Speaker 1: You guys. Hi, it's me mother, It's me Satan.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Hell. I saved you a seat.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to Talking Schmidt. I am your host, Brittany Schmidt,
and I am so excited to be here.
Speaker 2: With you guys.
Speaker 3: I Uh, what has.
Speaker 2: Been going on in my life? I just got back
from Vegas.
Speaker 1: You guys, I've been I don't know why I've been
going to Vegas kind of a lot lately.
Speaker 2: I know why.
Speaker 1: My boyfriend loves to gamble.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he loves to gamble. He loves to win, doesn't
love to lose. Unfortunately, we took a little bit of
an l this week.
Speaker 2: Not week. We weren't there for a week. We were
there for two days.
Speaker 1: We went with this family, his wonderful family. We went
and saw The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere, which
was so cool. It was such an experience for those
of you who haven't been to Vegas. Don't know about
the Spear. It's the spear. You don't know about spear.
You don't know about spear fishing. Let me tell you
about the Spear.
Speaker 2: The Sphere they.
Speaker 1: Do interactive movie screenings. I think the only one they're
doing now is the Wizard of Oz, which is what
we saw, and it was really so special and so incredible.
Speaker 3: And.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Vegas is just, you know, Vegas is Vegas. I'm getting.
I'm getting. I've been over Vegas for a while. I
can't say it the right way.
Speaker 1: It's Vegas lost, welcome to Las Vegas. For some reason,
I say a vaight Vegas.
Speaker 2: Everyone hates it. I hate it.
Speaker 1: I wish I could never go back. I don't like gambling.
I don't like losing. Anytime I lose like one hundred dollars,
I'm like, you know what I could have done with
one hundred dollars. We take out like a little bit
of money that we're like in our minds, we're okay
with losing, but I'm never okay with losing any money.
If I want to lose money, I'll go shopping, you know,
if I want to lose money. This is how I
think about shopping too. I'm like, when I go shopping
and I go online shopping and I don't like something
and I get to return it, that's a win. That's
how I win my money in life. I win my
money back, which I know it's just a little bit,
it's still losing, but in my mind it's winning and
that's girl math. But yeah, I'm I'm here. I'm back
in LA for a short period of time and then
I leave to go to New York and then we're.
Speaker 2: Going to Italy.
Speaker 1: You guys.
Speaker 2: I'm so excited.
Speaker 1: I am going to Tuscany for a wellness retreat, which
you know, mister Manhattan booked for me to say congratulations
for my comedy special that I shot. And I'm just
so excited. I've never taken a trip like this before
where it's just going to be like massages and facials
and lymphatic drainage and a workout like a trainer, and
it's just gonna be really, really nice. I'm excited to
see Italy in fall. I'm excited to see the foliage.
I'm excited to tell you guys about it. But I
am on the run. And for those of you who
are looking to come see me live, my dates are
going to start again in January, and let me pull
those up actually, so I can tell you guys where
I'm going to be and win. And I should have
had these pulled up already, but I don't because I'm
not a professional. I'm just a girl. Uh, okay, you guys,
this is my schedule.
Speaker 4: Okay.
Speaker 1: January seventh, I'm gonna be in Portland, Oregon at the
Helium Comedy Club. January eighth. I'm gonna be in Seattle, Washington.
January twenty seventh. I'll be in Raleigh, North Carolina. January
twenty eighth. I will be in Austin, Texas, January thirtieth.
Wait a minute, you guys, you guys, this is so funny. Okay,
So the twenty fourth of January, I'm actually hosting.
Speaker 2: The av Awards in.
Speaker 1: Vegas, which is crazy. I'll be back in Vegas. But
for those of you who don't know what the AVAN
Awards are, it's.
Speaker 4: The porn Awards. So excited.
Speaker 1: As someone who watches no porn, I'm so excited to
see everyone in their element getting their awards. I have
no idea what hosting that is going to be like,
but I'm pretty excited.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it's gonna be fun.
Speaker 1: I OnlyFans introduced me to the people over at AVN
the ABN Awards, and they booked me to host, and
I think it's gonna be a really fun time. So
I don't anticipate any of you guys will be tuning
in for that. But if you want to, if you
want to watch Mama Bear host the Porn Awards and
insult some porn stars, go, I think you can stream it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, I mean no.
Speaker 1: Literally, I was going back and forth about the job.
I didn't know if I wanted to take it or not.
And my boyfriend was like, you're taking You're taking the job.
You're doing this for us, You're putting the team on
your fucking back right now. So and also one of
my dear friends, Trevor, who lives up in Vegas, him
and his girlfriend I have always wanted to go, So
we're all gonna go. We're gonna have a great night.
It's gonna be a lot of fun. And then I
have another show in January. I am filming a Don't
Tell Special taping in San Francisco. It's just a short
little set, but it's gonna be a lot of fun.
So I will see you there. So yeah, Mama Bear
is hosting the Porn Awards.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 1: I had a porn addiction and so I had to
stop watching peorn when I was really deep in my alcoholism.
One of my cures for a hangover was feverishly masturbating.
Speaker 2: I used to This is how crazy I was.
Speaker 1: I would be driving home from somewhere in the morning
hungover and I would like macerbate my car because I'm like, oh, like,
if I get a nut, I'll be able to like
push all the demons out of me. And then that
really turned into something dark, and I started like missing
work and just watching peorn all the time.
Speaker 2: And it was not. Honestly, twenty twelve was a rough
year for your girl.
Speaker 1: She had a little bit of a porn addiction, she
had other addictions, she was in jail. Just you know,
I wasn't a shining star of a human being. So listen,
we all grow and we all change, and we can
start somewhere and be abhorrent and the worst version of ourselves,
and then we grow and we change and we learn
and we look back at that version of ourself with
love but also like, what the fuck were you actually doing?
And I am so excited for this episode, especially to
talk about change and growth and the evolution of us,
you know, as people both in and out of sobriety.
Our guest today is one of my dear friends and
someone who is completely unrecognizable from what the world.
Speaker 2: May know her as.
Speaker 1: Her name is Alexis Haynes, formally Alexis Nyers, formally the
she might have done the bling ring, But the woman
I know today is so strong and such a pillar
of strength in the both in and out of the
sobriety community. She has dedicated her entire life to rehabilitation
and helping people recover. And you know, she kind of
bottomed out in the spotlight and has grown so much
from it. She has fourteen years sober, and she is
somebody that I've been working with both with sex and
love addiction and my own journey with sobriety. And she's
been so kind and so gracious and so generous with me,
and she has just been such a soft place for
me to land whenever I fall. And she is one
of the most insightful, strong, powerful women that I am
honored to call a friend. And I really hope you
guys enjoy this episode as much.
Speaker 2: As I did.
Speaker 1: Please, please, please, please enjoy my conversation with Alexis Haynes.
Speaker 2: Oh my God, Hi, Hi, how are you very good?
Your secrets? Oh God? Going right for the jugular.
Speaker 3: Because I'm out of here, please, I hear you too enough.
I'm just gonna go sit over here by again. Oh
my gosh. No, I'm really good. I'm happy to be here.
I'm I think that you know, the outline that you
sent me was really refreshing.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Well, because here's the thing. You have a
past that everyone won't stop talking about.
Speaker 2: But the person that.
Speaker 1: I know now, like, it's not that person.
Speaker 2: I'll fite you.
Speaker 3: Brittany doesn't get emotional ever. Okay, good times, No I do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just really think the world of you,
Like I really when I met you. I met you
at such a crucial time in my life because I
was struggling so much with love addiction and my sponsor
at the time didn't have any clue about that. You know,
she was just helping me with, you know, my alcoholism.
And when I would go to her and be really
upset about this boy that I hung out with four
times but he like broke my heart and I was
in the blender, She's like, wait, wait, wait, you hung
out four times.
Speaker 2: She's like, get over it, and.
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, she doesn't understand the pain and suffering
that comes at once, right, by like getting that hit
of oxytocin.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, it's the most addictive thing in the world.
