What if we have an ADDICTION To Our Mind? with Michael Bryan

Your mind can talk you into anything, including the next hit, the next drink, the next text you know you shouldn’t send, or the next spiral that feels like “truth” while it’s wrecking your peace. We sit down with Michael for a first-time, no-script conversation that goes straight to the root: addiction is often an attachment to the mind’s narrative, and freedom starts when you can watch the story instead of becoming it. Along the way we connect the dots between trauma, shame, somatic body memory, and the way cravings and compulsions show up as “reasonable” thoughts in real time. 

We also get personal about the messy middle of recovery: perfectionism as a survival strategy, why control gets rewarded until it fails you, and how rewriting the 12 steps can apply to marriage, resentment, and self-worth, not just substances. We dig into what “amends” really means when you’re trying to become someone new, plus how parts work and self-compassion can help you speak to the inner critic without letting it run the company. 

The conversation turns toward intuition, grief, and joy after devastating loss, including the challenge of matching the level of calamity in your life with equal amounts of serenity. If you’ve been searching for trauma-informed recovery, emotional sobriety, nervous system healing, or a deeper spiritual framework that still feels practical, this one offers both language and lived experience. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the biggest mind loop you’re ready to stop believing.

To connect with Michael, go to:

https://www.michaelcbryan.com/

For a FREE discovery call with Dr. Sam, go to:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Transcript

Welcome And New York Stories

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Welcome back, everybody, to the truth about addiction. I'm not gonna lie to you guys, this conversation is gonna happen spontaneously and in real time. We are meeting for the very first time. We both only know a little bit about each other. And so you are discovering as much as we are discovering right now in this moment. And actually, before I turn this thing over, the guest didn't even know what the podcast was called. And as soon as I said the truth about addiction, he goes, Oh. And he had a whole lot to say about what he understands about addiction. And it's such the perfect way to start this episode. So let me just introduce Mr. Michael, who lived in New York City for so long.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

When she said she was from Sheepstead Bay, I died because in the 90s I used to work at investment banking. And we were telling those friends, if you're out there, Karen. So her name was Karen Milwater. I hope you're alive, Karen.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

Of course, her name is Karen.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Of course, her name is Karen. And she was gorgeous and she wore like nine-inch heels. And you know, we were like on 50, 53rd and 7th, of course, right? Right in Midtown.

SPEAKER_04 1:25

That's literally right where I lived.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Really? Yeah. Where were you?

SPEAKER_04 1:29

Just about 54th between 9th and 10th. So a little more west.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

Well, you were back over west a little. That's nicer over there. That's Hell's Kitchen.

SPEAKER_04 1:36

Now it's nice.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Now back then it was like, mmm. CD is. I used to think that was like, I used to think it was romantic in Hell's Kitchen. It wasn't. Being Scottish and Irish, I'm like, they're gonna be hot. They're gonna be like good fellas. It could be like, you know, the godfather. No.

SPEAKER_04 1:49

No.

SPEAKER_02 1:49

No. Although I've dated a lot of Italian men.

SPEAKER_04 1:52

Oh, Italian men.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

By the way, the eyeshadow. Can you guys see this eyeshadow?

SPEAKER_04 1:56

Is it sparkly and pretty?

SPEAKER_02 1:57

It's like legit.

SPEAKER_04 1:58

Thank you. Because I'm like three episodes deep. I don't know what's happening. I got my roots showing. I've had to pretend like I did an outfit change by putting a shirt over my other shirt. So I really appreciate that. My eye is a good idea. No, peachy. But we digress.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Yeah, we digress. Um, yeah. Karen Stilettos. So Karen Milwauker. So we used to work, we used to work at this investment bank, right? And so Karen couldn't stand them. She's like, these men are fucking assholes. I can't fucking stand them. You know, I have a son that I'm supporting. My men left me. What am I doing with my life? And we go downstairs and smoke cigarettes. It was the 90s. What do you want, right? We had a great time. And then one day, Karen said, she was like, you know what? These guys deserve to like have something done to them. So we did something terrible. I wrote about this in my book. We did something terrible. We put X Lacks in their coffee and they called out about it.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

Did they find out about it?

SPEAKER_02 2:47

After they drank the coffee? Well, because Karen kind of said, You deserve it. Did you crap your pants? Well, you deserve it because you're an asshole. And they sat us in a conference room and they said, Um, Karen, Michael, we don't think this is appropriate behavior for a professional office.

SPEAKER_03 3:00

And Karen looks at me, she's like, You think? And then we got fired, but it was worth it.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Oh my god, that's the best story ever.

SPEAKER_02 3:08

Everyone has their 90s thing right now. That's what the the 90s were the wild, wild west. We just sort of, it was before everything blew up with the internet.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Really, it was like no social. It was like we were aware, but we were like, fuck it. It was, it was really, I mean, I'm alive, but that's kind of stunning. I should not be alive after the 90s.

SPEAKER_04 3:28

I agree with you. I should not be alive. No, I really I attended Sound Factory.

SPEAKER_02 3:34

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Very bad fake ID when I was like, Roxy.

SPEAKER_02 3:37

Can I give it a Roxy?

SPEAKER_04 3:38

Oh, hello. Stop buying from very shady people and just dancing till the sun came up.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

All night long. That ecstasy was so I used to roller skate down Fifth Avenue. My underwear high as a kitten. Oh my god, I was so hot.

SPEAKER_03 3:54

Speaking of the way, let's sing like into the end of the don't do drugs. Listen to Nancy Reagan. Dare.

SPEAKER_04 4:03

I remember that.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Dare, dare, yeah, Nancy.

unknown 4:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

But you just said before we went live something about addiction. Can you please share what you said to me with the audience?

SPEAKER_02 4:14

Yeah. So when you said it was about addiction, and I come into these things, I like to raw dog these things because I think, you know, everybody always talks about being real and authentic, and I just think it's all manufactured. And I think we all sort of can tell nowadays, right? So for good or bad, I just like to wing it. Um, so for a long time I've been helping people with their emotional, psychological, spiritual health by helping them inside unconscious systems that do not like people that are awake.

unknown 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

So they're punished. So they have to find a way to be awake, but work in a world that says, no, you have to do this, this, this, that sort of thing, right? So what would happen is they would lose their mind. They would scream, they would yell, they would bitch, they would complain, they would have heart attacks. I've held the hands of CEOs of major companies who shall not be named, they know who they are, having panic attacks in the ER while their company needs to be run, but they can't because they're having an anxiety attack. And they're like, why am I having an anxiety attack? I've been to every offsite, I've done ayahuasca, I've been to therapy, I've hung out with people, Tony Robinson, I've done these things, and I'm still here. And what I finally understood was the addiction is to the sense of who we are, is to the mind. We're addicted to the mind. But the mind has a narrative, its main character energy. The mind on its own is like a really bad A24 movie. Oh my god, just give it the plot. I don't want to vibe. The A20, that's so A24, right? I'm not gonna give you an ending. We're just gonna say this might be how it ends. So that's that it ends really badly.

