Intergenerational Trauma And A Father’s Silence

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Hi, I'm Malcolm Stern, and in conjunction with my friends John and Sandra Wilson from Online Events, we're creating a series of podcasts called Slay Your Dragons with Compassion. My book of the same name was conceived and inspired by the suicide of my daughter Melissa and the journey that took me on and the internal resources that I found. All of my guests will have a story to tell around overcoming and ultimately thriving through adversity. Special thanks to the band Stairway, Jim McCarty, and Louis Chenamo for the use of theme music from their album Medicine Dance and my engineer Owen Santiago. I hope you enjoy this series, and thanks for listening. So, welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons with Compassion, which um we've now done over 70 episodes. And uh it's a great joy doing them. The podcasts are about how we thrive through adversity, that actually in all of our lives we're gonna encounter adversity and how we thrive through it. So um my guest today is uh is an old friend uh Andre Zitzer, and um he has uh some amazing stories to tell, and uh we're gonna go into that as well, and uh and take a look at at what's happened in his life. Now, Andre, one of the things I'd I've when we talked about doing the podcast, we talked about something that I've been quite fascinated by recently, which is intergenerational trauma, that we carry the wounds of our ancestors, we carry the wounds of our parents as part of our lives. So what we feel isn't just related to our lives, it's related to what went before us. And and uh your parents had a very tough time of it, and so that's the the beginnings of your life. So let's take a look at your um at your mum and dad, first of all, and see um what's happened there.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Well, hmm. Um thank you for having me on this, first of all. Um I've gotta say that uh just at the outset that I'm I'm I'm pretty constantly raw, you know, so tears are all kind of always just behind the surface, you know. Um my parents, oof. So yeah, so so you know, forgive me as we go along, but uh uh being emotional about stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:12

My parents are good, Andrea, and I welcome that.

SPEAKER_00 3:15

So we're good. Yeah, yeah. Um just being hard, being vulnerable in front of strangers, you know. Um well my dad, my dad was uh his father died before the war. Um I'm Jewish. Um my dad was kind of a quite strongly practicing Jew, you know. I've I've I'm a bit more uh um I've let a I've let kind of the practice of it go. You know, there's some rituals that I love that keep me connected, but um before the war, you know, he was in Poland. Um had two sisters and his mom, and he'd moved back to kind of take care of them. Natas invaded. He uh that they had when they invaded, you know, his sisters and his mom said, Hey, go, you know, leave. You know, we'll be fine. They're after you, you know, you're of age, you know, you know that we'll we'll be fine. And um what I found out after my father had passed away was that he had gone back in. He went to the forest, he escaped to the forest when the Nazis came in, and and he went back and he got cousins out. He kept coming, going back in and getting people out so they would get be saved. The men. And um I know a few stories. I know that his war record, my brother looked at his war, you know, tried to find his war record, and it was uh um um it's the he he he managed to eventually join the British Army because he spoke seven languages, and he um his war record is is is confident it's is it confidential? It's or it's what's the word? Confidential uh a hundred years. It's kind of blocked from being shared for about a hundred years. Um and um I can only assume because he knew you know prisoners and he escorted prisoners, but anyway, that's not the point. The point is he never saw his sisters and his mum again. And um I after the we he he I was I sat with him once when I was very young. I remember this. And I just said, Dad, tell me about your mum and your sisters. And he was just he just sat there and stared at me. Um and I just I just said can you tell me their names? And he just he couldn't, you know, it was mum that told me their names, Hannah and Esther and Tauba. And um he just couldn't talk about it. And he was he was captured by the Russians for two years and he escaped. Um that's all he kind of really told me, you know, just wouldn't talk about it.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

It's funny because you've got a sort of uh it's almost like you've got uh gone to the other extreme. But actually you're deeply in touch with your emotions a lot of the time. And as you say, you you have tears around a lot of the time. And one of the ways we deal with trauma is to shut off our emotions, and that's clearly what happened with your dad. He found a way of turning his emotions off, but in the process he will have lost some of the joy of life and some of the other things that go with being able to embrace the sadness.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, yeah. Um dad didn't want to have kids, you know. Um, kind of mum just got pregnant a couple of times, my brother and myself. Um, but he was a good dad, you know. He he showed up, he wasn't emotionally available, didn't know how to do that. Um, kept it all in. My brother kept it all in as well. You know, my brother unfortunately had after my dad died, my brother had a heart attack, you know, he was fine uh uh uh after that, but he had a couple more and eventually he was taken by a a heart attack a while ago. But he just kept all of it in, you know. He didn't he didn't I'm grateful that I can speak.

