Kristen
Welcome to the Close The Chapter Podcast. I am Kristen Boice a licenced Marriage and Family Therapist with private practice pathways to healing counselling through conversations, education, strategies and shared stories we will be closing the chapter on all the thoughts, feelings, people and circumstances that don't serve you anymore and open the door to possibilities and the real you you won't want to miss an episode so be sure to subscribe Welcome to this week's close the chapter podcast I have been so excited about this conversation. I was on Carla and Sherry's podcast the love fix and loved my time with them. And so I wanted to have them on the close the chapter podcast so I'm excited to first have Sherry Gabe Ah, did I say that correctly? You sure did. Okay, I just might want always double check and who is an LCSW is a licenced psychotherapist, a life coach who helps people cope with codependency addictions trauma and mental health issues. Sherry is a single mother and once her daughter was old enough, Sherry returned to school good for you to receive her Masters of Social Work from the University of Southern California now this is where it gets super impressive. So everyone listen up. As a leading expert on addiction and recovery. Sherry's TV appearances include VH one Celebrity Rehab want to know about that CNN insight addition the Robert Irvine show and access live E News among others. She has been featured in cosmopolitan women's world the LA Times Thrive global, the New York Post marriage.com and other leading publications. She has also been a guest on many Sirius XM radio shows Sherry is the author of best selling book infinite recovery, which addresses recovery from addiction and alcoholism. through the lens of the law of attraction. Sherry is also the author of Love smacked and what Sherry addresses relationship addiction and codependency and as a contributing writer to the book Chicken Soup for the Soul tough times for tough people. So impressive Sherry And Sherry maintains a private practice in Westlake Village, California is the editor of recovery today magazine and the founder of wakeup recovery, an online group coaching programme that applies the principles of positive psychology, law of attraction and mindfulness for codependence and addicts in recovery. Oh, Sherry, that is awesome.

Sherry
Yeah, that that is a lot. That's exactly right. The only thing I don't do anymore is run that magazine. That was a while ago, that was very exciting. Because we had some amazing people in the magazine like Jamie Lee Curtis and Russell Brand. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun. But I just you know, really wanted to focus on my clients and my online work and my book. So that's one element of that bio that I had to just make a little teeny correction,

Kristen
and it still counts. So yeah, former editor, former editor

Sherry
and you know, the wake up recovery is sort of my it's my online programme, and we'll talk about that later. But it's really morphed into a programme for love addiction codependents and toxic relationships started out with addiction because that's really where it all started. When I worked in Celebrity Rehab I worked at promises Malibu which was one of the first famous residential treatment centres where the celebrities went, but you know, and we can get into that later I realised oh my god, all I'm doing is focusing on the addict my ex husband, the addict the alcoholic, instead of really talking about my story and the people that I help with your mostly Love Addicts, codependence and people in toxic relationships.

Kristen
That's so amazing. Would you feel comfortable sharing a little bit about your story, like how you got into this work? It sounds like your husband and then

Sherry
not at all I'm pretty open about it. And I think it helps people see that, you know, they're not alone. It can happen to anybody. So it started out where I married an alcoholic so I never really understood alcoholism, even though I'd gone to school and blah, blah, blah. But when you live in the tornado, it's very different than studying it in school. And then I got this job at promises in Malibu and then prior to that I just went back to school to really help single moms because that was my story. But it really morphed into this whole career with addiction codependency and I absolutely loved working at the rehab. I loved my stint on Celebrity Rehab, but I realised you know, we're always focusing on the addict and alcoholic What about the family member? Or what about the woman who just keeps attracting you know, toxic people are the man who attracts toxic people a narcissist, so I really kind of switched it all up. My story was that I've been married multiple times. And that's what my book Love smack talks about. I really wanted to take away the shame and the blame of being married multiple times and picking partners that really are a trauma response to our past and to stop shaming and blaming ourselves and understanding at any age. You always get to start over and you can do the deep work like you do. EMDR I do somatic experiencing and tapping and so forth. There's never For a moment in time, when you can't refreshed, you can change everything up and do the deeper work.