SPEAKER_04 5:46

It ends live.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Mother really didn't eat the children. Um, talking about my mother. Anyway, enough about my mother. So it's it was when you We're gonna have to get in there. We're gonna have to, oh my god, hashtag mommy issues. Oh, like Medusa. So that what I've realized is we're we're not even aware that we're listening to the mind. So the mind has a perspective that's always super fucked up almost all the time. So this this narrative, this story, we think is us looking at the world, and it's not. So when I say to people, get out of your mind, get out of your mind, lose your mind is actually a good idea. Get out of your mind, they're like, well, then if I'm not my mind, who am I?

SPEAKER_03 6:32

And I'm like, and they're like, oh shit, and I'm paying you for this. And I'm like, mm-hmm, right? I mean, can you that's a vibe. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 6:45

That's such a 2026 vibe. So that's like literally what I do. And because we're all caught up in the narrative of the mind, to get someone to break that addiction, that deep addiction, which I said to you earlier is combined with somatic, which is real. Yep, because I had a very abusive childhood, and I'm 61 years old, and still to this day, I will wake up feeling like I'm back in the grip of that abuse at 14. I feel it, and I'm like, after all this time, I'm still fucking like a sock in a washing machine. What the fuck is going on? And that's when I realized my mind, I'm not even aware of, is having this narrative combined with my body memory, which is not real. So if we're just aware of the issues are in the tissues, I hate rhymes, but it's true.

SPEAKER_04 7:35

So good.

SPEAKER_02 7:36

It's so good. And it's literally observing us, observing the mind. So I say to people, if you observe you observing the mind, who's the person observing you observing the mind? They're like, oh my god, mind blown up, emoji. It's that thing, right?

SPEAKER_07 7:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 7:50

But that addiction, when we break that, it makes us so aware and clear that we're aware that as we're reaching for the joint, we really don't want to reach for the joint. That's the narrative in our mind. When we reach for the line, when we reach for the drink, we're so aware that we're making the choice as we're making it that we don't really want that. But the mind, oh, you need a break. It's okay, just one. It's come on, don't be so uptight. It's California sober. Come on. You see it everywhere. You walk out your door, so it's like, fucking, wait, everywhere you go. Welcome to LA Ew. Like literally uptight. You are not an addict. You know what I mean? All that stuff. When we listen to the mind, we then are not aware because we're in our head. It's like looking at a book turning the page. How the fuck did she die? Oh, she died on the page before, but I didn't even read it. Let me go back. It's because we're in the head. See, that's how it blinds us.

SPEAKER_04 8:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

So that to me is like major like addiction.

SPEAKER_04 8:53

There is so much to unpack.

SPEAKER_02 8:57

Your eyes, your eyes are extraordinary. Your eyes are like kaleidoscopes many times. That was you couldn't see it, but it was pretty awesome.

Trauma, Shame, And A Lifeline Voice

SPEAKER_04 9:02

Okay. Where do I begin? First of all, the level of awareness and insight that is required to say what you just said is a reflection of the work you've done on yourself. That is not lost on me. And so perhaps a starting question in response to what you just said is what was the first point of entry, whether it was facilitated by another human being or it was your own reckoning or awakening, where you became conscious that your mind had an absolute death grip over your life.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

It was the pain. I was in so much pain. I spent so many years in New York. I was like fucking like going to like, you know, Hastings on the Hudson. I've eaten some like psychic who would put crystals on my junk. I was talking to some tarot reader. I'd go into everything.

SPEAKER_04 9:58

To try and fix your pain, you mean?

SPEAKER_02 10:00

Yes. It just, I didn't understand why I couldn't get it together, why I couldn't feel emotionally well. I was like, why am I not feeling emotionally well? And the pain, um, well, just very, very briefly, just um my experience and my life always told me there was something more, that it was something more than I was experiencing. I was meant here for something more, but I never understood how to reach that place, how to get to that place. So when I was younger, I was raised with a borderline personality disorder mother who was very abusive. And my life story is very uh I don't know, do you want me to really say it or just not?

SPEAKER_04 10:37

Oh I mean, there's no boundaries with this. There's no censorship on this show. So whatever you want to share is free reign for sure.

SPEAKER_02 10:45

This will be triggering for some, just aware. So, and I've been told many times. So I'm just saying that because you know. Um so at 11, I began to be uh I begin to have a relationship with a man in the neighborhood. I was very sexual with a man in the neighborhood. So I was 11, we um were sexual together, we had a relationship, and of course it was consensual.

SPEAKER_04 11:04

Um I want to you were 11, so well.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Here's the shame I was a child, so it never should have happened. Right. At the same time, I wanted it and enjoyed it. So that's the shame you're not supposed to talk about. And I've worked through all that. So it's like fine, right? So that happened. Then I began to, I didn't realize this. My grandmother, she was a prostitute when she was younger in a small town back in the 30s. So my mother was raised around a mother who was turning tricks. So my mother then had a word sexual relationship in her life. I didn't really understand that was going in her family, that history, right? So at 11, I got a, I was very entrepreneurial, I got a fake ID in the mail from Mad Magazine, and my name was Edward Rodriguez, and I I was 18. Should have been Roy Rodriguez. Right Rodriguez, the producer, one of the producers called me Roy, which I thought was like really hot. Um, I'm literally, I want to go into Grinder and say, Yeah, that's right. My name is Roy, dude.

SPEAKER_04 12:00

Definitely your alter ego name.