SPEAKER_02 7:02

Um and I think we're learning that as well, that it's actually healthy. There's obviously there's two extremes. At one extreme, you button everything down, and the other extreme you're like uh letting it all hang out and you're walking around in tears all the time. But I think you're finding, and we've we've spoken before about um the sadness that you carry with you, and we'll go into that in a little bit as well. But but I think you're finding that that you're managing that and that you're emotionally alive, and that's one of the ways in which you're choosing to deal with um what you carry both from your childhood traumas or your parents' traumas when they're in child, and we'll come to your mum in a second as well. Um, but also that you you are uh alive to your emotions, and it makes life hard sometimes and painful sometimes, but more alive as well.

A Mother’s War Trauma And Abuse

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I felt other as a child, very kind of not, I find it very hard to connect to other people, you know. Thank goodness I had a couple of really good friends. Um but you know, coming back to what you said about about you know hiding um and not communicating, I communicated it as a kid. I was really promiscuous, I was kind of finding ways of just I would I I had no sense of self. I had no, I really had no sense of self, and I would leak myself out, not just not just sexually, but just I didn't know how to contain myself. I didn't know how to um I grew up with a couple of parents who were really good people, really good hearts, but just just emotionally, just children. You know, my mum at the age of eight was uh um, you know, they she grew up in Linz in in Austria, and uh my grandfather actually went to school with Hitler and he remembered him. And uh I asked him about him. He said, he just said he was a very quiet. I was a young kid at the time, but I remember asking him this stuff, and he said he was a very quiet guy, you know, he was older than him, but he was just remembered him being very quiet. And um he did, I I just don't get how I remember this, but he he he joked, you know, that he said it was very funny that you know, years later he invited him to one of his camps. You know, he said it in kind of a humorous way, but but it was you know, he went he went to Dachau, he was in one of the concentration camps, and he managed to get out actually just before the war. Um he had his they were kicked out of their house. I went back to Linz with my mum, you know, years ago. And uh we went back to the house that they were kicked out of. And uh it was very weird, it was a very strange thing. And and in there there was a um, you know, the elderly lady who owned the house. It was uh I'll I'll cut this short, but we were in the living room and I don't speak German. My mum is talking to her in German. And in the living room I don't speak it, so what do you do when you don't speak? You know, you kind of look around the room with the pictures, and right behind the lady was a was a was a uh a portrait of her husband in his Nazi outfit, you know, in my mum's. I just remember looking at it, going, you know, just thinking, Mom, don't look there, you know. And of course, her head looked over there and I sort of started shaking. I just put my hand on her shoulder and said, We're out of here, let's go, you know, let's go. And we just left. And um Yeah, my mom, when she was eight, you know, her dad was in a concentration camp. They'd been kicked out of their home. Um my grand her mother, one of sixteen, youngest of sixteen children, you know, um she managed to put mom on a she man managed to put on a uh um the kind to uh Sweden. And uh my mum was sexually abused. She was there for four years, and for the first two years she was with two different families, and um she was sexually abused, you know, from the age of eight till ten.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

And she told you about that?

SPEAKER_00 11:13

Yeah, she didn't like to, you know, she was like, ah, it was no big deal. It was no big deal, you know, but it was a big deal. You know, my mum was um um I asked her, we had a very funny sense, she had a very funny sense of humor, and we had a very dry, droll, you know, uh uh uh connection at times. And um, I asked her what she wanted to, you know, if she was ever to come back in another life, you know, when when she was dying, I I I spent some time with her and when she was um I asked her what she would come back as, you know, uh um and she didn't believe in any of that. And she's like, Well, I'd come back as a rabbit. And I said, Well, why would you come back as a rabbit, you know? And she said, Well, because that you're out in nature. And I was like, Oh, okay. And she said, and and the bonking. And and I just, I just um, that was my mum, you know, she was she was quite promiscuous. She she actually she was she actually decorated my room in a lot of a lot of pornography, you know. It's it was it wasn't kind of out of magazines, it was kind of art, but it was pornographic art. I remember just when I was older looking at this stuff, going, this is pornography, you know, it's it's by another name. And and I asked her later on why she did that. And she was like, ah, you know, you you you live in California for too long, you ask too many questions, you know, you're staring at your navel all the time. But um, for me, it just you know, I was very promiscuous as a kid, and I looked outside of myself for for love, you know, for affirmation. I looked at my I looked out, I looked at uh when I was younger, I was modeling and I I look outside of myself for mentors, you know, male mentors, and you know, and I got I put myself in situations where I got sexually abused by men who weren't interested in mentoring me. You know, they had they had-turing you. So well, that's not what happened, but well, it's close enough.

