The Tough Stuff With Cara DeHaan

Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of the Thriving Adoptees Podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by Cara, Cara DeHaan. Looking forward to our conversation today, Cara. We've like, we've already started, listeners, right? And then I just said, I said to Cara, stop, this is, this is your genius, this is your genius. Don't, don't waste your genius just on me, share it with the rest of the Rest of the listeners, right? So Kara leads a ministry called The Gathering Well, and she is also an adoptive mum, and you and your husband have 3 bio kids as well, right?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Thanks for having me, Simon.

You're welcome, you're welcome.

You've become a fast friend.

Likewise. Likewise, and as is the nature of our conversations, like sometimes we just dive straight into the really big stuff, and I guess that's what friends can do, right?

Yeah.

So you were talking about expectations, and then I paused you to say, look, let's— this is the genius that we want to share with the listeners, right? So you were talking about Uh, our expectations of how we think life should be. And you also talked about the fact that, um, the, the tough— the toughest stuff has led to the most profound moments. Is that kind of right?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Um, so let's dive straight in, right? So what have What have been the, those most, can you, does, does an example come to mind of one of the most profound moments that led to a, a, a change for you?

Oh yeah, absolutely. There's so many. Um, so our, our oldest bio son, so, so I'm a teacher at heart. God created me that way. I've, Wanted to do that for a very long time.

And you were it.

And I were. I were. I was. Yes, I was. And I would like to think I actually still do it very much every day. But there was this, like, this kind of magic I felt being with children. Still do. And so becoming a mother was so exciting for me. I had a very good mother. She nurtured So well, and I loved watching her do it, and I could not wait to become one. And I would see other parents struggle, right? And like anybody who has not done something but just observes others doing it, maybe I'm the only proud one in the room, but I assumed, oh, you know, rookie mistake. So when our first son was born, and we were not expecting him to have special needs. And all of a sudden I was like in the deep, in a place where I never expected, right? I thought that this was one of my gifts, and it was, but I was not prepared to have so many questions about how to do this. Um, and so you kind of get knocked off at the knees, and all of a sudden you're the one with zero answers and millions of questions. And all the people around us had questions too. And, and I'm a studier, right, Simon? So I will read a book to prepare, or I will talk to people, or I had this very— maybe it's how our brain works— this very, uh, kind of rigid growing up of there is a right way to do it, and when you find that way, right way, you do it the right way, and then things turn out.

Very linear.

Yeah. Yes, yes. And black and white, unfortunately.

And very one process.

Yes. And there's a right and there's a wrong.

Yeah.

Scientific. And I'll pick the right.

Yes.

And then Garrett was born. And all of that magic that I felt that I had, did it work? Um, I found myself questioning, like, very much who I even thought I was, right? It was a core identity piece. Um, and that, along with so many other things in our life, has pulled me out of that black and white thinking and into, like, the freedom and beauty that comes with mystery, Simon. There is a beautiful feeling that comes from knowing that I can't know all the right answers, but there's a God who does. And if he is on my side, I might wiggle, I might feel like I'm drowning, but ultimately it's not me reading the right book. It's not me talking to the right person. It's not me finding the right therapies for my kiddo. It's not me finding the right doctor for the surgery. I do my best, but it takes the pressure off. And I've had to learn that many times. Clearly, one, one time wasn't enough for me to learn that lesson. Yeah.

So magic versus logic, really. Magic over logic.

Yeah. Yeah. Mystery. Being okay with not knowing. Um, and recognizing that there is not one right answer.

Mystery over science.

Yeah. Yeah.

Do you remember a band called the Thompson Twins from the '80s, or is that too— is that— are they too British and too— or too early for you?

They're not too early, but they're perhaps too British.

Too British, right.

But tell me about them. What do you think?

Oh, well, they they had a they had a song and it was called Love on Your Side. And I was thinking about that when you said God on Your Side. I was thinking about the thing that popped into my head was love. Love on Your Side. Yeah. When it comes to to to science for me. One of the things that pops into my head as you said what you said is I used to think that learning was very once and done.

Sure.