Kristen Boice
Isn't that so free to know it's never too late because clients will come in and they're like, it's too late, or they'll have grief over waiting so long to do the work. I'm like, yeah,

Sherry
it is okay, regretting, you know, you're gonna get to be that age anyway. So living in the regret is really not going to help you. I mean, I didn't really get all this till I was in my early 50s. And that was when I found a really great trauma therapist, and I really started understanding, you know, the choices after that last divorce from the alcoholic, I just said, I can't keep doing this, I have to change something. So it's been a great journey. And that's kind of more from helping single parents to helping codependent toxic people and toxic relationships and addicts. And here I am on your podcast, talking about it

Kristen
all. And on Celebrity Rehab. I mean, that's not an easy feat. You were

Sherry
no, I was a law of attraction thing that you remember the movie, the secret that was out around 1012 years ago, and I had watched the first one and I said, you know, I'm going to meet Dr. Drew, Dr. Drew Pinsky, who was is a famous addictionologist. He's done a lot. He was very well known a little bit when they were always talking about the celebrities and addiction. He was always on TV about that. But some people don't know who he is, I was going to meet him. So I got on his radio show. And we became, you know, great buds. And I said, Look, you need a therapist for your next show. I'm sorry, but you need to have a therapist, you can't just have counsellors and you you need me. So that was kind of a thing that I put into the universe. And it happened, I ended up being on four seasons, and it was the most fun was just the most fun and helping people at the same time.

Kristen
Look at you going you need me like you need a therapist, and I am the right person that says a lot about the work you've done.

Sherry
Yeah, that was even prior to doing the trauma work, I think but I think I always did have confidence in my abilities. And you know, I've always been a go getter. And that's one of the positive things about trauma is that when you've had trauma, sometimes if you harness it in a positive way towards achieving your goals and working hard and trying, you know, working up the ladder, whatever, going back to school as a single mother, that's the positive of trauma when you use that energy in a positive way, but it will turn on you if you don't balance it out, and you don't work on it. And so I would say that is a trauma response to me saying hey, you need me if it was sort of a that sounds kind of funny as a trauma doesn't at all, but I was always you know, a high achiever type a kind of personality.

Kristen
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

Sherry
I've definitely slowed down now that I lived at the beach part time, I'm like slowing it down. Good for you.

Kristen
That's when you know, you're kind of in the centre grounded space when you're sitting down and can tolerate that. Yes, right. That's one of the things that we get so busy. So because we don't want to look at or feel or all the things or get our worth and value other places. And now you're slowing down going, This feels good. And my time

Sherry
to enjoy. You know, I'm in my early 60s. And this is it. Life is not a dress rehearsal, we got to really, you know, you can achieve any dream, you really, really can, you know, just I always have that saying, Never give up. And if you can balance that out with really working on yourself, you can have anything that you desire.

Kristen
I love that when you say you kind of alluded to that trauma will kind of come back to like it's going to manifest somehow. I'm using my own words. So let's talk about love addiction and how trauma kind of manifests love addiction. Yes.

Sherry
So those who don't know what love addiction is, it's a process. You could call it a process addiction, a lifestyle addiction, a soft addiction, it's all kinds of labels, and it's not a substance abuse addiction, but it has the same mood altering activity that substances have you get the same euphoric state but you're addicted to love and romance instead of the drugs it becomes that person's whole identity and I know we'll be talking a little bit about codependency and I might kind of weave it in here but some people will say that sounds like codependency Yes, codependency can be the same thing where you're obsessed with another person. However, codependency doesn't have to be a person it can be obsessed with a lot of other things or trying to control fix or manipulate other things in your life but love addiction is strictly a person like I was addicted to my ex husband I also was a codependent in the fact that I wanted to control and manipulate his using but I was also addicted to the love there's this real strong attachment I don't know if this is theory but in my opinion I think most people that are Love Addicts a lot of times will have an anxious attachment style they can also have an avoidant and go back and forth from avoidant to anxious so a lot of people in Instagram or you know on out there in the social media world are talking a lot about attachment style so if you're someone with an anxious attachment you may be a love addict or if you're an avoidant or maybe you're both you know you get these pleasurable feelings from being in this relationship just like a drug user craves drugs you're craving your love the other aspects that sort of overlap codependency Are you over adapt to what they want so that could be love addiction or codependency you lack boundaries can be codependency or love addiction. You have a fear of letting go you have a fear of the unknown you attempt to change others you need others to feel whole you look for others for affirmation and worth you fear abandonment. That was my story from early to childhood trauma, I had major abandonment wounds which kept me always in a relationship one after the other one was over I was into the next one. The other thing is withdrawal symptoms. So just like a drug addict has withdrawal symptoms when the drug is taken away for a love addict. When the love object is taken away, you're going to have withdrawal symptoms for a codependent. If you've been caregiving taking care of somebody for a long time fixing, controlling, obsessing, manipulating, you're also going to feel empty when that person is no longer in your life. So you keep people around to distract from what's going on inside of you. So you keep very busy obsessing over others. And that's exactly what love protection is. It's like obsessive love. And I think codependency is part of

