was called Nelly. I remember her crying on the first night that she was away from her mum, and I thought to myself, was I like that? Did I cry that first night away? Because obviously I can't remember, I was Mhm. Whatever I was, a couple of weeks old. And it was before— it was before words, and the beliefs came later, right? So I— my, my adoptive mum didn't say the horrible things that your adoptive mum said to— said to you. And yet the words that came to me were the same at 40. She didn't love me enough to keep me. So I was thinking about this pre-verbal trauma thing, and the metaphor that came to my mind was a tornado, right? And when, when the tornado starts spinning, it is just It's just air and I don't know what, what, what makes up a tornado, but sometimes it picks up, it, it picks up what's in its path, right? So it would pick up a shed or whatever and start spinning around, right?

Right.

So the, the idea came into my head that the pre-verbal trauma was the tornado itself. Right. And the, the belief she didn't love me enough to keep me, that, that's like, that's like the garden shed in the tornado.

Right.

And that helped me separate, you know, what is, what is the trauma, as in the feelings, the feelings of trauma, the sense, the physical sensations of trauma, the stuff that we release through Reiki or somatic experiencing or yoga or something like that. And then the, the, the, the, the beliefs of trauma that are, that come later.

Right.

And, and that's the aftermath It's not, it's not the trauma itself. It's, it's the, it's the meaning that we put on the top of the trauma.

Right.

And for some, for some reason, that seemed really significant to me, because if we can separate the feelings from the beliefs, then we've got a better chance of Kind of busting the beliefs. Do you see what I mean?

Yes, I do. But it's kind of like, well, you are what you believe. So, and it was like, I believed all the words my grandmother said because I trusted her. She was supposed to be my mother. You know, you're supposed to trust your parents. So if you take those hateful words and you spin it, and like that tornado, they surrounded me constantly. You know, the rejection, the abandonment. You're not wanted. You're not loved. And I had to unlearn that. And for me, one of the things that helped me was I was asked to do a training on what it was like being raised by grandparents. And going down that journey of having to relive some of those moments in my childhood and going back and looking at pictures of my birth mom. And one of the stories that my grandmother and even my aunts would tell me was after I went to go live with my grandmother, my birth mom came by. And she was in the backseat of a vehicle and somebody was driving and the driver blew the horn. And at the time, my grandparents, they had a farm, so they sold eggs. So the person blew the horn and asked my grandmother for eggs. I happened to come outside. Now, this is like what I'm saying, 2 or 3. And when my grandmother went inside to get the eggs, my birth mom was in the backseat. And she tried to— my grandmother would use the word kidnap me. And she was pulling me in the vehicle as my grandmother walked back outside, and them two ended up fighting over me. So when I was telling this story in this conference, one of the ladies was a social worker, and she looked at me and she says, there's your answer, Heather. She said, your birth mom did want you. She was fighting for you. That conference, that training that I did today— did that day helped me heal a lot of pieces of me because I had never really thought about it that way. You know, like when she's trying to take me away, she was trying to get me away from my grandmother. She didn't want my grandmother to raise me. me. And when I looked at it and I turned my thought process around of she did want me, she did love me. But it wasn't until, like I said, I was older, and this was a couple of years ago when this healing journey for me really started happening.

Yeah.

So she did, like I said, she did love me. She did want me. But her being on and off of drugs and not having a stable home life herself, She really couldn't take care of me. And when I think about that, and she did the best for me that she knew at the time, which was to let my grandparents raise me. That right there was love.

Yeah. It's incredible, isn't it?

Yes. When you rephrase it, or you rewire your brain, To look at it a different way.

On the back of that comment from the social worker, that was like the catalyst, the thing that drove the unlearning.

It did, yes.

We see that something that we believe to be true isn't.

It did, yes. Yes. And it's still, I'm still unlearning things.

Yeah.

You know, I'm still unlearn— that's kind of a hard word to say. Unlearning these beliefs still to this day.

Yeah. One of the things that's popping into my head is, is the is the idea of feeling, feeling her love for you at a deeper and deeper level. So it's like people talk about, um, the penny dropped. So the, the penny goes into the the penny goes into the well, the wishing well.

Mhm.

