Speaker 1: I'm Ali. I came out after twenty years of marriage
Speaker 1: and I have three kids.
Speaker 2: I'm Melissa and I have two kids, and I came
Speaker 2: out at thirty seven after an eleven year marriage.
Speaker 1: This podcast is about coming out later and the struggles
Speaker 1: and victories that come with it.
Speaker 2: When coming out feels like the end of the world,
Speaker 2: but it's really just the beginning.
Speaker 3: This is the Lesbian Chronicles, just kidding, just getting Wait, no,
Speaker 3: this is it. Yeah, welcome to the Lesbian Chronicled where
Speaker 3: I've done this show a thousand times and I still
Speaker 3: really don't know how to dude.
Speaker 4: It's like you.
Speaker 2: Change one variable and we're like the minions running around
Speaker 2: here like every single time.
Speaker 1: I'm like, how is it that every time the chords change,
Speaker 1: I need a different connector I need different headphone?
Speaker 2: What is this?
Speaker 4: Cactes me what?
Speaker 1: We've come a long way. We thought we'd have a
Speaker 1: little time before our guest arrived, but I see her
Speaker 1: in the waiting room.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so what do you think that this beautiful bouquet?
Speaker 4: It is very pretty and it smells really good. It's
Speaker 4: for book club. Nice, right, I like it.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to be really impressed with what
Speaker 1: you're getting for dinner tonight. Okay, something tells me you're
Speaker 1: going to be very excited.
Speaker 4: What is it? Frozen pizza?
Speaker 1: Pizza? Okay, let's let our guest do.
Speaker 4: All right, she's waited long enough, Rebecca. Can you hear us?
Speaker 5: I hear you? Yeah, hold on one second?
Speaker 4: Great? Oh my goodness? Yes, right?
Speaker 5: What's that? You look adorable? We here?
Speaker 1: Where you are?
Speaker 5: What the hell? Melissa? That's right? I you know it's
Speaker 5: really over here?
Speaker 1: Are you setting up together with a guest?
Speaker 5: Like this is set up for us? We're cool? Yeah,
Speaker 5: I get it.
Speaker 1: Out and then we'll have a guest or we're together.
Speaker 5: Just the two of us.
Speaker 4: Yes, gotcha, gotcha.
Speaker 1: I'm even slightly not trusting, do you?
Speaker 5: I don't you know what?
Speaker 4: That's a good point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, what do you think about?
Speaker 5: Stand by?
Speaker 4: Stand by?
Speaker 5: One second?
Speaker 3: Totally?
Speaker 5: Yeah, totally we get it.
Speaker 1: Looking how every single thing we do is a technical nightmare.
Speaker 5: It's okay. I'm with you, and it is. We can
Speaker 5: also blame it on mercury and retrograde.
Speaker 1: I thinks let's blame it ont satorade.
Speaker 5: Let's do it. I love that.
Speaker 1: Where in California? Are you?
Speaker 4: Rebecca?
Speaker 5: I'm in, do you guys with Orange County? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 5: in Woman Dana Point, Gunna Beecheria.
Speaker 4: Okay, oh yeah, Data Point. That's where all the dolphins
Speaker 4: and whites.
Speaker 5: That's right, the whales. Yeah, whale watching. It's famous for that.
Speaker 2: I did a tour there and it was one of
Speaker 2: the coolest things I've ever done.
Speaker 5: Yeah, okay, good because I was actually thinking of doing one.
Speaker 5: I've never done it myself since I've lived here for
Speaker 5: two years now. The best. But it was cool, Okay, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 2: It's beautiful there, and I did a whale watching thing
Speaker 2: where you go out on the the like little raft
Speaker 2: kind of motor boat right there, an actual.
Speaker 5: Like ship like yeah watching ship. Oh, that's cool.
Speaker 4: So they were darting around. We saw a gray whale. Wow,
Speaker 4: the blue whale. The blue ones the biggest.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but the gray whalers, I guess the ones. Well,
Speaker 5: I think we're known for all of them in this
Speaker 5: is it's the biggest place in the world. Yeah, in
Speaker 5: the world, I think right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the second most populated for dolphins in the world.
Speaker 2: I think, next behind like South Africa or something like that,
Speaker 2: or South America.
Speaker 1: The whale watching tour we did on the big boat.
Speaker 1: The whales were as big as school buses and they
Speaker 1: would literally come up and come banging down, and the
Speaker 1: whole boat would just be like the kids are throwing
Speaker 1: up off the front. But I'm literally like I couldn't
Speaker 1: even believe my eyes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is wild.
Speaker 5: It's majestic, majestic.
Speaker 1: You can't even believe it. You're like, is this real?
Speaker 1: But is that with those whales that are that big.
Speaker 1: Let's say I jumped in, Are they messing with me
Speaker 1: at all?
Speaker 4: Or thinks so friendly jumped in?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, like I thought about like I remember
Speaker 1: the seat, the seat, the trainer, and she got the
Speaker 1: whale took her out.
Speaker 5: But so do you think that was Well, then there's that.
Speaker 1: Do you remember do you remember that Blackfish?
Speaker 4: The movie?
Speaker 5: The movie, Yeah, it was a doc was a documentary documentary.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I remember. I cried.
Speaker 1: I cried my eyes out.
Speaker 5: Didn't they They ended up taking they killed the whale
Speaker 5: sucks they had to put it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well I can't remember his name. It was like Tanta.
Speaker 5: I bawled my eyes out. It's sad for the woman too,
Speaker 5: But yes, but why is it that we feel more
Speaker 5: sad for the.
Speaker 1: Don't admit that I know well, you know, I actually
Speaker 1: I made my kids watch it like I just because
Speaker 1: I'm such an animal person. And I remember thinking after like,
Speaker 1: as I'm in it with them, I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 1: may not have been a great idea.
Speaker 5: Traumatized exactly exactly, Rebecca, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 1: I think re aligne. I think because well I followed
Speaker 1: you for a little while, but I feel like your
Speaker 1: your stuff on just transformation and just completely going from
Speaker 1: one version of yourself to a different version of yourself
Speaker 1: is exactly who our audience is. I mean, they're blowing
Speaker 1: up their entire life and say, I'm starting from brick
Speaker 1: one and where do I go from here?
Speaker 5: So I guess, yeah, perfect.
Speaker 1: Tell us how you kind of tell us a.
Speaker 5: Little bit about you. Yeah, so it's funny you say.
Speaker 5: I always think of you know, when do we know
Speaker 5: it's time to change? Right? Like? How did I know
Speaker 5: that it was time for me to change? Or transform
Speaker 5: or iterate on who I was? And I always I
Speaker 5: always quote this quote. I have to write it down
Speaker 5: because I always botch it. But it's by a Nyas
Speaker 5: Nin and it's the one that says, and the day
Speaker 5: came when the risk to remain tight in a bud
Speaker 5: was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. Right,
Speaker 5: And you've heard it before, probably right, But to me
Speaker 5: that quote says it all. It's like, until we get
Speaker 5: so uncomfortable in our current state is the point when
Speaker 5: we go that's it. I have to change, right, I
Speaker 5: can't do this one more day. And so for me,
Speaker 5: that's why I transitioned into I was in you know,
Speaker 5: my background as fitness. I was a celebrity trainer for years,
Speaker 5: worked with celebrities as a massage therapist for years, twenty
Speaker 5: years in that career, and it was a beautiful career.
