Karen: Recovery From Growing Up in an Alcoholic Home

Karen shares her powerful story of growing up in an alcoholic home and the impact it had on her life, including her struggle with emotional suppression and disconnection. Tune in to hear Karen's journey towards healing, self-discovery, and finding peace within herself. She offers insightful advice for those dealing with addiction in their lives and emphasizes the importance of seeking support and approaching these situations with curiosity and compassion. This podcast is a must-listen for anyone looking to overcome past traumas and experiences and connect with themselves and others on a deeper level.

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If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, depression, trauma, sexual abuse or feeling overwhelmed, we've compiled a list of resources at secretlifepodcast.com.

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To share your secret and be a guest on the show email [email protected]

ABOUT OUR GUEST:

Karen Maloney

“Your life is like a mirror reflecting your beliefs to you.” 

Life wasn’t always how it is now. To many people I may look and appear the same, but INSIDE I feel like a completely different person. Just like a computer, I’ve installed a whole new operating system. I’ve deleted old files & replaced them with new programs instead (i.e. habits, beliefs, thoughts etc) and revolutionised my internal world, shifting the way I think and what I believe about myself. Everything comes from within – ‘as within, so without’. It’s been life-changing for me and I know it can be the same for you!

Now I can see CLEARLY that for most of my life I lived in the baseline energy of fear. I lived my life in ‘freeze’ mode. I felt disassociated, unsafe, anxious and I felt awkward being myself. I judged myself harshly (always trying to be perfect!) and my brain went a 100 miles and hour. But for the most part I never realised there was anything wrong with that. It was my ‘normal’. I thought it was a sign of my ambition and drive. Out of an unconscious fear, I lived from the level of my mind. I thought if I can think, plan, control and rationalise everything in my mind, I would be safe. That need for control provided me with a sense of safety and security inside, that I didn’t feel in the external world. But it also lead to burnout. Find out MORE: Soulpowerlight.com

Curiosity & Consciousness Podcast

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SECRET LIFE’S TOPICS INCLUDE:

addiction recovery, mental health, alcoholism, drug addiction, sex addiction, love addiction, OCD, ADHD, dyslexia, eating disorders, debt & money issues, anorexia, depression, shoplifting,  molestation, sexual assault, trauma, relationships, self-love, friendships, community, secrets, self-care, courage, freedom, and happiness.

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Transcript

[0:00:00] Karen: Often a child who grew up in an alcoholic home can have difficulties with trust, with identifying, expressing feelings. And they either go one of two ways totally controlled, or feeling like they have no control over their life. This is 1 million% describing me.

[0:00:23] Brianne Davis: Welcome to the Secret Life Podcast. Tell me your secret, I'll tell you mine. Sometimes you have to go through the darkness to reach the light. That's what I did. After twelve years of recovery in sex and love addiction, I finally found my soulmate myself. Please join me in my novel, Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex & Love Addict. A four-time bestseller on Amazon. It's a brutal, honest, raw, gnarly ride, but hilarious at the same time. Check it out now on Amazon. Welcome to Secret Life Podcast. I'm Brianne Davis-Gantt. Today, I'm pulling back the curtains of all kinds of human secrets. We'll hear about what people are hiding from themselves or others. You know, those deep, dark secrets you probably want to take to your grave, or, you know, those light or funnier secrets that are just plain embarrassing. Really.

[0:01:23] Brianne Davis: The how, what, when, where, why of it all. Today. My guest is Karen. Now, Karen, I have a question for you. Dun dun dun. What is your secret?

[0:01:37] Karen: I grew up in an alcoholic home. And actually, the impact that it had on me that I totally did not connect the dots to that at all.

[0:01:48] Brianne Davis: Like the denial of what living in an alcoholic home does to you.