Kristen
that. Yes. So this obsessive love I find with clients, they intellectually know like, this isn't healthy, but they see the positive, right? But they can be so nice, but they can be you know, when they're not using or they apologise, you know, a lot. They're sorry for what they've done, and they say they're going to do better. How much does that impact them kind of continuing to stay in the addiction cycle?

Sherry
Well, it's huge. And that's where I think getting in with they talk a lot about Love Addicts. codependence attracting narcissists or toxic people and I don't want I don't want to overuse the word narcissist here but yeah, you end up being with someone who will love bomb you. And that means that's over the top attention and you being the codependent love addict want that attention all your validation is based on that attention. So this toxic person comes in and tells you how wonderful you are gives you all this attention dotes on you or lies to you and says, Well, in the moment, they don't think they're lying, but they'll say yes, I will get sober I will do that for you. I love you, you know, and then they pull it away. And you're just kind of hanging on to that original promise of hope. You know, like with my ex husband, I'm and I even got back with him after our divorce because of the promise he would get sober. That is how much the hook was. And we had what I would call a trauma bond, which is what a lot lot of Love Addicts have with their love object. And that is this bond that's based on some sort of trauma that's going on. In my case with my alcoholic husband, it was the trauma of the sobriety and the using some kind, it was just this up and down, up and down, up and down. And you kind of get addicted to that cycle. Someone else can be addicted to someone who's abusive, not abusive, abusive, loving, so you have this trauma bond with that person. And that is what keeps people in that cycle either to the cycle of being in an abusive relationship or even the cycle of being with someone who has an addict or alcoholic because you keep hoping we really hanging on to the hope

Kristen
and that bond is almost in your physiology would you say like people get so addicted to that crave that feeling of being wanted and loved and needed.

Sherry
And they say it's more addictive than heroin they say can be more fatal than drugs because you'll do almost anything for that person. You know, the extreme is the movie Fatal Attraction, you know where she was completely and again, I'm ageing myself but fatal attraction was a classic movie where she's you know, blancos is totally obsessed with Michael Douglas. And I mean, you just you go to the extremes, because you have to remember the opposite of addiction, whether it's drugs or love is a need for connection, a feeling of emptiness. And for me being my trauma was I was a preemie I'm old. And in those days, they didn't allow mothers to hold their baby. So you know about this Kristin, being a therapist, if you don't have that early bonding, attachment nurturing, you are going to be set up for all kinds of problems. So I was really a love addict. At the moment, I came into the world because I was in an incubator for three months, fed through my feet, didn't have the bottle and didn't have my mother touch for three months. So I was always craving that nurse to pick me up, which is really set me up for always wanting that love always wanting that attention, but looking for it and all as they say, in all the wrong places. But the truth is, it was craving a connection. So if you're someone out there and you're listening, and you're like, oh God, that sounds like me, please don't beat yourself up. Please don't shame yourself. There's something that might have happened to you early on, that is activating that trauma trigger for you. And that is why you're making these choices. And when I learned that, not to my early victories, right? Because trauma really wasn't I mean, it was out there. You know, we've been in this business for a long time and it was always maybe talked about more war veterans or tsunamis or earthquakes or divorce, blah, blah, blah. Now we really realise there's all kinds of trauma that comes in all different shapes and sizes, so that trauma is going to set you up for that abusive or love addicted or codependent relationship.

Kristen
The fact that you figured out I was in the incubator for three months without touch. When did that come to the light? Like a lot of people sometimes don't realise that that is an impact on them. How did you thought it people don't? They don't they don't realise that.