It plops into the water and then it floats down to the bottom of the bed, and that— the penny has dropped. Whereas feeling her love for you is one of those pennies that keeps dropping. It's kind of more, more and more. It's a, it's an infinite drop. It just keeps on giving. You keep on sensing it deeper and deeper.

Right? Right. I, like I said, when I rephrase my, my brain to say things that she, like, she did love me, it now shows up In me taking care of my kids. I know my birth parents loved their kids. They were in a lot of the same situation that my birth mother was in. And I want my kids to understand that they did love them. The same thing with my birth mom. I know she loved me. And I know my grandmother loved me. And it does keep giving because it keeps that love that both of those— both of my, my birth mom and my adopted mom, my grandmother had for me— is now showing up in me and through, through me and for my kids.

Yeah.

I can help them with that. I can help them work through that. And that love for my birth mom, looking back at our visits that I, you know, would see her, she would tell me that she loved me and she would tell me that she was sorry that she couldn't take care of me. And she would tell me that I did the best that she— she said I did the best that I could at the time.

Yeah.

Looking at those conversations as I got older helped me also undo the Your mom didn't want you. Your mom didn't love you. And I have letters that she would send me when I wouldn't see her, you know, that she would write in there, I hope one day we can be friends. Yeah, I hope one day you will see that I did what I had to, you know. So those letters I hold on to, and every now and then I will go back and read them.

Yeah. Was it confusing then?

Very.

Only one thing from your your adoptive mum and one thing from your birth mum.

Yes, very confusing. Very, very confusing. Um, I would ask my aunts. I had one of my aunts was really good friends with my mom, and I would ask her, and she would always make comments. She's like, "I don't know why." our mother saying that, because my birth mom's name was Donna. She's like, Donna loved you. She's like, she really did love you. She really did want to take care of you. So hearing those, you know, helped also with the hurt that— some of the hurt that my grandmother caused.

Yeah. So what you, you Talked about your, your own kids. Um, what, what does, what does that, what does this learning, how does this learning play out with, with them?

For me, it's having the patience and the understanding, knowing where they come from. Um, you, you know, like I have one child who likes to remind me that I'm not her mama. You're not my mama. I miss my mama. I'm going to go live with my mama one day. And taking what I know and what I have learned and looking at her and say, well, you know, one day you could go do that and not letting it hurt me. Does it hurt? Yes. Yes, it does. I'm not going to say it doesn't, but I understand where she's coming from. So take— I'm sorry.

You're slightly triggered. So it, it, it's, it's, it, it's triggering, but, but the explosion isn't heard.

No, it's not. It is a very different feeling of when I would say things like that to my mother, like my birth mom, I mean my adopted mom. When I said those words, you're not my mother, you're not my mama, and that would trigger her to say the things she said. But when my child say it, knowing how that felt when I heard it, I don't want my child to feel like that. That's just going to ruin the relationship between us. And I don't want to ruin that relationship between my kids and I. You know, they can say whatever they want to. We talk openly about adoption. Now, for their ages, there are only certain things that they know. And when they get older, I will give them the truth, and it's up to them if they want to have a relationship with their birth mother or not.

Yeah, you, you talked last time about, um, uh, your relationship with your, with your husband and, uh, some couples Counseling and, and, and how, and a big learning that you had around, around there.

Right.

Do you remember which, what, do you remember what I'm talking about?

Yeah. Well, I think the relationship between my husband and I, part of it was me realizing that my abandonment— sorry, cat. Um, my abandonment and relationship, my abandonment and rejection issues was showing in my relationship. Because he too has some trauma, and his response is flight. So every time we would have a fight, he would leave, which would then trigger my abandonment and rejection issues. Every single time, I'm like, "Oh, he's not coming back. Is he leaving me?" You know, I I don't deserve this. I don't deserve love. I'm just never going to be truly loved. You know, it would trigger all those things inside of me. And when we went through marriage counseling. That was one of the things that the therapist pointed out was it's a circle. Y'all are repeating this circle every single time. And he said, Rich, you have to learn, you have to sit there. Even if you don't say anything, you have to sit there. And Heather, if he does get up and leave, you have to realize that you can't be triggered every single time he gets up and walks away. And that was eye-opening for me because it was, I mean, it was just an ongoing trigger, ongoing response. You know, it was every single time and I had to unlearn that behavior. Just because he gets up and walks away does not mean he's getting his keys and leaving.