You know, to use computer logic, it's a 1 or a 0, right? It's a yes or a no. It's a right or a wrong. And you get— you have an insight. And then you move on. But what, uh, what I've learned— I don't know how, when I realized this— but learning has infinite depth.

Hmm.

So it's the same lesson over and over and over and over again, and, and you kind of hope you're getting at a deeper level each time. But there is. So my favorite metaphor for this is the penny dropping, right? So in the real world, a penny drops down a well, right? You do a wishing well, and yeah, yeah, and it there's a little plimp, little blimp as a plimp as it hits the water of the well, and then you can't see it, but the the in your mind's eye, the, the, um, the, the penny is kind of floating in a— down through the water, and then it comes to rest on the bottom of the well, and that's it.

Right.

That's, that's, that's the, that's the lesson learned. Well, that's the penny dropped. But in, in the metaphorical world, The pennies just keep on dropping. There is no, there is no bottom to the well.

Yeah.

It just keeps, it keeps on going. And for people that have a tendency to be impatient like me, that—

We're good friends.

Yeah, she's— um, oh right, okay. Zoom has just sent us some balloons, um, to celebrate the The coincidence of our impatience.

I guess so.

Yeah, yeah.

I think though, Simon, that like, uh, that desire for everything to like— for it to get to the bottom, for the penny to drop, for the things to be done Right? That was what I chased for so many years. And still, like, that's what's downloaded into me. That's still what comes up if I'm not checking myself. It's this, how do I finish this hard thing? How do we resolve this so we can move on with life? Right? And what if life is us doing those processes? Like, what if that's—

Life.

Life isn't getting everything done, rounding off all the hard edges, and then going on a scuba diving trip to St. Lucia. Maybe it's doing all these hard things. Yeah. Well, doing them well. Yeah.

So you said before we hit the record button that you're going through some tough stuff at the moment. Mm-hmm. I mean, do you want to talk about that at a level that you're comfortable with. I clearly don't want to pry too much, too much personal stuff or kid-related stuff, but—

Yeah, um, no, I think I can talk in generalities.

Yeah, great.

Um, 5 children, right? One precious husband. And I think as caregivers, as Empaths, we often feel as good as our worst child is feeling. So if there's five of them, chances are there aren't a ton of stellar days. If that's if that's where my ceiling is, and they're in all different stages, and they're doing marvelous things. They're gifts to us. One of our one of our kiddos who came to our home through adoption. She's struggling, Simon. And it's all very identity. Who am I?

Confusion?

Yeah. You know, She honestly, like, lacks physical details to the beginning of her story, right? So lacks knowing who parents are. We don't know. Lacks knowing a birth date, right? There aren't photos. There aren't— like, there's just this space with memories that are getting filled in. Um, but up through the age of 7 before she came into our home, and that's a very long time. Um, to not have answers. Um, you hear often of international adoptees feeling like they fit neither place, right? They neither fit in their birth country nor do they fit in, in, in the, the culture that they're currently in.

Yeah. And that's not, that's not just adoptee thing, right? So—

Oh yes, yes.

So, um, I've heard that from People, people talking about different skin colors.

Sure.

So then, so, um, African Americans— not— is that the right word? Uh, they're, they're, they're not, um, they're not brown as, as brown as some other African Americans, but nor are they white like, like them. You're And sorry if I've got any PC terms there wrong, listeners, but hopefully it's been okay. But it's not just that. The way I heard it expressed from an Asian American was she said, I feel like— and she was in her 20s— and she said, I feel like a banana, yellow on the outside, white on the inside.

Hmm.

So there's that. I mean, there's confusion there, but you're talking about incompleteness as well.

Yes.

Like lack of records, lack of records. Yeah, both. Yeah.

Yes. Yes. And like such a core piece of, of being a healthy human is belonging. Right? And so when there's all these question marks, it just feels very alone. And adolescence in general, everyone feels different than the world, right? No one understands me. I'm the only one who feels this way. Everyone else has life put together, dot dot dot. And then you just add in the complexities of of a complex history. Um, and a disordered attachment, right? Um, definitely has brought— um, there's not a book, Simon. Maybe there are. Um, and maybe we learn pieces, and we do, and we try, and we care. And there's only one precious human being that's our 5th child sitting in our home Um, and what she will need is going to be unique. So how do we become students of her, um, without being so pushed away by the behaviors? It's hard work. It's hard work for all of us. And we love her and it's hard. Yeah. What do we expect of her siblings? How do we ask them to be a part of her life when it's this difficult? How do we protect them? How do we try to engage them? It's tricky.