SPEAKER_02 13:17

No, I'm I'm sort of joking, but I'm also not joking. It's interesting that we go through these traumatic things, and I can see this in your face now as as well. We go through these traumatic things, and we try sometimes to make light of them, but actually they impact us. And so you were looking for a care and mentoring and um wise attention, and what you got instead was attention based on the fact that you were a pretty boy and and got taken advantage of. And your life has led you in a direction since then where you've you've put some of your your skills into play. I know you're writing a book, I think, at the moment, around addiction. Um, and and that's so that's something that you've you've been really exploring. Also, you've you practice as an acupuncturist. And and I remember one of the stories you told me, which was that the when the Grenfell Tower, um, this terrible fire happened at the Grenfell Tower, you picked up your needles and you drove over to Grenfell Tower to see what help you could be to people who'd been um brutalized by this fire and by the terrible tragedy that happened around them. And so I think that what you've started to do is to take your life into a place where you're bringing your skills into play. And and I know you've been working for a long time on the book you're writing around addiction, but I I you know I've I've looked at bits of it and I can see that actually you've got um you care and actually you want to bring something through. And I think that's the thing. I think that's what gives our life meaning is that when we've got something we want to live and want to bring through, we have a purpose in life. And I think you've you've probably found your purpose. I think also what I'm I've been impressed with recently as well is that you've also found a loving relationship that that actually um has made a difference from all the promiscuous running around. You've actually you're starting to learn what it is to to deeply love another human being. Perhaps you can say a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

You've earned up a lot there, Malcolm. Um well, first of all, um I went to um because of my promiscuity, because I had absolutely I had no boundaries, you know. Uh um my mum would just walk in on me whenever she felt like it, you know. I would uh I'll I'll just go back to this and just say a quick story about the that I was back there with a girlfriend uh uh you know years ago. I was back with staying at my parents' house, you know, and I'd brought a girlfriend back. I was living in the States. And yeah, you know, it was early in the morning, and and my parents knew I was I was I'd come back there with her. And and it was about seven in the morning, and my my girlfriend and I were being intimate, you know, and my mother just walked in, and she just walked across the base of the bed, and we and she went to a cupboard that was just kind of there, and then she opened the cupboard and took out some sheets, closed the cupboard, and just walked out. And um there were she had no boundaries, you know, and and I was taught you know, no boundaries. So I I was I had to learn uh how to do that, and I I put myself in recovery, you know. I went to a group called Sex and Love Addiction Anonymous, you know, S L A A, and then Codependence Anonymous, and uh, you know, I found other other you know meetings there that have been really useful to me. And out of that, what I've learned, I've I learned so much. I learned so much about myself, basically, how to be with other people, you know, what's okay, what's not okay, how to have boundaries.

SPEAKER_02 17:01

Um which is why you're able to have a loving relationship now. I want to come to that in a second, but let's just go back. I just want to go back to your mother. She she died um a few quite a few years ago. So eight years ago. Eight years, is it really? Gosh. And I remember at the time you're talking to me about her the process of her dying, and I was utterly inspired by the love with which you accompanied your mother through the place where she was dying. And it's impacted how I was with my mum when she was dying. You were uh you were a role model in that in that way. So, with all that went on, you actually were a son who actually gave his all to that process. You were there for your mum.

SPEAKER_00 17:46

Thank you for saying that. You know, I that's around the time that I met you, and you were really um instrumental in helping me go through that. So thank you for kind of saying that it helped you as well. You know, one of the things that mum used to do with me was she'd hold my hands like lovers hold hands, you know, interlacing, and I hated it because it was uh and then she'd give me little kisses on the cheek, you know, lots of little butterflies, which I hated. And then I realized that she never had a mother. You know, her mum survived the war, but she was just never a mother to her, and I realized that that's what she wanted. Sorry, give me a second.