Yeah. So you, you used the word realize again there. Like you used it early, earlier on. So healing for you is about realizing things aren't the way, quite the way they seem, right?

Mm-hmm. It, it, I have realized so much of, like I said, some of the things that I were, I was doing and realizing that has really helped me. See me for me. You know, I had to realize one of the things I had to realize was I was worthy of loving, and I am worthy of giving love. So that that really, like I said, that really has helped me move past a lot of the hurt and the anger that I held on to for so long. Yeah.

So what, what sort of barriers have you come up against on the, along the healing journey?

Still, every now and then I still get triggered. Like when my husband sometimes will shut down. He's under a lot of stress right now because of his job. And some days he comes home and he doesn't want to talk. And so that sometimes will trigger me, like, what did I do? What did I say? What did I do wrong? And I've had to unlearn that. And sometimes I have to just look at him and say, is there anything wrong? Instead of saying, what did I do? You know, and let him have that moment to tell me about his day. Or tell me about something that happened at work instead of me automatically assuming I did it.

Yeah.

So that is one of the things that I've had to learn that still sometimes automatically will trigger me.

Yeah. And what are— what have you learned as you've— you talked about sharing this, sharing your story, and this— the social worker Pointing out the truth. She said— what did she say? So there's, there's your proof right there, Heather. Your, your, your birth mom fought for you. She did love you.

Mm-hmm.

What other, what other things have you learned from, uh, in the process of sh— uh, in the process of sharing your story?

I think it's something different every time. I pick up on something different every time. Wow. As As my story. Um, one of the things I will also say is I looked for approval for a very long time from my birth father. Like everything I did, I wanted approval from him. Or— and I've learned one of— you actually asked me last time we talked my favorite quote. Did I have a favorite quote that I go by? And the quote is, I stopped looking for approval from people I don't approve of. And I had to say that actually about my birth father is because I constantly wanted that approval from him. And but why am I looking for approval when I actually don't approve of him? So that was one of the things I had to learn. So that has helped me. When, when, when we have that rejection and abandonment issues that we live with for so long, we look for approval from people all the time. I wanted to be in this crowd. I wanted to be in this crowd. I wanted to be in this crowd. I wanted people to like me. I wanted people to love me. And I was around these people that I really didn't have anything in common with, or I really didn't even want to be friends with. The same thing with my— with especially my birth dad. Why am I constantly looking at him when I don't even approve of a lot of the things that he does?

Yeah.

So that has really helped me not Look for approval in a lot of the things that I do, that I have to take care of me. I have to take care of my kids.

Yeah. What what changes have? I was gonna ask you again about you, your kids. But obviously, I want to keep it fairly high level and because it's confidential because it's it's it's their story, isn't it? You know. What, what changes, what are the changes that you're seeing in, in, in your kids, or have you seen in your kids over the last few years?

Um, uh, so let me start by saying this. From like 2018 to 2021, I got really sick and I was diagnosed with 2 different autoimmune issues. Rocky Mountain spotted fever. And because of my age, I was also going through perimenopause and menopause. So there for several years, I was really angry and I took some of that frustration and that anger out on my kids. But since I started my healing journey and my health is a lot better than it is, I have noticed that my kids anxiety is less, that my kids' behaviors are less than they were. We don't have as many meltdowns. We don't have as much fighting or fussing. Now we still have fighting and fussing. So don't get me wrong about that. It's 4 of them.

Yeah.

But it has really helped our relationship since I have started my healing journey, that they feel more Safe. They feel more secure. They're not worried that Mama's just going to go off. You know, it's— it went from, can you please stop doing that, to let's talk about it. You know, we've asked you to stop this. You can't hit your sister. So that— me learning to regulate my emotions has helped them regulate their emotions.

Yeah. Incredible. So the it's it's it's the end of escalation, really.

Mm-hmm. It really has helped tremendously, and I know a lot of what they went through was was on me. And that's when I said, you know, when we talked is if I can't heal, I can't help them heal. And it was learning how I can heal myself. So in order for me to help them heal, move past some of their rejection and their abandonment issues, and, you know, them feeling unloved from their birth parents, and I will be able now to walk them through that.

Yeah.

Now that I've gone through that journey.