And we're back to the how question.

Yes.

And we're back to the mystery or the science.

Mystery. Yes. Yep. Yeah.

So what are you learning at the moment on this?

Okay. So one of my heroes is Bessel van der Kolk. He's probably one of yours as well. I wanted to dress up like him for Halloween, but my husband said no one would know.

Yeah.

Um, uh, so he ha— I'm actually taking like a 7-month course through PESI, P-E-S-I, right now that he is leading. Um, and the cool thing about my job, Simon, is that I get to study things that are not only relevant for the families we're serving, but also relevant for my heart and for our situation. Like, what a gift that is. Just going back to those early, early just understandings. He had said in class last week that think about how— so a baby's only form of communication is crying, right? And we accept that as infants. We don't expect them to hop out of the crib and make their own bottle. Ludicrous, right? They cry and then we play this guessing game. As adults, we try to figure out, is it, is it food? Do they need a diaper change? You know, you go through all the things, and if you do all the things and you get to the end and the baby is still crying, you don't say, oh well, I tried it all, right? And so much of what babies need is movement-based. So much of it has to do with movement. We expect to be able to have conversations with people when they're struggling. that involve this prefrontal cortex, right, that involve their ability to reason and brainstorm, um, and that's not engaged, right? But this primary, this very early primal brain, if you think very back to the very beginning with attachment, that baby needs movement. Movement. And so there's polyvagal theory thrown in here and all of these different things, right, crossing the brain hemispheres. But what we're trying right now is movement, Simon. That's what we are trying with her. I'm trying to walk with her more. Um, we are starting taekwondo, hopefully. Um, because her body is in a hard cycle right now of sadness and anger and sleeping. And that's it, right? That's where she's stuck. And the sleeping comes in because if you don't wanna deal with the emotions and you don't wanna do the things, you can turn it off by sleeping. Um, and praise God, that's what she's choosing because I think that's one of the healthier choices. Um, but we're trying movement, Simon. And not movement so that we're walking and starting to talk about it, but just moving to move. To move her body. I don't think she knows who she is. I don't think she has a clue right now. I don't think she feels her body. Just that awareness of where she's at in space and that she's in our home or in our arms, which she doesn't allow very often, but she just does not feel. She's not feeling.

Yeah. Yeah. One of the things that I, I kind of struggle with Bessel van der Kolk is, is words, right? There's a lot of words.

Mhm.

And we— you're talking about somatic stuff here.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yep. So I struggle to put the 2 things together. I'll, um, I did somatic experiencing for about 18 months, just once a month.

Hmm. What'd you think of it? Was it helpful?

It's, it's, yeah, it, it, it's mysterious.

Actually, there we go.

It's mysterious. Yeah. Yes. So we would just— well, yeah, I would just drive there and I'd arrive if the traffic wasn't so great, you know. So I'd be late or I'd be almost running late or, you know, like it's just a tricky, like, kind of tricky journey. And I'd arrive there and we just, we just worked with that. We, we'd work with that and, and she would help. She would— Blanche, the lady is called— she would, uh, she would, she'd just talk about the, the bodily, um, the bodily sensations and track it, uh, track what was going on. And it was—

it—

one of the most— it's very inexplicable. It's right, it's, it's hard to put into words. But I'll— one of the memories that comes back for me, it was as if there was, um, a small Perhaps about the size of a golf ball. It was like a, like a ball bearing, you know, a metal—

Yes, yes.

Yeah, it felt, it felt that there was a metal ball bearing about the size of the golf ball, uh, golf ball, and it was shuffling very quickly. It was moving very quickly from my left hand up my arm, across my shoulders, and then down to my right hand and then back again. And we would— I would just stay with the feeling, and I would stop talking, basically. And I would ask— she would be asking me questions, but she would be okay with me not answering them.