And I think oftentimes when addicts, drug addicts, alcoholics, they
quit using that thing, this other thing pops up, which
is love addiction.
Speaker 2: What is your experience with that?
Speaker 3: I mean listen, like you know this, I've shared this
with you. Like I'm the type of alcohol Like I
have the ism in every area of my life, you know.
Like I was in Alatine from the time I was twelve,
because it's Latine alan on but for teenagers. Oh okay, yeah,
Like I was like being asked to do the work
long before I was ready to do the work. Right,
I'll just be totally candid, And there's I haven't talked
a lot about my sexual abuse history, m but I
had sex and love issues because I was being sexually
abused my whole childhood, you know what I mean. So
like my concept of like love, I was, if you
want to get silly, yeah, I mean it's silly.
Speaker 4: Right after that, she's like, if you want to get silly?
After we talk about being sexually as a child.
Speaker 3: Like people ask me when did it begin? When I
was four? When I was being forced to like give
blowjobs up four years old, like that's really when it started,
Like and that makes people, Oh, it makes people uncomfortable.
And it's funny because like I'll joke with partners and
they'll be like, you're really good at that, and I'm like,
thanks for doing it since I was a toddler, and
like nobody laughs. I laugh. I can laugh now, right right,
Like I've totally healed, and we can talk about like
what it takes to heal all of that, so that
what your nervous system no longer is triggered by hearing that.
I don't believe in trigger warnings. I think that we're
raising a generation that is absolutely fucked. There's therapist I
work in behavioral health care now, and like there's therapists
who are in school asking for trigger warnings. I'm sorry, then,
you have no business being a fucking therapist, right, you know, literally,
so my sex and love issues, like my value, my
inherent value. My perception of my value was skewed from
a very early age. And my connection of love and
the safest people, closest people to me that we're doing
these harmful things, right, Like, my perception got really skewed right, right,
So there's that, So there's the trauma aspect of that, right,
And then I also just have the ism like all
become an addict of anything, of overworking, out of overshopping,
of overeating, of underreating, of whatever it might be, because
like that is my modus operandi, you know. And so
in the Big Book when it says like men and
women drink essentially because we like the effect. And you
know this because when we I work the slaw through
the twelve Steps of Alcoholics anonymous, and it's like men
and women engage in relationships, men and women engage in
shopping and sex and in love and whatever because we
like the effect. And then what happens is this feeling
is so elusive for some of us. We get so
hooked in on the vibes and the energy and the
delulu and the fantasy, right and the.
Speaker 1: Like, creating a person that doesn't exist.
Speaker 3: And mean delicious, and then we have sex and it's
even better, yeah, whatever that we can no longer differentiate
true from false. He wants the same things that I want.
She wants the same things that I want, right, and
then all of a sudden those things aren't aligning arguments
start right discourse. We're meeting that like wall.
Speaker 1: And the wall is actually just who the person actually
is and was the whole time, and it just the
wall that we're hitting against is our fantasy of the
person that we've created in our head. And then they're
showing us, Hey, I'm not that person, and then we
don't believe that because we're so addicted to how they
made us feel and how we envision them being for
the rest of our lives and in the next lifetime,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3: No, this is we're going to die together, like next
to each other in the grade, Like this is the
way that it's going to be.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would have like fundamental differences with people,
like real, real differences that would be huge issues in
any sort of relationship, and I would overlook them.
Speaker 2: And I just was like, that's my man.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do about the fact he
hasn't called me in six weeks. He just is out
there meeting other girls to find out that I'm the one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like the delusion is.
Speaker 3: That it's indeed extraordinarily painful, and like I met you
at a time period in your life like I had
just come out of three almost three years of like
intensive work on sex and love issues when I met
Brittany and a mutual friend of ours who introduced us,
and I was just coming out of it, and the
two of them were like having we were together together.
Speaker 1: We were hand in hand going into the pits of
hell with our sex and love addiction. That is actually
what bonded us was that we were both so chaotic
and so crazy in the same ways with relationships, where like,
you know, she was talking to somebody who was married
with a family and was like, no, this is going
to be the love of my life. I'm going to
get her out of this house and I'm gonna help
her raise her kids, and I'm just like And then me,
I met like the final boss of crazy who has
a full documentary about how insane he is, and I
was like, I can fix him. I think he's just
that bad because he hasn't met me yet. And then
I met you right after I got chewed out and
chewed up and spit out after that, and I was like,
I need help, But I think I scared you a
little at first.
Speaker 3: So no, no, no, no, nothing scares me nothing. The shit
that I hear in people's fifth steps. I mean, nothing,
nothing scares me. But what I'll tell you, or to date,
nothing scared me. What I'll tell you is that, Yeah,
I mean I think that you know, and the therapists
will call it attachment issues and whatever whatever name that
you want to get it. But I I think that
so few people on this planet in general have done
any work at all on themselves. Well, I do not
understand their past, their present. They're the way that they're
operating that is maladaptive or otherwise. Like, I think that
most people operate on automatic pilot, are driven by a
sense of fear and security, pleasure, dopamine, whatever, like, don't
know how to be mindful, don't know how to check
in with themselves, don't know how to like reality tests,
and so I mean, it's no wonder to me that
the divorce rate is as high as it is, you know,
I just I don't think. I don't think people know themselves.
Speaker 1: No, because it's so much easier to not. It's so
much easier once you get thrust into this world and
you do start drinking or using or shopping or whatever.
All those things that you were saying earlier, those are
all things that we do to just keep ourselves from ourselves,
like just so we don't have to look at ourselves,
so we don't have to feel anything.
Speaker 2: So the thing that.
Speaker 1: We're feeling, we're trying to control it. It's like, I
want to feel good, so I'm gonna buy these shoes
that I want, and you want the shoes, and you
bought the shoes, and then the shoes were too expensive,
and now you feel bad and then you start to spiral,
and then you go into shame, and then you need
something else to make you feel good. So you're like,
I'm gonna go have sex with this guy who doesn't
really like me, and that feels good while he's.
Speaker 3: Like and I'm gonna wear the shoes.
Speaker 1: And yeah, and that feels good while it's happening, and
then he doesn't call you back, and then you spiral again,
and then it's just like it's kind of just this
like snake eating its.
Speaker 2: Tail of how we all go through the world.
Speaker 3: And again, like this is why I work that the
Big Book, and I know that like it's controversial if
people should talk about this or not, but like that
is my bible. This is the perfect example of this
is that you know we're all to some degree flailing
through life. And when you have a dysregulated nervous system
and when you're feeling like you're flailing, people seek control,
and they seek controlled typically in all sorts of dysfunctional ways,
and most of them are unaware that they're doing said
thing right. Right, And so it's the example of the director. Right.
Everyone thinks that they're the director of the show if
only this happens, and if this happens, and if they
say this thing, and if I get this, and if
I then everything will be okay. And don't you know
that you should just show up here the way that
I want you to show up here every single day.
And if you don't show up, you know what I mean?
And it's just like and then the second that that
one thing or those things don't start operating in the
way that you want it to operate. Right, we do
a couple of things. One is we seek more control.
We become more demanding or gracious or manipulative or kind
or loving or sexy to get what we want or whatever, right,
but we're doing it out of a place of resentment, right,
Or we just you know, spiral and implode and whatever else.
And it's just it's just not a sustainable way of operating.
And so I think that for you, what I noticed
was really a lot of that. It's just like I
feel out of control. I need a sense of control.
Doing this thing brings me control. It makes me feel
powerful and empowered until it stops.
Speaker 1: But that's like everything. I mean, I feel like I've
lived enough life to now know that, Like if I
want things a certain way and I get them, even
if I get them, I'm not happy.
Speaker 3: No, You're never satisfied.
Speaker 4: Something something new comes up. It's like it just keeps moving.