SPEAKER_02 18:26

No, no, no, it's all right. Let it let it flow. It's it's absolutely fine. And I think it's wonderful that you're in touch with your feelings and that you know that you don't block your feelings. You know, you would have learned that from your dad how to block your feelings, and you've had to work hard to actually allow them to come. And there's nothing wrong in that. I think that's what's very important, is that that's what we're trying to live these days, is a more authentic life as human beings, where where feelings are welcomed rather than pushed down, and we say, How are you? I'm fine.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

And um, but at times Malcolm, it feels too much. Like, you know, I spent five years every day crying after my mum died. You know, I hadn't my brother had died. I used to say my brother had died, and and that's kind of got what got me to move back to London to take care of mum. And um, she wanted to go, you know, her son had died, and and well, you know, she knew that she just she wanted to go for a while. And um she didn't she hated losing her independence, she hated getting older. Mum was a you know, she was she was very independent and very loved life, but also wanted to die, and she'd, you know, she'd written some suicide notes before that that I found. And and um she wanted to die, and and she was um so when I came back, one of the things I noticed, you know, she was just this little, she became this little girl who's like, you know, just wanted stuff and and so I give her those little kisses that she gave me and realised that's what she wanted.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

And I held her hand like she, you know, would hold mine because I realised that's what she wanted.

Caring For A Dying Parent

SPEAKER_02 20:11

And you were able to put yourself aside enough that you were able to meet her needs. And so it feels like a lot of healing went on in your relationship with your with your mum. And as I said, you inspired me with in my relationship with my mother when when my mother was dying, and I saw how much you'd put in to being with your mum, to mopping up her vomit, and to to actually being able to take care of her at a physical level as well when everything was falling apart. But I want to come move on for uh well let's let's just quickly quickly take a look at your brother, um, because your brother died quite young, um, had a heart, I think it was at Kentish Town Station, was it uh that happened. And and uh that that impacted you really deeply. So tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

My lovely brother.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

What was his name?

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Kerry. Yeah, like Kerry Grant. Um he was a very funny man, very mischievous, really good, really loved, just loved by people. And um used to torture me. Uh but you know, that's what older brothers do, I guess. But but I loved him, you know, and he he was very much there for me in many ways. And as a you know, as a brother, we were brothers. We weren't close, but we were brothers, and and um he was, yeah, just um he there was an innocence about him, there was a uh a mischievous about him, mischievousness about him, but also there was there was a he also held the stuff, you know. I I did I said to him one day, I said, you know, after I found out, I spoke to my mum and I said, Oh, I don't think, you know, dad wanted us. Dad wanted, you know, didn't want to have kids. And he said, Did you never think about the fact that I was born seven months after they got married? And I went, oh no. He goes, mmm, you know, mmm, but uh my brother was a good man and I miss him. Yeah, he's got two lovely kids, and now he's got grandkids that he's missed out on, and uh, I yeah, my brother, lovely guy.

Grief After A Brother’s Death

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Yeah. So I wanna I wanna come to your sort of your current um state of being, and that is from having been very promiscuous and being in a family where there was a lot of stuff going on. Um But actually you've you've found well, there's two things that you you seem to have established. One is that you're writing a book which you're carefully researching and spending a lot of time making sure you make this book something special, and we'll talk about that in a minute. But that you've also established a relationship, which is a loving relationship, that's um where you've given yourself in a way that you weren't able to give yourself before. And perhaps we could talk a bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

The work I've done, that's a lot of stuff you've brought up. The work I've done on recovery um is about me keeping my side of the street clean. And um, I have to show up and take care of 100% of my 50% of any relationship, you know. Excuse the you know, 12-step jargon, I guess. Um yeah, I'm showing up, you know, and um um she's an amazing woman. Um I won't, I can't, I you know, it's not for me to talk too much about it. How do I show up? I I um what I'm noticing. So the gift of this relationship is um I'm get getting to see my cravings, my codependency. I'm getting to see my part in in my failings. And um I'm owning it, you know, I'm showing up. I I uh I remember uh um I was married at one point. I remember at one point my wife turned to me and she said, you know, what am I you know, close your eyes, what color are my eyes? And I just I just didn't know. I just didn't know. I just wasn't present. And um, you know, I'm I'm I have pain about my past, but it's also taught me how to be present, and I I'm really present with this lovely lady that I'm with. And uh what color are her eyes, Andre? Brown.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Oh, good, well done. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

Um I'm just getting to my head going, uh I'm really present.