Speaker 5: I loved it. But at some point I started to
Speaker 5: realize as I was evolving as a human and I
Speaker 5: had started my work at thirty like to find myself
Speaker 5: and uncover the pain and release the pain. I realized
Speaker 5: that no matter how many six pack abs I helped
Speaker 5: people get, no matter what my abs looked like, if
Speaker 5: my heart was all funky inside, it didn't matter.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 5: And so for me, as I was on this journey
Speaker 5: in fitness and wellness, I realized that I really wanted
Speaker 5: to do deeper work in what I did with the
Speaker 5: people that I worked with. My work has always been
Speaker 5: about transformation. Like before it was from the outside in
Speaker 5: and now it's from the inside out. But for my
Speaker 5: own yeah, for my own personal growth. What happened for
Speaker 5: me was I just one day I woke up. I
Speaker 5: was it was ten years ago, and I was like,
Speaker 5: I can't count one more set of reps for a client,
Speaker 5: one more day. I can't do it. I'm really good,
Speaker 5: I'm a really I was a great trainer, Like it
Speaker 5: was a great career, and I'm really good at it.
Speaker 5: I'm passionate. Everything I do, I'm passionate about so it's good.
Speaker 5: But I'm like, I'm just collecting checks at this point.
Speaker 5: It just doesn't my heart's not in it anymore. And
Speaker 5: so finally I said, I started putting it out to
Speaker 5: the universe. I need to grow, I need to evolve
Speaker 5: into a different career, different iteration. But it's scary, right,
Speaker 5: you've been doing something twenty years and then you're kind
Speaker 5: to just pivot like that.
Speaker 1: And I had how you fall your.
Speaker 5: Bills and that's how I pay bread and butter. Yeah,
Speaker 5: And I was like, h this is risky, but I
Speaker 5: just knew that I couldn't do it. The pain was
Speaker 5: too great. So I was like, I can't do it anymore.
Speaker 5: And I started putting out to the universe, what could
Speaker 5: I do? What could I do? How can I go deeper?
Speaker 5: I still want to help people transform, but I'm not
Speaker 5: a therapist. I'm not going to get a therapy to
Speaker 5: I don't believe in no disrespect talk therapy. So I'm like,
Speaker 5: I don't want to do that. And even if I
Speaker 5: got the degree that that doesn't resonate. And so I
Speaker 5: was in the middle of a really bad breakup and
Speaker 5: somebody said to me and I loved the person I was,
Speaker 5: I loved her. I was like, I love you. I
Speaker 5: love you, but I want to help you, but you're
Speaker 5: not changing and you're staying the same. And it was
Speaker 5: toxic and I but I couldn't leave. So I was stuck.
Speaker 5: I was frozen. And so someone said, go try breath work,
Speaker 5: and I was like, I'll try anything. One of your guys.
Speaker 5: I went and I tried it, and I had this
Speaker 5: really beautiful like they call it, you get cracked open,
Speaker 5: And it happened. I got cracked open, and even though
Speaker 5: I had tons of tools from work i'd done starting
Speaker 5: at thirty all the way till that age I think
Speaker 5: I was fifty something, and I it was a new
Speaker 5: level for me that it cracked open another layer, so
Speaker 5: more things came out of me and released and I
Speaker 5: was able to navigate through. I loved the breath work
Speaker 5: so much, so I'm like, oh, this is the thing,
Speaker 5: this is the thing. If I learned this, study this,
Speaker 5: I'm going to teach this.
Speaker 4: And so that's I'm curious about.
Speaker 1: Like when you say you have like a breath work breakthrough,
Speaker 1: is it like, yeah, you go to a session and like, right,
Speaker 1: then you have a breakthrough or is it like over
Speaker 1: the course of many sessions working with someone it finally
Speaker 1: happened or.
Speaker 5: What No, it does not even mean yeah, so so good,
Speaker 5: thank you for asking that, because it's actually in the
Speaker 5: experience you, I mean, if you've ever done it's called
Speaker 5: conscious circular breathing. Just to be clear, it's different than
Speaker 5: meditative breath work. It's different than when might I do
Speaker 5: a protocol of breathing such as a four seven eight
Speaker 5: breath or box breathing, which is those I always call
Speaker 5: those are prescriptive, right, And you know, if you do
Speaker 5: box breathing, you'll calm down. You know, if you do
Speaker 5: four seven eight, that's known to help you get sleepy
Speaker 5: at night. So those have a prescription. You do four
Speaker 5: sets of that, and then you're going to get sleepy.
Speaker 5: You do three sets of box breathing and you have calmness,
Speaker 5: or you get a breath of fire, you get energy. Right,
Speaker 5: But conscious circular breathing is literally like a box of chocolates.
Speaker 5: You never know what the experience will be. And it's
Speaker 5: meant to crack you open, help you release stuff, help
Speaker 5: you excavate what I call the bs, and to get
Speaker 5: to your truth and to get Yeah, it's a really
Speaker 5: really beautiful practice, and so it literally gets it shuts
Speaker 5: off what it does it's doing. It shuts off your
Speaker 5: prefrontal cortex, our thinking brain, our executive functioning brain, so
Speaker 5: that we can tap into our heart. So we shut
Speaker 5: this off long enough to get connected here. And as
Speaker 5: soon as we do that, most people find that as
Speaker 5: soon as they do any kind of breath. Even in
Speaker 5: my coaching sessions, I'll have my clients just close their
Speaker 5: eyes and do three deep breaths with me, and there's
Speaker 5: often just tears because I put on music, and I
Speaker 5: say a few things to them for two or three
Speaker 5: minutes before we start, and there's tears because how many
Speaker 5: times do we stop long enough to connect here?
Speaker 3: Never?
Speaker 5: Not very often? Right, yeah, unless we're in a practice
Speaker 5: that says this is how we do it, we slow
Speaker 5: down but yet quiet.
Speaker 1: How do you like? Your client comes in and then
Speaker 1: how do you get them to like? Because my mind's racing,
Speaker 1: we'll never stop.
Speaker 4: It's like, how do you do that?
Speaker 5: Well, let's test it. Oh boy, right, let's test it,
Speaker 5: so for fun, for fun, let's do it.
Speaker 1: Okay, So what I usually do.
Speaker 5: A client comes to me and I say, okay, they
Speaker 5: know because they've been working with me, and even on
Speaker 5: their first session they don't know. And I go, I
Speaker 5: always start my class, my session, my whatever with breath.
Speaker 5: So the first thing we're going to do, and I'm
Speaker 5: looking at and I'm getting them comfortable, Like, the first
Speaker 5: thing we're gonna do today is just breathe together, and
Speaker 5: I make it not a big deal. We're just gonna
Speaker 5: take some breaths and I'm gonna cue you. You don't
Speaker 5: have to think about anything. All you got to do
Speaker 5: is drop in.
Speaker 4: Is that cool with you?
Speaker 5: And they're like, yeah, that's cool, Well let's do it.
Speaker 5: And so then I go, okay, I'm gonna add some music.