[0:01:53] Karen: Yeah, well, I don't even because there's so many different I suppose that word was never used. It wasn't a thing. It wasn't as if my dad was out all day every day and coming home drunk and crawling havoc and messing up the place and all this kind of thing. No, he totally worked all day, but he went out every single night and came home, particularly when I was a child, I remember him coming home drunk, like, absolutely obliterated, and I hated it. And I always just wanted to be in bed and I would be like, oh, please don't come in and wake me up. Because sometimes he would he'd come in and he'd wake me up and that's when he'd be like, oh my God, I love you so much. profusing his undying love. And sometimes he passed out as well. With life an arm over me. And as a child, I was just terrified.

[0:02:41] Brianne Davis: So terrifying. That overwhelming. It's almost like when a family member would do that, it was like you didn't know what to do with all that energy coming at you.

[0:02:53] Karen: Yeah, and that's when I literally stopped breathing. Because as a child and before the age of seven, we're literally in PETA. We've been programmed. It's like we're in a hypnotized state again. I'm looking back now as a journey of discovery and healing and connecting all the dots, but I didn't know this at the time. But that's when I stopped breathing, I'd be so terrified. I went into freeze mode because even my dad, if he passed out with his arm over me, I would stop breathing because I'd be like, I don't want to wake him, because if he starts producing his love again, the smell of drink, it's just not cool for a child. And I live my life in that freeze mode.

[0:03:39] Brianne Davis: Like, you would realize you were holding your breath.

[0:03:43] Karen: And especially if I felt triggered or vulnerable or particularly when it came to relationships and opening up and expressing feelings and emotions, life, I just did not do that. I was a closed book. And if ever I felt in that space of needing to open up, I would go in that freeze mode. It was like, stop breathing. Shut down. Yes.

[0:04:05] Brianne Davis: I want to ask you, so I've taken breath class. As an actor, you work with your breath and all. My teacher told me that I breathe just in my chest, and I didn't connect my breath to my belly. And the lower area, is that how you life? I guess I was disconnected too.

[0:04:25] Karen: Yeah, upper chest breathing. Because I've studied a lot and done a couple of courses while on breath work. And that upper chest breathing, is that really kind of panic, fight or flight you're passing extra cortisol you're in fight or flight, essentially. You're not in that rest or digest, like, full, deep, diaphragmic breaths that allow oxygenated blood to pass around your body. So, yeah, it does have an impact. But it's so funny because recently I joined Alanon, and honestly, by joining there and that's through another episode of a person close to me drinking. And I was just like, oh, my God. Even with all my skills, all my tools, all my practices, I couldn't cope. It was really triggering me. So I was like, oh, my God, I need help here.

[0:05:12] Brianne Davis: Wait, let's not jump ahead, though. Wait, let's go back. I have a couple of questions. Okay. You're like, I know exactly what I want to say, but no. When your household was in that state so he drank every night. He was a functioning alcoholic. It sounds life.

[0:05:27] Karen: Now you can look back and go, yeah, absolutely. Because he was up every morning, went to work.

[0:05:31] Brianne Davis: Yeah. And that's the hardest ones to diagnose. If your life is not falling to pieces, it's hard to be like, oh, I have a problem.

[0:05:39] Karen: Yeah.

[0:05:40] Brianne Davis: So was there a word you guys used for when he was in that state, or was it just not talked about?

[0:05:46] Karen: No, like I say, it was not mentioned. That word was never brought up. It was never an issue. It was just like and honestly, when I look back, I didn't see it as an issue. I didn't think, oh, my God, my dad goes out every night. It was just like a normal as far as I knew, it's what everyone did.

[0:06:04] Brianne Davis: Wait and where are you from?

[0:06:06] Karen: Ireland.

[0:06:06] Brianne Davis: Ireland, that's it. You're Irish, right? But I'm Irish too and it's like a lot of people I hear say, well, Irish just drink a lot. Like it's our culture, it's the society we were raised in. Yeah.