Sherry
Well, when I worked in addiction, I kept seeing this chronic emptiness this chronic feeling of being in the ethers of nothingness needing something to fill them up, and I always felt the same way. I always felt like I'm just like you only I'm not an addict, not an alcoholic, but I'm always needing something. So I realised what is that something and I knew there had to been something to the fact that you know, I knew something about Early bonding early and I guess when I took class on somatic experiencing, and later I got trained, it just came to life like I was doing a session with one of the therapists that was trained in somatic experiencing. And all of a sudden we're talking about my early trauma and being in an incubator, you know, and I'm like, Oh, my God, that's it. That's it. And I almost even though I can't couldn't remember, in my brain, my body completely felt the abandonment. And it was as real people go, Oh, come on, lots of people say, come on. That's ridiculous. You're just an infant, how could you know, blah, blah? Well, it lives in your body trauma lives in our bodies. And until we release it, it's going to play havoc on our life. And so that's when I had the light bulb moment. And I wanted to learn everything I could about it. And I wanted to work in it with my clients. And I think there's just a lot of therapists that do a disservice who don't understand the trauma piece, and just can't tell you how many clients have come to me that, you know, I tend to have therapy for years, but it's just been talk therapy, nobody's really gone into that body and release that energy. And so someone like you who does EMDR, or someone like me, who does somatic experiencing, these are the things you want to look for, along with looking for a therapist, not a coach. Now, I do coaching as well, but you want a therapist, it's going to help you with your trauma, there are zillions of coaches out there calling themselves trauma informed coaches, and I don't care what they say, don't hire them, they don't have the experience you and I have, I'm not saying that they aren't good at what they do in terms of being a coach helping someone move forward in their life. But I don't believe they can help deep rooted Trump, but they certainly wouldn't be able to help me

Kristen
because you can't talk your way through it. That's the difference. It's living in the nervous systems living in

Sherry
your nervous system. And but you have to also have that family of origin background, understanding the roles people play in your family, you have to understand pathology, you know, I'm just all about finding someone that really understands all of it. And again, there's nothing wrong with a coach. There's nothing wrong with talk therapy. But if you're really dealing with, let me just say this, if you keep doing the same thing over and over again, and you're not getting results, as Einstein said, then you haven't found the right practitioner,

Kristen
did you when you were on Celebrity Rehab, and you were dealing with the addiction process, and you're dealing with people stuck, because that's what people feel they're like, I am stuck, how did you work with them to help them get unstuck? Luckily,

Sherry
I just started the training. I mean, I was just at the beginning of this journey for myself and my and learning about it. And I had a lot of mindfulness training. So I was able to work with them in a mindful way in terms of you know, what do you notice in your body? Let's get curious. Where do you feel it? Let's sit with that for a minute. Let's give it some space. Remember, I worked with Janice Dickinson one of the first supermodels and there's actually I think you could probably find it on my website. I'm doing a session with her and she had so much trauma. It was unbelievable. She'd had early abuse, I think was sexual abuse. I also had Michael Lohan, Lindsay Lohan, his dad same thing he'd been beat by his dad a lot of verbal probably and physical abuse. Those were celebrities that were really dealing with them early trauma same with Jeff Conway, he was in the movie Grease you know, I don't always talk about this because it's been a few years but you know, these are on the air so I'm not really breaking any confidence. These were experiences that were put on TV so I want to share these to help you see that you're not alone not to break confidentiality of any sort. But Jeff Conway had had early trauma sexual abuse so these things don't go away they come back to haunt you and they will activate drug addiction depression, anxiety, love addiction, codependency, it's a distraction from self, you don't want to be in that pain, you don't want to be in that moment of pain, you want to run from it. And so that's when you're going to run to other things,

Kristen
a distraction from self and the pain that is the essence of addiction. And that is because of codependency and love addiction to

Sherry
Right, right. Like, you know, with the alcoholic, it was your the focus, I'm going to heal you, I'm going to fix you, I'm going to almost manipulate you to do it the way I want you to do it. And you absolutely have no power over that person and you think you do and you don't. And so the greatest freedom is when you let go and realise you don't have that power, and you need to stay on your side of the street and they need to get on their side. And you know what I say I see a lot of couples like maybe before they're gonna get married and one of them is an addict and other woman comes in it could be a man too. And she's all dreamy eyed. I love him and he promises to get sober. And I always say to them, and I'm pretty tough. I'm like, that's great. And I hope he does. Just remember though it's a one day at a time programme. And even if you married that person, there could be a relapse, so please do it with your eyes open because a lot of us one of the hallmarks of codependency and love addiction is denial. Oh, won't happen to me. You'll never drink again. He'll never abuse me again. Bla bla bla bla bla, and we have to get out of that denial. That's such

Kristen
a powerful defence minimising rational denial.