Yeah. I saw something on Facebook this morning, and it was, it was something along the lines of, uh, soon, sooner or later adoptees need to realize that they're doing this to themselves. And I, it, it wasn't from an adoptee, right? And I, I, uh, this didn't land well with me, right? And I was thinking of putting a response on. I didn't, I didn't, I didn't put a response on it. But the, the thought came to me was If you say something like that to somebody else, then it's going to be a criticism. But if we come to that realization ourselves, that's something completely different.

Mhm. I think it's an eye-opening— like, people can say it and it can hurt your feelings, and you're like, what are you talking about? But for when I came to it, I was like, oh, you know, it hurt. It hit as far as, you know, like, oh, this is on me. That, that, that, that's me. So coming to that on my own. It was, um, it was a realization for me, and it just— I knew it was time. I mean, there was things that I had been holding on to for 40 years. You know, that's a long time to hold on to some hurt.

Yeah. And being told to let it go doesn't really Book, doesn't it?

Let it go.

She's got it. She's got it. She's got it tattooed on her wrist. Amazing. Yes.

Yes. I had to let it go. I had to let go of the hurt from my grandmother. I had to let go of the hurt from my birth mom, my birth dad, the hurt from my grandfather. You know, I had to let go of those things. And do they every now and then come back up? Yes. But I've realized that when they come up, I can go ahead and let them go and not hold onto 'em.

Yeah. Um, and, and so it's an instruction to yourself.

It is.

Um, something that popped into my head around this was, and I thought about this also in relation to my wife, so I'm thinking, looking at this Facebook post this person is criticizing another group of people.

Mhm.

Um, and then I, I thought about it, went round and round for a little bit, and then I thought, I'm criticizing his criticism, so I'm doing the same thing. Mm-hmm.

Well, that's like when other parents who are looking at it from the outside criticize birth parents. Well, how could they give them up? How did they leave? Why did they leave? I couldn't leave my kids. But you don't know their story.

Yeah, same as me, um, my reaction to what your adoptive mum, what your grandma said.

Mm-hmm.

Right? Like, I'm, I'm criticizing her, her for her, for her words. I'm thinking, how could you? How, how could you say that? But, mm-hmm.

But my grandmother was a wonderful woman. But if you take away the words that she said and the hurt, when I take that away, my grandmother was a wonderful woman. She stepped up to take care of me and my grandfather. Her husband was kind of an abusive alcoholic for a very long time, and that put me in that situation when she adopted me. But she would stand up to him and, you know, take up for me, or she would send me to my room so he couldn't get to me. So she loved me. Like, she held me. She loved me. She took care of me. She did the best she could with what she had. And I came to that just several years ago, was even though she did not meet all my needs, she still did the best she had.

Yeah. And I just criticized her on one part of it.

Yeah. And she loved me. And in fact, I wrote an article in a newsletter about that, about the words that she said. And I posted it on my Facebook, and one of my aunts got so mad at me and did not speak to me for several years because she said I talked bad about her mother. But it was my mother too. And that's how I felt. And I'm sharing my story to know, especially for what adoptive parents should never say to their adopted kids. And that was the point of the story. You know, these are the words that I felt or heard as a kid and how it made me feel and why you should not say them.

Yeah. Wow. So, um, you said that you'd written some, you'd written some notes, uh, preparing for today. Is there anything that you'd like to share that I've not asked you about, Hannah?

Um, I think we've kind of covered it. I mean, The one question you asked me, you know, what does thriving look like to you? And that was the one question I really wanted. I want to go ahead and say it because we've covered it, but I still want to share it so people can hear my side of what— how I feel, what thriving looks like to me.

Great.

So thriving to me means choosing a different path than the one I came from. I was adopted and my birth mom was in foster care. I made the choice to raise my daughter when I got pregnant at 18. Thriving is using what I've learned through my own journey and doing the best to be the kind of parent I needed growing up. It's staying present, showing up even when it's hard. It also means not repeating the patterns. I didn't become an alcoholic. or drug addict like my birth parents. I broke that cycle. That to me is what thriving looks like. It's not perfect, but it's strong, and I'm choosing better.

Fantastic. I'm so glad that you shared that with us.

Well, thank you for letting me share some of my story and being on here and taking me out of my comfort zone to actually share some of my story.

Good on you. Thank you, Heather. Thank you, listeners. We'll speak to you again very soon. Take care.

Bye.