[0:06:19] Karen: And it definitely was part that. But I could see as well, it was probably his bit of a wind down his sanctuary where he met his buddies and they all catched up, caught up, but also when it's every single night of the year. The only two nights he didn't go out was Good Friday because the pubs were closed during Christmas Day because the pubs were closed and I do not remember a single day when he did not go. That's just how it was. But like I'm saying, it was just so normalized and I think this is what happens a lot in trauma or whatever kind of situation. They're just so normal. You don't see that there's any issue. They're just like your blind spots and those particularly coming home life really drunk and kind of waking us up in the middle of the night to tell us he loves us so much, in that I remember that happening literally a handful of times. But when I was really young, like five, six, seven, maybe around that age, it didn't happen as we got older, but he still went out. But it happened enough times for me to live my life in a programmed state of that not feeling safe, that fear, that living in freeze mode, shutting down. That's what we do.

[0:07:40] Brianne Davis: You're supposed to rely on, is not in a healthy state. So the boundaries are crossed. Like your boundaries were crossed as a little girl. A father should not be climbing in bed and passing out drunk with his arm over his daughter. Is that when you had that AHA moment? Because you had it after we talked, right? Like we talked on your podcast. So how did that AHA moment realize, I know you have another family member that's also an alcoholic. Can you connect all those dots when this moment of AHA happened for you?

[0:08:13] Karen: Yeah, my AHA moment when it all connected and I really saw the impact that those events had on me was like I mentioned, just another family member and just me not being able to cope and I was like, oh hell, I need help here.

[0:08:30] Brianne Davis: And did something happen with the other family member? Did the person bottom out or just.

[0:08:37] Karen: Every now and again they're just not in a good place, don't have healthy supportive habits. So it's just kind of like, well, I don't give a shit anyway, so I'm just going to go and get obliterated and maybe on a weekly Davis would just be obliterated and awake all night and singing and Wake Me up and I'm just like, what the fuck? So I was just life, oh my God, I need help here. Because obviously again, that's a coping mechanism and they're not ready to do anything else. But it was really triggering me more than anything else because, like, that I have so many tools and skills of and have been on this journey. So I reached out to Alanon and it's so funny because obviously there's so many groups, but it's not funny because there's no such thing as coincidence. But I ended up joining a group called growing up in an Alcoholic Home. And even though looking at it, I was life. Yeah, but that's not really the truth because you have this idea that Narcolic is drunk all day every day and calls him mayhem, which happens.

[0:09:35] Brianne Davis: But I was grown up and well, they call Alanon, just so anybody's listening, you don't have to have a drunk parent to be an Alanon. I also went to Alanon. Neither of my parents were drinkers, but it was a dysfunctional family. So they say Alanon's for alcoholic or dysfunctional family, or if you have a.

[0:09:52] Karen: Relative or friend, they say, yeah.

[0:09:57] Brianne Davis: Well, they're another addiction. Like, my mom is a workaholic. She'll say that other family members had problems. But yeah.

[0:10:04] Karen: So this group jumped out at me and at first I was like, no, I'm not going to join that one. I didn't really grow up in the Melcolic home, but then I was like, because this was a Friday and I was like, I really want to just join now. So this was a Saturday morning, so it was the next day. So I was like, yeah, I'm just going to join it. And oh my God. On their opening paragraph, even they describe this adult child and they describe this person who as a child, if they grew up in an alcoholic home and if they often felt either physically unsafe or psychologically unsafe, and that was obviously me, psychologically unsafe.

[0:10:44] Brianne Davis: When a parent crosses a line that is just unsure and not normal, which happened to me, I wasn't as sexually abused by a parent, but there was some line crossing where boundaries that is inappropriate for a child. So if you're out there and something has happened where you're like, well, it wasn't sexual abuse, but it definitely made me really uncomfortable as a child. It was too intimate and it was emotionally a meshing and physically meshing a little bit. You're okay to say something happened and I'm uncomfortable, even if it wasn't sexual? I just have to say that because it was so hard for me doing the work to be like, but nothing sexual happened. And my therapist would be like, no, it was inappropriate at six years old for this to happen to you. So I just have to say that because I had the hardest time admitting that to myself.