Speaker 5: And then I put on some really beautiful music, which
Speaker 5: I would do, but I don't want to mess up
Speaker 5: your soundboard. And I put on some really sweet, soft
Speaker 5: instrumental music okay, and I say, all you got to
Speaker 5: do is close your eyes. So if you want to
Speaker 5: do that, just close your eyes with me for a second, okay.
Speaker 5: And then from there, all we're doing is letting our
Speaker 5: energy softening. I know you're like a ash and we yeah,
Speaker 5: and let your energy soften. Let your body just mellow
Speaker 5: for a second. And then we're just taking in a big,
Speaker 5: deep breath in through the nose, into the chest, into
Speaker 5: the belly and opening the mouth, big audible side.
Speaker 3: Let it go.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna do that two more times, right, And that's
Speaker 5: how I coach them through it. We do it again,
Speaker 5: we do it again, and they before they can even know,
Speaker 5: they've already dropped in. Oh wow, because I know we're
Speaker 5: kind of surfacely doing it here, but like if I
Speaker 5: had music and you guys were really into it, you
Speaker 5: would drop in. It's not even a question. It's like
Speaker 5: I've never had anyone not be able to and it's
Speaker 5: because I sort of catch them off guard and then
Speaker 5: I don't make it a big deal. I'm like, all
Speaker 5: we're gonna do is take some breaths, right, and then
Speaker 5: for that those two or three, and they also say,
Speaker 5: you have a really soothing voice, so that they say
Speaker 5: all these things, yeah, well, thank you, thank you, and
Speaker 5: so and I'm really aware of how to speak to
Speaker 5: someone because I know they're coming from a buzzy, busy head.
Speaker 5: Why they're there, traffic, they're at work, and I'm that way,
Speaker 5: so I don't for me and even by the way,
Speaker 5: they don't know, but I'm doing it for me too.
Speaker 5: I have breath too, so I can ground so that
Speaker 5: I give them a really bad ass coaching session and
Speaker 5: we're connected because when we're if we come in and
Speaker 5: we're both like buzzing and their head's there, my head's
Speaker 5: over there, We're never we're gonna be like this, right,
Speaker 5: not like this, and I want this in the session.
Speaker 5: I want connectedness, right, and so yeah, So it's not
Speaker 5: as hard as you think. It's just it takes a
Speaker 5: little bit of folk. It takes a little commitment of
Speaker 5: like I really want this. I wanted to turn this
Speaker 5: brain off for a minute.
Speaker 1: So when you did it for yourself, which turned you
Speaker 1: on to it, like whatped like they did that with
Speaker 1: you basically as a client.
Speaker 5: And then what happened so well, Actually I went to
Speaker 5: a class, so I used to teach at. I ended
Speaker 5: up teaching at this same studio where I first experienced.
Speaker 5: It was called the Den Meditation Center. Maybe some of
Speaker 5: your listeners if they might have been there, if they
Speaker 5: lived in La or live in La. And I went
Speaker 5: and I took a class with someone who facilitates about
Speaker 5: an hour long experience, and there was fifty other people
Speaker 5: in there, and we all get the instructions of how
Speaker 5: it's going to go down, and the instructor walks us
Speaker 5: through it, and we all lay down and we just
Speaker 5: start breathing, and there's music playing and the coaches talking
Speaker 5: to us, and it was really beautiful. Like I wasn't
Speaker 5: the only one by the way crying my eyes out.
Speaker 5: So much tears came out that I literally had to
Speaker 5: pass tissues around at the end, Like it always happens
Speaker 5: that way. People are yelling, people are crying, people are
Speaker 5: it's basically a cathartic release if you if you know,
Speaker 5: like why we do that, right, because we have so
Speaker 5: much emotions that are stuck and cathartic releasing or somatic
Speaker 5: shaking or you know, body wiggling or writhing. It's called
Speaker 5: is meant to release energy. It's just stuck in us
Speaker 5: and we all have it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, facinating.
Speaker 2: Now you mentioned something about you know, not being like
Speaker 2: really into talk therapy, which of course is your own view.
Speaker 2: But I'm wondering if when this breath work is happening,
Speaker 2: if people do kind of after be like, you know,
Speaker 2: this thing came up in my mind that I'd never
Speaker 2: considered before.
Speaker 4: Is it almost like an internalized talk therapy?
Speaker 5: I guess, yeah, Oh, interesting to say it like that,
Speaker 5: But well, yes, what happens is we sometimes people will
Speaker 5: say to me after because then I started to teach it, right,
Speaker 5: Then I studied and I got certified, and then I
Speaker 5: became a teacher myself, and so over years of teaching,
Speaker 5: people would say things to me like, ah, it was
Speaker 5: out of my body. It was an out of body experience.
Speaker 5: And I was lower crofton tomborate or chasing dragons in
Speaker 5: the Amazon, and I met my grandmother that I never
Speaker 5: got to say goodbye to or all I want to
Speaker 5: do is go home and hug my kids and my
Speaker 5: wife and tell her how much I love her because
Speaker 5: I've been avoiding her or not being present, and like
Speaker 5: we just have AHAs and all that's really happening is
Speaker 5: we're getting this thing is shutting off. Once our brain
Speaker 5: shuts off and we could drop to our hearts. That
Speaker 5: is where our truth is. Everyone's truth is here, but
Speaker 5: we don't take time to connect to it. So when
Speaker 5: we see the truth or feel the truth, we're like, oh,
Speaker 5: there's that thing I want to work on. Oh I've
Speaker 5: been really shitty to that person. I need to apologize.
Speaker 5: Oh I needed to forgive this person. I'm going to
Speaker 5: do it as soon as I get home. And all
Speaker 5: of that happens when we gets quiet enough. That's why
Speaker 5: meditation and silent retreats are really popular too, so that
Speaker 5: we can turn this fucking ring off. Yeah yeah, and
Speaker 5: connect to what I.
Speaker 1: Love that because it's like to make it a regular practice,
Speaker 1: like to do that, like I never cry, Like I
Speaker 1: just said this to someone. I have lots of stress
Speaker 1: right now. I have huge things happening, and it's like
Speaker 1: I'll be talking to a friend and she's bawling about
Speaker 1: something and then she'll say, God, that felt so good,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what's wrong with me? I'm like, I
Speaker 1: have horrible things happening and I never cried. It's almost
Speaker 1: like it's blocked.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, one hundred percent. That's That's what I would say,
Speaker 5: is that it probably is blocked, and or there's a
Speaker 5: couple of ways we could look at it. It's blocked
Speaker 5: but not on purpose, or it's suppressed and repressed purposely,
Speaker 5: like your nervous system is like, holy shit, I'm sorry,
Speaker 5: which are you listening?
Speaker 1: I'm Ali, Melissa, you.
Speaker 4: Guys, Usually we're not.
Speaker 2: We're on our.
Speaker 4: Because people get all I.
Speaker 5: See is Alison one name, because you're sharing it and
Speaker 5: so yeah, Ali, yes, yes, and Melissa okay. So because Ali,
Speaker 5: you know, often our nervous system wants to protect the
Speaker 5: brain a migdila's job where we fight flight that stress
Speaker 5: response part of our brain and the nervous system the
Speaker 5: job is to protect us and keep us safe. Right,
Speaker 5: So imagine your body, your spirit, your mind is smart
Speaker 5: enough to know that if Ali were to really address
Speaker 5: all the things that are stressing you out and deal
Speaker 5: with maybe some things you maybe pushed aside or whatever.