Sure.

And it was like I, I, like, I felt, I, I felt a need I felt, I felt a need to kind of engage my brain in thought but didn't do it.

Good job.

Which isn't what I— that's not what I normally do, right?

Right, right, right, right.

Normally I'm off on the train of thought.

Yeah.

Yeah, this was about, no, get off the train of thought. Don't get on it. You're still on the platform at the railway station. Don't get on the train of thought. So one of the challenges, I think it took about a 7-month course with Wessel van der Kolk. I'm thinking, well, that's a lot of talk.

Right. He's talking about the Body keeps the score.

So he's talking about—I think soma is like somatic—is I think soma comes. I think soma is Latin for body, I think, right? And so somatic is the adjective that goes with this stuff, with this soma thing. So it seems like there's a lot of talk, and and and and then the next thing that pops into my head after the back of that is. Me watching a guy swimming, a swimming instructor at the swimming pool, and he's doing a one-to-one swimming lesson for an hour or so with a triathlete. So I could go into all sorts of details. Let's skip over that for the time being. I see, I swim for half an hour, I get in, He's talking to this guy, they're reviewing, I can see they're looking at a laptop and they're reviewing the guy's style, you know, like he's videoed him underwater or something like that, right? And then I swim for half an hour and the guy's still talking at him and I'm thinking—

I know where you're going.

How can this guy, you know, like half an hour's worth of swimming tuition, surely And then I see another guy training in a group the following week, and he talks to people for about 2 minutes, and then off they go and practice the drill. So I'm kind of, yeah, I'm putting it out there. I don't know, I'm struggling with kind of thoughts and somatic, but I guess you're getting, and a 7-month course, but I guess you're getting the basis, are you? You're getting the theory. You're getting the feel of it.

Well, well, and I should say, there's so many things I want to talk about with you right now. I should say that he is not the only instructor. There are also others who are doing those somatic pieces and polyvagal pieces, and there is practice involved in it. So it isn't all just the theory. He's just my very favorite. Yes. But okay, so this is what I'm thinking. Um, it probably clearly depends on where you grow up, right? What, like, how your parents parented you. But, um, Tell you what, like, I can give a great lecture, right? I just can do it to a kid. I can tell them all the things. And, um, that is one of my default parenting styles that I've had to try to shift away because we know the kids need to practice. I can tell them all day why the thing they did was the wrong thing, but that whole idea of practicing the right thing and then good job, and then moving on with the day, right? That was not modeled to me in school ever, right? So like, as a teacher, if I, if I could go back as a teacher, that would be the biggest thing I would change, right? Is assuming that my words, my language on what was wrong Brings maybe at its best a desire to do things differently, probably at its worst brings shame. Why do I assume the kid knows the skill instead of taking that opportunity to teach them the skill, right? Like when you talked about that swimming instructor— words, words, words, words, words. And there's a time for words, but it assumes Like a cognitive ability. It assumes that they've seen the right way done and they made the choice to not do the right thing, rather than what if they don't know this skill? What if what they need is connection and a loving and safe adult to help them do the right thing? And then praise, because we know that praise is what brings about, you know, this repetition of good choices, of good behavior. as we like to call it. Yeah.

Yeah. The other thing that's popping into my head about the kind of the identity, self, kind of self-knowledge. And I see kind of like self-knowledge and self-esteem as being Very closely related. I don't know how you, how you see it.

So, well, okay, so I have a— I like to call her a friend, um, also a trainer. Her name is Cindy Lee. She's down in Oklahoma City with Halo International. Um, I've heard good things of Halo. Oh my goodness, we are huge fans. We— the, the bulk of the programming we do is, uh, created by them. So one of the courses that I'm trained in is called Making Sense of Your Worth, and the very beginning of the course, she parses apart the difference between self-worth and self-esteem. So self-esteem would be those things outside of us. So let's say you win a swimming race, you get a great job, you get a raise, you have X, Y, and Z, right? Those things can all be taken away. You can lose them, right? But that self-worth piece is the preciousness that you are, that regardless of bad decisions in your past or horrible situations you've been put in, whether you get a job or lose a job, win a race or lose a race, your self-worth cannot be taken away because that's the value you place On who you are, right? That's that individual preciousness. Um, and especially for kids coming from hard places. Ah, for any human, Simon, all this stuff is so good for any human, right? That's a helpful distinction, I think.