Speaker 2: And keeps shifting hard, it keeps going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I don't know, and I just think it's
you know, it's so funny because it's like I know, intellectually,
I know that control is the root of all suffering,
or the illusion of control is the root of all suffering,
or trying to hold on to something that's it's always
in motion.
Speaker 2: It's going to make you miserable. I know that. But
there's a big difference between.
Speaker 1: How I know I should act and how I act
like a big one. And I feel like even in
this new relationship that I have, it's showing up you know,
I'm like, how much work have I done on myself
in this area? How many times have I journaled or wrote,
you know, wrote shit down, tried to figure out, like
why I'm acting like this? How many times have I
wrote down all the things I want to let go
of and burn the piece of paper were under a
full moon, to let go of it, And then it
comes back and I feel like that's like happening again
a little bit in this relationship because it's new and
I'm scared and I want control and I don't want
it to ever leave because love feels so good, but
it's all just like it's a mess, and help me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So sponsor talk, I mean two things like, okay,
so like we become aware of our defects of character
of aret, the way that we operate by doing inventory
and looking at ourselves thoroughly and not holding back at
these patterns and behaviors. And like, in my experience, there's
really only two things that like keep me out of
my own way, because I'll get in my own I
just had a conversation with you the other day where
I was like, my sponsors checked me so fucking hard,
so fucking hard. But the second that she did, I
had that perspective shift in all of a sudden, like
the clouds parted, and I became so grateful, and like
in my experience, there's really only like if my mind
could fix my mind. You know, I've told you this
a million times. If my mind, like if I could
just do enough journaling and enough burning the papers and
enough saging and enough book reading to get well, then
one I would be a normy and two like that
would be great.
Speaker 1: An enormy for those of you who don't know as
somebody without addiction ses I.
Speaker 3: Love addiction issues, sex addiction issues, codependency, addiction, whatever you
want to call it, any processing disorders.
Speaker 2: A real nice life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, but what I will tell you
is that like if if my mind had enough power
to fix my mind, then like then I would be
a normy. I wouldn't be an alcoholic addicts sex and
love attict like I wouldn't. I wouldn't be those things.
And so like that, there's only two things that can
fix is God and service. And like I know that
you have a big enough God right now to say God,
like I welcome you into this relationship like I am
fully surrendered, like have this relationship whether it works out
or it doesn't, you know, And that's so hard too.
And you know, like for me, I have a daughter
who's twelve and we are going through preteen hormones. Oh
my god. The shit that I'm dealing with in my
house right now is I'm holding on for dear life.
But oftentimes I'm just like I can't do like God
do it, like bringing God into the relationship. And so
I think that like the spiritual practice of whatever, like
just the surrender you just said, control is the root
of all of my issues, and so what do you
So you notice, Oh, I have all of these issues,
but now I'm going to try to control myself to
fix the issue, Like do you see the faulty thinking
in that, Like, Okay, I'm just gonna try to control
my mouth or so my action.
Speaker 1: Because then I'm trying to behave the way that I
think I should behave, and then it causes this internal
chaos where I'm not okay.
Speaker 3: And then you're stepping on his toes because that eventually
implodes and he responds, and then you end up bitter
and resemful because you're not getting the response that you
want and then you're on the hamster wheel. It doesn't work.
And so the only thing that I will tell you
is like, okay, like like, God, I literally give you
this relationship, Like, help me, help me in these areas.
I'm super clear that I can be what are your
top two struggles.
Speaker 2: Insecurity?
Speaker 3: I'm super clear God, that I can be insecure. Help
me to see that, like you, that I am made
perfectly in your image, and that I am worthy of
a of a good relationship because I'm a good woman.
And these are the reasons why. Okay, so insecurity, and
I think just fear.
Speaker 1: It's the fear of it going away. It's like when
you're when yeah, like I've been alone for three years
and I started to get lonely and I started to
want companionship.
Speaker 2: And now I have it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, and I'm holding onto it like the
bar of soap and you hold on to tighten it
pops out and you hold out to lose it.
Speaker 2: It falls out.
Speaker 1: Anyway, the soap just goes in someone's fast in prison,
and that's where it blongs.
Speaker 3: Yeah no, and I get that too, but like.
Speaker 2: Like nothing but.
Speaker 3: And like and then you have the opportunity to either
like leave it or pick it up again.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: Like you know, I'm sure you have that same feeling
when you and Chris got divorced. I don't take this
thing away from me. And now you're like, God, thank
god you took this thing away from me. As a
woman who's also been divorced after ten years of marriage,
it was the same thing, My dear God, Why why
is this happening to me? Yeah, I don't want this
to happen. And the more that I just was like, okay,
like I just have to have faith, the more that
I started to see the miracles unfold in my life.
And I will say this, like, no amount of you
clenching onto this relationship is going to make it work better.
Speaker 2: For you, Oh I know.
Speaker 3: And in fact, it's actually gonna make it work.
Speaker 2: No, I know.
Speaker 1: And that's why I'm saying, there's like this cognitive dissonance
in me, and that's really frustrating because it's like I've
done all this work and I know how I should
feel and how I should act, and then there's this
other little kremlin that's showing up.
Speaker 4: Well, then she's like, who's fucking harriss? This, you know,
And then he's like, I haven't cleaned my apartment in
a year and a half.
Speaker 2: And I'm like, well, now we have a bigger problem,
because even crackheads.
Speaker 4: Fine brutes, like why did I clean your apartment in
a year and a half.
Speaker 3: I mean, the other thing that I'll say too, is
like that voice is only loud because you're not doing
enough service work. And I've talked to you about this,
like you need to be doing when you are it Like, okay, wait,
can I tell you a perfect example. Chris gets up
the other morning.
Speaker 2: Chris is your partner, not my exent.
Speaker 3: Chris is my fiancee. Okay, I'm exhausted. I've worked a
sixty hour a week. I am so fatigued that I
have to get the kids off to school. I didn't
ask him for help, so he just gets up and
goes to the gym in the morning, and I'm fucking fuming.
Mm hm, I am fucking fuming. And I didn't have
I didn't wake up with enough time, which is who's fault,
My fault to do my reality checking eleventh step in
the morning, which is prayer meditation right until I get
grounded and get attuned with you know, and to get
into that space of gratitude and to reset right because
often how often do most of us wake up with
stink and thinking like and just feeling like, oh my god, Yeah,
today's the day I'm gonna get shanked in the street
by the homeless birds or whatever like that is how
my brain, Literally, that's how my brain. I will get
in the car accident, someone's going to stab me. What
if this happens to my kids, There's a bomb that's
gonna hit out, Like, that's where my fucking brink, even
after all these years. Yeah, my brain often wakes up
like that. And so anyway, and so it just builds,
It builds all morning. We're late for school. I never
get to the prayer and meditation, and I get in
my car and thank god, I just I had this
moment where I was like, Okay, I literally can't pray
right now and I literally can't surrender. So I'm just
gonna start calling my sponsors. And on the way to work,
I called three women in the program that needed help.
Sometimes I just call my dad. Do I like listening
to my seventy four year old father on the phone
for thirty minutes at a time talking about the same
thing that he talks about every single time. No, but
I do that because it's being kind to him. And
this weird thing happens when I'm focused all of a
sudden on supporting and helping other people, is my brain
starts to get really quiet, and like the joy starts
to return, and I feel you said you deal with insecurity.
I feel more confident because I just did something good
for somebody. My brain starts to get a little bit softer,
and like, then I can, you know, do more?
Speaker 1: Okay, So you touched on something that I want to
talk about because you said I need to get into service.
So I'm dealing right now with the shame of not
being fully sober like I did mushrooms, I've done like
low dose edibles. I'm not fully sober right now. So
there's a lot of shame that comes with I think,
working the program and then not being in the program.
And I don't know how to be of service when
I'm still kind when I'm like trying to circumvent that shame.
Does that make sense? I'm like, how do I I
don't want to show up and lie, I don't want
to talk to people and act like I'm in a
place that I'm not in. So how do I yeah,
how do I do you mean being of service in
like a strictly program related way or in just like
I mean, like.