SPEAKER_02 12:01

Yeah, bra. Whatever they say, brace.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

Rodriguez.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah, Roy Rodriguez. Yeah. I'm gonna be canceled somewhere now. And so I went into porn theater starting at 11, 12, 13, 14. I was going into porn theater as a fake ID. And everyone said, How could you get in that young? And I was like, when you're raised in an abusive house, I think you kind of have an energy. Even though I was always super bright like this, I was always like, My little pony meets Sophie's choice. That was always like my jam.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Little Auschwitz, little my little pony. That's really, if I'm honest, that's kind of my jam.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

So I was going to pour movies from 11 to 14, and I knew it was weird and I knew it was wrong. But at 14, something happened, and it was crazy. It was like, so my parents found out that I was gay at 14. And so now remember, this is 1978, and they kicked me out of the house. And this happened a lot in the 70s. I had nowhere to live, my sisters couldn't take me in, wouldn't take me in. So I lived in Seattle, downtown Seattle, in the summer of 1978. I was a prostitute, so I turned tricks in the streets of Seattle, and it was a wild time, but I decided at 14, there was like a thing, I'm like, you know what? Okay, this is kind of insane, but I'm not gonna grow up. I'm good, I'm gonna stay at 14. So, what part of me has always been kind of 14, even though I'm 61. And that trauma, that incredible past of what I went through, it took me years to really understand the effect. And what happened was in my teens, I was suicidal in my 20s and in my 30s. I went through such hell being rejected as a child, so ashamed of being gay. I went through the whole AIDS crisis, and for older gay guys, it was just like you put your dick in something, like Eddie Murphy said, and boom, it just blows off. I mean, you were terrified of sex, so we became very sex phobic. It was very weird, right? So, what happened when I was 14, and this is my true story, and our dear friend Angela, she loves us because it's true. I was standing on the street corner at 14. My parents had kicked me out, I knew exactly where to go, except I'm going to all the porn theaters. Yeah, this guy down there, his name was Angel, and he said, Hello, baby, I've seen you for a while coming to the theater. I'm gonna show you what it takes to be a trick. And so he showed me and gave me the things, and so he walked out to get me some clothes. He's going to like St. Vincent de Paul to get me some clothes. So he comes back with the clothes as he's standing there. I'm thinking, My mom and dad don't want me to live with him because I'm gay. My sisters won't take me in. I have nowhere to go. What's gonna happen to me? And I heard right then and there inside of me a voice that said, You're gonna be okay. And I never doubted I was gonna be okay from that point on. Over the past few years up until the past year or so, I started to lose sight of that voice, sight of that light. And I forget sometimes that I have to remember that. So the reason I'm so versed in this, and just really just listening to other giants and titans who did this work, I had to figure out what was real for me, what was bullshit, what was real, what was really gonna move the needle in my emotional life. And after years of study and to add a little bit of a little bit of spice, the final spice of this, my dad was a family psychotherapist who knew my mother was being abusive, but did nothing to protect me.

SPEAKER_06 15:32

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

So I work a lot with fathers and sons now. Surprise, surprise. Because my dad was a beautiful man, but he never kind of protected me, it's like he should have.

SPEAKER_07 15:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:40

And so he gave me all these books. He gave me Young, Nietzsche, Freud, Maslow. He gave me Gary Zukov. He gave me the very first Seth speak with Jane Roberts. I was reading this at eight and nine. Like I'm on the school bus and kids are reading Spider-Man. I'm like, oh, look at this. Carl Young about transference. You intrigued?

SPEAKER_03 15:59

And they're like, like, look at this adipole complex. I think I have this. I thought it was normal, you know. Don't you go to junior high and read these things?

SPEAKER_02 16:09

So I kind of knew the ideas, but I didn't really, I didn't experience them. So when I finally realized the alchemistic act, the act of the most horrifying thing inside of you, turning into the greatest gift because everything happens for you. Once I started to understand that and also accepted that I have access to a pain and a darkness, I as a kid, I was, I joke, but I was obsessed with ordinary people about a teen who tries to kill himself because never loved him. That was my mother. Sophie's choice about a woman that survived Auschwitz. I made it through it. I always said we have Sophie's Choice in the musical. Do I choose? Do I choose? You know, this is my way to make sense of it by deflecting with humor.

SPEAKER_07 16:53

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

But I had this Mary Poppins Charlie and the Chocolate Factory heart and soul. But I had this life that was bringing me to like ordinary people and Sophie's choice. So I was like, how do these two blend together into one soul that came here? And so that's why when I work with people, I am completely fearless. They can tell me anything that I have heard it all. And sometimes the answer has to be in the accepting that for whatever reason I think our souls came here. Our souls came here for something much more complex than simply being a purely positive force of energy. I think sometimes the gravitas and the weight and the heaviness of us, I think we've stripped it down and we've lost what art, we've lost what philosophy, we've lost what the great thinkers sometimes said, and we made it very reductive in our five-minute social media, five-second social media bits. But for me, it was always a very complex experience. So I had to find words. So that's when I began to study Eckertoly, who I love.

SPEAKER_07 17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:57

I listened to that crazy nut job, you know, Esther Hicks, God bless her, and all of her stuff. But I had to go into Carl Jung, I had to go into Nietzsche, I had to go into philosophy, I had to go into uh great literature, great art, where I found it. Rembrandt, you know, Picasso. I would find answers inside that great, and I'm an enormous movie nut. I write screenplays, and so movies saved me. That was my cathedral. I was raised by wolves, so I didn't know anything. So I went to the movies. Oh yeah, how do I tie my shoelace? Like, how do I make a baloney sandwich? I have no idea. Let's go watch a movie. And I would learn, now I have YouTube, you know. It's true. I didn't know how to tie my shoelace until I was in my 40s. And then and then someone showed me a video. I was like, oh, look at that. Who knew? It's like it kept falling down.

SPEAKER_04 18:46

You know, I still make bunny ears when I tie my shoelaces.

SPEAKER_02 18:49

I talked to my I talked to my shoelaces.

SPEAKER_04 18:51

I'm like, here we look a little bunny. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:52

My ex was like, um, I married this.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

I don't think I ever really learned like the single loop where you tie it through.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

There's a way you can tie it where it sticks no matter what.

SPEAKER_04 19:01

Because as a New Yorker, I like to know that trick.

SPEAKER_02 19:04

Oh, it's amazing. I'll show you after. It's like legit, like it's so like, but when you try to get your shoes off, you're like, pull a little harder, harder, but it never comes off.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

It works too good. Yeah, it's like New York strong, Jersey strong. Yeah. You're gonna ask something I can do.

SPEAKER_04 19:23

So well, I I just that's the whole thing. I hope that wasn't I love learning about you. I just want to I want you to know that. And I appreciate you. I love the richness of dark and light. Yeah, me too. I'm such a big fan of both and me too, and nuance. Me too. And it is such a lost art form, as you said. Yeah, it is. It is everything is black and white and divisive and yes or no, and love and hate. And I just think so much of the work I do is to have conversations that invite in all the gross, disgusting, hard, painful things, and how it is precisely those things that are shaping and giving birth to what is beautiful and who we are.