I totally agree. It's a brilliant distinction. Do you know what the Thriving Adoptees logo is?

Is it a tree?

No, it's a diamond.

Oh, I feel bad. I didn't know that. It's a diamond.

That's okay. So it's a diamond because like diamond is a precious stone. So my, uh, my shtick on this is, my shtick on this is that, uh, the clearer, the clearer we can see who we truly are, the higher our self-worth. And, um, the clearer a diamond is, the higher, the more it, it is worth.

Mhm.

But the analogy runs out. Not— no metaphors are completely true because the, the, the, the diamond's value is set by the market, whereas we set our, we set our self-worth. That's it. It's an internal, it's an, it's an internal setting. It's an internal, an internal setter, right?

It's a setter. Yes, yes, yes.

Not, not set by the market. And I, I was thinking about— so I've interviewed, I don't know how many adoptees who are also adopters, right? So adopted parents as well. Mm-hmm. 5, 10 maybe. Uh, and, uh, we were talking, I was talking to— the lady's name will come to me in a minute. Uh, it's not just there, but we were talking about self-worth and She was talking about her daughter's self-worth, and something clicked for her when she saw that she had to see her own self-worth before she could point to her daughter's.

Yes.

Towards.

Yes, yes, yes, yes, a million times yes. And, you know, in our space at the Gathering Well, so many of these precious caregivers come in and they would— they'd cut off their arms for their kids. They would. They would do anything for their children. And so it's hard for them to do this, but for them to— yes, I care about them and they're so very precious, but wait a minute. How do I view myself? And that's a hard shift for caregivers. But Simon, just like you said, it's so important, right? Karen Purvis said you can't give something you don't have. And, um, you— this, this ability to bring someone to healing that's at a further spot than you are, that's fairy tales.

Right.

And research shows that, that the average amount of ACEs of a caregiver who fosters or adopts is significantly higher than the general population. So we know that people are stepping into this space with healing that needs to happen personally. Right. Can you hear my naughty dog barking?

No.

That's fantastic. Okay. Excellent.

Cool. Um, so that the, the essence of this piece is then about our own self-worth.

Yep. Yep.

So you, you mentioned God at the outset, and one of the things I'm, um, understanding and learning more about at the moment is how being a— how, how being a Christian helps with self-worth. So I'm, I'm wondering Because I can see quite a lot of power there.

Oh man, yeah, that's the gold, Simon, right?

Um, no, it's not, it's the diamond. But anyway, I'll let you—

I should have seen that coming and put that together.

You go with gold, Carla. Oh, I'm pulling you light.

Uh, yeah, um, God created man and woman and he said Very good, right? Creation is good. Animals were good. Trees were good. Sun, moon, stars, galaxy is good. And he created man in his image, and it is very good. There is a supernatural preciousness that we have as image bearers of God. And All day long. Like, I will help anyone who comes, like, within my vision, right? I will work toward helping them see this beauty and preciousness. But if you already have this connection to a God who loves so deeply, um, and he says you are very good, I just don't think you can beat that. And if his sacrifice is so powerful that it can cover everything, then that also takes care of all the horrible decisions I've made, right?

I, I don't know if you're feeling the energy shift, listeners here. I am. Um, and, uh, you've also got tears coming to your eyes, Kara.

This is just yeah. This is the diamond, Simon. This is the diamond.

Yeah. It's called dead air, apparently, when no neither neither person speaks. But it's not dead at all.

I hear that's really good for ratings.

It's crackling. No, it's, uh, what if we're just like— this is a new idea that I've— that's come to me, a new question that's come to me in the last week, right? What if we're just doing— having this conversation for us? Oh, he's—

God is so good. He could absolutely do that for us. What a gift, right?

That wasn't dead air. That was— and that was, uh, that was Air that was full of crackle and crackle and hum and peace.