[0:11:35] Karen: Yeah, no, for sure, you're right. And it does make sense, as I say, although I didn't feel physically unsafe. Of course it makes sense. Like you say, yes, absolutely. Boundaries were crossed that's just not normal behavior, definitely, but, like, that it was more a psychological effect for me and how I life. But they had this paragraph on an adult child and how it impacts them, how often a child who grew up in an alcoholic home can have difficulties with trust, with identifying, expressing feelings. And they either go one of two ways total control or feeling like they have no control over their life. And I swear to God, my jaw dropped on the ground because I was like, this is 1 million% describing me and how I operated in my life. I was a total and not sure control freak because I suppose I didn't feel safe. So I had this story. And again, this was all unconscious at the time. This is through the inner work and the uncovering that my story that I was telling myself was if I could control everything outside of myself, I was safe.

[0:12:39] Brianne Davis: Yeah.

[0:12:40] Karen: And we obviously can't live that way. It's exhausting. We can control nothing.

[0:12:44] Brianne Davis: I was saying I love power and control because that's the only thing I felt, because I felt so not in control of everything. And you can't yeah, you can't go through life trying to have power and control over anyone.

[0:12:56] Karen: No, but I did. But more so, even over myself. And it was overanalyzing. It was overly critical. I was overly independent. Like, I was just like, I'll do it all myself. I don't want anyone to help me. I didn't want to ask for help. Life just that pure perfectionism. And that just feeling uncomfortable being myself. And a lot of people do it, but that editing, altering, censoring ourselves in order to be liked, to be accepted by others. And again, it wasn't conscious to me at the time. I wasn't going around going I was the most disingenuous person ever. No, I was completely oblivious. I just felt so unsafe and unconnected and uncomfortable being me that this is just what I did.

[0:13:40] Karen: And I see I carried so much embarrassment. I really had so much underlying shame and embarrassment, and I was afraid to be seen. I didn't want to be seen. Why were you hired?

[0:13:52] Brianne Davis: Can you explain?

[0:13:54] Karen: I was embarrassed because if and I remember, I didn't like having friends staying over purely for the fact I was like, oh, my God, imagine if they stayed and he came in in the middle of night, waking us up, saying all this shite. I was just, like, so embarrassed.

[0:14:08] Brianne Davis: Right?

[0:14:09] Karen: And that's really where it came from. It was just that pure embarrassment of having someone over and seen this behavior or feel behavior that stuck with me. And still at times, because sometimes our wounds, they're always there. No matter the healing we do, we get triggered. And even recently, life last week, I was meditating on the couch in the sitting room, and next thing I heard my brother coming in, and I got really embarrassed. I was like, oh my God, I'm going to stop. But I've done it so much now it's in that moment going, no, that's an old story.

[0:14:45] Brianne Davis: That's life. Life.

[0:14:46] Karen: And I just stay there, I'm safe, all is good. Who cares if he sees me? Life, let him think what he wants. It's totally fine.

[0:14:56] Brianne Davis: Has this affected your romantic relationships?

[0:15:00] Karen: Totally, yeah. And again, it was all unconscious. But now I can see how and just to say before I go into this, that AHA moment was joining that group and actually seeing because just connecting the dots and it's just like all the cards fell and it was like, oh my God. That really did have that much of an impact on me because it crossed my mind before and I was like that's when I stopped breathing. But I kind of thought that was it. But no, it was everything in how I was. And because that feeling of not being safe or being afraid to be myself, wanting to kind of hide and being that control freak and perfectionist and overly independent, that obviously put me in my masculine energy. I lived in my masculine energy.

[0:15:53] Brianne Davis: Me too.

[0:15:56] Karen: Which again, when I saw that I was like, oh my God, we're so blind.

[0:16:01] Brianne Davis: But that's the thing. I think a lot of women go to the masculine energy when they feel unsafe. As a child, when you have to walk on eggshells with someone in your household at such a young age, not knowing what you're going to get, if it's a rager, if it's drinking, if it's overly infectionate, all that stuff, you usually turn to the masculine energy because it shuts you down and it protects you.