Speaker 3: That's what works for me. I speak at at least
a meeting a week. I have at least three girls
in the book at any given time, if done four,
and like that's what I do. But I think just
like going and like whatever, Okay, get rid of just
get rid of all the stuff that I said about
recovery groups. Yeah, and if you go to any major religion,
they're gonna tell you the same thing. Prayer, meditation, get
rid of selfishness or the ego, and be of service
to other people. It is every major religion out there
that tells you the literally how to be happy. Yeah.
It is human beings that complicate this thing, right, And
so what I will tell you is I don't fucking
care what you do. I just need you to find something.
Speaker 4: She's like to stop telling me, I'm just gonna I.
Speaker 3: Just need you to find something, because I'll tell you
like that's when. So right after my divorce or right
after my separation, I got into a relationship with this
guy who looking.
Speaker 1: Back kindsight twenty.
Speaker 3: That was so sick. Yeah, so said yeah, and I
couldn't see it. And he totally like love bombed me,
like narcissistic traits, like fucking total sex attic was cheating
on me through the whole relationship. And I was just like, no,
I love it, I need you. It's okay, And I'm
just gonna be more sexy and more perfect than I'm
gonna push you even harder and I'm gonna you know,
live in this fantasy land or whatever. And like, it's
interesting because you talked about how all of this stuff
is coming up for you because you're in a relationship. Well,
that was the same thing. I had been doing tons
of work and all of this stuff was coming up
in this relationship. The difference is that I was my
I knew it, and I walked from the relationship, thank god,
Like when all of this came out, I made the
decision to walk and to go no contact and to
like move on and to you know, work and heel
around it. So thank God. But I just I just
also want to say that I think it's fucking normal, yeah,
for you to have gone a little cuckoo for cocoa
pups right now, Like it's okay. Yeah, that's the other
thing too. We're too hard on ourselves. And I think
that this is where like communication is key. It's like, hey,
and I noticed that. No, I noticed this thing, this hair.
I was trying to remember the example. I noticed the
hair in your apartment and.
Speaker 1: Wrapped around the shower handle.
Speaker 2: I was like, who is she? I was like that,
I have heard that.
Speaker 3: Ye been really difficult for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, especially because I was with him. I went
away for a weekend, I came back, it was wrapped
around the shower handle. His apartment is very dirty. So
I do believe him, like you know, sometimes do when
you have that gut feeling like something's really wrong.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I've always had that, and it's actually been wrong.
And then I've had times where I'm like, everything's fine.
It's actually been fine, but okay, So I don't want
to say no, well, here's the thing. You're powerless even
if it was and like if the thing that is
your biggest fear ends up happening, then like that's not
the relationship for you to be in any way. Anyway,
I'll I'll tell you is like one of the things
that's become abundantly clear to me more so in my work,
and like sex and love addiction, is that like I
am truly solely responsible for my side of the street.
That's it.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 3: I am responsible for showing up as the best healed
version of me. I'm responsible for doing the things that
keep me that way. I'm responsible for communicating in a
way that's effective, that's clear, that's kind, right, that's respectful.
And I'm responsible for myself and knowing when to walk
and when to leave. That's what. That's I am not
responsible for him remaining faithful I am or her. I'm
not responsible for the way that they communicate. I am
responsible for going, Hey, the way that this person communicates
is not working for me, and so I need to
either polite, move on, or communicate that that's not working
for me. And then it's that person's responsibility to decide
to change or not.
Speaker 1: But then this is where my people please, their defect
comes in, because my people please are defect. What it
did to me in my first marriage was that anytime
something was wrong, I just wouldn't say anything, and I
would push it, push it down until it turned into
a divorce. Yeah, literally, but I just never said anything,
so he didn't know my needs weren't being met. And
that is my default still because I would so much
rather my partner be happy than me be happy.
Speaker 2: And that's really challenging.
Speaker 3: Him to love addiction and code Budtzi.
Speaker 1: I know, but it's really this relationship is really confronting
for me because he's very sensitive to my energy. He
knows immediately when something's wrong, and if I try and
say it's not, he literally is just like, what's wrong,
what's wrong?
Speaker 2: What's wrong?
Speaker 1: Until we talk about it. And then by the time
I talk about it, I have bigger feelings than I
would have had if I would have just talked about
it right when it happened. And he literally told me
the other day He's like, you need to be a
better communicator, and I was.
Speaker 3: Like, so, what's your commitment to healing the maladaptive behavior.
Speaker 2: None. I'm gonna keep going.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna keep I'm gonna keep bringing the fucking you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, then you can keep expecting them crazy and like
that's the thing that you you said, like, oh, I'm
so afraid of this relationship ending. But your fear. Your
subconscious fear is a self fulfilling prophecy. So like you
can have a fear of losing this thing, and then
subconsciously you will do everything to lose that thing, and yeah,
it will act out in real time. And so a
pattern of behavior that's coming up for you is the
people pleasing behavior. You've done plenty of writing and work
on this, right, and so it's like a practice literally
of mindfulness or meditation, which literally like doesn't mean that
you have to sit there and go, Okay, what do
I need to talk about today? It's like no, it's
just like, oh, hey, something just came up for me,
I felt that king in my stomach. Usually I don't know.
For me, it's a it's like, oh, like I can't
crawls up my neck and so like at that moment,
like I'm not saying that that's the moment that you respond,
but that's the moment that you clock to go okay,
what is that?
Speaker 4: Okay?
Speaker 1: But my problem is the moment it happens, my energy changes,
he feels it. I don't have the time, And it's
like the restraint of pen and tongue is something that.
Speaker 2: I do try to practice all.
Speaker 1: I really do try and practice it, but if somebody
is calling me out in the moment, I'm afraid I
won't articulate it.
Speaker 3: Okay, But here's his part because it makes him anxious. Yeah,
all right, so you're not responsible for his response to
your feeling. Right again, you are responsible for your side
of the street. He is responsible for his side of
the ste Here's the thing that people don't realize is
that the partners that we attract our mirrors. We are
mirrors for each other. So your weak spots trigger your
spots trigger his weak spots, and vice versa. Right, and
they can look different.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: And so I'm like, for my current partner, Chris, like,
it was abundantly clear from the beginning of our relationship
that he has avoidant tendencies. Now, if these weren't things
that he was willing to even look at, I wouldn't.
This is not like a partnership I would be willing
to be in. But he clearly said, like, there are
times where I feel like I need to pull back,
and I'm like, cool, then you just need to tell me, hey,
I need a little space right now. But then my
responsibility is that I give him the space and self
soothe myself, right, and then when he's ready he needs
to come and soothe me on the reciprocate end. Right.
So here you have it. You're not responsible, you're having
an immediate reaction, and if you're willing to share it, great,
and if you need a minute, then you need to
process it, which I always think is best because especially
as women, will make a million stories right away, like
Chris going to the gym was this is how it's
always going to be. He doesn't respect when this weekend
he literally watched my kids all weekend while I was
at a conference, went to Costco, cleaned out the fridge,
did all of the laundry. That was without me even asking.
But this is how he's always gonna be him.
Speaker 2: God forbid, God forbid.
Speaker 4: He needs to get some stress.
Speaker 3: And I'm like, he's been gone for an hour and
a half, that little fuck, yeah, what is he doing now?
It's like then God didn't even call him and say like,
is this how it's always going to be? Like you know,
and I would have done that in the past anyway,
So you can just say, like, hey, I think it's
wonderful that you can like sense a shift in me
I think that's actually like a really important thing in
a relationship is that we are that attuned to each
other's needs. But sometimes I just need a minute to
pause so that way I can get clear on what
my true feeling is. And I promise I can circle
back for you. How would whatever five o'clock be, m
or tomorrow morning at coffee right or whatever.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna clip this and send it to.
Speaker 3: And then he has to respect that, yeah, and say
okay that you know, sooner would be better for me?