Speaker 5: You might have a complete breakdown right now, and you
Speaker 5: have some things going. You just said, I have some
Speaker 5: things happening right now. I can't probably afford to have
Speaker 5: a meltdown. So your nervous system and your brain and
Speaker 5: all that's keeping you safe, but not really safe, only
Speaker 5: safe for now by not letting you feel it. This
Speaker 5: is one hypothesis, right, So it's suppression and repression on
Speaker 5: purpose so that you can keep functioning. That You've heard
Speaker 5: the term high functioning addict or high functioning over whatever,
Speaker 5: right like people can still keep going even though they're
Speaker 5: in addiction, even though they are toxic, even though whatever whatever.
Speaker 5: They keep their job, they keep the roof of it,
Speaker 5: They get their kids to school on time. High functioning
Speaker 5: so that they keep going in the world. But underneath it,
Speaker 5: they could be a fucking mess. Not suggesting you or
Speaker 5: I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That, Rebecca, I no, no, for real, let me let
Speaker 1: me share how that's not fair.
Speaker 5: I didn't like that, but but for real, like, what
Speaker 5: could be happening is that your body is trying to
Speaker 5: protect you from melting down now. But I always say
Speaker 5: is you can't outrun the pain. You either go after
Speaker 5: it or it comes after you eventually. Right for right now,
Speaker 5: you have lots going on, but as soon as you
Speaker 5: get quiet and slow down, maybe it's going to hit you.
Speaker 1: I do remember, And we have a friend who lives
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood who's a friend of the pod who
Speaker 1: she and I talked about how like when I was
Speaker 1: getting divorced. This was years ago, but how like when
Speaker 1: I had the kids, I was high functioning. I would
Speaker 1: go to school, big smile, I did pta, I did everything.
Speaker 1: Then the minute they would go to their dads, I
Speaker 1: would cry and I would just be able to like
Speaker 1: I something came over me where I'm like, Okay, I
Speaker 1: guess now it's.
Speaker 4: Safe to cry.
Speaker 5: That's right, boy, just hit it on the head booth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I'd say sometimes, so now I'm gonna cry.
Speaker 1: But I noticed, like even in therapy to your point,
Speaker 1: like in my talk therapy, I don't ever cry, like
Speaker 1: nothing ever gets to it. Like occasionally something will.
Speaker 2: But I yeah, you almost feel like even with your therapist,
Speaker 2: the person that's like supposed to not judge you whatsoever,
Speaker 2: you're still like have that block garden.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a guard yeah, which is why. And again
Speaker 5: no disrespect, right because I you know I tried it
Speaker 5: for years. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and in tandem. That is
Speaker 5: why I always say tuck therapy doesn't work alone in
Speaker 5: my opinion, my humble opinion, but in tandem with some
Speaker 5: somatic practices, with NLP, with hypno, with breath work, with journaling,
Speaker 5: with anger rentsing and anger releasing, it's amazing because then
Speaker 5: you can have all these body experiences where you can
Speaker 5: release the emotion. Give that. I always say the emotion
Speaker 5: has to have airtime. If it doesn't, it shows up
Speaker 5: as it's you're heavy, you're depressed, you're angry, you're stressed,
Speaker 5: you're looping in your brain all the fucking time. And
Speaker 5: that's how the emotion is getting sort of processed but
Speaker 5: not really processed. How do you it's activated emotion. It
Speaker 5: needs airtime, So to me, I always say it needs airtimes.
Speaker 5: It's it's just a messenger, like when we're sad. It's
Speaker 5: like the sadness just wants to say, hey, I don't
Speaker 5: like the way you're being treated or I'm being treated,
Speaker 5: so I need you to hear me. And there's going
Speaker 5: to be tears because you need to leave this relationship.
Speaker 5: But when we don't listen to it and we push
Speaker 5: it down, we stuff it. We have a drink, we
Speaker 5: tap out, we gamble, we sex out, whatever we do
Speaker 5: to soothe the pain and not address it. Then it's
Speaker 5: just living inside our by We're getting sick, we're getting
Speaker 5: angry or depressed or said so the emotion just wants airtime.
Speaker 5: Once it gets airtime, it's like, oh, I've said what
Speaker 5: I needed to say. Now I'm free. Now you're free
Speaker 5: to go. Then the emotion can leave you.
Speaker 1: But you got to under each other or do I
Speaker 1: have to like say it to the person like I
Speaker 1: think sometimes Melissa and I will have a situation with
Speaker 1: other people and we'll tell each other like, dude, I'm
Speaker 1: fucking pissed right now, like this shit happened. But it's
Speaker 1: like I rarely go to the source of my problem.
Speaker 1: I know exactly what it is, I know my thing,
Speaker 1: and I can't It's like I don't do that. But
Speaker 1: does the airtime? Is it okay to just have a
Speaker 1: friend that gets it or in breath work you get
Speaker 1: it air zo, yes.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent, Like you know, do we The ideal
Speaker 5: scenario is we always want to be able to go
Speaker 5: to the source of the conflict or the issue or
Speaker 5: the concern. And that's where healthy communication comes into play.
Speaker 5: Because if you go to the person, you're like, you
Speaker 5: pissed me the fuck off, You're an asshole, I hate you.
Speaker 5: That gets nowhere. But if you go, hey, I've been
Speaker 5: sitting with something and got it.
Speaker 3: I know.
Speaker 5: I that conversation and my belly was in a not
Speaker 5: and my heart was beating fast, and I need to
Speaker 5: talk to you. Are you cool with like having a
Speaker 5: deep conversation. I just want to express what I felt,
Speaker 5: and you open it that way, in a kind, loving,
Speaker 5: approachable way. Now, if they refuse you that you have,
Speaker 5: you can't do anything. You can't repair it with them.
Speaker 5: You can repair on your own. And that's where stuff
Speaker 5: like working with a coach like me comes in because
Speaker 5: I know how to help people repair on their own.
Speaker 5: Sometimes the people are dead that they're upset with or
Speaker 5: sad or about, or angry with, or were traumatized by.
Speaker 5: But you could still heal those wounds, right, You just
Speaker 5: have to understand how, and you know which modality to use.
Speaker 5: And usually it's a bunch of things, it's not just
Speaker 5: one thing. Sometimes I say. I always say, like I
Speaker 5: think of like my tools. I wear them like as
Speaker 5: a tool belt around my belly. I got, you know,
Speaker 5: I got journaling for that. I got a pen and
Speaker 5: a paper I got then I got a bat and
Speaker 5: a pillow for anger works, and then I got a
Speaker 5: yoga mat for justs meditation, and then I got you know,
Speaker 5: all these things. So I'm wearing this tool all the time.
Speaker 5: And usually I could pull one tool, know how to
Speaker 5: use it, and it fixes it. Sometimes I got to
Speaker 5: pull all ten tools out, keep trying shit, and then
Speaker 5: finally one hits and it goes away. The pain, the
Speaker 5: heavy the fear of the anger, whatever it is.