Sherry
It's the first defence of any alcoholic or addict is I don't have a problem because if you have to admit it, same with the love addict, if I admit that there's a problem here, then I'm gonna have to give up that person. You know, my mother was in a relationship with a narcissist very toxic, I would call them definitely a sociopath con man. And she had just lost my dad, she was getting the beginnings of dementia. And I mean, it didn't matter what we told her about this man, it just did not matter. She wasn't going to have it. She wasn't going to hear it. She was in complete denial. It was like talking to a wall. And he abused her for three and a half years until we could get a restraining order on him. But that's how powerful it can be. It is so

Kristen
powerful. And that's so hard. That's your mom, as a family member, you love her. You want to protect her, you want her to see the light. And I feel like people want so badly to help the person like you wouldn't your mom like you feel powerless? Yeah, you do. recognise it?

Sherry
Yeah, it was very sad, very difficult. And it wasn't just her that was getting abused. We were all getting abused by this monster, as I like to call him. So it affected our whole family. And then there had to be a court case. And it was a pretty traumatic thing. And it really, you know, I've been seeing a lot of things about narcissists. And then I realised, oh my god, this really is so real. Like, this isn't just a joke. I mean, narcissistic personality disorder, and the abuse is a real thing. I think it's great today that everybody's talking about it, there's more education about it. Again, I will repeat, find the right practitioner, if you are dealing with the aftermath of an abuse, because I had panic attacks and all kinds of experiences after he, you know, was out of the picture. There was all kinds of you know, I mean, it was just so telling during

Kristen
effects that had it. Yeah, trigger lots of triggers. Yes. Describe narcissistic personality disorder, because that's an important part of love addiction and the addictive family system in general.

Sherry
Yeah, I would say when an addict or alcoholic is in their disease, and they're drinking, often, they can have narcissistic traits, because it's really all about them. And it's all about there. But it's trade couldn't be a precise or what makes it a personality disorders when they completely lack empathy when they have absolutely no ability to see your point of view. And what I tell people is think of it as their brain is wired differently than your brain, their brain does not have the capacity to understand your point of view, they always have to be right, they always blame you, they aren't able to look at their part. Why? Because their brain literally can only see themselves the mirror of themselves. And that's really but but a lot of people that ended up in these relationships are with people that have trade, they may not be full blown, but it really doesn't matter. You know, is this relationship toxic or not? I mean, some of the things you want to look for is are you always ruminating and obsessing about this person? Are you always noticing subtle changes waiting for that the shoe to drop with that person? Are you walking on eggshells? Are there a lot of fights? Do you feel guilty for everything? Are they always blaming you for everything? Are you fighting all the time? Are they manipulating you, controlling you telling you what to wear, telling you to go to work not to go to work, you know, making all decisions for you? Are they yelling? Are they insulting you? Are they embarrassing? You? Are they shaming you? are they hurting you? Is it a physical injuries? Are they actually physically hurting you there's a lot of just respect a lot of devaluing a lot. They'll discard you out of nowhere, a lot of dishonesty, a lot of betrayal. And the most important thing to think about with toxic people and yourself as possibly a codependent or love addict is you stop doing self care, you just let go of all your physical, emotional, spiritual needs all that you just give it up, stop caring about what you're eating, you stop exercising, you just, you know, they become everything to you. When you give up everything. And friendships. That's one of the things you want to look at. And also boundaries. If you're with someone who's toxic and you try to set a boundary with them, and they won't have it and they pout or they abuse you or they yell at you or they get upset. That's a really good chance you're with someone toxic.