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Speaker 3: You know, Chris and I got into a really large
argument right after he moved into my place. This was
last March. We'd been together for a little over a year,
and that first like a couple of months was there
was like a ton of friction and you know, I
remember I could sense that he was mad at me
and I was mad at him and responds and we
were like kind of tit for tatting over the weekend.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nothing bad, nothing yelling, nothing screaming, nothing whatever. But
I said to him, hey, why don't we circle back
and talk about this in three days? And you know what,
all of a sudden, the pressure left the room and
he kissed me on my forehead and gave me a
hug and was like, I love that idea. Thank you,
you know what I mean, Like, it's okay, We're all
gonna like I think that that's the other thing that
we're training our nervous systems to do is know that
like it's okay to pass. It's okay if it's a day,
two days, three days where we circle back to a
conversation and the commitment that we're making to ourselves and
to our partner is that we're gonna do that. And
I knew he wasn't going to bring it up. So
guess what. Three days later, I said, I would like
to circle back to the conversation that we were having
whatever on Thursday night. You know, let's do it.
Speaker 2: I love that you're just so wise. I'm just such
a wise.
Speaker 3: H I don't know. Life. Life's really uh forced me,
yeah to grown.
Speaker 1: You got your teeth kicked in pretty young.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah for a while.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know what, honestly like no regrets, like
I don't. I truly wouldn't change a thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember this is so when I was, you know,
living in Wisconsin, I watched your show a little bit,
a little bit of it, caught a little bit of it,
and I remember just thinking you were so hot and cool.
And then I moved to LA and right when I
moved to LA, I remember seeing, uh, and we can
cut this if you want to. It doesn't have to
stay in a notification that you got arrested for heroin.
Speaker 2: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: And I was like, no, I don't even I wouldn't
even know where to find heroin.
Speaker 2: I was like, how'd she get it?
Speaker 1: Where?
Speaker 4: My gully?
Speaker 1: But I remember being deeply sad because I think I
saw this version of you on TV, and obviously TV's
a lie and none of it's real, but I just
remember thinking, like you were you were also on drugs then,
but I thought you seemed really fucking cool. But like,
what was that that journey like for you? Because that's
I mean that's young. You were doing some like hardship
pretty young.
Speaker 2: How did you get there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it was just purely survival. Like that's
the thing. It's like I've I've given you, guys, bits
and pieces of my solution that like keep me sane
and calm and happy, yeah, and like living a good life,
you know, but prior to like finding that, you know.
And it's like the last almost fifteen years of my
recovery journey have been like piecing together the things that work.
Like I'm a huge proponent of internal family, but back
then it was just hair Like that's literally a huge
and for some people, I am like I get it.
Like people see these people on the streets with like
that are like knotted over on trank and stuff, and
I'm like, no, I I actually understand why they do that,
because I like to ride that line just above dead
like if if they're checking my pulse, I'm happy, Like
that's where I should be, you know, because the thought
or the desire to like exist with you and to
have conversations like this was non existent, right Like I
had no there was times in my life where I
felt motivated to try to change. I just never wanted
to do was actually required of me. Like I say
all the time, I was totally desperate and completely unwilling
to do what it actually took until I was literally
mandated by the courts to do it. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you were forrest. You didn't have like a
come to Jesus, you were forrest.
Speaker 3: No, there's plenty of come to Jesus is along the
way where I was, like, the biggest one of which
was and I love this man. He died of addiction,
but he was like a local La rapper. His name
was cadillac Ron Robert. I'm still friends with his brother,
who's an amazing therapist owns a program up in the
Pacific Northwest. His name is Chris Paulson. But Robert Paulson
like checked my ass so hard that I finally realized, like, oh,
it's not the drugs, it's not the abuse, it's not
the parents, it's not the this, it's not the felonies.
It's me, Like I'm the problem, you know, like hello,
and like so there was moments along the way, but
I was not going to stop until I was either institutionalized,
you know, placed in jail, or dead, you know. And
that was fine with me, right, and that worked and
until it didn't, and then you know, just by the
grace of God, like I was arrested again.
Speaker 1: Okay, So my question is because there's been a lot
of talk about God and a lot of people like
recoil at God. And I remember when I first went
into the program, I was one of those people that
recoiled at it.
Speaker 2: I finally, I remember.
Speaker 1: My first sponsor just said, if you can't wrap your
head around it, just find something that makes you believe
in something bigger, like a lily or your dog or
just anything. And that sort of like that helped me
get there. But what do you say to people who
don't believe, won't believe, can't believe. Is there a way
to find peace and serenity without God?
Speaker 3: Well, I can tell you this that like, like I
don't believe in like major organized religion, so like I
understand people's resistance m hm. And like when I first
got sober, I was like, if there is a God,
then like I wouldn't have been sexually abused when I
was four and throughout my whole childhood, and I wouldn't
have been brought into this world by alcoholic parents, and
I wouldn't, you know, all of the reasons that I
was looking. And I think that like the reality of
the situation for me is that my circumstances were so
desperate that I was kind of forced to try something new.
And so if you're like in this place where you've
tried therapy, you've tried self help, you've tried the writing,
you've tried, the yoga retreats, you've tried, you've tried, you've tried,
or you've tried, and like your patterns and relationships and
your patterns with substance, and your patterns with shopping, and
your patterns with sex or gaming or whatever or gambling,
whatever it might be, keep coming up over and over again,
and you don't seem to be able to fix them.
Then like in my experience, the only thing that's going
to provide you relief is a spiritual experience. And so
like I'm not here to actually tell anybody that they
have to find a God right right right, Like I
don't fucking care. You can like stay on your path,
Like that's cool with me totally for me, Like I
really I more so align predominantly with like Buddhist thought
and teaching. I read a lot of that, I consume
a lot of that. I believe I'm an avid meditator,
and I believe in a lot of the teachings and
wisdom that comes through that philosophy. But I also believe
that there is something out there and that we return
to something. Yeah, and that's really so I guess the
bottom line for me is like, on your own willpower,
if you can be happy, if you can be successful,
if you can maintain a job, if you can be
have a healthy relationships with drugs, alcohol, you know, people, sex, money,
you know, whatever it is, on your own willpower and
you don't have issues, that then great. But if you
can't do it on your own willpower, then welcome to
the club, and maybe I might have a solution for you. Yeah,
I'll also say that like my trajectory, Like I didn't
have this like profound Like it wasn't until like my
third time going around the steps, when I was so
in such desperate condition, like post my divorce, that I
redid a third step, that I had a profound spiritual
experience that broke, like as any experience that I've had
doing shrooms, you know, acid any like that my first
two and like like I'm of the learning variety, Like
I go out assert my will, get knocked over the
head and realize that I should have brought God in,
and then I bring God in a little bit more,
and like the miracles just unfold, Like my the fact
that I'm sober, that I'm gainfully employed, that I have
a savings account for oh one k, like my rent
is paid on time every month, that I own my car,
that I'm like a mom to two kids that are
at school on time and picked up on time and
have their homework and they're fed and all that's not
me mm hmm personally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's God working through you.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And like every time that I think that I've
had some like major problem, like you know, if I
had inserted my will, I know that I would have
fucked myself. But if I had just done what God
told me to do, you know what I mean, Like
you've you've experienced that in your time working with me,
where you're just you're hitting the roadblocks and I'm like,
God's showing you. But you can keep powering through, girlfriend,
like as long as you want, you know, or you
can just like let.
Speaker 2: Go, yeah, like going like God.
Speaker 1: I think my my AHA moment with it was I
couldn't like when the first time I worked the steps
I was I got through one, two, three, and I
was just like the yeah, yeah, yeah, steps. I'm like whatever,
I can't give these too much because you know, the
God thing was really throwing me off. But when you
get to four. Four's homework, right, that's homework, that's writing,
I'm like, I can do that. And I remember I
was doing my homework. I was doing my fourth step,
and I was sitting in my place at the time,
was in Venice Beach, really busy in the windows faced
the boardwalk, and Biggie would always go crazy anytime anyone
walked by, and I just watched him go crazy. I
just you know, I was sitting there writing, he's going crazy,
and I thought to myself, I'm like, you can go
crazy if you want, but you're safe.
