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What was this thing, if you had to like, when you say "thing" can you identify what is it,
and what was it like to deal with it? 'Cause I think this is kind of the core of it, and
I feel like this is the heart of the process that people don't like to talk about, you
know. What's the thing, and what was it like to see it? So it's like a pit of loneliness
is what it was for me, and you know I think I'm still learning my way through all the
nooks and crannies of this, you know, space of loneliness. Well, then, if you asked me
"Do you feel lonely" and I was being honest, I would say "Yeah, I feel really lonely."
If you ask me now "Do you feel lonely" I'd say, "No, I don't feel lonely. Sometimes, maybe
I feel a little lonely." But, again, it was that time, going through my divorce that I
learned for the first time ever how to actually deal with the whole, the space. And, so, and
the beauty of that is that the first time when I created all this joy and pleasure and
fun in my life, you know, I didn't need food because that hole was full of all that beautiful
stuff. But there was still a hole, 'cause I still had a loneliness default. I didn't
realize it, but, here it showed up again, you know, many years later, and the reason
it showed up again is because I didn't have my circumstances of my life, I didn't have
all the pleasure, and the joy, and the fun. So, I realized, yes, I need, you know, if
you have a wound, you need to dress the wound, treat the wound, put some salve on the wound,
but you also need to address why the wound happened in the first place, perhaps, you
know? If you keep falling, you need to figure out what's going on with this hip that it
keeps giving out, for example. And, so, I needed the friendship, and I needed the self-care,
I needed the joy, I needed all those things and I needed to deal with the wound, like
this is, there's a loneliness that is pervasive here and it's very familiar what is that,
so I got therapy. And how did you deal? Therapy, there you go. Yeah therapy, we love you. Coaching,
yeah, therapy, I had a coach. I started sharing deeply with my girlfriends. Letting yourself
have it, letting yourself be in it. Can I give another little theory, 'cause I feel
like you're getting to like another really key point? So one day I was at the gym on
the elliptical machine and I'm watching the Weather Channel, and it says: "The Mood Swings
of Mother Nature." And, you know, it was a little weird or whatever, but it occurred
to me that Mother Nature has mood swings. And then I really thought about it, that you
know, it's not always a sunny day. Sometimes it's stormy, sometimes it's cloudy, right
now it just started getting rainy. It's not always a sunny day, and that's the perfection
of our planet. If we didn't have that balance, you'd burn up and die. It couldn't function
if it was just always a sunny day. And I think that part of our problem as a society is that
we think that it's always suppose to be a sunny day inside of us, and that we don't
have any love or respect for the "stormy weather." Whoa, I don't want that. That's uncomfortable.
There's a lot of like, and not sharing and not letting. There's all of the avoidance,
not letting ourselves have the darkness, the stormy weather is the issue. Because in truth,
the stormy stuff is part of our perfection. That's our wholeness, that's what makes us
whole. But if we are just being happy, then we're only dealing with one side of the spectrum.
And it sounds like you started embracing, for a while, you went into just like your
sunny side, and started filling that up, and were focusing there, and all of the sudden
you're like, "Wait, this isn't working." But the stormy side still exists. And so it's
learning that that duality is part of being human, and learning to be comfortable with
the duality, knowing that the painful, yucky, horrible, uncomfortable stuff is where the
learning comes from, is where the growing comes from, it's godawful and miserable. And
I definitely, in my own darkest moments, people would be like "What are you doing Saturday night,"
and I'm like "I'm crying on my couch," you know? Just like, here, I'm here in it,
you know? Just the willingness to honor it, and deal with it, and not run away from it,
and not be scared of it, is what let's it pass and doesn't make it build and make it
even stormier, you know? Absolutely. I Amen to everything you just said. And, yeah, I
think I got more comfortable with being genuinely joyful, and I learned to take exquisite care
of myself. And there was a fear of the circumstances in my life not being awesome. So of course
when they showed up, I just defaulted into avoidance because I was so, couldn't deal.
And it's been such a beautiful learning for me, to learn what it is, to actually be a
friend, you know, being a friend isn't just listening to my friends. Being a friend is
sharing with my friends, and all of it. And that, that's a big one. It is so valuable.