Speaker 2: I think that resonates with a lot of our listeners,
Speaker 2: given like you know the experience of all coming out
Speaker 2: and there's so much suppressed emotions that we have.
Speaker 1: Sexuality has been suppressed, yeah for sometimes twenty thirty years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's yeah, there's a lot buried there. And
Speaker 2: then like the layers the guilt, like Ali was saying,
Speaker 2: the shah, yeah, the shame. Yeah, holding it together for
Speaker 2: your kids. I mean I did the same thing, you know.
Speaker 2: I would take little bathroom breaks, go lay on my
Speaker 2: heated bathroom floor and cry my eyeballs out for twenty
Speaker 2: minutes and then have to be like, all right, I
Speaker 2: gotta go back and make sure the kids are going
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, yeah, so yeah.
Speaker 5: And those little breaks are sort of I was explained
Speaker 5: to a client the other day about like, you know,
Speaker 5: you know what happens when we shake this bottle, Like
Speaker 5: imagine this is a can of coke, right, we shake it,
Speaker 5: shake a shake it and then I open it. Right,
Speaker 5: remember as a kid used to mess with like shake
Speaker 5: it and then squirt it somebody when you open it, right,
Speaker 5: same kind of thing, Like our emotions need to be
Speaker 5: the cap needs to be released so that they can
Speaker 5: as they come up, they can bubble out, they can
Speaker 5: release the pressure. But when we don't do like little
Speaker 5: things like what you did, Melissa, where you would lay
Speaker 5: on the floor, you were like letting some steam off,
Speaker 5: which was perfect because imagine if you hadn't done those
Speaker 5: little cries on the floor. And I don't know how
Speaker 5: long it happened before you exited the marriage and how
Speaker 5: long you were suppressing all that, but imagine you didn't
Speaker 5: take the little cry breaks, even how angry and sad
Speaker 5: and depressed and heavy you would have been finally when
Speaker 5: you were free. But that's why, you know, instead of
Speaker 5: like shaking, shaking, shaking and keeping the top on, we
Speaker 5: have to shake a little, release a little, yeah, shake
Speaker 5: a little, shake a little, release a little, so that
Speaker 5: we have more wholemeostasis in our body and our nervous
Speaker 5: system isn't always in fight or flight, yeah, or suppression,
Speaker 5: and then we're heavy and depressed or angry so that
Speaker 5: we go from zero to sixty and explode on everybody.
Speaker 1: Or for no reason, said like Melissa was getting physically sick. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like, what's wrong with me? I'm physically sick
Speaker 1: all the fucking time?
Speaker 4: Like I could not eat.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, I'd lost I think fifteen pounds during my
Speaker 2: whole coming out process divorce and really, I mean, of course.
Speaker 4: You know, talking about it was a big thing.
Speaker 2: Joining Ali and I met in a group for women
Speaker 2: coming out later that was huge, but really starting to
Speaker 2: tell people too, like like you're saying the release of
Speaker 2: that's right, I'm.
Speaker 5: Kidding yeah yeah yeah, And hearing yourself say it right,
Speaker 5: and then having others witness it, hearing yourself say it
Speaker 5: without a filter or shame or and the first time
Speaker 5: we say it, it feels shame. There's shame, ye, But
Speaker 5: each time you say it, more and more and more
Speaker 5: less shame less, shame less shame. And then when you
Speaker 5: get around a bunch of people that support it and
Speaker 5: love it and say, oh my god, I love you
Speaker 5: no matter what. Oh my god, that doesn't matter. I
Speaker 5: still love you. You can't make me not love you,
Speaker 5: right like, And then we hear that, and that just
Speaker 5: makes the next time we say I'm gay so much
Speaker 5: easier because every time we get a little more love
Speaker 5: on the word, you know, and that feeling that we
Speaker 5: had it just kind of dissipates, right.
Speaker 1: True, it is so true, it is every time we
Speaker 1: have it. It's like got easier. Every time we went
Speaker 1: out to like a function, we both got a little
Speaker 1: and stronger. Have you heard of she mentioned anger rintsing?
Speaker 4: Have you ever heard? I haven't heard of that, but yeah,
Speaker 4: tell us, Oh my god.
Speaker 5: It's one of my favorite modalities that I use with
Speaker 5: with people. And you know, unfortunately one of the people
Speaker 5: who need it the most, or anyone who's had to
Speaker 5: suppress sexuality and is shame based around it. So it's
Speaker 5: perfect for lesbian community. We should have a group, and like,
Speaker 5: I don't know, I know I should offer like a
Speaker 5: workshop or where we can all get together and do this.
Speaker 5: I love that idea. Actually it actually is a really
Speaker 5: beautiful practice. But if you think about anger, and I
Speaker 5: say to you, what do we think anger is masking
Speaker 5: what's underneath anger? If you had to guess the fevere
Speaker 5: emotion fear fear specifically, thos, sadness is the main one.
Speaker 5: Hurt the main one, right, because why like, so we
Speaker 5: get hurt, and then what do we want to do
Speaker 5: normally if we're sad? What's our first instinct? If we're depressed, sad, lonely.
Speaker 1: Either isolate, lash out, okay, so.
Speaker 5: Lash out or I mean sorry, so isolate and we
Speaker 5: do that. Sometimes people go to bed to pull the
Speaker 5: covers over the head to get depressed. They don't want
Speaker 5: to get out of bed. So it's a heavy emotion
Speaker 5: that makes you stay stuck, you get paralyzed. Right, So
Speaker 5: that's hurt, sadness. That kind of energy makes us usually
Speaker 5: want to stay put. Now anger, if you put anger
Speaker 5: on top of that, anger is a movement energy. Think
Speaker 5: of all the things that have come out of people
Speaker 5: being angry, mothers against drunk drivers, right, she was sad
Speaker 5: her I think a daughter or son was killed by
Speaker 5: a drunk driver. Instead of staying in the depression, she
Speaker 5: turned angry and the anger made her move and create
Speaker 5: something beautiful. So anger is a good emotion. It's just
Speaker 5: saying there's some hurt there, but you need to keep moving.