Feelings, Body Memory, And Release

SPEAKER_02 20:10

That's right. Like I always say to everybody when I help them with this, you know, we dive really, really deep, and I say so it's really about the emotion, emotions. What are the emotions? Like, what are the emotions you're afraid of? Because I think we have feelings about our feelings. So if we just admit that the feeling in and of itself has no control over us and we just accept it. Um, David Hawkins has that great book, Surrender the Art of Letting Go, where he talks over and over about this. Yeah, you feel the emotion like a crescendo of music, and then you let it dissipate, but you don't control the crescendo. You let the because if you don't, it deposits in the body, so the issues are in the tissues. I say that all the time. You have to that's why being aware of being aware means you feel it and then you let it dissipate. If you don't, it stays.

Perfectionism And Rewriting The Steps

SPEAKER_04 21:03

Yeah. So in my personal development journey, one of the first massive breakthroughs was when I was in a marital crisis. Totally relying on perfectionism.

SPEAKER_02 21:17

Marital crisis, you said? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:20

I had cheated on my husband before we got married when I was in active addiction and had stayed beside me through that process many, many, many, many times. I get sober, he was planning on leaving me, I throw a wrench in the plans, we try to move forward without counseling, without healing, and we get engaged, we get married, and then our marriage starts to fall apart. And I'm thinking, no way. I'm gonna fix this. Like I fixed everything else in my life. In fact, I'm gonna do it perfectly. I'm gonna say the right thing, I'm gonna wear the right thing, I'm gonna do the right thing, I'm gonna make him want me and love me and forgive me. And no matter what I did, it totally didn't work. I was sleeping on couches for months and months, I was insane with anxiety and Age, I had no sense of self-worth. And a friend in recovery was like, you need to sign a lease, get your own place, and do some healing if you're not ready to leave this marriage, because this is insane the way that you're living. This was in 2013.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

Okay, so not that long ago.

SPEAKER_04 22:18

So I get into this apartment, and this is my spiritual rock bottom. This is now, yes, I'm sober, but I'm I'm miserable. Not when I overdosed on cocaine and I needed to get sober. That wasn't the bottom at all.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

That was on cocaine. Yeah. Oh, love it.

SPEAKER_04 22:32

On the night that I got accepted into my doctoral program for physical therapy, because that's how I celebrated. Hello.

SPEAKER_02 22:38

But you know what? Work hard, play hard. Be kinder to yourself because a PhD and dissertation that breaks most people. That is intense. I know many people. That is the gauntlet.

SPEAKER_04 22:49

It's insane.

SPEAKER_02 22:50

So that's insane that you even did that. So okay.

SPEAKER_04 22:54

But that wasn't bottom. That was the that was the bottom of okay, now I can admit I don't have control over substances. But as far as every other thing in my life, every other person, place, thing, or situation, oh, I have control over that. Right. Watch me go. And I used perfectionism because it was a survival skill in my house with a mentally ill mother for my entire life, including in this marital situation. And it just stopped working. And so I'm in this apartment and I go to an AA meeting, hear this woman speak at the podium, and she had killed somebody in a drunk driving accident. And she was so far past that. She was, dare I say it, even joyful in her life. And I just thought, I don't know who you are or what you've done to get there, but I want to learn from you. So up until that point, this idea of believing in a higher power was just for me, I grew up in a home. My mom's a raging atheist. If you believe in God, you're an absolute fool. And the only person you can count on is yourself. And so I was working the steps, trying to navigate my way into sobriety with more peace, but I really had very little of it. And I was still very much doubling down on what I could control. And this woman took me through the steps in this modern way. So she said, let's do the steps on your marriage. Let's let's rewrite the steps and say, you're powerless over your husband, not drugs and alcohol. We know that already. I'm powerless over my husband, my marriage, the past, the lying, the cheating, the fact that he's still upset and angry and it's spilling over into this phase. I'm powerless over the future of the relationship. I'm power, I'm powerless actually over every other person, place, thing, and situation in the whole world. And if that is true, then when I try to exert power over those things, my life becomes unmanageable in the following ways. Oh, well shit. I've been in a fit of rage every day for the last two years. I've been kind of homeless sleeping on people's couches. I am only okay if my husband forgives me. I am otherwise living in a sea of absolute exhaustion and self-deprecation. So I could see my unmanageability when it came to that. And so if all of that is true, then what do I have control over? Oh me, the way I'm thinking, what I'm telling myself. The choice is that okay. So we go through the steps in this way, in this fresh way. And we get to the ninth step, and it's making an amends. I had only ever made an amends to other people. And when it came to my husband, of course, he was, other than myself, the person I hurt the most. And I was absolutely dreading having to do this again. Because I'm just, I looked at this woman and I said, I am five years sober. This man stayed with me. I didn't force him to stay with me. He married me anyway. Are you fucking kidding me that I've got to be sorry again? How long do I have to feel bad for what I did? And she just said, I want you to make an amends to yourself. I'm not, I don't care about him right now. And I said, What are you talking about? So this moment in my life was radical because and I'm bringing this in because of what you said about being addicted to our mind. I was because it saved me as a girl, obsessed, addicted to, if you will, with the identity that I was only okay if I looked perfect, performed perfectly, got the perfect grades, had the grades, had the perfect body, had the perfect marriage. I was only okay and safe if. And this woman said, I'm gonna give you permission to be a woman who doesn't have to be perfect, who made a ton of mistakes in the marriage with this man, but who actually deserves a really happy life. And I was like, huh? So all of a sudden she's shattering this identity that has been running my life.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

And what was the identity again, would you say? Because I'm thinking about how's the atheistic mother feed into that? Do you ever think about that? Because that was fascinating what you said about your atheistic mother. Well, I'm just kidding.

SPEAKER_04 26:59

They go together. Yeah, that's a good idea. So if my mother taught me that there is no such thing as God, right? Your intellect is everything.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Which addiction to the identification of mine, which is why you were a PhD person.

SPEAKER_04 27:13

I uh the only person you can count on is yours is yourself. That is how you're gonna get through life. No one's coming to save you, especially not God. If that's true, then I'm gonna double down on what I can change.

SPEAKER_02 27:26

Which is not a bad thing because it makes you very self-reliant and very driven.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

There's beautiful things about it.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

There really is.