Kristen
This is an important conversation. I'm loving every second of it because I think it's so needed. One of the things I see and I'd be curious to see your take on this is people living in the fantasy of what they think a relationship is or who they think this person is like if this person is nice. Some of the time I think this is true for a lot of people they're like like I fell in love with that person. But the reality is that's not really who's in front of them,

Sherry
right? So they get addicted to the love bombing stage, which is that lavishing you with gifts complimenting you telling you you're the one I love everything about you so because crave that attention. You get literally addicted to the peptides of that stage of being really loving and then pulling it away. That becomes like a like I said a trauma bond. So yeah, that is what is so enticing and very painful when you realise Oh, this is a fantasy. That person is not that person who was love bombing you that person. I mean, it's actually it's so scary when that happens. I mean, I was dating someone a while back, I'm going to marry you set it on the first day. Of course I knew better and then he literally a month later just was completely abusive, verbally and emotionally and it was like oh my god, what happened here? You're just taken off guard. So a lot of talk about red flags. One of the red flags is to really see about this love bombing phase. Are they just completely going over the top like just you know It's just over the top, it's not slow and steady, you know, it's like over the top look for that, because then you're probably with someone who's gonna maybe eventually discard you.

Kristen
I think that's so important for people to recognise, because that feels so good. That's why it's so intoxicating, because you're like, Oh, they're really loved. They want me they're pursuing me, they think I'm important I matter. And they miss because they're in the fantasy of it, they miss some of these red flags, that it's too and so much, so much. So soon.

Sherry
Well, you know, just to go a little deeper, if you're someone that had trauma growing up, and this can happen to anybody, you don't necessarily have to have trauma you can get with a predator, anyone can get with a predator. But if you grew up in a neglectful abusive home, and you felt very invisible, and your needs weren't met, and there's this part of you that you don't know, and then they come in, and then you second guess yourself, you like kind of know that there's something out right, but then you kind of second guessed yourself, that's because you don't have a sense of self, because nobody mirrored that sense of self for you. So that goes a little deeper into trauma work. But that's why you end up getting sucked in because you really are sort of you don't even know yourself how so if you don't really know yourself, and you don't have an intimate, connected relationship with yourself, how can you really have on with someone else? So you're really attracted to what you think you need, what you didn't get, rather than being with a real adult?

Kristen
And I look at it as developmental trauma. Yeah, right on that continuum, where it's like, what age did things happen to you, you mentioned infancy, and you're like, I came out of the womb, which makes so much sense not getting your needs met, not getting it could happen at any time, it can happen at any time. It can be happen if

Sherry
you were bullied, like I've worked with people that were bullied, and all of a sudden, they're attracting these people. And it's like, they never got over the fact that they were being bullied. So they become people pleasers, they want everyone to like them, because because they were, you know, people were really mean to them and beat them up and made fun of them. Let's say they were someone that were overweight, and they were made fun of and then suddenly, they go out into the world and want everyone to like them. Well, that's a perfect person for a predator to a toxic person to take advantage of.

Kristen
And fawning response. That's where I kind of learned as the trauma term is fawning you want so desperately, it's like a desperation inside because you didn't get your needs met. Because something traumatic happened. And you didn't get soothed at that moment, acknowledged, you weren't able to process the body sensation, the feelings, the thoughts and the emotions in real time. So it gets frozen in time, frozen in

Sherry
time. And I would even venture to say there's also the flock response, which is another word I just heard about, I don't even know about this. It's where you clap, you're in claps. So you've met someone you start out, you can even look it's think of it as you go through the fight flight, you're all excited, Oh, I love this person, blah, blah, blah, and then all of a sudden, you start getting disappointed and then you kind of move on first, your people pleasing you want them to like you and you're in the fawn response, and then they abuse you then you're in the freeze response. And then you're really disappointed. And then you're kind of in the flop response where you like kind of give up you're just like, I just give up, like let's say you're with the alcoholic I just give up he's never gonna get sober. And then you know, you turn inward, we can start turning inward and blaming everything on yourself and thinking it's your fault. And you know, you can really go down the rabbit hole if you don't understand the way your nervous system

Kristen
works. And it's so empowering. Do this knowing yourself is the most important work if you're investing in all these other things in your life, like you're you think I'll get the plastic surgery or I'll get this or I'll get that put it into this trauma work. That is the best investment you'll change your whole system. And I keep telling people it is it's a ripple effect when you start there. Sure. And I know it's scary for people because they're scared of change and they get riddled with fear

Sherry
when they don't want to give up the goodies you know and everything you know all things in life transformation is scary but when you get to the edge of it, you know stick around because when you get to the other side it's pretty cool.

Kristen
It's the most powerful work here's some of the things that I wanted to ask you to what are some of the first steps to breaking free from love addiction codependency?