A Loving Relationship And Real Presence

SPEAKER_00 25:01

I I can listen. You know, I listen to I can listen to what she says and I can repeat back. And what I would do for this was actually, I would, I when when I when we first met, I would I'd write things down because I'd forget. I'd write things down that that um were interesting about her, that I liked about her, so that I'd remember. Um and then I'd you know, I I made a practice of writing things down, and then just I started remembering more. Um so then I'd, you know, in conversation, something came up that we'd referred to. I was able to refer to, you know, a conversation we'd had months ago about something, and and um and tie it, tie it back together. And and and you know what what I she was really appreciative. She's really appreciative when we're being intimate, and you know, and I'm able to say to her, hey, can we slow down? And she goes, you know, she's very, very funny. She's a very funny person. And she looked at me, you know, when I said that, she goes, said no man ever. She's uh uh excuse me. Um yeah, she's a very funny lady, and um, you know, and it's it's not without, you know, of course it's not perfect. And what's not perfect is my difficulty in accepting that another person isn't me and doesn't do things the way that I want them to, and doesn't respond the way I want them to. And so for me, it's about making peace with that. You know, there's no finding into myself what it is that I need, what are my needs, how do I meet them? Um, you know, not from the relationship, but but how do I take care of my own disharmony, my own frictions, my own, you know, my own difficulties in the relationship. And we talk about stuff that needs talking about. Um yeah, it's just it's it's lovely being in this connected of a relationship. Um I'm a different person. I remember looking at the the the the uh um signs of uh uh of of an sex and love addiction. I remember looking at the signs, you know, what what uh things that I remember I used to you know tick every one of them and and then I looked at them recently and I just thought I don't relate to a lot of these signs anymore. You know, they're they're not me. You know, I'm able to take uh I'm able I have boundaries, I'm able to say no, I'm able to take care of myself, I'm able to listen to somebody else, I'm able to um, you know, my life doesn't revolve around her. Um, you know, I have those hankerings still, but um it's you know, it's I I notice them and I have a community of people. I'm able to talk to about this stuff, who know me very well. Uh one of one of the beautiful things about 12 steps is that you're able to meet people who I've known people for 30 years um in recovery. Um there's there's some people I speak to who I've known for 25 years, you know, who know me very, very well. And um yeah. You know, so they they give me they give me good feedback, you know, when I when I have questions, when I'm doubts. Um the book I'm writing, thank you for that. The book I'm writing is uh it's currently called the um the recovery companion, but the name's gonna change. Um but it really is about my experiences in my own recovery, um, the experiences I've I've seen of others, the basic things that you learn from a rehab. And uh a lot of it's my Simone stories, uh stories of some of the clients I've worked with, and exercises that I've learned through Buddhism, through yoga, uh, through being in recovery myself, being in therapy for a long time. And I wrote it really for um rehabs can can be very are very expensive. Uh there are some which are uh um funded, you know, in the States there are some you know some amazing treatment centers that are funded by the government, uh private donations. And they're able to treat people who have no money, you know, who who are kind of at the bottom of the social ladder, really. And um you know, for but for the most part, addiction uh rehabs are very, very expensive. So I wrote this book for people who can't get to a rehab, really. It's for people who you know, it's it's it covers the basics of of what you learn in a rehab and and how to help you and how that this really is a spiritual program. It's a spiritual, it's a it's a it's a a portal. You know, addiction can be a portal to another way of being. Because what is addiction really, other than just the uh compulsions? It's kind of it's it's a you've had a really bad experience, and you try to numb that experience out with a better experience, and for a short period of time it is better. But then unfortunately, uh with most addictions, they have bad consequences. And when the consequences are bad enough, jail, losing your money, spending your children's college fund, losing your marriage, you know, all kinds of awful consequences. You wake up. And what is it that wakes you up? You know, what is it that will get you to actually uh uh uh into recovery, into self-awareness and into looking at yourself. And at the end of the day, you can, you know, I look at my addiction as I'm grateful. I'm a grateful recovering addict. You know, I don't identify with being an addict, I don't want to affirm that, but I I'm definitely in recovery from addiction.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

Um and your life's looking different as well these days. So that's that's the other thing is that you know the external reflection of what goes on internally is a is a good indicator that we are actually doing the work.