Yes, that can come in the middle of a lot of difficulty, right?

Well, yeah, some may say it, it's actually always there, it's just covered up by the difficulty.

Mhm. Mhm. Yeah, middle of the tornado. Do you guys get tornadoes?

No.

Oh, that's nice. It's still in the middle. Do you know that?

Yeah, in the middle of the— in the eye of the storm.

You got it.

Yeah. So I like to think of the eye of the storm as the eye of me. The I that I am. And if I went— if I was going religious, I would go that I am that I am. That one.

Yes, yes, that one, that one. Yeah.

So put these 2 things together for me. The, the, the body stuff And the God stuff?

Oh, I love your question. It's such a good one, Simon. The created being that we are is so mysterious and complex, right? I mean, any work about trauma, you're going to read about how it's held in our bodies, right? And biblically speaking, creation groans under the weight of sin. And this trauma inside of us just groans to be redeemed and released and freed and healed. And we would like to think of it as just being in our heads, right? It's the way we think, but it's also the way we are. And so there's this mystery— here we go— of being able to have a peace that doesn't make sense and having a body and a mind that is still so deeply impacted by hurt, and they can be true at the same time, right? So if heaven isn't this faraway place where we get to leave earth, but rather it's God coming back and redeeming here.

Can I go with?

Yes, yes, yes. Go.

Can I can I interrupt you with another pop culture? Yes, yes. Song, right? Belinda Carlisle, True Heaven is a Place on Earth.

There you are. Yeah. Ooh baby! Do you know what that's worth?

Do you know yourself worth?

Yeah. Oh my goodness! That was so witty.

Sorry, I interrupted you. Keep going. No.

I just think that that's what's— what is happening in creation is what is happening in our bodies. There's this already but not yet. We need healing to come, and healing is possible, and it will not be full until full redemption again. But that's what our work is. Our work is moving toward that. How do we create and redeem While we're still here, while we're still under the pangs of sin.

I was talking about wholeness with an adoptive mum the other week, and she was saying, yeah, I get what you're saying, Simon, but my daughter's trauma happened in the womb. And so she was, uh, marinated or pickled in cortisol or whatever she was pickled in, right? I didn't ask what she was pickled in. Was it, you know, FSD or was it, um, fentanyl or anyone? Yeah. Was it just, or was it just cortisol, right?

Yeah.

Just in inverted commas. And, and, and I said, well, I get that. And I said, I, I get that. Um, is, is your daughter ever at peace? And she said, yeah. I said, well, there must be another factor at play here, because if, if the, if the trauma if the in utero experience, um, was, was forever, right, then she would always be angry or, or whatever. She'd always be insecure.

Sure, sure.

She'd all be— she would all— so her behavior would be constant. But here's the thing, so I said, is, is she ever at peace? And she said, yeah. I said, so there must be some other factor going on then. Um, and, uh, I, I'm, I've been thinking a lot about that.

Did the mom have thoughts on that after you asked that question?

I, I, I got the, like, my wisdom told me in the moment to, to To leave her. Yep. To leave her be with— leave— ask that question hanging, not— yeah. Um, not answer it for her or prompt her any further because—

yeah.

Um, I'd love your perspective on that.

Can I just answer with mystery? Right? I mean, uh, Simon, we just can't possibly know all the pieces. We just can't, right? But thankfully, we aren't only a product of our history. There is more there. There is more.

Would you, would you like to hear— because I've obviously had a lot of time to think about this, and I have been thinking about it— would you like to hear what, what conclusion I came up with?

I would love to.

This is supposed to be me interviewing you. I, I always get, uh, I, I often get kind of guilty about sharing my thoughts when I'm supposed to be interviewing.

Oh no, this has been great. I've put lots of words out.

Okay. Um, so I, I summed it up, um, I, I summed it up in, in 4 sentences, uh, and then I realized I'm not feeling adoption, I'm feeling my current thinking about adoption. That's why my— that's why my feelings change, right? So I would— I, I could take that a step further, right? So, and then I realized I, I'm, I'm not feeling my in utero experience, I'm feeling my current thinking.