Speaker 5: You gotta keep bills paid, you gotta go to work,
Speaker 5: you gotta you have to start a foundation or whatever. Right,
Speaker 5: So anger can be useful. Where it's not useful, well,
Speaker 5: it's always trying to tell you something, so we always
Speaker 5: want to hear the message. But when it's not useful
Speaker 5: is when you explode on people you love or implode
Speaker 5: and hurt yourself. So imploding looks like cutting, using, sexing, gambling,
Speaker 5: drinking too much, do whatever, right, So using getting addicted
Speaker 5: and then we're imploding or exploding means going to zero
Speaker 5: from zero to sixty on the people we love that
Speaker 5: don't deserve it. So what we do with anger rinsing
Speaker 5: is we get all of that layer out of the
Speaker 5: body first through a practice which I lead people through,
Speaker 5: and it's basically imagine you know, when you go into
Speaker 5: a gym, you're punching a punching bag. So imagine if
Speaker 5: I'm coaching, and this isn't the way I do it,
Speaker 5: I do it a different way. But imagine that you
Speaker 5: were punching on a punching bag and I said to you,
Speaker 5: now say all the words that your body's feeling from
Speaker 5: that energy of punches. Right, So that's a really strong
Speaker 5: aggressive energy, right, And imagine I said to you, not
Speaker 5: say all the people that you're frustrated with as you punchy,
Speaker 5: get it out of your body, get it an airtime
Speaker 5: and then But we do it in a practice where
Speaker 5: it actually feels like you could do it freely, like
Speaker 5: in a gym. You would never do that, right. It's
Speaker 5: embarrassing to swear at the bag. But I'll just tell
Speaker 5: you the real way I do it. I usually do
Speaker 5: it with people with a tennis racket on a big,
Speaker 5: huge pillow, okay, and we're taking the racket and we're
Speaker 5: beating it like literally, not physically to hurt anyone. We're
Speaker 5: beating the pillow safe and we're saying words of anger
Speaker 5: to get it out of our body. Then as soon
Speaker 5: as we're done, usually what happens is a and drops
Speaker 5: into a ball in a fetal position, and tears immediately
Speaker 5: erupt out of their body immediately, because underneath that anger
Speaker 5: that now I say, keep going till you're done. Get
Speaker 5: all the words out, fuck you, mom, fuck you dad,
Speaker 5: fuck you society, all the people that hurt me and
Speaker 5: rape me and abuse me. Get it out, get it out,
Speaker 5: get it out. And then when it's done, they sink,
Speaker 5: they shrink into this ball of the hurt that now
Speaker 5: has the voice. It didn't have the voice because the
Speaker 5: anger was on top. And when the anger's on top,
Speaker 5: you're just walking around like a ball of fuck the world. Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: angry are you just keep moving so you could doing
Speaker 5: but like underneath you're either heavy and blocked or sad
Speaker 5: but not showing it, or you feel numb. The other
Speaker 5: one is numb and empty inside. Yeah, And so that
Speaker 5: that's because the anger is running, angers running the show.
Speaker 5: So once we get it out, then the next step
Speaker 5: is we do a writing. So while they're crying, I
Speaker 5: let them get the tears out. So that may go
Speaker 5: on for thirty minutes, I don't know how long, if
Speaker 5: everyone's different. And then we do a writing. What's the
Speaker 5: letter you would write to you at three, four or
Speaker 5: five of what you really wished would have happened in
Speaker 5: that scenario. That scenario, what did you need that person
Speaker 5: to say? How'd you need them to show up? What
Speaker 5: are you sad that they didn't understand who you were
Speaker 5: in the world? Why did they shame you for being gay?
Speaker 5: Write about it. Then we get it out through writing,
Speaker 5: and our brain is witnessing the understanding and the processing
Speaker 5: of it, and then we get up and we shake
Speaker 5: it out and they've had a full cycle experience. So
Speaker 5: when people say anger management or anger work, there's different
Speaker 5: styles of it. My style I like to think of it,
Speaker 5: I call it rinse it. It's an actual full process
Speaker 5: and we rinse it through a whole process. Each letter
Speaker 5: stands for something in the process, so each one has
Speaker 5: a thing and it's a real full practice so that
Speaker 5: at the end you feel complete. Like if you just
Speaker 5: do anger work and you don't process the hurt underneath,
Speaker 5: you walk out with all this adrenaline rushing through your
Speaker 5: body and you didn't process it to close the loop.
Speaker 5: So the real way, as you get the anger out,
Speaker 5: address the hurt underneath, process the hurt, then don't learn
Speaker 5: from it. What do I need to learn? What boundaries?
Speaker 5: Do I need to set in the future. How do
Speaker 5: I need to honor myself? How do I reclaim my
Speaker 5: voice again? How can I stand in my strength and
Speaker 5: not shrink? And then we get up and we do
Speaker 5: some mantras and some affirmations and we reclaim our power
Speaker 5: and then booth, they're free to go.
Speaker 1: Is that like over a course of multiple sessions or
Speaker 1: is that like a two hour session?
Speaker 5: Or it could be like a power session with me,
Speaker 5: I've done it like that. It's workshops sometimes that I offer.
Speaker 5: I haven't done one in a while. I actually want
Speaker 5: to again because I think the world needs it right now.
Speaker 5: And people sometimes come to me when they coach with me,
Speaker 5: because they coach for three to six months with me.
Speaker 5: We start. It depends on the person. Everyone's different. Like
Speaker 5: some people can come in right away go through the
Speaker 5: whole process. Other people have to baby step it because
Speaker 5: they're not even in touch with their feelings. They don't
Speaker 5: even know why they can't cry, they don't even know
Speaker 5: why they are anger. They don't. So I got a
Speaker 5: little by little pull it out over a period of sessions,
Speaker 5: and sometimes we can do little you know how I
Speaker 5: was saying, you got to let a little the steam off.
Speaker 5: Sometimes we can do little releases, mini releases, I call
Speaker 5: it in session over the time, and then we do
Speaker 5: a major one. And then sometimes people come with to
Speaker 5: me here in Kelly for a three day retreat experienced
Speaker 5: privately with me, where we go through all the things.
Speaker 5: We do inner channel healing, we do anger and sing. Yeah,
Speaker 5: we get all the emotions out and at the end,
Speaker 5: where basically I call it revealed, we always do a reveal,
Speaker 5: a release, and then a rise the three hours, so
Speaker 5: we reveal the pain, we release the pain, and then
Speaker 5: we rise up after the pain. So that's how I
Speaker 5: always lead what I do even my coaching, same same philosophy.
Speaker 1: Because it is true you and I have said before
Speaker 1: where we're like we're numb.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't even know a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's almost like our emotions just shut down and
Speaker 2: completely and there's like this indifference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like ambivalence. Like you, it's almost like your nervous
Speaker 1: system can't fucking take it anymore.
Speaker 5: So you're just like, that's exactly what's happening. That's exactly it.
Speaker 5: You guys are a.
Speaker 1: Couple, were best friends.
Speaker 5: You're just besties. Okay, You're just besties. Okay, because I
Speaker 5: didn't know your relationship, but like you keep talking like.
Speaker 4: You oh yeah, we live like parallel lives.
Speaker 2: So like with coming out, our processes very much like
Speaker 2: mirrored each other.
Speaker 4: And then ever since, like it's like we'll both be
Speaker 4: getting into a new.
Speaker 2: Relationship at the same time, at the same time, we're
Speaker 2: buying a house at the same time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it also come to the age where like
Speaker 1: you start to realize everybody's not safe, and I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: they're just not You can have friends that are just
Speaker 1: entertainment fun, friends that aren't truly safe. Melissa and I
Speaker 1: are safe one hundred percent. So it's just like she
Speaker 1: could come in here and tell me she killed somebody
Speaker 1: on the way here, and I'm yeah, let's bury somebody.
Speaker 1: I don't have too many of those, so I thank you.
Speaker 4: And no, it's I think that's like an important thing.
Speaker 2: So many people focus on romantic relationships, and you know,
Speaker 2: since coming out, we both realized how important it is
Speaker 2: just to have your people in your corner.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, numbness we've both experienced where we're like
Speaker 1: I should care right now and I am dead inside.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, and that you know, I want to offer
Speaker 5: this to both you because and I would even give
Speaker 5: this guy to you guys as an exercise, even though
Speaker 5: you're not my clients, like, if you're open to it,
Speaker 5: if you have you either of you done journaling.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, okay, so we've done a lot of a
Speaker 2: lot of work.