SPEAKER_00 30:57

Yeah, thank you. Um my mind goes a little it got a little jumbled there, I'm afraid. Um that's your age, actually, I think. You know, so that's yeah. Um I've forgotten what I was gonna say. What was I gonna say?

SPEAKER_02 31:18

Well we're looking at uh how the the the external is a reflection of the internal, so that when we start to see that our life is working, we're actually what we're actually recognizing is that our life's working because we are re-jigging the patterning that goes on inside our heads. And while we're victims, and you'll know a lot more about this than I do, um that that that's when the addiction plays out as well. That uh, you know, with it it's almost like it happens to us rather than show. I've just I've just been listening to um Elizabeth Gilbert's latest book, who wrote Eat Prey Love, and her book very much is about addiction with her her lover, Rhea. And the the the when I first heard it, it was like the first couple of chapters, it's like, my god, this is this is pure madness. What what masquerades as love is pure madness and addiction and codependency. But then I realized that she'd actually done a very, very deep journey and had actually made real sense of this wild relationship that took her to all sorts of places, but that she learned and came through it as well.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So to speak to that, to speak to that, you know, underneath all addiction is trauma. Yeah, yeah. And and really addiction is just the coping mechanism for you know, uh for you're trying to feel good. And part of the trauma, I mean, we all different kinds of trauma. But uh uh part of it is we we we think love is, you know, you can speak to this much more than I can, but part of love is, you know, part of our uh history of love is our our uh working in love is is uh being in love. Is that we're model that by our parents. So what we see, I mean, this is pretty kind of 101 stuff, really, but but what we see as relationship is what we model, it's what we know, it's what we comes from.

SPEAKER_02 33:13

I remember doing a workshop with uh very good um couples facilitator, and she said something that really stuck with me in the start with me ever since, which is the children are the witnesses of the relationship. We may think we don't, you know, they're not taking in what's going on, all the unconscious hostilities, um incapacity, inability to be intimate, inability to deeply connect. They're taking that in. They're actually learning through that.

Trauma Therapy And Family Systems

SPEAKER_00 33:38

There's this excuse me for interrupting you, um, but I'm going to. Why not? Um I've I've I'm also a trauma therapist. I'm not just an acupuncturist, I also do uh somatic experiencing, which I've been doing, uh, the work of Peter Levine, which I've been doing for a long time, which you know, I do all of this to heal myself as well, but uh uh profound medicine, this is uh helping people's nervous system regulate. Um I've I've when I when I work with with a client, you know, especially when they're younger, I'll always want to meet the parents and do a couple of sessions with the parents because you know that it's usually, you know, one person's usually the the identified problem, you know, the addict. But uh they rarely take a look at themselves, the parents, the court, you know, and and not to blame them. This isn't about blaming. This is about how do we all work together? How do we change? How do we change the environment, you know, and and um that's why a lot of kids, a lot of people in recovery, they move away from their families. They kind of have to get sane by themselves, they have to get sane in a community that is safe. Yeah. Um, and and going back home is not always safe for a lot of people. Yeah. Uh until the parents start doing their own work, which is that's their path. That's you know, and you know, does it begin with one, you know, sometimes the child doing it can lead to the parents, you know, who want to questioning their own experiences. I mean, uh if I can share one story that happened when I was early in this work, I was uh uh privileged to witness uh um they uh a family group where the the the kid, this is this story I put in my book actually, there's uh the the the the kid is this young kid who was um he'd been using he'd been you know heroin, you know, he'd been doing heroin fentanyl and he was young, 19, 20, long haired, you know, greasy hair, long haired, skinny kid. And um his his father was there, and his father was a policeman, and you know, real sort of the earth guy, you know, who had a chat with him. He was a real grounded and you know, this isn't something he knew how to deal with, you know, but he was there for his son, and the rest of his family were there. And his son was, you know, his dad was there kind of in a you know in a shirt and jacket, and and um and he turned to his son. There's a bit where where the father, you know, each member of the family get to sit with the with the the the the patient, the client. And um, you know, you don't answer back, you just speak, you just speak from your heart, and it's you know, you're supported in this. And the dad looked at his son and said, I have to make calls to families when they find their dead children and say, I'm sorry to tell you, your son has died. We found your son and he's and he said, and uh I don't want to get that phone call. I don't want to get that phone call. And if you keep doing what you're doing, your mother and I just we live in fear that this is what's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

And he said, I love you so much, I will do anything to help you. I'll do whatever it takes to help you.