[0:16:23] Karen: Well, it kept me in my head. I was totally disconnected from my body. I lived from the level of mind that thinking, planning, doing. Like if I could think every aspect of us, it's going to be fine, I could control us, I could think my way out of things, overanalyze and.

[0:16:38] Brianne Davis: Figure it out completely, which doesn't burnish.

[0:16:43] Karen: Because you cannot live there. But again, it was so normal to me because I'm a really ambitious and driven person and I thought my constant striving and pushing and hustling and efforting, I thought that was a sign of oh, that's a sign of my ambition. Like, I didn't see that it was so detrimental. So because I lived at that masculine energy, I obviously was attracting people who were men, who were more in their feminine and who just couldn't hold space to me because energy always has to balance. And again, I was just such a closed book. I just couldn't open, I couldn't express. I was life just kind of numb inside. I was just like, oh, shut down. So totally. Yeah, it impacted everything, but especially relationships. And like, that not even just intimate. Even some of my closest relationships with friends. I remember years and years ago we were on holidays and a friend of mine, one of my best friends, even said to me, she was just like she's just like, who are you? I just don't even know who you are. You don't share.

[0:17:48] Karen: And I was like, oh, my God.

[0:17:50] Brianne Davis: How long did you have this friendship? How long were you guys?

[0:17:52] Karen: Oh, we've been friends since primary school.

[0:17:55] Brianne Davis: Wow. To have somebody that you've known that long be life, who are you? Yeah, because I were never completely available.

[0:18:04] Karen: Not on an emotional level. Never. I was terrified. I didn't know how to speak about emotions. I didn't know how to express feelings. I didn't know how because, again, one of what happened. But two, we're not taught that inside society. We're not taught how to process emotions, how to feel them, how to release them. So, yeah, it was that. And actually oh, my God, this is so awful that I remember, like, an early boyfriend as well, who I really, really liked and like, that I liked him so much. I was terrified. Again, that fear of being yourself. I was like, Fear of fear. But even more, it was how I acted, what I said. I just had this fear of he doesn't life me because I like him so much.

[0:18:46] Karen: So it's that editing that constantly not feeling comfortable in yourself, to just be yourself. It's trying to be that perfect person. And I remember at one stage and we were going out and I remember one day he gave me a big hug. We just met and he gave me a big hook. And he was like, I don't know what's wrong with you? He's like, It's like you're dead inside.

[0:19:08] Brianne Davis: What age?

[0:19:10] Karen: Oh, my God. I was like, early teens, late teens, late teens.

[0:19:13] Brianne Davis: Like 1617?

[0:19:15] Karen: Yeah, probably 1718.

[0:19:17] Brianne Davis: Wow.

[0:19:18] Karen: Like, around that age. Those kind of comments obviously don't help a person to try.

[0:19:25] Brianne Davis: Were you confused or did you brush it off? Did you guys? What happened after that? I'm just curious.

[0:19:31] Karen: Yeah, well, obviously, we kind of still went out for a bit, but obviously, it didn't go very far. But as I got older, I was more curious. I was like, Why? Because, again, like I'm saying, this was all unconscious. I didn't connect.

[0:19:49] Brianne Davis: It's those secrets that we keep from ourselves. We are crazy.

[0:19:54] Karen: And that's why the inner work is going within. Because what we carry unconsciously to ourselves are our blind spots. So, yes, I had a curiosity and I was like, what's wrong with me? Why can't I feel this huge joy and kind of safety and things like that? That's what led me on my path of healing and discovery and intimacy.

[0:20:15] Brianne Davis: I know, but what you just said was really important. When you dead in the feelings of not being wanted or not being enough or scared of intimacy or being loved and all that, you dead in everything. That's what my therapy you dead in the joy. You don't get to pick and choose what emotional you don't actually feel all of them.