SPEAKER_04 27:32

A lot of people say perfectionism collapses in matters of the heart.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

Because it's it's is it's disconnected from your emotional life.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

There's no perfect way through a marital crisis. There's no perfect way through shame, guilt, regret. Grief.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah. Grief is weird.

SPEAKER_04 27:51

So so perfectionism, control, getting things done, being an incredible multitasker, being great in academia, being these things are highly rewarded culturally in our society.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

Well, what was the core belief that you were a perfectionist, though? Because it inherently says that you're not it.

SPEAKER_04 28:08

I wasn't lovable or I wasn't safe to be who I who I am.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

But I love what you said earlier. If I wasn't what was the word you said before that?

SPEAKER_04 28:17

Lovable.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 28:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

I think that that's really I think I think that's really uh underset. I think um feeling that we're we're lovable and we deserve to be loved and that we're lovable. Yep, that we're we're strong, we're resilient, we're tough. New Yorkers, we're very, we're tough. We're tough. Like our identity is very proud about being tough, right? Yeah, but we're also very kind of mushy. We're also kind of loving. We're very, very, very tender. We're we're tough and tender, right? But the idea, isn't it fascinating? You find this like you have to make a decision. You're either gonna go through this life thinking there's something here in cahoots with you. Kahoots, there's my grandmother, so is a good word, or you're alone. It's like this idea in the Kabbalah I recently heard because I study everything.

SPEAKER_04 28:59

I love Kabbalah. I have recently fallen in love with Kabbalah.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

OMG, we literally have to go to the Robertson place. I will literally hook you up with these. Okay, oh my god. So Marcus Weston teaches out of London in the Kabbalah, and he was talking about manifestation. He articulated perfectly the way the works. He he's like, he's like, okay, okay, it's talking like this. Okay, I want you to imagine something. I want you to imagine that you wake up every day, you're 125%, you know, locked in, you're locked in, brah. So there's that thing, which I like, and it's like down a Celsius, you know, locked in. So then it's like 125%, you wake up every day, and if you don't capture something, you're not going to eat. There's no God, there's no universe, you are stuck here on your own every single day, and you could sit in your garage right now, and the creature can give you everything you want. You don't have to lift a finger. And he was saying that dichotomy.

SPEAKER_07 29:55

I was like, Yeah, that's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

You have to go, you have to take action, and you actually don't have to do all that, but you have to, but you don't, but you don't, because do you know what I mean? Uh-huh. That's the gray area.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

And I thought, dude, that's like yes, that's insane. Yeah. Because I think that's it. Yes. Right. Right.

SPEAKER_04 30:12

There was only the death gripping. There was all there was a push force, death gripping. Oh, I love that. There was just a push force through my whole life. I am pushing. I have to. I'm tough. And then this marital situation just took me to my knees because no amount of pushing fixed it and brought me any kind of peace. When this woman invited in this idea that I could be a woman who cheated and lied and was this version of myself in my addiction that I wasn't proud of, and still be lovable and have a beautiful, happy marriage and life someday that she because, because not in spite of. This was the beginning of an identity evolution. This was the beginning of me. So what happened in the days, weeks, and months to follow was that I became so conscious of the way I was speaking to myself. Right. This mind addiction to this, correct.

SPEAKER_06 31:12

Right.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

That I I I would, she would show up. I always say, I have I now I understand there was so much that was happening in the work that we were doing. There was internal family systems, therapeutic angles of this, not that she meant to do that.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Those models are great, by the way. I love those models of um psychoanalytic theory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 31:33

That was part of this, and also behavioral science because what was happening is I was becoming aware of the identity that I had been living inside of. And she would show up. So this little part of me sat at the spiritual boardroom table. She tried to sit in the seat of CEO and she said, All right, you fucking piece of shit. Let's try to get through the day because your marriage still sucks and it's all your fault. And I would just go, hey girl.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Chill.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

Nice to see you again. I know why you're here. Yeah. I get it. You've been here my whole life. You are trying so hard to protect me.

SPEAKER_06 32:04

Yeah.

Meeting Your Inner Parts With Kindness

SPEAKER_04 32:05

But actually, you're, you're, you're killing me right now. You're you are killing my spirit. You are breaking my heart. And I am trying to become a woman who loves and forgives herself despite her greatest mistakes. And so if I want to be that person, I'm going to need you to just stand down and I'm going to need to come up with another way to say something to myself that's a lot kinder. Like maybe, God, this is so hard. This is the scariest, most painful thing I've ever walked through sober. I don't know the outcome. I want to blame myself because it feels like I'm back in control, but I'm actually not. And no matter what, I'm going to get through this. And so I would, I would, in the moment, in real time, come up with what that new version of Samantha would say or do instead. And then I would say it over and over and over every single day for weeks and months in that apartment. So I didn't understand at the time that I was learning about these parts of myself that were protector parts that had been there from the dawn of time, that were actually sitting in the seat of CEO, and that this new part of me was sliding in and letting them sit. And by the way, they still show up every day. Every day I have a spiritual death when I go to sleep. And I wake up and all the little parts come back to the table. And I sit at the CEO and I say, Hi, everybody. Good morning. Hi, hypervigilant Samantha. Hi, perfectionist Samantha. Hi, procrastinator. Hi, anxious girl. How are you guys doing? What's up? Tell me your grievances. Let's talk.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Let me ask you something. So you asked what the point was when I sort of needed to get my shit together. So when I look at you and we talk, obviously, because you know, I I sort of, you know, whatever I do, you know, I can always see the the truth of a person, the real person right there. And you're so wide open and sensitive into it. But you're also very bouncy, you're very funny. Um, you're very light. Yeah, it's it's it's it's very funny, yeah. Because you talk and just crack out, like throw your head back and cackle like me.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:14

Um, yeah. You know, there's there's I I get fascinated by this because there's so many models and systems. So neuro neurolinguistical programming LP, we're talking words, mantras, affirmation, all these things. Yeah, you know, I think that there's also, and it's an old model, but new and refurbished. Um, is the idea that checking in do you know what I'm saying? Like there's an idea, like I was thinking about this car, like I used to talk about Corolla, I had a hole in the floor, and I thought, I don't know what I was thinking about. I was like 14, never grew up. Um, so um, so it's like we always have a sense without a model of framing, thinking, viewing, healing, checklist, gratitude list, butthole sunbathing, vignots, all that stuff, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:57

We there's so many of these things now. Oh my god, right?