SPEAKER_00 37:08

I remember sitting there, just you know, I can't forget this. And the I looked at the kid and he was just, you know, any you know, semblance of bravado or confusion, he was just sitting there hearing this, feeling this love from his father that I made up. He hadn't really heard before, he didn't know, they didn't have that relationship. And I just looked at him and he was there and he was totally getting it. You know, it was at that moment for me he kind of woke up and went, oh, you know, I've got family. And I'm loved. And I'm loved, and I'm being seen.

SPEAKER_02 37:47

Yeah. You know, and ultimately that's what we all hunger for. To be seen. Yeah. And to be accepted. And it's one of the main reasons I run therapy groups is that people show up for each other, learn how to be with each other in you know, and see into their each other's souls, not just into a life story.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

So we're I was in I was in I was in your group for a while during COVID.

SPEAKER_01 38:19

And it went on. I think the one-year group became a three-year group, I think. Right, I did, yes.

SPEAKER_00 38:26

And I for me, I really I remember one thing about I wanted friends, and I wanted to be, I felt very lonely at the time. It was around the time of taking care of mom. I can't remember if she'd already passed. But I remember, and I realized that this is a group where this isn't about making friends. And 12 steps and therapy isn't about making friends, it's about being willing to kind of just find your mess and just open it up to find what's true for you, what's really authentic for you, which is you know, you call it authentic communication. And uh I'm not I and it took me a while to realize I'm not there to make friends. I'm there to to to express my difficulties and my desire to be seen and my to try and get rid of this veil that's kind of stopping me connecting to the world. And um, and it took me kind of until the end of it to realize, oh, that's what it's about. And and I can make profound friends when you really connect from that level. But at the time I wasn't able to kind of get to that level, you know, it helped me. It was one of those, it's just stepping stones, you know, in recovery and therapy. It's a journey. Yeah, there's nowhere to get. There's nowhere, you know.

Slaying The Dragon Of Self-Acceptance

SPEAKER_02 39:53

It's great to see where how where you've come from and where you've arrived at. And so there's a question I always ask, we're coming towards the end of our our session together. There's a question I always ask at the end, which is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay um in order to be who you are? What's the thing you've had to really take on that? Which challenge has really forced you into finding yourself and and showing up?

SPEAKER_00 40:24

Which dragons uh I think self-acceptance It's a good one, you know, it's a simple but it's true. But it's also, you know, who who I am is enough. You know, that's who I am is enough, and right here, you know, I love Eckhart Toll going, you know, I I mean I love Buddhism, love studying Buddhism, but Eckhart Holl's like, hey, you don't need to live lifetimes to just be present, just work on being present. So for me, one of the dragons, you know, the fantasy dissociation has been huge, and it's still a work in progress. So being present. Accepting. When I accept, I take a breath. You know, sorry for I don't mean to stand on a person. Yeah, but but you know, I take a breath. I feel my body. You slow down. It slows down. I don't slow it down, it slows down. When I kind of start noticing my body, that I'm I'm feeling emotional That I've got a screen in front of me that I can see the sun outside. My jaws a little tight, my neck's a little tight. You know, I just slow down. You know, yeah, as as as a as a practitioner, you know, my focus is on calming people's nervous systems. And I find that when you calm the nervous system, everything else starts coming back online. Everything else starts healing because it's the nervous system where really amped up. I'm really amped up, and so for me it's just you know, that siren. I don't know if you can hear the siren in the background. No. Yeah, just do anything to calm the nervous system down, you know. Just being present helps do that. Um, one of my dragons. What are my dragons? They're amazing.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

Thank you, Andre. It's been really, really uh nice having this dialogue with you, and uh really thank you for um showing up, showing up and being present here and sharing very honestly and openly and emotionally, which I always appreciate.