[0:20:36] Karen: And you know what's even funny? I remember that's why Brennan Brown's talk, the Power of Vulnerability is one of my favorite ever. It is brilliant. And I remember when I first watched that, probably in 2015 or 2016, I was going out with a guy and he was going through different issues or whatever, and he was a bit shut down, obviously, as well. But again, I was totally unconscious. And I remember I watched that Ted Talk and my mind was blown. And she literally says that at the end, she was like, you can't pick and choose emotions. If you're shut down to one, you're shut down to all of them.

[0:21:13] Brianne Davis: Yeah, I heard that twelve years ago. And it just blew my mind when she said that, because I was like, wow. That's why I feel like I never am fully joyous, because I was so dead. And I didn't want to feel anything because as an addict, I don't want to feel anything. Like, I just want to feel euphoria. 24/7. If I can't feel that, I don't want to feel anything else.

[0:21:33] Karen: But I remember watching that mind blown. Loved it. But then I was like, that's what's wrong with my boyfriend, trying to get him to watch it. And it just blows my mind now, because again, it's that thing of everything as a reflection. It's not outside of us, it's something within us as well. But again, I was so unconscious. And it even makes sense now as well, because I traveled for years after university and life, you're saying there as well. I just couldn't feel the full expression of anything. I was just pretty much like, pretty numb to everything. And people you'll be watching this incredible sunset and people are like, oh my God, it's so incredible. Newly cried. And I'm like, yeah, it's ground, like.

[0:22:12] Brianne Davis: Trying to set like, can we go now?

[0:22:14] Karen: Yeah. Trying to kind of fake this, going, oh, yeah. And I'm like going, how are they getting so excited about this? I'm like, It's beautiful, but I just can't feel it. Whereas now I'm that person that I'm like. I'm like crying at the sunset, going, oh my God, it's so beautiful. Nature is so powerful, but I just live my life numb. And again, I just wasn't even aware.

[0:22:36] Brianne Davis: Can I just say, too, it was really fascinating when you said about the boyfriend, and I just want to point out, and I always love to take these things because they're tips. Like, if anyone's listening and you keep picking that unavailable person, and it's because something in you is unavailable. You pick those people because you're unavailable. And that's when you go inward. Life, you said you have to do the inner work. If there's drama or you're not feeling what everybody else is feeling, usually there's something we're cut off from.

[0:23:05] Karen: Yeah, and that's exactly why they say everything does start from within. If we can't feel the full expression of love, of joy, of whatever within us, first and foremost, nothing outside of us can make us feel it. Yes, they can augment it, they can make it bigger, but they cannot make us feel anything that we do not or have activated within ourselves first. So that's why it's all from within. It all starts from within everything. If it's not happening on the external, it's because of something that we hold within a limiting belief, a subconscious pattern, something. And that's why through my own journey and all my learnings and all these AHA like faceplant moments going, oh my God, how could I be so blind? But that's part of the journey. It's not when you have these uncoverings, it's not to get even harder on yourself. It's kind of to be like, oh, well, now I know. Now I've got something.

[0:23:58] Brianne Davis: Now you're gentle, you have compassion and empathy, saying, oh, these are the things that happen. This is why I'm the way I am. And now I need to work on them because you can't carry around that baggage through your life or you're responsible for your behavior now that you know. But here's the thing, and I want to ask you, I want to get back to now there's a person in your life. Is your father still around? I wanted to ask.

[0:24:22] Karen: No, he passed away ten years ago this year of cancer. But obviously it was all connected. And it's funny, actually, he mentioned to me close to the end, he said to me one day, he was like, you know what, Karen? I always thought I was an alcoholic and the drink would kill me. And he was like, and here I am with cancer. But it was cold on cancer. So there was obviously a connection.

[0:24:47] Brianne Davis: Now you are dealing with someone in your life that is drinking a lot, right?

[0:24:53] Karen: Yeah. On a weekly basis, kind of going.

[0:24:57] Brianne Davis: So how are you dealing with that? How are you taking care of yourself now that you know this journey and you know what you've been through and you have the tools and you're with other people like mine going through the same thing. How? Karen, you dealing with someone you care about having the same disease, and it's.