Speaker 2: And then I was like, wait a minute, if.
Speaker 1: You zoom out, that is how my higher power is
looking at me, Like when I'm in traffic flipping someone off,
when I'm trying to orchestrate things to make you know,
like when I'm acting like Biggie's acting to this person
who was causing him no harm and never will. I
was like, yeah, there's no way that I'm the highest
chain of intelligence because I'm not that smart.
Speaker 2: I love that. Yeah, So that.
Speaker 1: Was kind of my moment with it, and and I
never had to you know, I grew up Catholic, so
I had like this big, condemning, judgmental God who like
was watching me masturbate.
Speaker 4: And I didn't like that.
Speaker 2: You know, I was like, I don't want an audience.
Speaker 1: But for for so long I was treated so cruel
by the kids in Catholic school because my parents were
getting divorced and there was all this like a lot
of shame and a lot of stigma around God. And
my God now is just is just peaceful. He doesn't
even have a face, He's just there.
Speaker 3: God doesn't I when I explained it to people who,
like you don't have any conception of God. I'm like, okay,
what is the thing that proves that you're a human.
That you have a heartbeat?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 3: Okay, so you imagine like the heart beat ticking ticking, ticking, right,
if you were in the hospital, it was on the machine,
you can see it. Okay, I just met God. Is
this infinite source of energy that's expansive in any and
all directions, and like each human literally they've scientifically proven
this that like the chance of you coming down here
and having an experience is like less than point one percent. Right,
So here's these humans that just drop down for a minute, right,
we are like, here's God, this ever expansive energy on
either side that's always going, and like we're just this
little blip. And what happens. It's interesting because when we
come all the way down and we're babies and we
work our way back up to God, we just forget
that we're a part of this. Yes, And then what
happens if you have a practice of mindfulness and you know,
you live a peaceful life, and you live life on
life's terms and you let God or life teach you,
is that you ascend in your consciousness closer and closer
to this thing, and then eventually you go back to it.
It's that fucking simple. You have a consciousness. Yeah, it's
a part of something.
Speaker 1: Have you read a Journey of Souls?
Speaker 5: Now?
Speaker 2: You have to read it. It's so special. It's so special.
Speaker 1: So this doctor, he's a PhD hypnotherapist, and he started
doing hypnotherapy on people with PTSD and trauma who would
come in with issues that they couldn't resolve going to
a regular doctor. Like someone would come in with like
immense pain in their back, and every like every doctor
didn't know what it was, or they had trauma when
they were younger, but they can't quite remember it. So
he would use hypnosis to go back to figure out
what happened. And when he started doing this hypnosis and
doing regression therapy, he realized he could go back beyond birth.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've done I've done full blown plastor.
Speaker 1: So he could go beyond when they were born into
their past lives.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: It was unanimous. He's done it hundreds, maybe thousands of times.
Now that everyone says the experience after death is everyone
says the same thing. It is a return to this
really bright, like beyond any light you've ever seen, bright, peaceful, harmonious.
It kind of sounds like a tuning fork, and you
go back and you do your It depends on what
level your soul is at. But if you're like a
beginner to an intermediate soul, you're greeted by family, like
friends and family will come get you and they take
you to where you go and then you look at
your life and.
Speaker 4: It's not like this shameful like how did you do?
Speaker 1: It's more of like did you learn the lessons that
you went down there to learn?
Speaker 2: And then you know, the more.
Speaker 1: Advanced souls they don't get greeted because they just go back,
but like you do get to a point. The point
of the book is you get to a point where
you don't have to reincarnate anymore. But it takes so
much reincarnating to learn the lessons that your soul needs
to learn. Absolutely, But I think it's just it's a
fascinating thing that all of these people have said the
exact same thing. It's like, you don't have to believe
in God, but there's something really really big when you
leave here, and there's so many people that believe it's
just lights out, and I wonder, you know, I wonder
if that's just a belief out of fear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what to call it. I mean,
my grandpa died in February, and he was like a
father to me, Like he was the only male kind
of presence in my life that provided me with any
sort of kind of safety or stability. I guess, like
when I went to his house in Wisconsin in the summers,
that's where I would feel safe, you know, and like
my nervous system. It's interesting because every time I go
back to Wisconsin, it's like my nervous system just like I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, Okay, you and I couldn't be more different.
Speaker 3: But it's because of my childhood right out here in California.
It was child And then when I go back there,
I was like, oh, okay, you know, and so uh,
this man who who was very logical, who didn't believe
in God. He was agnostic, and he was a professor,
and he was mister moneyman, and he was as he
began to slowly deteriorate over the course of a few
years and soften and open and whatever. Like I know
that like if you would have asked George Huber ten
years prior if he believed in a god, he would
say fucking movely not. But George Huber, who's inching closer
and closer towards death, who's having moments in and out
of consciousness, who's absolutely.
Speaker 2: Did Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's.
Speaker 3: Just also that's the thing too. It's like again, like
I'm not for everybody, and like my, you know what
I mean, Like my, I'm not here to tell like
I think I spent a lot of time in my
earlier years of recovery thinking that like I needed to
be the director of everybody's show and like they needed
to get on the Alexis bandwagon and to do exactly
what I'm doing. And like I'm just not in that
camp anymore. Like if you're even with my sponcyes, like
I will not call you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh oh, I know.
Speaker 3: You call me, I'll call you. And then sometimes, like
I told you the other day, I was having a
really hard day and I was like, Okay, God, who
do I need to check in with? But like that,
I'm not here to like crack the fucking whip and
you need to do this thing and you need you
know what I mean, Like, that's just not I'm like,
you're either motivated, inspired and along for the journey and
the ride, and you want my wisdom and you're gonna
follow my guidance, not because I'm like supposed to be
your higher power because this is what I did to
get free, or you're not.
Speaker 1: But that's what I love about you because you're not
super hardcore. And I think when I because I and
I mean that as a compliment, like I feel safe
telling you when I'm not doing what I'm supposed to
be doing. And I feel like there's because my experience
with my first sponsors when I decided to go do ayahuasca,
which was after three years of being fully sober, she
like laughed in my face and scoffed at me, and
she's like, well, you're not sober.
Speaker 2: I'm not sponsoring you. You're not sober.
Speaker 1: And I remember being so offended because I had done
so much work and the reason I was going to
do ayahuasca was to heal something major and profound, which,
by the way, it did like it was I went
in to heal my mother wound. I'll talk about it
a different episode because it's too long, but like I
came out with so much empathy and love for my
mom that I would have never otherwise had. But because
she laughed in my face and told me I wasn't sober,
I was like, well, then whatever, I'm just going to
start like drinking weed drinks and like enjoying myself if
I'm not sober anyway. And so I think that like
big reaction kind of kicked up the defiant alcoholic in
me that was laying dormant.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, and I've shared this with you.
Speaker 1: I I don't want to disappoint you, but I'm also like,
not my mom, I do consider you a friend, and
I still like really value your guidance and when I'm
not practicing perfect AA sobriety, I think you're just a
lot more gentle with me and that I really appreciate
that because I do have a significant amount of shame
about not being able to like stick to perfect sobriety. Yeah.
Speaker 3: My, Like it's interesting because my partner Chris, runs like
immen's behavioral modification program and like it's all about like
what is called Like it's like a therapeutic community where
like they all get called out on on a regular basis,
and like that works for some people, and like there
are times where like I can hold someone to the
fire like I have. I'm case managing this young woman
right now that's a treatment center and you know, and
like she calls me every single weekend that she wants
to leave. But I'm like, okay, then what like what
the fuck are you going to do with you? Like
there are times where I'm like the what are you
going to do with your life?