SPEAKER_04 35:01

So many.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

So many. But there's also, if we're really honest, right? Like when we were younger, there was this thing that always kind of knew what the answer was. It always had a physical tenor. It is like a tuning fork, right? And do you remember that feeling, like as a little girl and as a little boy? You remember that feeling where it was just this sort of like zoom. So people always say to me, What is consciousness? What does ego mean? It's too big, the words. They're like, whatever. And I said, You ever remember like you were like a water slide at a water park, and then you're sitting at the top of the water park, but you're like totally afraid, but you're like, oh my god, I'm gonna go down, but no, I'm gonna die. But no, go ahead and go. I'm gonna get botulism. No, you won't. It's fine, there's chlorine. So you go into the water slide and you go zoom. That's what consciousness is like. It's a free form, like like dive, and it's free and it's scary, and it's wild, and it's fun. And then ego is at the bottom of the slide, going, No, you shouldn't have gone on the slide, you should have been more careful with the botulism, because that's the ego, right? I think all these models we talk about now, I think we just need to shake some of this stuff off. It feels me like we need a reboot, yeah, like we need a major raw dog reboot of just remember when you were younger, yeah, and that feeling of being free and on roller skates. You're you're you're in Sheep's Head Bay, crappy Sheep's Head Bay, and look at her now in fancy, schmancy California, and you're here, you're doing your thing, and you're shining and you're bright. And remember those days?

SPEAKER_04 36:28

Yes, and I have something to say about what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

I can tell you're like chomping at the freaking bit. You see, that's great. You're fucking chomping.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

So, so I am. She's chomping everybody. I am, you know, I am extracting so you know more about me, the ways that I've been over the years able to understand what actually happened to me for this to become the beginning of my healing journey and why it was so transformative compared to the traditional 12-step framework at my mother's words, which were the only two things I was exposed to. Okay. Up until that point.

SPEAKER_06 37:03

Right, right, right, right. Fascinating. Okay. Yeah.

Intuition, Self-Soothing, And New Work

SPEAKER_04 37:05

What happened when I started to do this work around self-forgiveness, self-compassionate, self-love, all of that. Yeah. Is that I heard the whisper of my intuition. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

That young that's fabulous.

SPEAKER_04 37:19

Four-year-old, you better march up to your mother right now and confront the fact that she's popping prescription pills like they're MMs and fucking say something to her. Okay, girl.

SPEAKER_02 37:28

That got silent. That was my mother, that was my mother.

SPEAKER_04 37:30

That got silenced in that moment and who has been silent ever since she came to her.

SPEAKER_02 37:34

She was four. She was four. Love you. Did you have a nickname?

SPEAKER_04 37:38

No.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

You didn't? Just little you?

SPEAKER_04 37:41

Well, Slammy. Sammy, my family called me, but my mom kind of calls me like Slammy.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Wait, your mother called you Slammy? Yeah. My mother called me what? Creepy kid. That's nice. That's nice. Nothing like a mother's love. Nothing like that. Thank you, John Crawford. Thank you. Right. I don't like that.

SPEAKER_04 37:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

Slammy? No.

SPEAKER_04 38:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

That's that's not loving.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm in this apartment, right? And the apartment's unfurnished, and I'm gonna be here for a while. There's no end in sight of the work or the marital stuff sort of wrapping up in a bow and being all better. In fact, it got way worse before it got better. And I remember thinking, girl, you have to decorate this apartment. Oh god, yeah. You uh take over. You better make it feel good. And and I was I had been to college away in Boston University, I had lived with my boyfriend now husband in Manhattan. I had had apartments before outside of my study home of origin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

What would you study?

SPEAKER_04 38:40

Oh, communications. That was before I like knew anything about who I was and what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02 38:44

We all studied communication. I went to Emerson College.

SPEAKER_04 38:46

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Boston.

SPEAKER_04 38:49

So I go, but I had never we had gotten married. He I remember my husband planned the whole thing. I just had my tail between my legs because I was just so grateful he was even marrying me after what I did to him. I didn't, I didn't care. Just marry me. I don't care what my dress looks like, I don't care the colors, I don't care. And all of a sudden I get to decide how to decorate this apartment. And I go shopping in this store and I just see this color blue. And it just makes me feel a certain way. I just feel so energized and so soothed at the same time. And I just think, whatever that is, get that color. Put it everywhere. That was, I say that because that was the first, that was the smallest little whisper of my intuition of just going, you love that color, Samantha. That color just makes you feel like you go. It was such a safe thing to trust. Then I had a night in that apartment where I was sobbing and I was thinking, how am I even gonna go to sleep? Ever since I was little, my mom's been stroking my head until I get so sleepy that I go to bed. Then I had my husband do it. I can't even put myself to sleep, and I'm a gro judging, judging. And the little voice came back and she said, You just have to put your arms around yourself.

SPEAKER_02 40:01

So you heard your soul. So your head's telling you one thing. Correct. You're not the head, but we're conditioned in society to take your cue. And right now, in the world because of social, our head is filled with thoughts. So the thoughts that were in your head from the start was from the person that called you slammer, ew. And so that was filling your head. So you were listening to your head, which is what everybody does. But your soul was saying to you, dear heart, no, that's not the truth. That's right. I want you to understand this. And I think that dissemination, that toggle switch. Am I listening to my mind or my soul? Yeah, because mind is ego, mind is ego, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Soul, soul is so beautiful, soul is so wonderful, soul is hyped, soul is high vibe, right? Soul is like, oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, and you know, all the pros, let's go. That's all soul, right? Yeah, so that's fascinating. Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 40:48

So I did. I turned I turned onto my side. Yeah, good. And I wrapped my arms around myself, yeah, and I was hysterically crying and I went to bed. Eventually, that lease went up. It it appeared as if my marriage was was working itself out. It actually wasn't. But I before I gave up that, it was an apartment, this beautiful loft apartment nine blocks from the Pacific Ocean. I was working for someone else as a PT in the same building on the third floor. I didn't know until I asked for an apartment that that building actually had residential units around the back side of it. So in this period of my life, I would literally take the elevator to work, take it back down to my apartment, and just go, now what? And be in this, you know, deep healing situation with the color blue all over the place.

SPEAKER_06 41:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:36

As my lease is coming to a close, the same part of me says, I don't think you should get rid of this apartment.

SPEAKER_05 41:45

You should ask if you could convert it to a fitness studio.