[0:25:15] Karen: Hard the closer the person is to you because you want to. And especially when you've been on a healing journey, you want to share all these tools and everything. I know, right?

[0:25:25] Brianne Davis: And they're like, no, I'm not interested. Leave me alone. That happens to me on a daily basis. It's the most heartbreaking when you're like, no, it's heartbreaking the way you can be better. You don't have to be living like this. And they're, like, not interested.

[0:25:37] Karen: Yeah, totally. And that's a really hard part. But it's about making peace with that as well. And I suppose for me now, for years, I have so many daily practices. Like it is my jam to be meditating, to be praying, to be doing yoga, to be conscious all day, every day, that is me. And even more so when I feel triggered in this particular situation. But also it was that extra level of me reaching out to get help from Alanon and be in a like minded group of people who are experiencing the same, to just be able to share because a word you mentioned there as well. When you go on this healing journey and really connect back to yourself, you gain so much compassion for yourself going, wow. It's that thing of when we know better, we do better. But that compassion. Again, like I said before, we have to activate things within ourselves. So the fact that I activated it within myself, for myself, I actually extend that to others. So even to my dad, I have huge compassion for him because I'm like, shit, I don't know what was going on in his life.

[0:26:39] Brianne Davis: Yeah, what he went through, you have no idea. It's that empathy that we get to have now because we see that we're all going through something nobody does. Hurt people, hurt people and people are trying to function. But yeah, you look at it from a different angle, totally.

[0:26:55] Karen: And I don't think anyone is innately bad, so I do that as well in this situation. And also it's the bigger picture of the higher consciousness that we are a soul, we are a spirit having a human experience. And I'm life just because I think it's bad or it's wrong or it's not the best way. I don't know what another soul is here to experience and to go through and it's just to try, hold, to look after myself. But to hold that space of compassion and love and be just like look, I know you're going through a difficult time. I'm here. Please let me know if I can do anthem. But I also know it's your journey and I fully love you. And giving them that space as well, I think is huge. And I know for us it's made a massive difference because although it hurts and it pains, again, it's not my life. Everyone's here to experience their own things and again, I know it's because of something else that's going on and they know as well. And when they're ready to look at another way, then it'll be their time and it's being okay with that. And I think that's the full truth of awakening, of responsibility, it is that making peace with everyone and anyone, however they're living their life, it's like, okay, maybe it's not my choice, but I don't want to take my anger or because you're not meeting my expectations out on you. That's my piece to deal with. If I am triggered, because that's what they say, nothing can affect me unless I have an unhealed wound within me, unless it's touching something within.

[0:28:24] Karen: Me. So it's that constant invitation, and that's the way I looked at it. I'm like, it's an invitation for me to go deeper into my work. And I am so grateful. And I've said this to him as well. I'm like, oh, my God. I'm so grateful, actually, that you're going through this phase, because it has pushed me to go deeper within myself. And now I've connected with this whole community that I am growing and learning so much. And I'm like, oh, my God. And it is helping him. He's like, wow, that's really interesting. And he's starting to look for other avenues in that. So we just never know. And it's really hard the closer someone is. But it's not about getting anger, calling, just telling them to get their shit together and stop being such an asshole or whatever.

[0:29:08] Karen: And that's really hard. But it's always our work. It's always our piece.

[0:29:12] Brianne Davis: Yeah, I 100% agree. And I love talking to you. We could talk forever. But I have one more question before we go. If someone is dealing with an alcoholic or an addict and they don't know how to have a relationship or move forward, what would be your last bit of advice that you wish you would have heard a long time ago? Yeah.

[0:29:35] Karen: Well, again, I suppose because it depends where you're at in your journey, because for so long, I was so unconscious, I didn't even see the connection. So curiosity is such an incredible tool. Like, if we live a life of curiosity and more curiosity about ourselves, why am I getting so angry? What is it touching within me? Why am I you know, can I not hold a space of.

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