Speaker 2: Like then what?
Speaker 3: Then? Then then what? Right? But like I know that
she wants it, you know what I mean? And like
I think that just like checking yourself first, Like there
are times you have to just know when to push
and pull, you know what I mean, Like I know
that you want this thing, and I also know that,
like you also have to have your own path. Like
I'm not here to be anybody's to tell anybody what
to do. I'm here to share my experience and to
tell you know, if you ask, I'm going to give
you what worked for me. But if you don't, then yeah,
I don't really I can't be bothered.
Speaker 2: I don't have to.
Speaker 3: I have a hard enough time managing my own life.
I can't imagine that managing the life of anybody else.
Speaker 2: Literally.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, so you brought up earlier the sexual
assault from when you were younger, and I don't want
to go into more detail about what happened. I don't
think it's necessary, but I'm so grateful you brought that
up because I think it's such an important conversation that
people just aren't having. I think there's so much stigma
and shame, especially within family dynamics, about that. And I
my strong belief is that my mom was sexually abused
as a child, and I think that triggered a lot
of her mental illness. And I wonder I don't know
if you've given this any thought. This is more just
something that I've thought about a lot, Like, what do
you think the path forward in healing that part of
our society is.
Speaker 2: It's such an invasive issue. It's it's I mean, honestly.
Speaker 3: And girls, it's really everywhere.
Speaker 2: It's everywhere.
Speaker 1: It's like if you talk, if you got a room
full of ten people, I bet four to six of
them would be affected by it. I'm sure there's an
exact status and that.
Speaker 3: There's perpetrators in every single area that you're in Like
that's how common it is, Like they're literally everywhere everywhere.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, how do we fix this problem? No
one's willing to talk about it, and like what really
needs to happen is the abusers need to get help
so they stop abusing. It's like, of course the people
that are abused also need so much support, but like,
because this sort of abuse is so frowned upon by
our society, even though it's happening everywhere pervasively all the time,
it's so frowned upon that there's I'm like, is there
even help? Is there a support system for these people?
Or are we like decades out of even being in
a place as a society where we're willing to acknowledge
it enough to have specialists that like work on this
and help like help solve that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I'm certainly not an expert in this area.
There's a really wonderful girl I'll connect you to. Her
name is Marley Liss, and she was raped by a
man up in Canada and she basically went through this
like reparative restorative justice. He was a Native American male.
I believe in up with the indigenous population, they have
like their own path, and she decided not to go
through the traditional justice system where she was seen as
like a victim, but she wanted to become you know,
she wanted to overcome this and to ensure that he
did not cause harm again, and so that I won't
Butcher the amazing works and writings and you know, her
personal story, but she comes to mind when I think
about this, I think it all starts with children. Like
I just think, like, if we're going to change this
next generation to not create perpetrators, like we'd all have
to make the decision to stop perpetrating. You know, like
less than one percent of the male population is our
actual sociopaths. That's one in every like one hundred men.
And you're going, yeah, well there's like billions of men,
but of those, you know that one percent, Like there's different.
You know, there's a sliding scale of sociopathy.
Speaker 4: You know what I mean.
Speaker 3: And so I just think that like the world that
we are operating in, it doesn't matter the culture, like
whether it's here, if it's in India or whatever. It's
like the conditions that we are operating in don't lead
to positive outcomes in really any area. But I believe
that when it comes to incests and sexual assault and
sexual abuse, I think that education is key. I think
that healthy find family dynamics are key. I think that
attentive parenting is key. I think and I think that
just like, yeah, the systems like the more that we
continue to live in a society of chronically stressed out, overworked, underpaid,
starving people that are constantly blaming others for their problems
rather than looking at who's actually creating their problems, which
is like, yeah, you know, we're looking left and right,
but it's really up and down right. It's like it's
just going to continue to happen.
Speaker 1: It feels really dark, and I just feel like the
mistreatment of children is what's wrong with the fabric of
society because we grow up and then we're acting out
of all of those wounds for the rest of time.
Speaker 3: It's like we all just if we stopped all like
literally the DSM five, which is what we use to
diagnose people with mental illness, it would cease to exist.
If we just stopped abusing one full generational children, Yeah, literally, yeah,
it would cease to exist.
Speaker 2: But it's like the prob would not need it.
Speaker 1: Anyone the problem is it's all, It's not all. I mean, listen,
there's a small percentage of people who are just born
bad and they're back well.
Speaker 3: But let me just say this again. This you're talking
about the difference between like epigenetic like genetically, you could
be predisposed bipolar disorder, yes, but you still have to
have an event that turns on the switch right. No,
but it's like a big trauma or usage of marijuana
or whatever, like it's dormant.
Speaker 2: I understand that.
Speaker 1: But what I'm saying is we would have to have
a generation of kids and then all the parents would
have to leave.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mass suicide.
Speaker 1: I'm all these babies and then all the parents because
we're still, like you and I are still fucked up,
you know what.
Speaker 3: That's the other thing too, is we can't the pendulum
can't swing that far either, because there's no such thing
as a perfect parent either.
Speaker 1: I understandverd that, but what I'm well, listen, we're not
going to solve the world problems.
Speaker 2: But I'm just saying it's something that eats.
Speaker 1: Away at my heart because I just am like, this
is such a pervasive issue that people refuse to talk about.
It's rarely talked about in Hollywood. People rarely have a
touch point where they can.
Speaker 3: How many people do you think turned off the episode
the second I said that, Sorry.
Speaker 2: No, it's okay.
Speaker 3: I mean, honestly, just because the truth you want to
know where my sex and love issues came from. It's like, thanks, Nick,
but it is literally apreh you buddy.
Speaker 2: Thanks.
Speaker 3: Can you send me a check for all of the
years of therapy and out now? Yeah, I've forgiven you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, No, I don't know. I think it just
really it really hurts my heart and it breaks my heart,
and I'm just so grateful that you are open and
honest with us about it, because it is something that
people need to hear so they don't feel so alone.
And I think there's a handful of people that are
going to hear it and turn it off because they're
so triggered and they're still so scared and they haven't
faced that part of themselves yet. But I think just
the like, we're just like creaking a tiny little door
open that needs to be knocked down with the force
of the military, because I just think this is such
a huge thing that people don't talk about.
Speaker 2: We're too scared to talk about.
Speaker 1: I wasn't even comfortable saying that I got I'm still
not comfortable saying that I was raped, like you know
what I mean. For so long, I was like, that's
not what happened. I was just drunk and I thought
one guy was fucking me and it was someone else.
It was fine, you know what I mean. And I
was like retelling that story. My friend's like, you got raped,
and I was like easy killer, Like I just you know,
I don't like that vocabulary, I think. But then I'm
like willing to talk about other things that are horrific.
Speaker 2: So it's it's a weird.
Speaker 3: It's a weird thing on our comfort level when it
comes to trauma. Some of us are okay talking about
our moms killing themselves, and some of us are okay
about such a day for Yeah, it is what it is,
different strokes for different folks.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this is something I wanted to talk about.
So there's this book Crazy for you? Did you recommend
this book?
Speaker 3: No? My go to is Facing Love Addiction?
Speaker 1: Okay, that one by Pima Pima what's her name?
Speaker 4: Okay, but yeah, I know that what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: So crazy for you? Is the book about.
Speaker 1: It's a book about love addiction, which I recommend to
any who might be struggling with it, because for me,
it was like I was reading it on a plane
and I felt like she was writing just to me,
Like I was like, oh my god, I am not okay.
So in the book, this is just paraphrasing, but it's
like many people end up seeking in another person what
they can't yet find or regulate within themselves, longing for love, validation, safety,
and the longing cam morph into patterns of repeated heartbreak,
compulsive intimacy, seeking, or staying in harmful relationships.
Speaker 2: I am curious when does it all end? When's it
all over?