Sherry
Well, I think just being here on this interview is like one of the first steps just having this awareness like here we are, we're talking about it. Don't label yourself, don't judge yourself. You know, maybe find a really great therapist that understands trauma understands love addiction, understands codependency, you know, take the shift from the outside and focus inward and know that every relationship in your life is really a manifestation. It's a mirror of the relationship that you have with yourself. So if you're attracting toxic people, and you continue to nurture those kinds of relationships, just start developing a better relationship with yourself and one that is not toxic. Really look at the roots of where is this? What what is this? What is the trauma that I might have gone through? Why do I keep picking different face different names, same person and like I said, building a connection with your healthy self. We need to sort of recondition ourselves and become addicted to our healthy self. And we all have an immensely valuable colourful, vibrant and strong sense of self but definitely key things. Find a great trauma therapist and join a support group. I have a support group called wake up recovery. I don't know if you want me to

Kristen
talk. So I wanted to talk about support groups because I believe Yeah, so maybe

Sherry
you can put the link in your show notes, but the length is for your listeners, it's $1 to join and then it goes to 27 a month and it's called Wakeup recovery.com forward slash IG one, wake up recovery.com forward slash IG one. It's an online group coaching programme where I go live once a month. There's a bunch of modules on how to heal from toxic relationships, narcissistic abuse, love addiction and codependency. I do use different principles from positive psychology, law of attraction, mindfulness, trauma, and it's just a great way like if someone maybe can't afford therapy, or maybe they're in therapy, but they also want a support group of like minded people that get where they've been, this is a great resource, and I offer it for very low price. And then the other thing they can do just to find out if they are a love addict, or if they are, you know, with a narcissist, take my quiz, grab my free ebook at Sherry gala.com forward slash NP quiz, Sherry gala.com. Forward slash NP quiz. Take the quiz, get my free ebook. And in general, Google my name I'm pretty much everywhere I have my book Love smacked. You can get that on Amazon, and I'm here to support you.

Kristen
I think this has been the best conversation. I could keep going. I mean, I have like a 20 million more question. Oh, because I see this right now even more since COVID. And this idea of just codependency kind of growing, because we've been in isolation. And when we're in isolation, that can be a place where we can feel stuck. It can mere feel, yeah, our childhood with these unmet needs. Well, yeah.

Sherry
And then if you Yeah, if you're living at home with somebody, and you're not when you're working at home, and a lot of people are working at home now there can be a lot of triggers that you need to work out being with that person all the time, it can replicate your family of origin. Maybe you never saw it before when they went to work, but now it's right there within your perimeters. And you know, yes, I'm busier than ever, I'm sure you are a lot of mental illness, a lot of isolation. I think we're all guilty of isolating more, we can be the healthiest person in the world. And we're all kind of getting used to isolating like, I got rid of my office, I'm only working teletherapy I don't know, it just works for me. But I think pandemic surely had a lot to do with that

Kristen
it did it shifted so much. I know I feel myself going into a crowd and I'm like, how to go back home or just can be peaceful. A lot

Sherry
of people are saying that. So be easy, you know, put your hand over your heart, you know, recognise that feeling in your body? Oh, God, there it is, again, you know, I'm around people. Okay, what do I need right now? How can I take care of myself in this crowd, and you know, you have the ability to soothe yourself. You just have to learn the tools. And that's part of the work I do. And I'm sure you do too. It is

Kristen
the key work for me is inner child work. I did two episodes ago and I just share the power of you nurturing the little soul inside of you that that you know what they need, you know, and you can offer it even with such tenderness and nurturing and love. And when you do that, you can tolerate emotions, right and tolerate it

Sherry
and you don't have to run from yourself. Yes,

Kristen
bingo. Okay, you don't have to run from yourself on that note that summarises our conversation. Sherry, thank you so much, everybody, go take a quiz. Join our support group if you're needing some extra support, and I thank you, Sherry, for your heart energy. Well. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the close the chapter podcast. My hope is that you took home some actionable steps, along with motivation, inspiration and hope for making sustainable change in your life. If you enjoy this episode, click the subscribe button to be sure to get the updated episodes every week and share with a friend or a family member. For more information about how to get connected visit Kristen k r i s t e n d Boice BO ice.com. Thanks and have a great day.