SPEAKER_04 41:49

Because I was starting to pay attention to my career as a physical therapist and I was incredibly disheartened at how broke I was that I had a doctorate and I was making$33 an hour for three years in a row with no shot of a raise, even though I was doing all kinds of things to build this woman's business. I was tired of building somebody else's dream. And also I was wondering, where the fuck are these patients going who have 12 visits, are 60% better, but they want to be 100% better. And I was like, they need to be going to me. I need to build a business based around the extension of care. I need to become cash-based, really good at what I do, and close the gap. I wasn't ready necessarily to make that jump, but that voice knew already and said, don't get rid of this place. This place is a mixed-use building. I guarantee you you can legally use it for fitness. So ask. I get the okay, I move back in with my husband, I convert the space. And I start asking my patients, do you want me to come to your house to do some personal training, strength and conditioning so we can have a continuum of care now that I know your body and I know your history of injury? And yeah. So I start getting some cash-based clients. Eventually, my boss catches wind, she's not very happy with me, she fires me. Thrusted me into the opening of Strong Heart Fitness, which is still in business today. And that was 2013, right? Yeah, so so that that was the beginning of a love affair with my spirit, who had just been silenced from so much shame and trauma. Trauma from the beginning, and then shame compounded by things that had happened in my active addiction. And so the voice, the unrelenting voice of never enoughness, was so loud that I couldn't hear her. I couldn't hear her. And that amends process was the beginning of cracking open the darkness. So there was this channel now of light that could flow between my gut, my heart, and my head.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

What does amends mean? Really. I know what it means. I just I'm always, as a writer, I'm always like obsessed with this idea that when I look at the origin of the word, where it comes from, you can always sort of figure out where does it come from. Do you know?

SPEAKER_04 44:11

I actually don't, but I mean to to mend.

SPEAKER_02 44:15

Oh, that's an amen, amends. Okay, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_04 44:17

Right to amend a behavior. But what what's actually it's good that you're that you're saying this because I think it's not apologizing. Right. We have this idea of of of saying we're sorry. Yeah. The true version of amends and amending something is to change the behavior in the first place, which means you have to change the person who was making that behavior. You have to become somebody new.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

So are you saying to someone, I understand that the person that I thought I was when I did that is not the person I now know I am. Correct. So I wanted to say to you, I understand that there was some hurt involved there. It was never intentional, of course, but I was under a misguided sense of who I was, and now I understand more. We're always discovering more of who I am, and so now I'm that person, but you were in the crossfire of that. 100% basically what it was.

SPEAKER_04 45:05

100%. And I I just want you to know whether you forgive me or you don't, that I am amending that behavior in real time.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

Oh, I'm amending it for myself.

SPEAKER_04 45:14

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 45:14

Got it. So this is about me amending this for myself, but acknowledging that you were in the crossfire. Correct. Okay, I got it. Okay, that makes sense. All right. I like the origin of words. Yeah. I always do that. People say words innocuously, they think. When they do, it's like, oh, let's just go back to that word because that word says something. All right. So what does that bring you now today?

SPEAKER_04 45:33

So back to the childlike nature.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

That we're we're sort of far away from. Okay. There is this saying in recovery that we need to try and match the level of calamity in our lives with equal amounts of serenity. And that was introduced early on. Say it again. Yeah. We need to match the level of calamity.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Calamity, that's a big word.

SPEAKER_04 45:58

I know.

SPEAKER_02 45:59

Lord. Okay, calamity.

SPEAKER_04 46:00

And when you come from actually, Michigas.

SPEAKER_02 46:01

All the Michigas, all the stuff. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 46:03

It's calamity.

SPEAKER_02 46:04

It is calamity.

SPEAKER_04 46:04

I agree with equal amounts of serenity. That there has to be a.

SPEAKER_02 46:08

I never know what serenity means.

SPEAKER_04 46:09

Yeah. Well, well, we'll gonna use this as a framework for where I'm going.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Okay. Because keep going.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

When I moved back in with my husband, within three weeks of me living there, and I found out that he was in fact cheating on me with the same woman for the past five years.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

And you were cheating on early in the relationship.

SPEAKER_04 46:31

Now we were married, he was having a full-blown affair that he was denying.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

So you both were having affairs and being together. That's amazing.

SPEAKER_04 46:38

And, you know, there's a whole other part of the story to that, right? Which which we don't have time to get into. But I ultimately, intuitively, after fucking everyone in all the land of Los Angeles and being sure I wasn't going back, had a God moment, an intuition moment of, are you sure you're done?

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:58

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_02 46:59

You're just making sure you were done, like, you know, playing the field, you mean?

SPEAKER_04 47:01

Yeah, no, are you done with this man?

SPEAKER_02 47:03

Oh, with this man.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

Are you sure you're done with this man?

SPEAKER_02 47:04

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_04 47:05

And I had to have a reckoning with that part of me. Because all the other protective parts were like, are you fucking kidding me? Of course you're done. Who the fuck gets back together with a dude who just gaslit you for two years, looked you in the eyes, and said, I'm not the cheater, you're the cheater. You're the one that fucking ruined our marriage. So fuck you. Don't blame me. And made you feel cra. Of course you're done.

SPEAKER_02 47:25

Which love the fact that people are ghosting about gaslighting now, too. Isn't that something? That's a fascinating trend recently. Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_04 47:32

I remember I I chose to go back. We're happily married today. Okay. But in that choosing.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Well, you guys are. You are today, married today. Two. What's his name?

SPEAKER_04 47:42

Rob.

SPEAKER_02 47:42

Rob. I know you say his name in turn your head to the right-hand side. That's so cute.

SPEAKER_04 47:45

Rob Deets.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

How many kids?

SPEAKER_04 47:46

Two.

SPEAKER_02 47:47

Do you say their names out loud?

SPEAKER_04 47:48

Jack and Charlie.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

Oh my god. That's cute.

SPEAKER_04 47:50

Charlie's the girl.

SPEAKER_02 47:51

Okay. Rob. So Rob is your husband's name. Yeah. And then Charlie is your son's name?

SPEAKER_04 47:55

Daughter.

SPEAKER_02 47:56

Daughter.

SPEAKER_04 47:56

Jack is my son.

SPEAKER_02 47:57

Okay. That's fascinating. Because I just wrote a movie with a main character named Robert, and the kid's name is Charlie, and the script is so amazing right now that it's going out and it's huge. But keep going. So that's fine.

SPEAKER_04 48:05

I have a screenplay too. We should talk about that. I've never done anything with it.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

The new we'll talk because my new one.

SPEAKER_04 48:13

I believe you.