Speaker 5: So it's I would I would you know because that
Speaker 5: sentence and you both have said it a couple of times,
Speaker 5: like I feel dead inside or I just were just numb.
Speaker 5: It's information because those words have they're trying to tell
Speaker 5: you something, and the fact that you keep saying I
Speaker 5: feel numb is important. I'm good. First, I would just
Speaker 5: invite you to not not listen to that. Yeah, you
Speaker 5: got to listen to that. There's a reason why your body,
Speaker 5: your spirit, your soul is saying I feel numb. And
Speaker 5: what I would do is I usually give this to
Speaker 5: people who they're not sure why they're numb, even though
Speaker 5: really you are, like your spirit, your heart knows, like
Speaker 5: and you truly knew if you could quiet your brain.
Speaker 5: So I would say, pick out, grab a pen and paper,
Speaker 5: and you say, I'm not sure why I'm numb, but
Speaker 5: if I had to guess, here's what it is. So
Speaker 5: you ask it from a curiosity place rather than I
Speaker 5: have to know why I'm numb. So the brain is
Speaker 5: hearing you be open and curious and the minute you
Speaker 5: pose it like that, I'm not sure why I'm numb.
Speaker 5: But if I had to guess, here's what it is.
Speaker 5: And before you and I promise you both if you
Speaker 5: would take it on as a challenge that if you
Speaker 5: got into a quiet space, put lit a candle, put
Speaker 5: on some beautiful music, took some breaths, and then did
Speaker 5: that just that one question, all of it would come out.
Speaker 5: You have the and you'd understand why, which then becomes
Speaker 5: your list of here's the things I need to heal.
Speaker 5: Right now I know why I'm numb. Let me go
Speaker 5: get fucking busy right and heal this. Unless you guys
Speaker 5: are both cool with being numb for the rest of
Speaker 5: your life, I mean that's an option too, Like I'm
Speaker 5: not telling you how to fix it.
Speaker 4: I feel like we've gotten better.
Speaker 1: We have gotten better, we have gotten better, but it's
Speaker 1: been a work in progress. I want to make sure
Speaker 1: we talk about because I love when you said iterations
Speaker 1: of yourself, because I think that that is true. It's
Speaker 1: like when I look back over the course of my life,
Speaker 1: there's been lots of iterations of Valley and it's continuing
Speaker 1: to evolve. But I think I'm in the midst of
Speaker 1: a new iteration now. Like I think I feel that
Speaker 1: in myself, and I'm curious, Like I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people go their whole lives and they just are autopilot.
Speaker 1: They don't reinvent. I think we've read somewhere recently where
Speaker 1: you most people shed almost all their friends every five
Speaker 1: to seven.
Speaker 5: Years and start like have new, fresh and fresh, and.
Speaker 1: Like, I think that's kind of aligned with a lot
Speaker 1: of your work. You're seeing people when they're a new
Speaker 1: iteration or they're trying to.
Speaker 5: Be or they want to be new. Many many women
Speaker 5: come to me and they're like, I don't even know
Speaker 5: who I am anymore, and I find myself again, right,
Speaker 5: And I always say that I want to find me again.
Speaker 5: I lost me along the way somewhere. And that's the
Speaker 5: beginning of which is a really beautiful statement. Okay, then
Speaker 5: guess what we have. We have a blank slate. You
Speaker 5: can become anything any you can have any identity, You
Speaker 5: could be whoever you fucking want right now, because now
Speaker 5: you've just resigned yourself. You're not attached to the old you, which,
Speaker 5: by the way, you've probably outgrown, right, So thank god
Speaker 5: you just said that, because now we got a blank slate.
Speaker 5: Let's get busy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do you want to be?
Speaker 5: What do you want to tract? What kind of relationship
Speaker 5: do you want? What do you want to do with
Speaker 5: your life for the next twenty years? And let's get
Speaker 5: curious about it. And so starting from there, like if
Speaker 5: you hear yourself saying like, I don't know who I
Speaker 5: am anymore? I feel love, I don't I don't know
Speaker 5: what happened to the old me, Well good, because probably
Speaker 5: the old you wouldn't serve you anymore. Let's create the
Speaker 5: new you, who, by the way, the old you I
Speaker 5: always do. You guys know what this is? This is
Speaker 5: like an old you might not be able to see it.
Speaker 5: Let me see, I think, And it's an old walkman, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know how.
Speaker 4: I don't know what that could be.
Speaker 5: I'm sixty two, how old you both are? But so
Speaker 5: so for me like this, I had one of these
Speaker 5: fuckers this is about on Amazon recently. But back in
Speaker 5: the day, we used to play tapes, right, and so
Speaker 5: I use this sometimes to poke fun at, like how
Speaker 5: we're all wearing and outdated by the way tape recorder
Speaker 5: iOS system full of programming that no longer serves us,
Speaker 5: our identity, our beliefs, these old stories that we've told ourselves,
Speaker 5: that we learned from parents, friends, ex'es, you know whoever, right,
Speaker 5: and we stuffed all the shit in here says things
Speaker 5: like I'm too old, it's too late, not sexy or
Speaker 5: too sexy whatever, right.
Speaker 3: Because.
Speaker 5: Nobody said you laugh, but literally someone said that to me, like,
Speaker 5: you shouldn't be a life coach. You can't be putting
Speaker 5: sexy pictures and be a life coach. I'm like, but
Speaker 5: I have all sides to me, yeah you.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: My point I want to close this loop is that
Speaker 5: so it's full of this bullshit. So what we all
Speaker 5: should be doing every couple of years is looking at
Speaker 5: this old tape full of bullshit, this recorder and going,
Speaker 5: let me dump that and let me see if any
Speaker 5: of that really matters or is true anymore. Let me
Speaker 5: question these beliefs, let me question these this identity, let
Speaker 5: me question the stories I'm caring and if they no
Speaker 5: longer serve me, they go into trash and let me
Speaker 5: create some new ones. Let me rewire and reprogram this
Speaker 5: fucker so that when I'm walking around with it and
Speaker 5: it serves me. Now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, that's so interesting because I feel like I
Speaker 2: remember when I was going through the process of coming
Speaker 2: out and thinking to myself, I'm gay, but I can't
Speaker 2: change my mind. I decided I was straight when I
Speaker 2: was in the third grade.
Speaker 4: Girlfriend, you know, I can't go back on this.
Speaker 2: But it's like to give yourself the permission to be
Speaker 2: that new person. I feel like a lot of people don't.
Speaker 2: They can't do that for themselves, Like that's too big
Speaker 2: of a hurdle to get over mentally.
Speaker 5: And then we come back to full circle to what
Speaker 5: I said at the beginning. When the pain of remaining
Speaker 5: the same stays too painful, you will fucking change.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right.
Speaker 5: And So if they're if they can't imagine it, and
Speaker 5: they're just gonna stay it's finney, okay, Then what it
Speaker 5: might cost them a whole lot of things like authenticity,
Speaker 5: a full vibrant life. It might cost them like a
Speaker 5: new relationship because they're scared of love. It might cost
Speaker 5: them adventuring and taking risks. It will cost them a
Speaker 5: whole lot but but also staying safe is comfort, safety certainty, right,
Speaker 5: but you don't get the other thing. It's or the other.