Sure.

That's why my feelings change. And as my— as my feelings change, then my behaviors will follow from that. So, so thought is the missing link here.

And we know that, right? Like, we know that trauma isn't the event itself. There can be traumatic events, but it's, it's the way it shifts how we think about others in relationship to us, or the world in relationship to us, or ourself in relationship to us. Yeah, it's it's glasses we put on that changes our worldview, right?

It does. On, on, on— yeah, totally true. But it's down to the glasses that we're wearing in the moment.

Bingo, bingo.

So it's not, it's not, it's, it's— I'm talking About our temp— I'm talking about a temporary perspective rather than a— I'm talking about a temporary but a repetitive.

Yes.

A repetitive perspective. It's a repetitive thought that keeps on coming around, but it's repetitive. It— so it comes, it comes and goes, and it keeps on coming back, but it's not there all the time. So it's not— we're not left. And so we're— the experience doesn't— the past, sometimes it determines the present, and sometimes it doesn't.

Mm-hmm.

It's a temporal thing.

Yep, agreed. Totally agree. Yep. Think of the days where you can have— you could have the same thing happen on Monday and Tuesday, and Tuesday you can handle it with grace and, and a wisdom and an ability to see beyond yourself, right? And, oh, yep, there I did that again. Here we go, let's keep the, keep the train moving. And Monday it can just take you to the bottom, right?

Yeah.

I think we're always restorying our story. And Guy, that's why just good community, reading well, exposing yourself to other cultures— those things are just so important because we're continually putting our circumstances in, in the perspectives of the things that were Uh, we're consuming, right?

So I'm, I'm with you. And I'm, I'm— so what I'm guessing here is that the gathering well is about people realizing that the story in their head is similar to the story in other people's heads and that it might not actually be true. I'm guessing.

Came up with a— you just came up with a very lengthy but good tagline for us, Simon. Um, yes, it's let's sit across the table from other humans who are experiencing the same thing we are to normalize it, right? Um, to affirm where we're at and to encourage us The balloon's coming up from Zoom again. I think it's when I do this. To encourage us in a way that only a certain group of people can because they genuinely understand, right? If you have, if you have a cancer diagnosis, you're going to feel very, very close to anyone else with a cancer diagnosis. I'm not comparing that with adoption, and I'm very sorry if that came off that way. You feel close to people Who have experienced the same thing as you, and you can receive wisdom from them in a way that you can't someone else who might deeply love you but isn't living the same life.

Isn't this about new wisdom that challenges the voice in our head that says there's something wrong with us?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Renewing of our minds.

Yeah. Deconditioning.

Yep. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

What have been the most profound deconditioning moments for you?

I think what our family was supposed to look like. Questioning that? Uh, yeah, thinking I had a, I had a model and a form I was shooting for. There was a right way to look. And, and I've, by God's grace, most of the time gotten rid of that model from my mind.

Seeing the expectations were overbearing, is that what you mean?

Yes. Well, and even more than that, Even, even that there can be so many different versions of beautiful, right? Beautiful doesn't always have to be what, like, like worldly successful, highly achieving, put together matching outfits on Sunday, right?

So flexibility.

Yeah, yeah.

Acceptance. Mm-hmm.

Yep.

Yep. Rather than resistance.

Yes. Yes. Changing your perspective, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's all about changing perspective.

It's all about changing perspective. I think another big one is That shift, that small shift between what, what would success look like for my children versus what would flourishing look like for my children. And they sound similar, but I feel like success kind of farms out your worth to the community a bit more.

So we're in the self-esteem rather than self-worth, you mean?

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Flourishing within who I am and who I've created to be, who I've been created to be. What would it look like for me to live a life that is flourishing for self and for others, right? It's different for every single one of my kids. That's different.

Yeah. Anything you want to share? I'm conscious of time. We could talk all day, but—

Yeah, we could. I'm just thankful for what you do, Simon. I love the opportunity to chat with someone who asks good questions, and you are a great question asker. So thank you.

Thank you. And you're great at answering them as well. And you're great at listening, listeners. We'll speak to you very soon. Take care. Bye. Bye-bye.