SPEAKER_02 48:14

Oh, it is. It plopped into my head one of those moments. I was like, beginning, middle, and end, it can't be that easy. Yeah. But that's part of this work we talk about. And as you continue the story, the idea about being in non-thought awareness and being in a state where you're just in receptivity, shit falls into your fucking head and you're like, where did that come from? And if you just go, go, go, go, go. But your ego slows it down. But continue.

Forgiveness, Grief, And Chasing Joy

SPEAKER_04 48:35

Yeah. When I made that conscious choice to go back, I remember taking the calamity serenity line. Yeah. And thinking, what is the current application of that in this situation?

SPEAKER_02 48:46

Well, the dichotomy we talked about earlier.

SPEAKER_03 48:48

Nice full circle there. Look at you. Look at you, smarty pants. Super smart. We'll love that. Do smart people talk about it. Super smart. We love those things.

SPEAKER_04 48:56

We're going to go a step further in a moment, too. But I thought to myself, if I don't match the level of resentment I feel for this man with equal amounts of forgiveness, I'm dead. I'm never going to get through it. And I double down on my forgiveness practices in that period of reconciliation. Cut to the more, the more recent, which it's been four years, it's hard to believe. The more recent upheaval, spiritual derailment, tragedy, whatever you want to call it, there you go. Of losing my sister to a drug overdose.

SPEAKER_02 49:30

And when did she die? How many years ago?

SPEAKER_04 49:32

March 13th, 2022.

SPEAKER_02 49:34

Oh. Just past the anniversary. Way too soon. Yeah. Way too soon.

SPEAKER_04 49:40

The same thing came up. First of all, it wasn't even a soul whisper. It was a rally cry of all this suffering, all this dis-ease I was seeing in my practice, which had now moved into a proper clinic and it had expanded. This thing that started as a personal training business and my apartment became my business. And yet, all these normal folks with lots of money were suffering from addictions of the mind, from emotional cycles of dysfunction. And I couldn't stand not doing something about it. I didn't just want to speak to their body and their bodily pain because it was just a tiny fraction of the truth of what was happening in their lives. And yet I couldn't put my finger on what that would even mean. All the academic stuff, all the ego stuff. What are you going to be a life coach when you have a doctorate in front of your name? Like, who are you fucking kidding? Who? And then she died. And I was like, I turned to my husband on the day of her death. I don't remember doing this. We were getting on a plane from Austin to go back to LA. And I said, I'm writing a fucking book. And I was serious about it. You know, and I got to writing almost immediately. And my book is, you know, now out. And it's, it is a modern trauma-informed reinvention of the 12 steps of recovery because that's the thing that saved my life and began my healing way back in my marital crisis. But I said to myself almost every day in the beginning of that period of another identity evolution, I closed my practice down. I thought, I don't know who I'm becoming or where this is taking me, but I'm following it unequivocally no matter what for the rest of my life. I thought, if I don't match the level of grief I feel with equal amounts of joy, I will suffer into perpetuity from this loss. And I have been chasing joy like the air that I breathe. So when you see me laugh, and I throw my fucking head back, that's how I live today. That's not that's not a forced laugh. That is because when something is joyful, you better believe I'm gonna let myself fucking feel it.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

You know the crazy part of this, and and and now we're wrapping this up, but there's a great part of this. So isn't it wild when you've been living this for so long and I've been doing this forever, and you've been doing this, you know, making sense of things, right? Isn't it funny how there's so many practices, there are disciplines, there are systems, there's habits, there are identities, there's books, there's steps, there's seminars, there's looking at your woo-hoo in a mirror and Malibu. It's doing everything, right? All that fucking stuff, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:17

How's that sativa in a mirror? Keep that sativa, but I'll take the mirror.

SPEAKER_02 52:21

Um all these things, right? And at the same time, I think there's this beautiful thing where we just have to do all we can to remember. Just remember who we are, it gets said so much, and it's this physical, tangible thing that lives inside of us. And if we just get still enough to hear that in a world addicted to mind and things happening, then things start to make more sense, I think. That's what I think. So it's a fascinating. I love that you live in that dichotomy. I think this work is the dichotomy through conscious effort and through allowance. That's an art, right?

SPEAKER_04 53:10

Yes, I could speak to you forever.

Where To Find Michael

SPEAKER_02 53:15

Well, I have to say, your intellect is is stunning, it's gorgeous, it's a real. Yeah, it's a real pleasure to speak with you because I love someone who's so intellectually driven. And uh I love someone who is striving to be the full embodiment of their total self while stripping away some of the modalities. And I love that you're raw dogging it. I always say that a lot because I think we have to find new ways to talk about things. I say this all the time. I'm like, safe space, what is this? You want Tupperware? What is this? There's no thing as a safe space. Here's a container. I'm not a container here. I mean, you can put a salad in this, put a lid on it. I don't know what these things mean anymore. I need something different. I can't say container and safe space. We need something else. Not that those things don't make sense, yeah, but we need new words for people that are like, I don't know what you're saying. Yep, right?

SPEAKER_04 53:59

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Yeah, I know we have to wrap, but I just had to add that in there.

SPEAKER_04 54:02

Where do people find you? They want to.

SPEAKER_03 54:04

I would imagine people are gonna come to Sunset Strip and you'll see me there every single night.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

I like those stems, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 54:11

And also he goes by Roy Rodriguez Roy, Roy Rodriguez and by the Dole Brothers there right there by the caboose that has the nice burgers. I'll give you some fries if you go. I'll give you some menchos. Um, I'm a I'm a professional mentor.

SPEAKER_04 54:26

Um we're trying on a new identity, you guys, okay? This is behavioral science.

SPEAKER_02 54:31

Uh my email is Michael at wakeupwithmichael.com, M-I-C-H-A-E-L. And I'm on social media. Uh, TikTok. TikTok, I find an amazing group on TikTok. I love TikTok. Uh they're very engaged. Um, and Instagram and then I don't know what Facebook is. I used to do skillet dinners. I was a housewife in Queens. Not that guy anymore. I'm more Instagram and TikTok.

SPEAKER_04 54:56

Um what's your handle on those platforms?

SPEAKER_02 54:59

Oh, that always makes me tense. When do I hear that all the time? It's so I don't know you that well. Um uh at Wake Up With Michael, uh everything's Wake Up with Michael. So W A K E U P W I T H M I C H A E L. Love it. On all the platforms. And you can always email it Michael at wakeupwithmichael.com.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

Thanks for coming out today.

SPEAKER_02 55:21

Yeah, this was fabulous. I I'm I really appreciate it. Thank you. Yay.