Speaker 5: You don't get both. So if you want to be
Speaker 5: a new version, you have to take risks. You have
Speaker 5: to get a little uncomfortable. You have to face some
Speaker 5: fears and look at your tape recorder. What's it full of?
Speaker 5: And you have to do some work on that shit?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 5: Or you could just stay where you are, but then
Speaker 5: you also miss out on this other, full, vibrant, three D,
Speaker 5: living color version of your life.
Speaker 1: People are scared to leave things behind. I mean there's
Speaker 1: people I've had to walk away from. There's it's like,
Speaker 1: you're scared my marriage. I mean he was safe and sweet,
Speaker 1: he was all the things, and it was so scary
Speaker 1: to like walk away from this safety safety safety.
Speaker 5: That's exactly it what we just said, so and and
Speaker 5: but but I would ask you this, when did it
Speaker 5: get painful enough to stay the same? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I think for me, it's like when the
Speaker 1: hope of being with a woman overcame, that fear of
Speaker 1: stang like.
Speaker 5: That and that was more powerful, right, that was more powerful?
Speaker 5: So she said, fuck it, I want that, and that
Speaker 5: pulled you towards the and you're like, I'm doing it.
Speaker 5: It's gonna hurt, it's gonna suck. He's so sweet, I'm
Speaker 5: gonna break his heart. But this is stronger than that, right,
Speaker 5: That's exactly what happened.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think it takes people sometimes a while
Speaker 1: to get to where that happens, where you hit that
Speaker 1: tipping point.
Speaker 5: That I can't do this anymore, can't do it one
Speaker 5: more day? Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean we would be in group and there were
Speaker 1: people that would come to our group therapy and be like,
Speaker 1: I'm never leaving, like I know I can't, so I'm
Speaker 1: just here for support. And sure enough, like we left,
Speaker 1: I mean, we finished the group and they were all
Speaker 1: still there.
Speaker 5: They were still there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, yeah, that circumstances keep you stuck, you know.
Speaker 5: And sometimes it's for the kids. Sometimes it's financial. Sometimes
Speaker 5: it's you know, family coming out to like culturally, right,
Speaker 5: like depending on what country you're from and culture and religion.
Speaker 5: So yeah, a lot of people unfortunately live with the
Speaker 5: ache of what they wish they could do and could
Speaker 5: be but can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I live with that.
Speaker 4: That's sad I think about. Yeah, that's just it.
Speaker 2: It's like I feel, you know, lucky that Ally and
Speaker 2: I you know, had the power in us to move
Speaker 2: forward with that, and and our listeners too, to hear
Speaker 2: their stories of the you know, hurdles that they've had
Speaker 2: to get over to get to this point.
Speaker 4: It's really it's impressive, I agree.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I love the idea though iterations of yourself
Speaker 1: because yeah, I such a dol way to think about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I also I also call it, like, you know,
Speaker 5: the two point oh version, the three point oh, the
Speaker 5: four point over version, because every couple of years, we
Speaker 5: should be upgrading our operating system, just like our computer
Speaker 5: phones make us do, and they do whatever our phones
Speaker 5: do what every two or three months?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 5: Yeah, right, Like imagine if as a human, every couple
Speaker 5: of months, we said, let me revisit my beliefs right now,
Speaker 5: let me check in with the stories I'm looping on,
Speaker 5: let me see why I'm listening to these same thoughts
Speaker 5: for three months now? That serve me? And we took
Speaker 5: an inventory and every quarter we said, huh, it's time
Speaker 5: to refreshment ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah right, Yeah, people are stuck in patterns. It's like
Speaker 1: we have so many you know, people that have come
Speaker 1: on the show that are like I repeat, I'm staying
Speaker 1: within this relationship that has been good for years and
Speaker 1: I'm still here. It's like people repeat these patterns over
Speaker 1: and over and it is so true, Like you should
Speaker 1: be reinventing and updating your operating system every now and again.
Speaker 1: How can people work with you, Rebecca? Like how talk
Speaker 1: to us about how they could.
Speaker 4: Get Instagram whatever?
Speaker 5: Yeah? Yeah, so I think the easiest way to find
Speaker 5: me is Instagram. I'm at Rebecca Cordeci. You know my name,
Speaker 5: you guys will put in the show notes, We'll take you. Okay.
Speaker 5: So there's that, And when if you want to reach out,
Speaker 5: you can reach out through DM that way, and people
Speaker 5: can work with me in periods of time, Like I
Speaker 5: don't do one off sessions, although I'm starting to consider
Speaker 5: because I've better able to do some pretty profound work
Speaker 5: in three sessions with people. So normally they hire me
Speaker 5: for three months or six months, and they can reach
Speaker 5: out through Instagram and find me there and I can
Speaker 5: tell you them when they come on a call with me.
Speaker 5: I usually just invite people onto a free call and
Speaker 5: see if we're a fit and see if you know
Speaker 5: what the investment is works with their budget or whatever,
Speaker 5: and then we go from there. And the biggest thing
Speaker 5: I always like to say about my work is like,
Speaker 5: I want someone who comes to me and says, I'm
Speaker 5: stuck in Zone A, and I want to be in
Speaker 5: Zone Z, the happy place, but I'm not there because
Speaker 5: of all this stuff in between. And then my job
Speaker 5: as the coach is to go, oh, that's easy, that's
Speaker 5: in my wheelhouse. I know how to get you from
Speaker 5: there to there. And I'm what collapsed time too. So
Speaker 5: rather than taking five years to get a to Z,
Speaker 5: like with a talk therapy model, right because like, and
Speaker 5: I'm sure you know people we've been in therapy for
Speaker 5: years and years and years and they seem the same.
Speaker 5: My goal is that by the time you've worked three
Speaker 5: or six months a to Z, we've collapsed that time
Speaker 5: and I set you free go soar. I don't want
Speaker 5: to coach you for a year, two or three. I
Speaker 5: want I want to fix you in your own way
Speaker 5: that you need to be reworked and set you freeze.
Speaker 5: You can go live your life.
Speaker 1: Can people do it without living in California?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I work.
Speaker 5: Actually, I have clients all over the world right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like you, Rebecca, You're awesome.
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of guests.
Speaker 1: I know tonight I'm going to be talking about this conversation.
Speaker 4: Yeah for sure.
Speaker 5: Oh, thank you. That makes my heart smile. Thank you.
Speaker 4: I appreciate so much that you came on.
Speaker 1: And we'll definitely tag you and we'll in the show
Speaker 1: notes tell me how to find you.
Speaker 5: Absolutely perfect.
Speaker 4: Awesome.
Speaker 5: You guys are great. Thank you for making it so
Speaker 5: warm and easy to talk and just yeah, appreciate you
Speaker 5: spending good a good hour.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: Okay, I want to support the Lesbian Chronicles podcast. Rate
Speaker 4: us and write a review on Apple podcast or Spotify.
Speaker 1: We love listener feedback. If you'd like to share your story,
Speaker 1: email us at Melissa and Ali at gmail dot com,
Speaker 1: dot's Melissa M. E. L I s A and Ali A. L.
Speaker 1: L I at gmail dot com, or follow us on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Lesbian Chronicles