Speaker 4: Because I'm fucking exhausted.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, I mean it's just such an exhausting thing,
and I think so many of us. So I think
love and sex addiction is probably the one that's like
least diagnosed and least recognized, because we need love and
companionship in life and we don't realize we're acting addictively.
Speaker 3: It's as difficult as treating an ani disorder, and if
any clinicians who are listening to podcasts know that's significantly
more difficult to treat than addiction to substance or yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we need it.
Speaker 1: And it's like I think, you know, after three years
of being single and doing this work, and I'm like,
I love myself and I'm ready for a relationship and
I'm whole and I'm good, and then I get into
one and I'm like, but it's not, like it's not as.
Speaker 2: Crazy as it used to be.
Speaker 1: But I am being reminded in the beginning of this
relationship how crazy I was in my first one, in
my first one, my first marriage. It's just like this
almost like you can feel whole, and then you get
into a relationship and I'm talking mostly about myself here,
but then all of a sudden, you feel like you're
not whole, and all of a sudden you feel like
there's all these holes that need to be filled, and like,
how do we love ourselves out of that?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I mean again, I don't think it's necessarily about
loving yourself. I know that you love yourself. I know
that you care about yourself. I know that there's no
part of you when you're ask yourself that's wanting to
give up on your needs to give somebody else theirs.
Like I know that that's not like there for you anymore,
you know, Like I know that you have a layer
of like consciousness around all of that, and that you're
more self aware now than you certainly were three years ago.
But like parts heal over time, it's not you. I
do a lot of parts work with you, right, And
like that little girl that feels whatever is coming up,
that younger part of you that's being really activated in
the moment is still there just because she's being retriggered
in the moment. And so again, like the work isn't
to get rid of the younger part. The work is
to soothe the younger part enough that she stops coming
up right to try to protect you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk about this because this work
has been so profound. So the word we do when
I'm like, I want to reach out and this is
you know, a year ago, but whatever, this one guy
that I wanted to reach out to all the time
and he didn't respond. I mean I sent him nineteen
text messages, fourteen nudes.
Speaker 2: He wasn't responding to me.
Speaker 4: I couldn't get enough of how much he hated me.
Speaker 3: And by the way, there was nothing Alexis could have
done to make or stopped doing that. Like that's the thing,
like everyone thinks like, oh, you have a sponsor, you're
working a program, Like why no, no, no.
Speaker 2: There's no no, no, there's no amount.
Speaker 3: Of like telling her stop, She's gonna listen to me.
It's just like, okay, when are you desperate enough to.
Speaker 2: But also didn't work, and also he came back up
for like two weeks he.
Speaker 3: Did eventually, yeah, he did, and then they went back
to being avoidant.
Speaker 2: Yeah no.
Speaker 1: But but when we do this work where I'm like,
I want to reach out to this person, I want
to do da da da da da. Can you just
talk everyone through the work that we do together, because
it has been so profound for me, and I want
people to be able to try and do it to
themselves if they can.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean I think that anybody and everyone's capable
of doing this. You know, it's just how willing you
are to want to. And I think for you, you've
always had profound experiences when I've taken you through these
meditations because you really have an honest desire to like
heal the younger.
Speaker 2: Parts of you.
Speaker 3: So there's an amazing book on this. It's called Internal
Family Systems by Dick Schwartz. I've had the honor of
doing workshops of his, of seeing him speak multiple times
over the course of my recovery. Internal family systems has
been a critical component of my healing. And so the
concept is this, like we all just think that we're
one being, Like you're just Brittany and I'm just Alexis,
And the reality is that we're just a bunch of
fragmented parts. We're not just one being that's present and
existing right now in this moment. You are a sum
of a multitude of parts. Moments of profound joy in
your life that shaped who you are, and moments of
profound sadness or trauma. And most of us have this,
these parts that get kind of off the track of
you know, get separated from our nervous system and lodged
into our psyche, you know. And then what happens is
that when a trigger happens, that part will come in
and try to protect you, try to protect that younger
version that got hurt so bad, right, And usually that
happens in maladaptive behavior. And so the work is really
profound because first we get to get really grounded. So
we'll take a few really big deep breaths, and I'll
ask Brittany, like, can you sense just the two of
us in this room right now? Like can you feel
my presence? Okay? And then I want you to start
to become aware of your body, and I want you
to scan your body and if you can see when
you're having this moment of he's not texting me back,
where do you feel that in your body? And she
would maybe say in her stomach, and then I'd say, okay,
can you bring your attention to your stomach? Yeah, everyone
can do that, right. What's happening is really interesting In
that moment, your higher self or your conscious mind is
present witnessing a part of you that's really not present.
So your higher self or your God connected self is
now witnessing a younger part of you. And so we'll
explore it and we'll say does this thing have an age?
A lot of the time it'll tell you six or eight, nine,
ten eleven, whatever it is. It's like, okay, I want
you to imagine that.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: First, I try to see some people have more ability
to get deep than others. So I'll say, is there
an image or a place or a time that you're
seeing yes or no, oh, it just looks like a
big black mass that's flying. You know. Some people have
or some people are like, yeah, I'm six, I'm in
my grandpa's living room. He's screaming at me because I
didn't finish my plate of food. He's flipping the plate
in front of the TV. He's you know, and we'll
have all of that, and it's like, okay, I just
want you to go sit next to this energy, whether
it's super clear or it's not right, and then it's
does it have anything that it needs to say to you?
Can it first witness that you're there, that this calm
older presence that is you, that is it is there
keeping it safe. You know, when your partner is triggering
you or whomever is triggering, you're not going to have
time to do this full meditative experience, you know, but
you are able, over the period of time of doing
this kind of work, able to go, ooh, that's that rebellious.
Speaker 5: Teenager that's sixteen, that's coming out and she wants to
play right now, and you're able to bring your higher
self to it and say, hey, for right now, I
need you to calm down, but I will come back
to you because I know what you have to say
say to me is important.
Speaker 3: And that is that is self soothing. It's not ignoring
the part. It is not just three deep breaths. It's like, no,
I actually have to meet the part of me that
wants to burn this motherfucker down and tell her I'm
coming back, and I have to commit to coming back
right and actually like having that part. And so what's
beautiful is our nervous system is like if you can
imagine mosaic tiles, like all the glass pieces, and in
the two and a half years that I was doing
intensive IFS work and through continuing to do it over
the last five years, like the mosaic tiles have come
back piece by piece and now I have like a
beautiful stained glass window. Right, the nervous system is collecting
itself and the pieces aren't fragmented and all over the place,
and sometimes they're a little bit slower to like get
and stay into place, and that's okay. But if you
just keep doing the work minding your body like, oh,
we're actually safe, Oh we're not dying. Oh we're okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we're kind of one of my favorite things
to do in the moment when I'm feeling is to think,
how how old am I right now?
Speaker 3: What?
Speaker 1: Because that really for me for some reason, I'm usually
like five or six, and there's this profound fear of abandonment.
There's this profound fear of not being safe. There's just
profound fear. And I'm usually quite young, and it's it's
h it's a bubber. She keeps coming around. But it's
like working on that part of myself and giving that
part of my self love has been there's been a profound.
Speaker 3: Shit and like maybe like I can tell you that,
like I've had to revisit certain parts, like the big
big wounds, like thirty forty times before they've fully felt safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the edges round out. Yeah. I love you so much.
Speaker 3: I love you too.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming. Thank you for being
such a great friend and sponsor and just person. You
are such a bright light and I I don't know,
I just I just see you as such a profoundly
different person than what the world knew you as, and
I'm just so happy to have you in my life.
Speaker 2: So thank you for being here.
Speaker 5: The feeling is mutual. Thank you, sweetie.
Speaker 1: Do you want people to follow you on Instagram or no, sure,
give me a.
Speaker 3: Follow, Give me a follow, follow my ass. It's just
it's Alexis Haines.
Speaker 2: Alexis Saints, there it is. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 5: Thanks for having me, babe.
Speaker 2: Bye.
Speaker 1: All right you guys, We'll see you next week.